PLAN OF CREATION OR SWORD OF TRUTH i ARCHIBALD SIGNORELLI Class Book 77/vy\ / f? Copyright^' . COPYRIGHT DEFOSrr, PLAN of CREATION OR SWORD of TRUTH By ARCHIBALD SIGNORELLI (Frank Reed) S0M/, Prict $1.00 Postpaid CHICAGO CHARLES H. KERR & COMPANY 1916 DEDICATED TO MY BROTHERS AND SISTERS, AND IN SACRED MEMORY OF OUR PARENTS, WHO BECKON FROM THE FAR SHORE ! "When I think of the great work you have accomplished — it seems to me you have had no misspent days; you have been no dreamer — but a worker. You have made a beautiful thing of each new year; you have endeavored uprightly and endur- ed heroically. To those who know you, you give new heart, new hope, new courage — to live more faithfully, more kindly, more patiently, touched with a higher and holier purpose. "You have paid a price but few would have paid — for the harvest — and it must be we live in a divinely ordered world, then it must be — that you will come into possession of all that is due you." — Mrs. Jessie Whitsitt. Copyrighted, 1016, By Frank R««d. ISO ir. JEt M -8 1916.. ©CI.A431415 REAPING THE HARVEST "Would you be helped yourself? Go thou, and help your brother, No more can come to you Than you would give another; Life has its subtle scales To weigh our thoughts and actions, And woe to him who fails. To meet its close exactions. The acts you do today May prompt another's deed; In paths through which you stray Another's steps may lead: Yet you must pay again For truth is ever true; The harm that came to them Shall come again to you. If love be in your thought To meet another's need, Its ray divine is caught In act and word and deed; Love is the key of life That unlocks every door, And all we freely give Enriches us the more." TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Introduction , 2 Plan of Creation 7 The Atom 42 .Evolution 58 The Two Planes, Spiritual and Physical 66 The Mind and Its Faculties 70 Active and Passive Principles in Nature 106 The White Stone and New Name 115 Eternal Life in the Flesh Not Promised or Possible. 128 The Dynamic God-Head, King of the Universe 137 The Law of Gravity 158 "The Word Made Flesh" 165 The Marriage Institution. 192 Miscellaneous 206 Astrology and Alchemy 221, The Two Cherubim 228 The Planets 239 The Brazen Serpent 281 .Mtom* ^r< PLAN OF CKEATION! OE SWORD OF TEUTH!!! A planless house would have neither roof, walls nor foundation. A structure without design is inconceivable. A planless universe is equally an impossibility. Nature is a great chemist. She is the embodiment of mathematical law. Every process of nature is performed with mathematical precision. The reader who may question the truth of these claims is asked to withhold his judgment, while we array before him incontro- vertible evidence that there is plan and purpose in this universal structure. There can be plan and purpose without mind recognition. Fixed law made mind possible, but mind did not make the lawV Law creates, but law was not created. Our own organisms were planned without mind recognition. They are kept in repair without such recognition. A plan is a result reached by a definite course of action, J7 8 PLAN OF CREATION whether willed by mind or controlled by fixed law. The frog is no less a plan of nature for hav- ing cast off its tail. Man is no less a plan of na- ture because of having passed throngh evolution- ary stages of development and his further ad- vancement can but reveal the goal toward which he is directed. If the earth were onlv an aimless mass thrown from the sun. it would represent a broken law; An aimless beginning must have an aimless end. It is impossible to imagine a broken law as being mended. Matter thrown from a planet as the re- sult of rotation would be an accident. It would mean that the power of gravity had been over- come. It would mean, in short, a broken law; to bring the severed mass back under the attractive power of the planet would necessitate a whole series of accidents. Had the sun lost control over the mass known to us as the earth, it could never have regained control or halted it in its outward course ; its momentum would have carried it away from the sun into the endless depths of space! No one who will think the matter over seriously will contend that it could have been otherwise. Imagine a huge boulder hurled from the surface of this earth as a result of rotation on its axis, and being halted in its outward course by the power of the earth's attraction! Eeason is con- tradicted in the idea. To believe it, we must ig- nore the facts. The fact that the earth moves in an orbit and OE SWOED OF TEUTH 9 is now governed by law is proof that it was so governed from its birth. One single broken link in the plan of design would have rendered the whole chain worthless and senseless. Nature is so positive in action and so perfect in adjustment that she can not lose control over even the small- est particle of her substance. A house built of timber is no less a plan because the forest was not conscious of the purpose it was to serve. Or, if the house be made of brick or stone, the sense of plan is not lost ; the house is the finished product, and is therefore the plan. The house is designed in the tree, the tree in the seed, as the oak in the acorn. The brick is designed in the clay from which it is molded. Man has no power to create design ; he can only extend it to completion. Man discovered mathematical law, but he did not create this law. The fundamental laws of nature are without beginning or end. At no time were these laws created, and at no time can they be de- stroyed. Prior to the beginning of the span of time, the law of momentum was carrying the atoms of mat- ter from limitless space to a common center. The purpose of the plan was not then manifest, for prior to the beginning of creation, there were no conscious centers, and therefore no mind or minds. Prior to this, nature was in her broken or elemental state. The fact that there is conscious life proves the contention that there was a be- ginning, for a beginning makes conscious life pos- 10 PLAN OF CKEATION sible. The last thing formed points as to the be- ginning. The last child born proves that there was a first. We can never get away from the fact of a beginning, and this fact will be as real and as true a hundred million years hence as it is at this moment, for facts can not grow old. The written pages of history may grow dim and fade altogether, but recorded facts will endure for eternity. Law of Limitation. This is a fundamental law. Except for this law there could be no universe of forms. This law applies in in- dividualities as in outward forms ; as truly in men, as in moons and other planets. Two or more planets limit each other, as do two or more in- dividualities. Variation in any measure, limits the extent of variation. To conceive of a God filling all space, and some imagine this, we must imagine a God as silent and inexpressive as space itself, for the moment quality or variation is in- troduced, that moment, the lines of limitation are drawn. Only space and eternity are limitless, for in these two nonentities there is no quality or variation. Eternity is a circle; it has neither begin- ning nor end. But time is a span, because it is the measure of a process, and a process begins and ends in time. We are conscious of change and change only, for there is no passing of time, since time has no existence as an entity. What does not exist can not pass. OR SWORD OF TRUTH 11 Time is a measurable period, as here shown. [t rises out of the circle of eternity and sinks back into it. It had its birth at the beginning of creation and will be lost in the circle of eternity when further change in physical matter has reached its end. Eternity is well represented by a circle because a circle has neither beginning nor end. A universe millions of years old, would be a universe of stagnation, inactivity or snail-like progress. Progress is marked by processes and changes, not by years. Matter and substance are as old as eternity and therefore, as old as they can ever be. "All things are created in time, but nothing is created by it," not even decay. When we understand that change and not time is pass- ing, then we shall realize that "passing time" can solve no problems. Passing changes there are, and when all possible changes in physical matter have taken place, we shall then rest from our labors. The law of opposites holds good in all things; at no point does this law break down. The exist- ence of a measurable entity proves that there must be a measureless nonentity. It is the law! of oppoaites that gives meaning to life. Varia- 12 PLAN OF CKEATION tion is this law in manifestation. Night teaches us the value of day, evil of good, death of life, and hate teaches us the value of love and sympathy. It is as important to see the reality of the unreal as to see, the reality of the real. Figures are meaningless when applied to space and eternity. They have no relation to either. That nature en- dowed man with the faculty of calculation should teach us that the universe and its processes are measurable quantities. So called passing time being only a measure of passing change, it may have been possible in the past for men to live to a great age, because it may have been possible for men to remain mentally and physically inactive. Methuselah could have been only a boy in understanding when he died. To live long, one must stop thinking; and some im- agine they will live here forever. Age is deter- mined not by the number of the earth's revolu- tions around the sun, but by changes wrought in the organism, by mental and physical activity. Not what takes place in the world without, but what takes place in the world within, causes the body to "grow old." Only within the atmosphere of the individual planets can there be any light. Interplanetary space is as dark and lifeless as is the space beyond the universe. This is yet to be rescued from dark- ness and death. At least, the universe will con- centrate until there are no death spots left with- in it. OR SWORD OF TRUTH 13 This, then, is the plan and purpose; not to make a larger universe, but to overcome the darkness in it; to eliminate the death spots, for our happi- ness and completeness does not depend upon the exploration of endless space. Size is but a small factor in completeness and happiness. And since it is in processes or changes that we find the ex- planation of the present aspect of the universe, pushing its origin back to even the twelfth period of notation, and multiplying by itself a thousand times over, proves nothing and explains nothing. Such efforts serve only to confuse the mind, for facts are simple when understood. Nature takes no steps that can not be traced; she makes no moves that are beyond finite comprehension. Dating the birth of the universe back hundreds of billions of years, is simply an effort to remove the problem from us in point of time, yet leaving the fact present with us, and here it will remain. Facts do not grow old, nor can they be moved any distance from the mind. Why not face these facts like men, and solve these problems like philos- ophers? Here is the reason for the appearance of this book; its purpose is to call scientists back from false theories to the plane of sane thought. Most of our scientists are men of reason and judg- ment, but a false foundation forbids reasonable conclusions. They can make these facts here only hinted at, plain and beautiful, once they turn from their false foundations. Our scientists have run after false gods; we want them to devote their time to expounding the works of the living God. 14 PLAN OF CKEATION They speak of the universe as though it were a game of chance, when at the same time they know it is governed by law. A body composed of two or more simple ele- ments must necessarily have had its birth. The elements themselves have always existed. This fact, scientists have no difficulty in understand- ing. And the birth of the last proves the birth of the first. There could be no last without a first, nor first without a last. This does not mean, however, that the last form to be created in the physical universe will mean the end of the universe. It means that the in- visible elements of physical matter will all be cast out to "rise forever and ever as the smoke of our sins," for pain and discord in every form are due to the flesh and physical matter. The universe will then be bound together by bands of sympathy that can not be broken, and the spiritual universe will endure for eternity. Nothing but the fine gold will then remain, and we shall be as "perfect as our Father in heaven is perfect." Then and then only can joy and happiness be complete in the absolute sense, without a single note of in- harmony and without the possibility of there be- ing any discord. The perfect can never become imperfect and no manner of reasoning can make it appear otherwise. Adam was perfect only in outward form, as we shall see in another chapter of this book. It is to the shame of the church that it has taught a contrary doctrine. Of the three accompanying diagrams, one OR SWORD OF TRUTH 15 shows the path of the atoms merging into each other before reaching a common center; another shows a wall of fire due to the rushing together of these atoms before the 'common center was reached; the third shows the straight lines that marked the paths of the atoms, illustrating how they moved in all con- ceivable directions, yet approached each other from directly opposite quarters of endless space. A better idea may be gained by tak- ing a perfectly round ball and sticking it full of pins, than can be had from this diagram, which can only be shown on a flat surface. The heads will show that all conceivable directions are covered, at the same time the points of the pins will be directed to a common center. The power of imagination 16 PLAN OF CREATION must be brought into play at this point, in order that a perfect understanding may be had of this most wonderful fact, for we are here looking at facts and not fiction. And notwithstanding the pins all point to a common center, it will be seen at the same time that they point in every con- ceivable direction. Could we in imagination look back into the beginningless cycle of eternity and see the atoms of matter standing still or could we see them suddenly started toward a common cen- ter, we would behold a miracle without the pos- sibility of its ever being explained. The law of momentum has never been idle and it never will be, for at the end of creative time it will carry the dead atoms of physical matter back into the endless depths of space from whence they came, and for an eternity it will continue to act. This law is now active in carrying the planets around the sun, thus changing from straight lines to cir- cular motion. We can not measure one nonentity except with another nonentity; therefore past eternity was spent in bringing the broken particles of matter and substance to a common center. This is meas- ured by a process. Momentum is the eternal law and the process was the atoms moving along per- fectly straight lines, at exactly the same rate of speed, the distance being always the same from each atom to the common center. Had it been otherwise then there could have been no universe. For an eternity the law* of momentum carried OE SWOED OF xEUTH 17 the atoms of matter from the endless depths of space toward a common center on perfectly straight lines, not deviating from these lines one hair's breadth. There could not have been any deviation, for there was no disturbing element. The deviation would have introduced an element of chance, and there could have been no element of chance. In an absolute vacuum there could be no deviation from perfectly straight lines. The fact that there is a universe is proof for what is claimed. Thus do we see that the plan of nature was not an invention but inherent in every atom of matter that moved through space and was and is as old as eternity. And thus do we see that nature has never been idle but has been at work on her de- sign through all past eternity; an eternity was required for the law of momentum to bring the separate elements of matter from the endless depths of space to a common center. Then be- gan the work of molding into concrete forms. This process is going on through every hour of time and can not stop till all is complete. The law of mathematical permutation as expressed in 64 elements of matter^ will have been fulfilled or satisfied, and then God will rest from all His la- bors, and "time (change in physical matter) shall be no more." A better understanding of the law of momen- tum on the part of scientists will reveal the fact that neither the rotation of a planet on its axis, 18 PLAN OF CREATION nor yet its onward motion in its orbit around some other planet could have the slightest tendency to throw off any part of this planet into space. The motion or motions of a planet have no more effect on the parts of a planet in relation to the whole planet, than if the planet stood still in its orbit. Momentum is imparted evenly to all parts of the planet, down to the smallest grain of sand, and nothing short of a volcanic eruption or explosion of some kind could hurl any part of a planet from its surface. Should we find that rivers flowing north and south cut away their west bank soonest, the phe- nomena would have to be explained on some other basis, for reason and experience both teach us that momentum must be equal in all parts of a moving body. Start two bodies through an ab- solute vacuum at the same instant of time, and at exactly the same rate of speed, and both would move on for an eternity at even rates, regardless of their difference in size and regardless of the kind or quality of matter composing them. This is an added proof that the earth never was cast off from the sun, and that the moon was not thrown from the earth or from any other planet. All planets were formed from rings of gaseous matter, each according to a mathematical law ex- pressed in chemistry. Nature reaches out through the laws of chemical harmony and she ceases to enlarge when the law of harmony has been satis- fied in the individual creation, whether it be man, OR SWORD OF TRUTH 19 plant or planet. It is conceded by many, if not by all scientists, that there was a beginning to this universal structure. They differ as to the manner and time when creation began. One scientific writer points out that the elements of matter must have stood apart at some past time, that some distance separated these elements. But this dis- tance must have been a varying distance, other- wise how account for a beginning? The position here taken is that the distance separating the ele- ments of matter was a varying distance, and on any other hypothesis we shall find difficulties that are hard to explain away. Some declare that spirit and matter fill all space. This position is untenable, for here it is declared that an entity, and this is always a meas- urable quantity, is as extensive as a nonentity. And then again there are some who think they see a universe that always existed. Even our own earth is thought by some, to have always existed practically in the form we now find it. Either of these claims blots hope from the human mind. Both claims lead to the same difficulties. If spirit and matter fill all space, then the workman has been standing by his unfinished task for an eter- nity, and what he could not do in eternity past, he will not be able to do in eternity future. No matter which way we face, eternity is equally measureless. If the workman stood by his work for an eternity before beginning it, how account for his making up his mind to begin the work at 20 PLAN OF CEEATION all? How account for his not having the job com- plete, if he did not begin at some definite time? And if he did not begin the work, but was always working and shaping things, then we must give up our faith in the Christian religion, the Old and New Testaments, and take up the doctrines and beliefs of Theosophists, for if any progress at all is made in evolution and unfoldment, complete unfoldment can be reached in measured time. The Christian faith points to eternal joy in a state of perfection. Theosophy points to perfection for a period, but carries us back to chaos to begin the struggle all over again. And this has taken place an endless number of times, if they be right in their ideas, for eternity is measureless in either direction, and to account for how it has been spent is the task before us. We must all know that any- thing that can be lifted toward perfection, can be lifted to that state in a measurable period of time. If we accept the claim that matter is crystal- lized spirit, we meet with the same difficulties as in the other claims, for here again we see the workman standing idly by his task for an eternity. Or if this workman was not idle but was always active, then we face the fact that an eternity of active effort has failed to lift the universe to a state of perfection. If there be such a thing as perfection, then this state can be reached in a measurable period of time. If there be no such thing as a state of perfection, then there is no hope and no purpose in nature. If nature unfolds OR SWORD OF TRUTH 21 at all, regardless of how slow this unf oldment may be, then she will unfold completely in a measur- able period of time. If we go back a thousand million quintillion years, there will still be left an eternity back of that. If a bird could wing its way from the earth to the sun, making a trip once in a million years and carrying in its bill one single grain of sand and depositing it on the sun, it would finally suc- ceed in removing every atom of matter composing the earth to the sun, and have all eternity left in which to rest from its labors, for no matter how much you subtract from eternity there still re- mains the same measureless quantity. No scien- tist who is worthy of the name, will contend that eternity has either beginning or end. Neither will any man of common sense contend that space is limited in extent. Both eternity and space are nonentities, and nonentities are not measurable quantities. An eternity of unf oldment along lines of evolu- tion, would mean an eternity of suffering. On this earth there is pain and suffering every mo- ment of time, and this has been going on from the hour organic life made its first appearance on the planet. In the theory here presented, if you must call it a theory, an eternity was spent without suf- fering and without feeling or consciousness. Which, then is the most reasonable doctrine, that which sees sorrow and pain for an eternity, or that which begins and ends the struggle in a 22 PLAN OF CREATION measurable period of time? In the chapter on atoms, we shall see how the atom is shaped, and why steam and compressed air exert the same power. But I here wish to direct the reader's attention to the fact that in the detached or bro- ken state spirit is unconscious, for in this state there is no variation. Spirit, although broken or divided in the atoms, is nevertheless able to blend perfectly when freed from the atom of matter. And it is only when a number of live atoms are drawn together in animal organisms that any kind of conscious life can manifest, for we must know that it is only in expression that conscious life is possible. The single atom is unable to express any variation, and conscious life is possible only in variation and change. Therefore the elements of matter and substance as they Were carried through endless space on the wings of momentum, were as unconscious as are the stones under our feet. Conscious life is pos- sible only when it can be expressed through men- tal faculties, as we shall see when we come to read the chapter on The Mind and Its Faculties. Spirit is an indivisible substance, and yet it was in detached form prior to the beginning of cre- ation. We do not destroy the power of water to blend perfectly with other water, by taking a small measure of it from a larger body of water. The drop taken from the ocean loses its identity wflien thrown back into the ocean. As it is with water so it is with spirit, though in a much more OE SWOED OF TEUTH 23 perfect sense, for water still retains the physical atoms of matter, while free spirit has cast off the atoms of physical matter. The writer is fully aware of the fact that mil- lions of good people are more shocked by a knowl- edge of the truth than by theories that explain nothing. But these same people would be shocked to a much greater degree, if they could see to what designless and purposeless end the various false theories lead. These good people do not like to think of God or the spirit of God as ever having existed in broken or detached form. But it may be some consolation to these same people to be as- sured that spirit, after it breaks away from the physical atom of matter, blends with other free spirit, and that it can never again be detached from the great ocean of spirit. Water is not weakened by being separated. The smallest drop of water is water in as true a sense as is the great ocean of water. Spirit was no less spirit in its divided state than in its blended state. That man has not been given these facts before, is only just so much evidence that he was too full of foolish notions and superstition to receive them. "We owe our conscious existence to three nonen- tities. The universe of form came from the end- less depths of that great void called space. An eternity was required to bring the material from that endless void, and momentum was the giant that carried it here. Neither of these are entities; 24 PLAN OF CREATION as substances they have no existence, and yet they are facts none of lis can get away from. Nature shapes the faculties of the human mind for special revelations; all represent books full of wonderful truths, one the equal of the other, and therefore it is not strange that a human book ap- pear and reveal its secret, when the time is ripe for it. We are each born to fulfill a certain pur- pose. Most of us fail to yield up what nature has designed in us. The plant unfolds its flower when the time is ripe for it. All are Edisons, only, most of us have no faith in our calling. The law of mathematical permutation is as much of a foundation law in mathematics as is the law of addition, subtraction or multiplication. That nature could possibly continue the law of variation to an infinite degree, is unreasonable, impossible and absurd. And, too, if it were pos- sible to eliminate matter and soul substance from the universe, leaving only the one single elemental substance spirit, beyond all doubt this substance would contract into a huge globe and remain ab- solutely expressionless for an eternity. That one single elemental substance could express varia- tion is unthinkable and impossible to imagine. It could not be and it is not a fact in nature. That nature would or could repeat herself in the phys- ical universe of matter, is past imagining. Na- ture can not repeat herself in physical matter; she can not strike two blows exactly the same, but works to the end of variation along all lines and OB SWORD OF TRUTH 25 will cease to operate in physical matter when this end has been reached. These are foundation prin- ciples, and foundation principles can not be moved or altered in the least measure. It should be borne in mind that a mathematical law would be meaningless to the human mind, had nature not provided the mind with the faculty of calculation, and just as all colors would look alike, except for the fact that nature has provided the human mind with a faculty that analyzes and dis- tinguishes one color from another. The very fact that nature has provided man with the faculty of calculation, is proof in itself that matter is a meas- ured quantity and that variation is limited. There is not a faculty in the human head that has not some definite purpose to serve and a definite reason for its existence. No thoughtful mind would claim that taking one from anything does not make it one less; or that adding one to a number does not make it one more. You may add a hundred billion quintillion years to eternity and you will not thereby increase the quantity. You may measure off a thousand million quintillion miles of space, and there will be no less space left than though none had been measured. Therefore mathematics proves that all things are measurable and limited. Mathe- matical law would be meaningless except for this fact, and it can not be shown that nature has not a meaning and a purpose in all her parts. And when the world comes to realize the fact 26 PLAN OF CREATION that live atoms are reduced to dead atoms in the process of growth and decay, then it will be seen that creation is limited to a comprehensible pe- riod of time. Scientists will yet be able to un- derstand that a long period of creation would be a denial of the operations of law. A long period of creation would signify defeat of nature in her active efforts. A building that would require the labor of one man a thousand years to complete, ought easily be completed by a thou&and men in one year. Nature has not only one man at work on her building, but she has stationed a workman at each shingle— even one on each nail to be driven; not a second of time is lost; the work goes on without ceasing, and night and day the forces of nature are working to the end of the completed structure. A thoughtful study of the diagrams on page fifteen of this chapter, will reveal to the mind the fact that the atoms of matter moved toward a pin- point center, and from every conceivable direc- tion, and that they moved in every conceivable direction. Figures 1 and 3 show conclusively that it was impossible for the atoms of matter to pass the common center toward which they were di- rected. And that they must of necessity arrive at this point at exactly the same instant of time, since the law of momentum was equal in every atom, with no disturbing element to turn them from their course or hinder them in their forward motion. And the law that governed the motion OR SWOED OF TEUTH 27 of the atoms of matter in their beginningless jour- ney through space, was just as sure in its ultimate results, as would have been the case had each atom had but one single foot to move to meet another atom from an opposite quarter in space. A body- in motion in an absolute vacuum can not deviate from a perfectly straight line, and distance makes no difference in absolute results, as any thinking mind must recognize. There is no truth in the claim that a perfectly straight line drawn out to great length, will come back to its starting point. The mind that con- ceived that idea was thinking of a globe, as the earth, for instance. Start out on a perfectly straight line from any point on the surface of the earth and continue on your course, and you must of necessity come back to your starting point. A perfectly straight line drawn around a globe must necessarily be in the form of a circle. But space is not a globe. Neither is it in the form of a globe. It is not a thing of shape or limitation. Space is a nonentity, and there can be no limitation to a nonentity. In the language of Sir Isaac Newton: "If we could conceive of a wall around space, be- yond that wall there would be more space." And since the atoms of matter moved toward a pin-point center, moving as they did at exactly the same rate of speed, the greatness of the mass prevented this center being reached without first colliding millions of miles back in space beyond the common center. This resulted in the wall of 28 PLAN OF CEEATION fire, as shown in Fig. 2 on page fifteen of this chapter. Another fact the reader must under- stand, and that is that beyond the atmosphere of a planet there is no such thing as " up" or "down." The term "down" has reference to the center of gravity, while the term "up" means the exact op- posite or away from this center. Space is to be regarded as a level plane, in which an object will move as freely in one direction as another. Sci- entists already understand this fact, hence there is no necessity to elaborate on this point. The current that was set free by the force of the impact, moved on to what we now know as the sun center; here a perfect center of harmony was es- tablished, and from this perfect center all other centers were formed. So perfect is the sun cen- ter, were it possible to place an explosive in that body and scatter its elements, that it would in- stantly come together again in perfect form, and as though nothing unusual had taken place. (See "Electricity in Nature," by H. B. Philbrook.) A planet or other body freed from all elements of physical matter could not be destroyed or in any way injured by an explosion or other destructive force. The most that could happen would be the driving asunder the elements composing such body, but with no more injury than the thrust of the finger in a tub of water. There is not even the shadow of an element of chance in nature's plan or design, and never has been or can be. No false steps are taken; each OE SWOED OF TEUTH 29 blow accomplishes the purpose intended, and each hour sees the great plan of nature a little nearer the final ultimate, and wihich is a state of abso- lute perfection. The full plan and purpose will be brought out in succeeding chapters. We must admit that there is plan and purpose in all of nature's operations, or else flatly deny that there is plan and purpose at all except what man himself has worked out! Is there a sane man living who is willing to place himself on record as making such a claim? How can man work out a design if his mental faculties are not a design? If there is any plan in a building at all, this plan must extend from the topmost pinnacle of the roof down to the mudsills and to the ground upon which they rest. Tell me, can there be de- sign in the least part except there be design in the whole? Can there be design in a single link of a chain and not design in every link ? Even men of ordinary intelligence recognize design in some of nature's work. It would be a poor observer and a duller thinker who would dispute the fact that the eyes serve the purpose for which they were de- signed, since they can be used for no other pur- pose, and that nothing man can invent would serve the purpose as well. It is willful blindness to seek to make it appear that either men or lower animals can change their general form by any act of the mind. Birds have wings because the deep-rooted causes that brought them into existence mixed the elements of their composition in the right pro- 30 PLAN OF CREATION portion to produce wings. These wings were not produced by the desire of frogs to fly at some past time, as some of our scientists have suggested. If frogs desired to fly in any past period of time, they would desire to fly more here and now.| If desire and use of muscles would develop wings, man would doubtless be well supplied with wings, since he uses his arms continually, and many de- sire to fly. Some do fly, but their wings are made of wood and cloth, instead of flesh and feathers. Grass growing down in the state of Texas could not be the direct cause of the growth of teeth and the peculiar stomachs in the cattle that are being bred in the state of New York and which are to be shipped later to the state of Texas. And yet the great cause that produced the one produced the other also, though acting along separate lines of development. It is a common saying that a chain is no stronger than its weakest link. It is just as true to declare that a chain ceases to be a chain that has a broken link. The links in na- ture's chain are all united and unbroken. Nothing happens without an acting cause. Even the things we call accidents can be shown to have resulted from active causes. In the true sense of the term, there is no such thing as an accident; for an accident would have to be some- thing that took place without a cause, which would be impossible. The word serves a very good purpose, since by its employment we can convey our meaning in a brief manner. An acci- OR SWORD OF TRUTH 31 dent is something that takes place not according to our wills, but in spite of them. Often ^hat is termed accidents leads to some useful discovery; and who can say that everything that afflicts man here and now, may not in the end work for his highest good? A blind man would be more likely to dispute it than would the philosopher who takes all things into account. The food that feeds the mind and develops it, consists more of the things we do not want and would not have, than of the things we welcome and strive for. It is not w'ell for us to judge effects until we have enlight- ened our minds on ultimates. Time a Nonentity. We speak of passing time or of time passing for convenience of speech, and for the same reason that we speak of the sun ris- ing and setting. Ten thousand or a hundred thou- sand revolutions of the earth around the sun does not add one second to our age or to the age of the universe. The universe is not a second older than it was at the instant of its birth. Change in mat- ter and in relative positions is all that takes place, and it is the only thing that has any meaning to us, even though we may think of time as some- thing passing by and being wasted. A billion years of what we call time would not work the slightest change in anything in the universe. The revolutions of the earth on its axis and its course around the sun and the changed relations from this motion, give us the idea of passing time, and the hands of watches and clocks are so arranged 32 PLAN OF CREATION that they mark the rates of diurnal or daily rota- tion. No number of revolutions of the earth could work the slightest change in matter. A billion years of what we call time would leave the child just born an unchanged infant, not a second older than at the instant of its birth. An acting or active cause is the only thing that can produce any kind of change in anything or af- fect it in any manner. And the acting cause in the universe is a life agent that is as real as the earth upon which we dwell. Being unable to ac- count for the universe in its present aspect, sci- entists unconsciously sought to shove its birth back into what appeared to their minds a distant past, thinking thus to shove the problem from them in point of time, that is ever present and calling for solution. And here it will remain both before and after solution. All problems, both solved and unsolved, are here in the universe and right before us. The backward glance into endless space is mere- ly for the purpose of revealing the connecting links in the chain of preceding cause, since a sin- gle missing link in this endless chain would have rendered a universe absolutely impossible. There- fore in order to account for the universe and our conscious states of existence in it, we must trace the links of this endless chain back and find out what preceded this circular or spiral motion. Cir- cular motion can continue without ending, but it had to have a beginning. And we have found OR SWORD OF TRUTH 33 that beginningless motion through endless space was possible, but that that form of motion had to come to an end, since the broken particles of matter were directed toward each other, and therefore would as surely meet at a common cen- ter as would two locomotives headed toward each other on the same track. And while we can see the possibility of the lo- comotives being derailed, and thus being prevent- ed from coming together; or the fires going out under their boilers and of their motion being overcome by friction, we know that no such hin- dering causes exist in an absolute vacuum. Our scientists have been telling us for a century or more, that a body moving in an absolute vacuum would move on forever in a perfectly straight line at an unvarying rate of speed, unless acted upon by some outside force or collided with some other body. Therefore, there is very little that is new in this book to scientists; they have been able to see most of the links in this chain, and more espe- cially the links that are least visible to the un- trained minds. A body at rest in an absolute vacuum would for- ever remain at rest unless acted upon by some out- side force. And conversely, a body in motion in an absolute vacuum would move on forever in a perfectly straight line and at a uniform rate of speed, unless acted upon by some outside force. A bird in an absolute vacuum, allowing that it could live, working its wings at lightening speed, 34 PLAN OF CEEATION would not be able to change its relative position a single inch in a million years or in an eternity. Hence we can be as positive that the atoms of matter did not begin their motion through space or change their course or vary their rates of mo- tion, as we are of the existence of the universe. There is no element of doubt in the problem and there is no room for doubt. And since we are fully conscious of evolution in nature, we know that a definite number of steps have already been taken, and that a definite number yet remain to be taken When we are told that the earth is 600,000,000 years old the words simply have no meaning at all. If we are told that the earth has already made six hundred million revolutions around the sun, this will not express the idea scientists wish to convey. And yet this will be the only meaning it can have. Time is positively not a factor in creation. Change in matter at a certain rate is all that takes place, and this is the only thing that has any meaning to us at all. The history of the universe, its laws and operations, its per- fect order and harmony in the perfect state and the reflection of the physical universe in the spir- itual and the perfect, is what the mind will be filled with in all future time and eternity. A uni- verse without a beginning would have no history. Change in matter is taking place rapidly, as all know. Twenty-one revolutions of the earth around the sun carries the helpless infant to full OE SWORD OF TRUTH 85 maturity of both body and brain; a few more rev- olutions carries the body to old age and the grave. Time is like a post driven in the ground; it re- mains motionless, for having no existence, surely it can not pass. Mankind will grow weaker and wiser; mental operations will be much more rap- id in the future than in the past. The physical organism will become finer in texture, and for this reason the muscular system will become weaker and the body smaller in size. And in the ratio that man's organism takes on a finer texture, in that ratio will his span of life here on the ma- terial plane be shortened. The normal span of life was at one time one hundred and twenty years; it is now seventy years or less. The last generation to be born on the earth will probably finish its course in this earth school in about the time now required for the child to reach manhood and womanhood. And the soul when it reaches its perfect state will be about three feet in height, and would, if composed of flesh and blood, weigh about thirty pounds here on the surface of the earth. Thus shall we return to the state of little children in size and in sweetness of character, though in understanding we will be as gods full of wisdom. To this ultimate end is nature working. To dis- pute it we must close our eyes to the evidence be- fore us and declare that the universe is nothing but a jumbled mass of accidents. Is there a sane man living who would be will- 36 PLAN OF CBEATION ing to place himself on record as declaring that nature is not a fixed law working to a definite end? Atoms moving from an endless void to a common center may appear to some as the strang- est part of design in nature ; but if the reader will weigh values properly, he will see that atoms of matter moving toward a common center on the wings of momentum is not half as hard to under- stand as to imagine them standing still and then being suddenly started toward such a center. The atom in motion is much less of a mystery than the atom at rest in space. And no one disputes the existence of the atom, not even scientists, thoaigh they may call it an electron because it may sound better to them by that name. The succeeding chapters explain themselves; they should be read and studied in relation to each other, for nature is one complete whole, the parts being in perfect agreement with each other. Summary. It must be borne in mind that noth- ing can be accomplished that is without design or plan; the simplest piece of machinery or the sim- plest and crudest tool shaped by man is planned in the mind. Nothing at all can be accomplished by chance or accident. Nature works to a plan, the plan inhering in each and every atom in exist- ence. There could be no plan or design in the concrete, unless there be plan or design in the sin- gle elements that go to make up the concrete. The visible universe is composed of countless bil- lions of single elements, known as atoms, and OE SWOED OF TEUTH 37 these are designed for the purpose they serve. The laws and principles of nature are eternal; they were not created; the single elements that make up the universe were not created, but always existed. But the universe had its birth ; it did not always exist. The Bible tells us that God was the builder of the universe, and that God is spirit; and spirit always existed; it did not begin to ex- ist, nor did the single elements of matter have a beginning. But all concrete and visible forms had a beginning. It is the beginning that gives meaning to life, and the lawte of nature are perfect and will do a perfect work, for we are finally to become as "perfect as our Father in heaven is perfect/' A perfect workman will not stop until his works are as perfect as himself. Eternal du- ration would become unbearable except all things be made perfect. The succeeding chapters will reveal as much as the mind of man can compre- hend at this time. The purpose here is to point out foundation facts; the explanations will come after the foundation facts are seen. There could not be design without law nor law without design. The two are inseparable. To dispute the one is to deny the other. No change took place in matter prior to the birth of the uni- verse. Change in relative positions of the atoms in space was the only change that did or could take place prior to their meeting at a common center. Some of our scientists have greatly deceived 38 PLAN OF CREATION themselves by imagining that after discovering some of the methods by which nature does her work, that this disproves the claim that there is a God. But what kind of a god had they in mind ? We do not disprove the existence of Tom Brown, the watchmaker, by discovering the method by which he makes the watch! In this study of na- ture we must always bear in mind the fact that God is spirit, and that spirit does not work through fingers, in creating concrete bodies from the invisible elements of matter. Also, we must bear in mind the fact that man is spirit; the form being the lever through which it works to accom- plish other purposes. The discovery of some of nature's methods of doing her work should teach us that the universe is governed by law, and not by chance. The greater the distance we find man from his starting point, the more evidence that nature is carrying him forward to a definite goal, and that she is determined not to be defeated and will not be. Scientists make laughing stock of their the- ories, when they speak of worlds coming togther by accident or chance, and when they speculate over what condition man will find himself in a few million years hence. The idea that the sun must burn out and the earth grow cold, with no air and no water, and that man must of necessity perish as a result of this nightmare arrival, is really a foolish speculation. Nature knows how to keep up the supply of heat and air, as long as OR SWORD OF TRUTH 39 she needs them. And since nature has refused to be defeated in the past, it would be silly to im- agine that she will suffer herself to be defeated in the future. The supply must be equal to the de- mand. When there is no more supply there will be no more demand. And there will be no occa- sion for it. And just now we hear talk of another universe being discovered. Nonsense! How could we know? Knowledge of a thing through communi- cation with it forbids its being outside the uni- verse. Light waves do not extend beyond the universe, no more than the blood in your veins ex- tends beyond your organism. Knowledge of what is thought to be another universe is proof itself that it is a part of the one and only universe. If there were other universes, we could never know it, except by collision. One God and one universe. We need no more. One complete whole is better than any number of separated parts. A full knowledge of the universe, its laws and operations, its beauties and its harmonies, is the goal towjard which we are being carried. The final ultimate cannot be defeated or even greatly delayed. What would be thought of a man who had la- bored long weary years to build himself a house to shelter him from the storms, and after he had it finished and was enjoying the comforts of it, would set fire to it and burn it down That is ex- actly what you accuse nature of doing, when it is 40 PLAN OF CEEATION declared that man lives not again after physical dissolution! Only in this case the idea involves far more than the act of burning down a house; nature first built an earth on which to produce a man, and she labored up through the vegetable and the animal on up to man, and then, according to the ideas of many, just at the point where she has got man up to the plane where he begins to reflect her beauties and she is able to enjoy life in him, she destroys him ! Is that not a most fool- ish and senseless idea? Could there be design in nature without an ultimate, in which there is no defeat? A design that leads to no ultimate, is no design at all. And if there were no design, there could be nothing definite produced — no mind or reason — no organic life. By no number of designless and aimless opera- tions could man produce the simplest tool that serves him. And this being so, as any man of in- telligence knows, why imagine the concrete exist- ence of anything to be an accident? Tom Brown could not make a watch and put it together and make it keep time, by any imaginary number of aimless operations, not if you gave him an eter- nity in which to operate. To produce anything at all requires a definite course and plan of action. And no man can be so foolish as to imagine that the organism of man, coupled with his power to reason, is less complex or less perfect than the watch or the clock. If there is a man so foolish as to dispute what is here claimed, and which is a OE SWOED OF TEUTH 41 plain matter, such a man is safer in an insane asylum than on the outside of it. The plan of nature stands naked before us; to dispute the ultimate would indicate mental weak- ness. The facts before us are too wonderful to permit doubt of a perfect ultimate, since an eter- nity has not been able to defeat nature up to this point. And if an eternity past has not defeated nature, why allow our weak minds to imagine that nature can be defeated? There is no evidence anywhere that nature's laws are breaking down or becoming weaker. A force and a life agent that has existed for an eternity will not die or lose its power even though some of us have been foolish enough to imagine that such a thing could take place. Eternity future will not add to the length of eternity past. Eternity is measureless in either direction — past or future. Our conception of passing time being based en- tirely on rates of motion of the earth in its course around the sun and its diurnal rotation on its axis, reveals the fact that if this rate should be doubled or quadrupled just so would our conception of passing time be increased. This is proof that time is not passing, but that changes are being ob- served. It also shows the folly of trying to shove the birth of the universe back to some imaginary distant past period of time. On the planet Mer- cury this would mean a very much shorter period, while on the planet Jupiter it would mean a much longer period, as observed from their surfaces. 42 PLAN OF CKEATION THE ATOM. The atom is the unit of matter. It is a single element, and its size is estimated at from one two- hundred-fifty miUionth (250,000,000) down rTYto as low as one five-billionth (5,000,000,- ^-^ 000) of an inch in diameter, a variation of twenty diameters. The latter figure gives us a particle of matter so small that 625,000,000 laid side by side in a straight row would only extend to the diameter of a single grain of wheat. To gain some better idea of how inconceivably small the lowest estimate allows for the size of the atom, let us imagine five billion of these small particles of matter in a row, and touching each other. Accord- ing to the estimated size, these five billion atoms will make a row one inch in length, whereas, the same number of grains of wheat in a similar row would extend a distance of more than ten thou- sand miles, almost half way around the earth's circumference. Nor is this estimate based on the largest grains of wheat. It may be mentioned here that the atom is not now regarded as the smallest possible particle of matter; certain sci- entists claim a still smaller particle as the unit of matter, which they call the electron. It would seem, however, that it matters little what names are given to these invisible and inconceivable small particles of matter. For names do not make them visible to us, nor do they explain what mat- OE SWOED OF TEUTH 43 ter is nor furnish us with any basis for compre- hension. Giving new names, gives us no new facts. Therefore, we shall refer in this chapter to these elements as atoms, and for the sake of discussion allow that the sizes estimated above are correct. For no matter how small we allow either the atom or the electron to be, if we conceive of them as the basis of matter, we still have a rope of sand as truly as though we conceived them to be as large as billiard balls. There is nothing in the na- ture of matter that makes small particles hang to- gether any more securely than large particles, un- less glued together; and this would certainly be more easily accomplished with larger particles. It is more difficult to glue sand together than bil- liard balls, and more difficult to mend the breaks that might occur. It is easier to splice a large rope than a very small one. For to account for the power of gravity we must allow that there is an indivisible and unbroken substance permeat- ing matter. Sir Isaac Newton, in speaking of the power of attraction, is reported to have spoken in sub- stance as follows: "It is inconceivable that one particle of matter could attract another particle of matter through an absolute vacuum.' ' It is just as "inconceivable" to any other thinking mind, for a rope of sand, no matter how fine the grains, has no pulling or attractive power, unless it be through the presence of an unbroken sub- 44 PLAN OF CREATION stance, reaching from one particle to another. This substance might be conceived of as drawing one particle of matter to another, in the same manner as an elastic band to each end of which had been attached a weight. If strong enough to do so, this band will bring the objects closer to- gether. To imagine attraction extending through broken particles of matter that are not in actual contact, without at the same time seeing the ne- ssity of an unbroken substance extending the whole length of this line, is little short of super- stition. The atom of matter is composed of three dis- tinct qualities of substance; in the center, ma- terial or physical atom; around this an atmos- phere composed of astral or soul substance, and third, the life element or spirit substance. The astral is coarser than the life element, as the ma- terial is coarser or harder than the astral sub- stance. The material atom is doubtless a hard element in all cases, while there are variations in densitv of astral substances, and may become tangible to our physical senses when the volume is great enough. The material atom is in all cases the basis of tangible matter, as cognized by our phys- ical senses. The astral substance is visible and tangible to the soul out of the flesh, and on that plane it is as likely that the physical is invisible and intangible to the spirits as soul and astral substance is to us here on the material plane. OR SWORD OF TRUTH 45 This is not hard to believe, since the so-called X-Ray makes some visible and tangible things or substances invisible to us. Under the power of some forms of the X-Ray the flesh becomes invisi- ble to our eyes, but the bones of the body become visible through the flesh. But with this, we need not trouble ourselves, since the object here is to point out what seems to be an explanation of some familiar facts. The atmosphere of a planet is eight diameters of the planet. This appears to be the law. The same law obtains in the atom. The atmosphere of the atom is eight diameters of the material or physical atom, as shown in the figure at the be- ginning of this chapter. The dark spot in the center represents the material atom, while the cir- cle surrounding this represents the atmosphere of the atom. A union of atoms of different qualities of matter composes the solids, fluids and gases of the earth. The stones and the crust of the earth appear to consist in large measure of lifeless atoms, or atoms that have lost their atmospheres. This separation of the atoms from the atmos- pheres encircling them must have taken place during the formation of the planet, and resulted from the intense heat at the center of vortex; for here the action was too great to permit live atoms to exist. Deprived of their atmospheres, the dead atoms were drawn together through the principle of affinity, having lost the power of active resist- ance. In accordance with the same law, the atoms 46 PLAN OF CREATION furthest from the center of vortex took their re- spective places, and Were molded into belts or at- mospheric strata. The first of these, we may con- clude, was the water belt; while those of less com- parative density took their places at points fur- ther distant from the then forming earth. Water is composed of live atoms, and to account for its being almost incompressible, we have only to con- sider the direct influence of gravity which is not possible in the upper regions of the atmosphere. That is to say, in the upper regions of the atmos- phere the water elements decombine, the power of gravity being too weak to hold them in close .contact. Under the full force of gravity, as here on the surface and below the surface, the water elements are brought close together by flattening their atmospheres, and are held in this state until released by the action of heat. It is reasonable, however, to suppose the atoms of matter vary in size in different classes of matter, and we may safely assume that the hydrogen element is one of the smallest elements, and that the oxygen atom belongs to the largest class of atoms. The law of affinity arranges the water elements and holds the atmospheres of the atoms of this element in close touch, but the power of gravity is required to grip these atoms and bring the material atoms in close touch. This accounts for the action and power of steam. Steam exerts no power except in a closed vessel; the heat under the boiler breaks the hold of gravity in the upper surface of the OR SWORD OF TRUTH 47 water, allowing the particles to separate from the surface, forming steam. Still under pressure in the boiler they pass through a pipe to the engine, where they escape into the cylinder and expand, manifesting power in action. Compressed air acts in exactly the same manner, for here we have the live atoms of air compressed and When free to do so, the atmospheres resume their original form, which we may assume to be round, as the illustration indicates. All combustible material is made up in part at least of live atoms. This is what is known as static electricity, and it is the release of this that gives off the flame and the heat. Matter composed entirely of dead atoms will not burn. As in water, so it is in all organisms and growths ; no concrete body can form except under the gripping power of gravity, for in all organ- isms the atmospheres of the atoms of matter that combine to make up such organisms, are flattened as in the case of water. Combustible material holds these electric atmospheres in its grasp, and when released they resume their natural form. If released by combustion, the blaze or flame is the result. Thus can we account for the incompressibility of water and the compressibility of air. Beyond these simple hints at the explanation of the hid- den facts of nature, there is no need for us to go here. The writer's only object is to point out facts not contradicted by other facts. 48 PLAN OF CREATION There are as many kinds or qualities of astral substance as there are kinds of matter. This was at one time thought to be sixty-four, though the number is now estimated to be seventy-two or more. However, it is possible that the earlier es- timate is correct, and that the higher estimate comes from an unsuccessful attempt to separate certain composite substances into their elements, giving the appearance of new elements. Different densities of the atomic atmospheres give rise to varying rates of vibration, instead of resulting from thfcm, and this by law of necessity. The atom and its atmosphere may be illustrated by a pebble, thick syrup and water. The pebble will represent the atom of matter, and the syrup its atmosphere, while the water will correspond to the spirit or life element. There are, we shall say, sixty-four qualities of physical matter and an equal number of astral substances, and but one spirit substance. While the latter was in a sep- arated or detached state prior to the beginning of creation, as a substance it is fineness in the ab- solute sense and mixes or blends perfectly with the same substance when free to do so. This was not possible when the atoms of matter were out beyond the universe in space. But as they flowed together at a common center, the impact was so great that this electric substance was freed from the atoms of matter, in large measure, and formed a circulating current which, under the law or ac- cording to the law of affinity, began at once the OE SWORD OF TRUTH 49 formation of the universe. This law is known to exist, but it is a law we are as yet not wise enough to explain. The fact that it has never been ex- plained, however, is no reason for not attempting to explain it. To ignore this law is to close our eyes to that which is apparent, for this fact is plainly evident in nature. We see this law at work in all new formations, whether mineral, an- imal or vegetable. Water is formed by the ac- tion of this law, assisted by gravity. The affinity that exists between different kinds of matter may not be understood, but we recognize it, and can build from this fact. Spirit is always clothed in astral or soul sub- stance; it is never found naked or free in form. Hence the resistance it meets with in passing through some kinds of matter. In its free state this substance would meet with no resistance at all in passing through any and all kinds of mat- ter. As an individual life is not possible outside of an organism, so are life and action impossible to the unclothed spirit. In its universal sense it is clothed in astral substance, and in its individ- ualized sense, encased in bodies of form. Steam outside of a closed vessel has no power, and the life agent in its naked state would be equally powerless. But just as steam is the life and power of the engine, so is spirit the life and power of the universe. Astral substance has no life or power, only as it is animated by this life sub- stance. For it is not reasonable to believe in 50 PLAN OF CEEATION many kinds of life. There can be but one life substance, though it manifests in many forms, through various kinds of matter. Always its mode of action is governed by the nature of the substance through which it moves. The axman will make a bigger showing in soft wood than in hard wood. The traveler will move further in a day over a good road than would be possible over a steep mountain trail that is almost impassable. We are told that God is spirit, also that there is but one living God. This will be referred to in an- other chapter of this book. We live in a world of effect. The cause world lies -beyond the range of our physical senses; it is hidden from our physical eyes, and for the present it is better so. The tree we see growing, existed in the astral or cause world before it made its appearance in the physical or material world. Even snowflakes form around astral flowers, as can be seen in the Arctic regions, and perhaps in other parts of the globe, perhaps in all parts. The astral flower lies folded in the seed of the plant; the oak lies folded in the acorn. Man lies folded in the astral animal and in the vegetable and in the seed of the vegetable. In the matter of colors, it can be said that they are not due to different varieties of light. There is but one kind of light, manifested in a variety of ways. The waves of light vary, either in the length of such waves, or in the rates of vibration, depending upon the na- ture of the medium through which they are trans- OR SWORD OF TRUTH 51 mitted, or from which they are reflected. For ex- ample, rays of light passing through red glass and entering the eye or acting upon it, produce the effect we describe as red. Other rays passing through other substances, or reflected from other surfaces, produce on tke nerves of sight the sen- sation we describe as "blue," or "green" or "yel- low." But there are no red or blue or green or yellow rays of light. The nature of the substance or material through which light shines or from which it is reflected, accounts very well for the variations which w'e observe. It would seem to be as reasonable to claim that we have red eyes for receiving red light, green eyes for receiving green light and yellow eyes through which we see or receive yellow light, as to claim there are many kinds of light. There is but one white light sub- stance, and this is the prime mover and giver of all things. It would be as reasonable to claim that there are different kinds of life substances, as that there are different kinds of light. The spectro- scope is misleading in that it can only analyze such rays of light as are generated in the earth's atmosphere. It is as inadequate to explain the nature of light, as an analysis of the head waters of the river Nile, from a pint of water dipped up at its mouth. We know that light and heat are gen- erated in the earth's atmosphere, that they do not come to us from the sun, as heat and light. Light is a reproduction as a voice through a telephone 52 PLAN OF CREATION and varies in each planet according to the density, nature and purity of its atmosphere. The Mathematical Law of Permutation. This law, coupled with the Law of Limitation, forbids endless variation. It also forbids a long period of creation. In the process of growth and decay, live atoms are reduced to dead ones. It is evi- dent that nature can only continue the process of growth so long as there are live atoms to draw upon. No two blades of grass are exactly alike; no two faces or personalities the same in every detail. Variation is the great law of life and when nature has exhausted this law, she will cease to work on the physical plane. Nature extended the law of variation as far as it was capable of being extended, in the atom or simple element of mat- ter and soul substance. The material atom is the basis, and the process of growth and decay is the great retorting process of separating the dross from the fine gold. As the miner would not con- tinue the process of retorting beyond the point where all the dross had been removed from the gold, neither can we imagine nature doing so. She will continue to bring new forms of life into exist- ence on the material plane as long as there is a possibility of variation, after which she will expel physical matter from the universe. The law of momentum will carry the dead atoms back into the endless depths of space from whence they came, but the fine gold will remain. And thus again are we led to see that laws were not created OR SWORD OF TRUTH 53 and that they will always be in active expression. The law of momentum brought the universe of matter and spirit from the endless depths of space, and when the process of retorting is fin- ished, this same law will carry the dross of matter back into endless space and away from the spir- itual universe, thus freeing us of the further curse of matter. The historv of the universe is nature's efforts to free herself from the dross of matter. Had there been no struggle and no effort needed to overcome, there would be no history and no con- scious life, for we are conscious only of the things we experience. Had there been no beginning to this universal structure, had it always existed, then there would be no history and no power of mind expression. Mind in that case would be of no higher order than that of the worm under our feet. At death of animal or decay of plant, an astral form is thrown off, which could not be unless many of the live atoms that entered into such growth had been reduced to dead ones. More- over, since the number of atoms both live and dead is limited, we can know from this that na- ture will reach the end of the law of mathematical permutation during a period of time not incom- prehensible to the mind of man. And since each atom differs in slight degree from every other atom, we can thus see the reason why no two blades of grass" can be alike. a 54 PLAN OF CREATION The number of each class of atoms is approxi- m a t e 1 y : 37,686,435,902,906,048,234,221,270,106,- 933,880,381,166,614,226,2 1 1,331,252,306,994,400,- 000,000,000,000. This number multiplied by 64 represents the number of atoms in all classes of matter, or the whole number in existence: 241,- 193,189,774,094,445,737,5 3 9,8 7 0,8 6 9,9 1,6 1 2,8 6 8,- 437,683,383,946,633,107,7 5 2,5 2 0,0 1 4,7 6 4,4 4 1,6 0,- 000,000,000,000. The difficulty of computing accurately vast numbers involving so many operations makes it both possible and probable that the above re- sults may contain some inaccuracies, but they are approximately correct, and they represent the number of different combinations possible with sixty-four elements, or the total number of atoms that can exist with no two alike. No more and no less than this number could exist. A little thought must lead to the inevitable conclusion that there is a limit to all things, to numbers as well as forms and colors. Nature moves to the limit along all lines of activity, and is satisfied only when the end of variation has been reached. A greater number of atoms would express no additional va- riations, while a less number would be an incom- plete expression of the law of variation. The ma- terial for this universal structure always existed, and in the right number and kind, and nature is now at work placing each part in its proper place. She is a perfect workman and will leave no part of the work unfinished. She will also know when OR SWORD OF TRUTH 55 the building is completed, and will add nothing to the completed physical world but to destroy it. The material of the physical world has no other function than is fulfilled in the process of creation, and when this process is finished, mat- ter, as we know it here and now, will cease to exist — it will return from whence it came, back in space beyond the universe of form. A fanciful writer of some note once pictured the universe as the work of myriads of bugs. To his vivid imagination, even the human body was but a collection of bugs. His deductions were at least mathematically correct. Multiply bugs, and the result is no more than the intelligence of one bug. Multiply ignorance, and you obtain more ignorance. A group of ants could have but the wisdom of one, though having the combined phys- ical strength of great numbers. "Every building hath a builder, and God is the builder of the universe." The spirit is invisible, but it makes all else visible to itself through the things it acts on and through. Nature numbers the atoms that go into every growth, and she makes no mistakes. Hence it is not unreasonable that she has "numbered the hairs of our heads," for even though one have no hair on his head, na- ture provided so many places for separate hairs to grow. This is not a new thought to our sci- entists. They know that this is true. Mathe- matical principles are as old as eternity. Man did not invent them, he discovered them. Na- 56 PLAN OF CREATION ture works along the law of mathematical per- mutation and in accord with the law of math- ematical chemistry. She compounds in the best manner and according to the law of harmony. Nature is herself these laws and harmonies in ac- tive expression. As a passing remark, a theory involving con- tradictions can at best be only true in part. But any theory in which there is no contradiction, and which is not out of harmony with a single known fact, deserves consideration. Nature strives con- tinually to reveal her secrets to man, and just as she strives to bring the flower to its perfect state of beauty. But only those who seek knowledge with* unprejudiced minds can hope to gain much from a study of nature and her operations. "I will hide my secrets from the wise and reveal them unto babes," means only that the blinding power of prejudice and preconceived notions hide facts from those who could otherwise discover the deeper things of nature. The term "babes" means only that nature will reveal her secrets to those who come before her with clean minds and without pretentious knowledge. If we already know or think we know the facts and secrets of nature, she can give us nothing. We must first get rid of our much boasting of what we think we know, before we can receive the truth. To gain the truth we are to carefully observe the workings of nature as we would study the action of a complicated piece of machinery, and know OR SWORD OF TRUTH 57 that man can do no more than copy after nature. The number of atoms in existence, according to the figures here given, is represented by 87 fig- ures; this may look small to those who like to imagine in measureless quantities. But let those who care to take the time and trouble to figure it out, and they will find that this number of atoms even of the lowest estimated size would make a solid cube of matter incomprehensible billions of miles in measurement. The numerical value of eighty-seven figures placed in a row is beyond fi- nite comprehension, even when the number of atoms represented by these figures are made to represent a solid cube of matter. 58 PLAN OF CEEATION EVOLUTION. An animal after reaching full growth or ma- turity, does not undergo any marked change of form. In some cases, as the caterpillar and but- terfly, tadpole and frog, a change of physical structure is observed; but this is during the evo- lution of growth from embryo to fully developed organism. The tadpole is only the immature frog, w^hile the caterpillar is but the young or embryonic butterfly. These never could develop into anything else than butterfly and frog. This is the pattern nature cut them to. These are crys- tallizations, and the elements of their composition is determined in the egg. If lower animals had ever undergone any transformation of form either during the time of their growth from embryo to tull grown animal, or after maturity, they would be doing so today. Evolution can not cease so long as reproduction continues. If lower animals could evolve to the human plane along physical lines, we could today trace every link of this chain in process of formation. But nature has a method by which she does carry lower forms up to higher forms and to higher planes. It is quite true that the lower forms of animal life do evolve to the plane of the human, but it is along spiritual lines, not physical. Plants and animals throw off astral or soul forms at death and decay of the physical form, and these OR SWOED OF TRUTH 59 are passed to the next plane above, forming the nucleus of the more perfect form which latter takes its form from the mother, during the devel- oping period. It is a well knowin fact that snow- flakes fall in the form of flowers of the field. It could not be that the flower forms of the countless millions of snowflakes take their shapes from chance. (See Electricity in Nature, by H. B. Phil- brook.) There must be a connected cause, a fixed law back of those phenomena. The attention of the reader is directed to the snowflake flowers as proof for the contention that plants and animals throw off an astral at death and decay. The hu- man young has much greater brain capacity than has the lower animal, even though the mother may not be mentally or physically strong. The healthy animal mother would certainly be in a better condition to give birth to a human being than a diseased or abnormally developed human mother. But the elements of composition deter- mine the form, and we must go to the egg and the seed for the beginning. Almost any kind of seed will grow better in rich soil than in poor. The fact is that we have before us the long declared truth that " every seed-bearing tree or plant, and every animal brings forth after its kind," and its "kind" never changes its form in the physical. The doctrine of evolution in the Darwin sense is a denial that there is a soul. And even though we grant evolution on the physical plane, we can not make way for eternal life, except through evolu- 60 PLAN OF CEEATION tion on the astral plane. But one claim contra- dicts the other. Evolution on the physical plane disputes the claim that there is a soul, and if no soul, then there can be no evolution on the astral plane, for the astral is the soul. The Darwin the- ory does more than deny the existence of the soul ; it denies fixed law, for it acknowledges defeat. If there is a fixed law of nature, then there can be no defeat. If there ever was evolution or change of form in the physical, this law would be as potent today as at any time in the past, for na- ture's law does not grow old and die. So long as growth and decay continue, the law that governed in the past will govern in the future. While seeking to pay homage to nature, the evolutionists in reality belittle her; for while ad- mitting infinite detail in part of the process, they introduce a destroying factor at the close; a mill that grinds to powder the crowning glory of her achievements. Imagine a machine that shapes perfect figures at one end, only to grind them to pieces at the other! Can a stream rise higher than its source? It must, if man lives not again after the dissolution of the physical form. Can man aspire to heights where nature can not carry him? If so, then the stream rises higher than its source. The visible form of man aspires to no more than do the stones under his feet. It is not the physical that aspires; it is the great pulse of nature. The mind of man has no power to imagine OR SWORD OF TRUTH 61 things higher or more perfect than exist at the great universal soul center; though he may im- agine many things not in harmony with the truth, he can not imagine anything greater than the truth. The astral body of the lower animal can be molded into the human form, though it is not reasonable to suppose that the lower animal could change its physical form to that of the hu- man. The physical world is but the world of ef- fect; the cause world is the astral. The broken eggshell is not proof that the chicken that once inhabited it is dead. The lifeless form of man is no proof that his soul and faculties are not alive and active in the cause world. Would a man whose business it is to raise frogs kill all the tadpoles as fast as they appear! If we are to believe the scientists, this is what na- ture has been doing for hundreds of thousands of years. She pounces upon all of her embryonic human beings before any of them reach maturity. It is contrary to natural law for an embryonic in- sect or animal to reproduce another creature like itself. The tadpole must develop to the frog be- fore it can reproduce itself. Could the embryonic human monkey give birth to another embryonic monkey before it reached the human plane? No more than a child of one day could give birth to another child, for eggs do not mature in embryos. Admitting man to be the highest type of animal life on this earth, nature would have ceased to produce those animals that evolve to the human 62 PLAN OF CREATION plane the moment she could no longer lift them to this plane. Is this not a self-evident fact? In accord with the Darwin idea of evolution, the hu- man mother could not give birth to a human child, but to the lowest order of animal in that line of evolution and this would have to come up to the human plane through all these changes of form, as the caterpillar to the butterfly, the tad- pole to the frog. If all chickens died in the shell, and all worms in the cocoon or chrysalis state, there would be no chickens or worms. If the lower animal ever did in the history of creation evolve to the human plane along physical lines, it would continue to do so today, or cease to be, for it could not stop on its way and reproduce its type. The claim that we have passed the point in the tree of evolution where lower animal forms evolve to the human plane, denies the fact that we have as low forms of animal life on earth today as at any time in the past, and the further fact that nothing can re- produce itself in the middle state of growth. A law can only lose its power to act when there is no longer any material for it to act upon. Nature has cast the animal in a fixed mold, and though we may modify the type to a slight de- gree by crossing and interbreeding, this can be done only to a slight degree. The mare will breed from the jack, but the offspring will be barren. Climate may modify a type to some extent, but only so slightly that even the untrained eye can OR SWORD OF TRUTH 63 detect the species of such, if the mother type be known. Notwithstanding the great varieties of breeds in the hog family, a hog is always a hog and can never be mistaken for anything else; the mule is distinctly a member of the horse family and could never be mistaken for a cow or other animal. Moreover, cross-breeding can only occur between those animals that mature the foetus in the same period of time. That the monkey should resemble the man, or the man the monkey ought not to mislead us, since one God and one nature created them both. The watch resembles in some respects a saw mill, yet there are always enough points of difference to distinguish the one from the other. Their resem- blances are due to the fact man shaped them both and the still more significant fact that circles and straight lines are everywhere the same. Since the lower animal is satisfied with its type or form, it can not rise above this form along physical lines. Man himself can conceive of no higher form than he bears, and he has no desire to be different than he is. In the cow, horse, dog, etc., nature is perfectly satisfied with herself and her work, for she can look at them through no other eyes than their own. In man she is satisfied as to outward form, but must see great room for mental improvement, for here she has more highly de- veloped faculties through which to study her product. Man may evolve to the very highest planes of thought, but he can not change his form 64 PLAN OF CREATION to one of higher type than he bears, for we are created in "the image of God," and His form is perfect. Nor can the lower animal send its off- spring to a higher type than it has itself reached. Man by his thinking could not change his form, though by mental inactivity his form and fea- tures may grow to be less perfect than now. It is because of mental unrest that man develops his mental powers. Man is by nature fitted for high mental attainments, for through his unfolding faculties the organized life within him sees higher mental planes and desires to attain them. But in the lower forms of animal life this is not true. The'young animal of a few months knows about as much as it will ever know. Beyond the desire to obtain its food and protect itself from enemies, the lower animal has no desire to go. External stimulus impels man forward, though it is by in- ternal effort alone that he can climb, for nature has endowed him with faculties that reach from earth to heaven. The power to evolve comes through and from the mental faculties, and the lower forms of an- imal life have no desire to evolve for they can see no reason for it. Man himself will not evolve to higher mental planes unless he himself desires to do so, for mental growth can not be forced. The dog may be taught a few "tricks," but the dog will stop where you leave him and the "tricks" are habits, not desires. The thought in the minds of some of the evolu- OR SWOED OF TEUTH 65 tionists that man evoluted from the fish, doubtless was suggested by the fact that the human embryo at one stage of development resembles a fish in some measure. But once the reason for this re- semblance is known, the suggestion loses all the force it can have. The brain and spinal column are the first to form in both the lower animal and human child. And the reason for this is that the organism is controlled through brain centers, and the spinal column conveys the nerves to the differ- ent parts of the body. The brain and spinal col- umn must therefore take form first. The brain end of this tail-like column must of necessity re- semble the fish in some measure, but this resem- blance gives us no reason at all to suppose that man evoluted from the fish. The rudimentary stage of anything, man, an- imal or vegetable, necessarily must differ mate- rially from the fully developed organism. It is hard to imagine how it could be otherwise. 66 PLAN OF CEEATION THE TWO PLANES— SPIRITUAL AND PHYSICAL. The external world is but the reflection of the internal or mental world. If man had no weeds growing in his mind, there would be none found growing in his garden. But man does not create the weeds in his garden. They are placed there by nature to reflect the mental weeds in the hu- man race as a whole. When all weeds disappear from the mind, na- ture will remove them from the physical world. The mental and physical worlds evolve together; one unfolds with the other. We can not, as some imagine, destroy the weeds by refusing to see them! We might as reasonably expect to anni- hilate the planet upon which we dwell, for one is as real as the other. The only way to eradicate the weeds in the physical world is by overcoming them in the mental; and this can be done only by evolution and growth. It is true that we can dig the weeds out of our garden, but this will not prevent the possibility of their growth. To imagine a perfect man on an imperfect world is to imagine what can not be. And by the term man is meant the race of men; for a perfect man as an individual could live on an imperfect planet with many other imperfect individuals. But this earth would not be his home. Christ was a perfect man, as we understand perfection, but OK SWOKD OF TRUTH 67 this earth was not his rightful home. His home was with the Father in heaven, and he returned to his heavenly home after the resurrection. He came to this earth to lead imperfect men out of it, and when evolution has done its perfect work, the then perfect man will also leave the planet. Nature cursed the earth for man's sake, and this, means that weeds, insects and animals that are at enmity with him were put here so that man might develop his mental powers by contending with them. There is no doubt but the earth was in a far worse condition before the deluge than now; vegetation was more rank, reptiles more hideous, the forests were slimy and wet. The outer world then corresponded with man's low state of development, just as it now corresponds with his more advanced, yet imperfect state. We are now nearing a new order of things, in which the physical world will take on an entirely new appearance, for we are approaching the time when there is to be a "new heaven and a new earth." Man is going to wake from his age-long sleep, and march forward with new life and hope. He is the quickening power in nature; he hastens the process of evolution in nature by hastening his own unfoldment. "Hasten; come hither, for I can do nothing till ye come." Let those who know the meaning of this quotation, correct it if wrong- ly quoted. Man is an epitome of the larger universe; a uni- verse in miniature. He can and will express 68 PLAN OF CREATION through his mental operations, everything in the physical universe and nothing else. The mind holds the same relation to the physical world that the flower does to the plant. The unfoldment of the flower depends upon the plant. The mind of man unfolds from the elements of the physical body, which, though not rooted to the earth, grows out of it, as truly as the flower or tree. The close relation and reaction of the mental and phys- ical is referred to in such Scriptures as: "The seas and the waves thereof shall roar; for nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; and there shall be famines and pesti- lences and earthquakes in divers places." Man is a harp of a thousand strings; nature is the musician and whatever impresses us is a fin- ger that strikes a cord. Every insect that hums and every flower that blooms is a finger to touch a cord of the human soul, by impressing itself on the mind. The physical body and brain of man is a garden in which are planted the seeds of every thing that grows, every thing that crawls or flies, and of every form and shade of beauty in the uni- verse. Each individual is his own gardener. Truth grows out of error. Beauty is seen only by contrast. Were there no cobras and vipers in the human family, there would be none in the physical world. Were there nothing but beauty, harmony, justice, love and mercy in the mind of man, the physical world would have advanced to meet this perfect OE SWOKD OF TEUTH 69 order. Every discord in the physical world is evidence that there is discord in the human mind. The men who "have their price" and the men who declare "all have their price" will finally disappear and with them every hideous monster that haunts the earth. The worst form of evil in this world is that form of selfishness that allows one to feast while others starve. The pains and sufferings of a few, if it were possible to keep it confined to narrow limits, would not be likely to stir the masses to any ef- fort to remove the wrongs that cause such suf- fering; it is only when great numbers suffer that we see an effort made to modify such suffering. The reason for this is that it is no longer possible to hide the fact from all eyes. 70 PLAN OF CREATION THE MIND AND ITS FACULTIES. We do not think with the brain. We think through the brain. The brain has no more power to think than has the foot or hand, or even the stones under your feet. Concerning the theory that "all is mind," the reader will be left to de- cide, after a consideration of the statements con- tained in this chapter. The visible and the tangible are nothing more than the lever through which power manifests it- self! The lever is itself powerless, but when pow- er is applied, it works wonders. The hands and arms, feet and legs, are actual levers through which mind acts. Even the brain is but a lever through which mind acts ; for the brain is not the mind, neither has it power to think. Mind is a form of expression and an injury to the brain affects mind action, as defective keys of a musical instrument forbid expression of mu- sic through them. Mind, like music, being a form of expression, where there is no expression, there is no conscious existence. As the music stops when the player ceases to perform, the mind ceases to express itself when the five senses no longer respond to impressions from the outer world. Mind being a form of expression, there can be neither intelligence nor consciousness where there is no such expression. Without the power of OK SWOED OF TKUTH 71 speech, we might be judged insane, and without the power to express thought through the brain, we would be insane; for the mind is rational only to the degree that rationality can be expressed. We are unconscious of everything except of what rises in the mind. "We think words before we ut- ter them. Without the memory of past events, we would be insane, or without the power of thought. So long as the soul, with its faculties, is confined in the flesh body, it is dependent upon the brain through which it must give expression to mind. The fingers, bound in a rigid iron glove, could not act upon the separate keys of a piano or other musical instrument. Music is an expression of melody, while mind is an expression of harmony. Where there is no melody there is no music. And where there is no harmony there can be no mind or conscious recog- nition. Music is but one phase of mind, for music without mind is inconceivable. We are intelligent to the degree that we sense harmony, or recognize things in their proper order or right relations in nature. Mind is as truly a form of expression as running is a form of motion. Mind aside from conscious mental expression is as contradictory as rest and motion. When we come tc see, as we shall further on, the manner in which mind ex- presses, the careful reader will see the fallacy in the claim that "all is mind." The objects we see about us are not mind, but the mind receives impressions from these objects 72 PLAN OF CEEATION and the images thus created in the mind are the only things that can be recognized by the mind, therefore the only true mind expression. These mental images are formed out of soul substance, and reflect the external universe. The soul being one, recognizes its own microscopic universe, and through the senses it recognizes the larger universe. It is voice calling unto voice. The mental universe reflects the external universe, its laws and its operations, and it reflects nothing more. Mind and memory do not cease at physical death, for the physical form is but the soil out of which the soul grows. The visible form is not mind, as the lamp is not the light, nor the wick, the oil. Light, like mind, is a form of active ex- pression. Electric lights are placed on circuits. The mind of man is electrical in its nature; it, too, is placed on a circuit. The declaration, "Ye are wonderfully and fearfully made" is indeed borne out by the facts, and was not made without full knowledge of the facts. Electricity is life, and man is a bat- tery on a circuit. The lamp cut off from the dy- namo gives off no light vibrations. A human be- ing cut off from two polarities outside of his own organism would be equally unable to express any degree of mind or intelligence. Mental images are produced by breaks in the circuit. Before the metal telegraph was invented the mental tele- graph was busy sending messages out in space for OE SWOED OF TEUTH 73 millions of miles, yet without knowledge that it was doing so. All that we are conscious of is the images that rise in the mind, to agree in form and color to the external object. With mind, as with the telegraph, it is the opening and closing of the circuit that causes words, sounds, images and mental impressions. The flame of the lamp, that appears as a con- tinuous flame, is in reality a succession of flames, the breaks being as numerous as the vibrations, too rapid for us to see. Every flame is but a suc- cession of flames. The universe and every object in it is polarized in the human organism, first in the flesh body, afterwards in the soul. Every object in the uni- verse is composed of two or more of the sixty-four elemental substances. The organism of man com- prises in its make-up a measure of all these ele- ments. Therefore, man has an answering voice to every object in the universe. The "Shakes- peare without can only commune with the Shakes- peare within." If there be no Shakespeare with- in, then there can be no communion, and there- fore no knowledge of the outward. All nature is stamped on the nerve and brain cells of man. The physical world is the voice that calls ever to these tiny sparks of life and calls them from their prison cells. When these are set free, they are a "voice in the ear, a light in the eye, a guide to the feet." What other voice or light or guide can there be, but the memory of past experience? The 74 PLAN OF CREATION nerve and brain cells hold the tiny sparks of life with their astral covering; and the exercise of the higher faculties is to "have life and have it more abundantly. ' ' These freed sparks of life are the written record of the individual life and experi- ence. In our thoughts we live and move and have our being. Every brain organ is polarized in some special function or part of the body; hence, when a faculty is active-, the corresponding part of the body is active, and the soul will develop normally, at least in that part of the body. If the higher faculties are inactive, the soul will be spotted like a leopard, for the soul grows out of the physical body like the plant grows out of the soil. If the flesh body failed to yield up the soul substance im- prisoned in the body and brain cells, there could be no soul and no after life. Moving Pictures. Those who know the manner in which motion pictures are taken, and why they appear in motion on the canvas, can from this knowledge gain a good idea of the mind and its operations. To the observer it appears that the picture moves across the canvas, but in reality there is thrown on the screen a succession of pic- tures, taken in rapid order. As these different pictures form and fade on the canvas, the sensa- tion of motion is produced. With the eyes closed, we may in memory and by the power of imagination see a railroad train moving at a speed of sixty miles an hour. The OR SWORD OF TRUTH 75 explanation of this phenomenon is the same as of the motion pictures. Mental images form and fade in rapid succession, so that the mind's eye is not conscious of the breaks or blanks between the forming and fading images. No man ever yet saw a material object. Proof of this will be brought out under the heading, "What the Cam- era Teaches." The mental object gives vibratory strength to the mental images while the eyes are turned directly on such object. Mind Impact or Ego. The mind impact or ego is about the size and shape of an ordinary pin, such as women use to pin the children's clothes to- gether. It is a crystallization and was formed at the time matter met at a common center. It is here illustrated. It is composed of a measure of all the astral substances or soul substances, with the elements of physical matter cast out. This makes it an indestructible link binding the Arch- angel, the God-Head and man together, in a form no power on earth or in heaven can destroy. The soul of man may be destroyed, and failure to unfold would foreordain its doom; but the mind impact is perfect, and no perfect thing can be destroyed, for the perfect is as inde- structible as God Himself. Electricity to be active must complete a circuit, and this was done in the following manner. A current shot out from the sun center at the instant matter rushed together at that point, and the mil- 76 PLAN OF CREATION lions of these electric tongues flashed to the outer rim of the then unorganized universe of matter; here these tongues of electric fire doubled back on themselves and moved again toward the center. A second chain of electric fire shot out from the center to meet the incoming currents, and at that point of meeting, the ego was formed. The im- pact tore the atoms of matter from the grasp of the sparks of life with their astral covering, leav- ing the ego in its perfect crystallized form. This is to the mind what the carbon points are to the street lamp. Without it mind expression would be impossible. The same action takes place when an electric current goes out over the wires from a metal dy- namo; the current passes over the wire to the lamp or return point; from this point and from the dynamo, the current rushes to complete the circuit. Where there is not sufficient current to do this, or where the connections are imperfect, the current recoils and returns to the dynamo. It is enough to say here that the ego in the God- Head and in the Archangel is many times larger than in the head of man. These egos form the basis of mind, and mind without them is unthink- able. The home of the ego is between the eye globes, and about one inch above. Around these, all mental images form and fade. The ego is the seat of the soul's eye. It is here we read and know all we shall ever know. To explain minutely how the mind works can OR SWORD OF TRUTH 77 not be undertaken here. But one of the wonders of the mind we will now point out in a brief way, and then pass to an array of facts which no one may dispute. Positive and Negative, or Male and Female. The right hemisphere of the brain is positive or masculine, while the left hemisphere is negative or feminine. Every object in nature has its own peculiar rate of vibration; and every object we observe must appeal to us in its own rate and no other. But to know in what way this appeal reaches us or just what takes place in the brain and in the mind, is the hidden secret we are now looking for. And when it is declared that every object has its own peculiar rate of vibration, we are to understand from this that this vibratory rate will appeal to definite brain centers. It is a case of voice calling unto voice, and so we find that everything that impresses us through any and all of our senses calls a spark of life and soul substance from each hemisphere of the brain, a spark from the right side being joined by a spark from the left in a corresponding division of the brain, and these are joined by a spark of life from the brain organ known as philoprogenitiveness, situated in the lower back head. The spark of life from this faculty and brain organ is carried forward by the life-thread which enters the brain through this faculty. It joins the spark of life from the two hemispheres of the brain and moves forward to the memory point over the eye globes, 78 PLAN OF CREATION where the mental image takes shape. And this is the mental stage of action, where the universe without becomes known to us. What the Facts of Memory Teach. To remem- ber is to combine and reproduce mental images. If seeing did not actually take place in the mind, there could be no such thing as memory or mind. If seeing was done with the eyes instead of through them, a blind man would lose all knowledge of himself, and might better be dead. He would be unable to recall any scenes of the past, any faces, forms or colors ; and could have no idea of the ap- pearance of any material object. Seeing is a vivid form of feeling; the soul, looking out through the eyes, feels external objects to be where they are, and for very much the same reason that we are enabled to locate the seat of pain over crooked nerves. Without feeling in some form, knowledge of any kind would be absolutely impossible. We feel the pain at the point of injury, and we feel it over the crooked nerves, as when the legs are bent we feel a pain in the foot or toe. We feel objects to be where they are, but the feeling is within us, and not in the objects we see or feel. We can not feel pain in any part of the body except an image of such part form in the mind and vibrate in uni- son with the part where the pain is felt to be. All our senses are but windows to the soul. They are not mind, nor even a part of mind. Eyes are no more a part of the mind than is the window in your house a part of yourself. The soul and the OR SWORD OF TRUTH 79 mind never get outside of the physical organism until physical death or dissolution. Whoever would speak to you must step into your skull, as it were, for the mind never leaves its organism, and it can not. The mind is the expression of the soul, and therefore it is never away from the soul. When your friend appears before you, the image you behold is formed out of your own soul sub- stance and not out of his. Objects seen by us, are vibratory points, and these vibrations cause to rise in the mind astral images that reflect perfect- ly the objects, as the mirror reflects back to you your own image. In memory, you see all that you ever did see of the object, only less vividly. The vibrations from the object make the mental im- age stronger. But it does no more than that. Memory proves that nothing goes out from us or comes to us but vibrations through a great sea of life and astral substance. We are parts of a great universal whole, hence it is not more strange that we see or feel objects at a distance than that we feel pain over crooked nerves in our own bodies, and are able to locate the seat of pain correctly. Pain conveying nerves extend only to the outer surface of the individual organism; but the nerves of feeling extend to the outer rim of the universe, as we may see the most distant star in space, if we have a telescope properly constructed. We are miniature universes, and the larger universe is re- flected in us and through us. The great sea of life connects the whole. 80 PLAN OF CEEATION If something actually went out from the mind or came back from the object, memory would be impossible; the mother would behold a strange child, every time she turned her eyes to her own offspring. No matter how many times she saw her child, she would never be able to recognize it. When familiar scenes and faces rise before us in the dark hours of night, these images are all we ever saw or imagined. To imagine is to form a mental image, and this is all that takes place when we see an object. To fully understand the mind and its workings, is to reveal the whole secrets of nature. No such attempt will here be made, but a few simple facts stated concerning the mind and its operations, in the hope that others may carry the investigation further. The Phonograph and the Mind. The mind is a machine, an organism, as truly as the phonograph is a machine or organism, the difference being that the one is conscious of what is passing through it, and the other is not. An imperfect phonograph, or a perfect one with imperfect rec- ords will render imperfect music The mind re- flects the past history of the individual; and char- acter is determined by the perfection of the or- ganism, the mental training and environment. Things of value can only be obtained by conscious effort, and so it is that every ir dividual is con- stantly growing more righteous, or less so. If one is growing more wicked, he is hastening to the time of his repentance, for wickedness is a con- OB SWORD OF TRUTH 65 tionists that man evoluted from the fish, doubtless was suggested by the fact that the human embryo at one stage of development resembles a fish in some measure. But once the reason for this re- semblance is known, the suggestion loses all the force it can have. The brain and spinal column are the first to form in both the lower animal and human child. And the reason for this is that the organism is controlled through brain centers, and the spinal column conveys the nerves to the differ- ent parts of the body. The brain and spinal col- umn must therefore take form first. The brain end of this tail-like column must of necessity re- semble the fish in some measure, but this resem- blance gives us no reason at all to suppose that man evoluted from the fish. The rudimentary stage of anything, man, an- imal or vegetable, necessarily must differ mate- rially from the fully developed organism. It is hard to imagine how it could be otherwise. 66 PLAN OF CREATION THE TWO PLANES— SPIRITUAL AND PHYSICAL. The external world is but the reflection of the internal or mental world. If man had no weeds growing in his mind, there would be none found growing in his garden. But man does not create the weeds in his garden. They are placed there by nature to reflect the mental weeds in the hu- man race as a whole. When all weeds disappear from the mind, na- ture will remove them from the physical world. The mental and physical worlds evolve together; one unfolds with the other. We can not, as some imagine, destroy the weeds by refusing to see them! We might as reasonably expect to anni- hilate the planet upon which we dwell, for one is as real as the other. The only way to eradicate the weeds in the physical world is by overcoming them in the mental; and this can be done only by evolution and growth. It is true that we can dig the weeds out of our garden, but this will not prevent the possibility of their growth. To imagine a perfect man on an imperfect world is to imagine what can not be. And by the term man is meant the race of men; for a perfect man as an individual could live on an imperfect planet with many other imperfect individuals. But this earth would not be his home. Christ was a perfect man, as we understand perfection, but OR SWORD OF TRUTH 67 this earth was not his rightful home. His home was with the Father in heaven, and he returned to his heavenly home after the resurrection. He came to this earth to lead imperfect men out of it, and when evolution has done its perfect work, the then perfect man will also leave the planet. Nature cursed the earth for man's sake, and this means that weeds, insects and animals that are at enmity with him were put here so that man might develop his mental powers by contending with them. There is no doubt but the earth was in a far worse condition before the deluge than now; vegetation was more rank, reptiles more hideous, the forests were slimy and wet. The outer world then corresponded with man's low state of development, just as it now corresponds with his more advanced, yet imperfect state. We are now nearing a new order of things, in which the physical world will take on an entirely new appearance, for we are approaching the time when there is to be a "new heaven and a new earth." Man is going to wake from his age-long sleep, and march forward with new life and hope. He is the quickening power in nature; he hastens the process of evolution in nature by hastening his own unfoldment. "Hasten; come hither, for I can do nothing till ye come." Let those who know the meaning of this quotation, correct it if wrong- ly quoted. Man is an epitome of the larger universe ; a uni- verse in miniature. He can and will express 68 PLAN OF CREATION through his mental operations, everything in the physical universe and nothing else. The mind holds the same relation to the physical world that the flower does to the plant. The unfoldment of the flower depends upon the plant. The mind of man unfolds from the elements of the physical body, which, though not rooted to the earth, grows out of it, as truly as the flower or tree. The close relation and reaction of the mental and phys- ical is referred to in such Scriptures as: "The seas and the waves thereof shall roar; for nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; and there shall be famines and pesti- lences and earthquakes in divers places. M Man is a harp of a thousand strings; nature is the musician and whatever impresses us is a fin- ger that strikes a cord. Every insect that hums and every flower that blooms is a finger to touch a cord of the human soul, by impressing itself on the mind. The physical body and brain of man is a garden in which are planted the seeds of every thing that grows, every thing that crawls or flies, and of every form and shade of beauty in the uni- verse. Each individual is his own gardener. Truth grows out of error. Beauty is seen only by contrast. Were there no cobras and vipers in the human family, there would be none in the physical world. Were there nothing but beauty, harmony, justice, love and mercy in the mind of man, the physical world would ha,ve advanced to meet this perfect OR SWORD OF TRUTH 69 order. Every discord in the physical world is evidence that there is discord in the human mind. The men who "have their price" and the men who declare "all have their price " will finally disappear and with them every hideous monster that haunts the earth. The worst form of evil in this world is that form of selfishness that allows one to feast while others starve. The pains and sufferings of a few, if it were possible . to keep it confined to narrow limits, would not be likely to stir the masses to any ef- fort to remove the wrongs that cause such suf- fering; it is only when great numbers suffer that we see an effort made to modify such suffering. The reason for this is that it is no longer possible to hide the fact from all eyes. 70 PLAN OF CREATION THE MIND AND ITS FACULTIES. We do not think with the brain. We think through the brain. The brain has no more power to think than has the foot or hand, or even the stones under your feet. Concerning the theory that "all is mind," the reader will be left to de- cide, after a consideration of the statements con- tained in this chapter. The visible and the tangible are nothing more than the lever through which power manifests it- self. The lever is itself powerless, but when pow- er is applied, it works wonders. The hands and arms, feet and legs, are actual levers through which mind acts. Even the brain is but a lever through which mind acts; for the brain is not the mind, neither has it power to think. Mind is a form of expression and an injury to the brain affects mind action, as defective keys of a musical instrument forbid expression of mu- sic through them. Mind, like music, being a form of expression, where there is no expression, there is no conscious existence. As the music stops when the player ceases to perform, the mind ceases to express itself when the five senses no longer respond to impressions from the outer world. Mind being a form of expression, there can be neither intelligence nor consciousness where there is no such expression. Without the power of OK SWORD OF TKUTH 71 speech, we might be judged insane, and without the power to express thought through the brain, we would be insane; for the mind is rational only to the degree that rationality can be expressed. We are unconscious of everything except of what rises in the mind. We think words before we ut- ter them. Without the memory of past events, we would be insane, or without the power of thought. So long as the soul, with its faculties, is confined in the flesh body, it is dependent upon the brain through which it must give expression to mind. The fingers, bound in a rigid iron glove, could not act upon the separate keys of a piano or other musical instrument. Music is an expression of melody, while mind is an expression of harmony. Where there is no melody there is no music. And where there is no harmony there can be no mind or conscious recog- nition. Music is but one phase of mind, for music without mind is inconceivable. We are intelligent to the degree that we sense harmony, or recognize things in their proper order or right relations in nature. Mind is as truly a form of expression as running is a form of motion. Mind aside from conscious mental expression is as contradictory as rest and motion. When we come tc see, as we shall further on, the manner in which mind ex- presses, the careful reader will see the fallacy in the claim that "all is mind." The objects we see about us are not mind, but the mind receives impressions from these objects 72 PLAN OF CREATION and the images thus created in the mind are the only things that can be recognized by the mind, therefore the only true mind expression. These mental images are formed out of soul substance, and reflect the external universe. The soul being one, recognizes its own microscopic universe, and through the senses it recognizes the larger universe. It is voice calling unto voice. The mental universe reflects the external universe, its laws and its operations, and it reflects nothing more. Mind and memory do not cease at physical death, for the physical form is but the soil out of which the soul grows. The visible form is not mind, as the lamp is not the light, nor the wick, the oil. Light, like mind, is a form of active ex- pression. Electric lights are placed on circuits. The mind of man is electrical in its nature; it, too, is placed on a circuit. The declaration, "Ye are wonderfully and fearfully made" is indeed borne out by the facts, and was not made without full knowledge of the facts. Electricity is life, and man is a bat- tery on a circuit. The lamp cut off from the dy- namo gives off no light vibrations. A human be- ing cut off from two polarities outside of his own organism would be equally unable to express any degree of mind or intelligence. Mental images are produced by breaks in the circuit. Before the metal telegraph was invented the mental tele- graph was busy sending messages out in space for OR SWORD OF TRUTH 73 millions of miles, yet without knowledge that it was doing so. All that we are conscious of is the images that rise in the mind, to agree in form and color to the external object. With mind, as with the telegraph, it is the opening and closing of the circuit that causes words, sounds, images and mental impressions. The flame of the lamp, that appears as a con- tinuous flame, is in reality a succession of flames, the breaks being as numerous as the vibrations, too rapid for us to see. Every flame is but a suc- cession of flames. The universe and every object in it is polarized in the human organism, first in the flesh body, afterwards in the soul. Every object in the uni- verse is composed of two or more of the sixty-four elemental substances. The organism of man com- prises in its make-up a measure of all these ele- ments. Therefore, man has an answering voice to every object in the universe. The " Shakes- peare without can only commune with the Shakes- peare within." If there be no Shakespeare with- in, then there can be no communion, and there- fore no knowledge of the outward. All nature is stamped on the nerve and brain cells of man. The physical world is the voice that calls ever to these tiny sparks of life and calls them from their prison cells. When these are set free, they are a "voice in the ear, a light in the eye, a guide to the feet." What other voice or light or guide can there be, but the memory of past experience? The 74 PLAN OF CREATION nerve and brain cells hold the tiny sparks of life with their astral covering; and the exercise of the higher faculties is to "have life and have it more abundantly.' ' These freed sparks of life are the written record of the individual life and experi- ence. In our thoughts we live and move and have our being. Every brain organ is polarized in some special function or part of the body; hence, when a faculty is active, the corresponding part of the body is active, and the soul will develop normally, at least in that part of the body. If the higher faculties are inactive, the soul will be spotted like a leopard, for the soul grows out of the physical body like the plant grows out of the soil. If the flesh body failed to yield up the soul substance im- prisoned in the body and brain cells, there could be no soul and no after life. Moving Pictures. Those who know the manner in which motion pictures are taken, and why they appear in motion on the canvas, can from this knowledge gain a good idea of the mind and its operations. To the observer it appears that the picture moves across the canvas, but in reality there is thrown on the screen a succession of pic- tures, taken in rapid order. As these different pictures form and fade on the canvas, the sensa- tion of motion is produced. With the eyes closed, we may in memory and by the power of imagination see a railroad train moving at a speed of sixty miles an hour. The OR SWORD OF TRUTH 75 explanation of this phenomenon is the same as of the motion pictures. Mental images form and fade in rapid succession, so that the mind's eye is not conscious of the breaks or blanks between the forming and fading images. No man ever yet saw a material object. Proof of this will be brought out under the heading, "What the Cam- era Teaches.' ' The mental object gives vibratory strength to the mental images while the eyes are turned directly on such object. Mind Impact or Ego. The mind impact or ego is about the size and shape of an ordinary pin, such as women use to pin the children's clothes to- gether. It is a crystallization and was formed at the time matter met at a common center. It is here illustrated. It is composed of a measure of all the astral substances or soul substances, with the elements of physical matter cast out. This makes it an indestructible link binding the Arch- angel, the God-Head and man together, in a form no power on earth or in heaven can destroy. The soul of man may be destroyed, and failure to unfold would foreordain its doom; but the mind impact is perfect, and no perfect thing can be destroyed, for the perfect is as inde- structible as God Himself. Electricity to be active must complete a circuit, and this was done in the following manner. A current shot out from the sun center at the instant matter rushed together at that point, and the mil- 76 PLAN OF CREATION lions of these electric tongues flashed to the outer rim of the then unorganized universe of matter; here these tongues of electric fire doubled back on themselves and moved again toward the center. A second chain of electric fire shot out from the center to meet the incoming currents, and at that point of meeting, the ego was formed. The im- pact tore the atoms of matter from the grasp of the sparks of life with their astral covering, leav- ing the ego in its perfect crystallized form. This is to the mind what the carbon points are to the street lamp. Without it mind expression would be impossible. The same action takes place when an electric current goes out over the wires from a metal dy- namo; the current passes over the wire to the lamp or return point; from this point and from the dynamo, the current rushes to complete the circuit. Where there is not sufficient current to do this, or where the connections are imperfect, the current recoils and returns to the dynamo. It is enough to say here that the ego in the God- Head and in the Archangel is many times larger than in the head of man. These egos form the basis of mind, and mind without them is unthink- able. The home of the ego is between the eye globes, and about one inch above. Around these, all mental images form and fade. The ego is the seat of the soul's eye. It is here we read and know all we shall ever know. To explain minutely how the mind works can OR SWORD OF TRUTH 77 not be undertaken here. But one of the wonders of the mind we will now point out in a brief way, and then pass to an array of facts which no one may dispute. Positive and Negative, or Male and Female. The right hemisphere of the brain is positive or masculine, while the left hemisphere is negative or feminine. Every object in nature has its own peculiar rate of vibration; and every object we observe must appeal to us in its own rate and no other. But to know in what way this appeal reaches us or just what takes place in the brain and in the mind, is the hidden secret we are now looking for. And when it is declared that every object has its own peculiar rate of vibration, we are to understand from this that this vibratory rate will appeal to definite brain centers. It is a case of voice calling unto voice, and so we find that everything that impresses us through any and all of our senses calls a spark of life and soul substance from each hemisphere of the brain, a spark from the right side being joined by a spark from the left in a corresponding division of the brain, and these are joined by a spark of life from the brain organ known as philoprogenitiveness, situated in the lower back head. The spark of life from this faculty and brain organ is carried forward by the life-thread which enters the brain through this faculty. It joins the spark of life from the two hemispheres of the brain and moves forward to the memory point over the eye globes, 78 PLAN OF CREATION where the mental image takes shape. And this is the mental stage of action, where the universe without becomes known to us. What the Facts of Memory Teach. To remem- ber is to combine and reproduce mental images. If seeing did not actually take place in the mind, there could be no such thing as memory or mind. If seeing was done with the eyes instead of through them, a blind man would lose all knowledge of himself, and might better be dead. He would be unable to recall any scenes of the past, any faces, forms or colors ; and could have no idea of the ap- pearance of any material object. Seeing is a vivid form.of feeling; the soul, looking out through the eyes, feels external objects to be where they are, and for very much the same reason that we are enabled to locate the seat of pain over crooked nerves. Without feeling in some form, knowledge of any kind would be absolutely impossible. We feel the pain at the point of injury, and we feel it over the crooked nerves, as when the legs are bent we feel a pain in the foot or toe. We feel objects to be where they are, but the feeling is within us, and not in the objects we see or feel. We can not feel pain in any part of the body except an image of such part form in the mind and vibrate in uni- son with the part where the pain is felt to be. All our senses are but windows to the soul. They are not mind, nor even a part of mind. Eyes are no more a part of the mind than is the window in your house a part of yourself. The soul and the OE SWOKD OF TRUTH 79 mind never get outside of the physical organism until physical death or dissolution. Whoever would speak to you must step into your skull, as it were, for the mind never leaves its organism, and it can not. The mind is the expression of the soul, and therefore it is never away from the soul. When your friend appears before you, the image you behold is formed out of your own soul sub- stance and not out of his. Objects seen by us, are vibratory points, and these vibrations cause to rise in the mind astral images that reflect perfect- ly the objects, as the mirror reflects back to you your own image. In memory, you see all that you ever did see of the object, only less vividly. The vibrations from the object make the mental im- age stronger. But it does no more than that. Memory proves that nothing goes out from us or comes to us but vibrations through a great sea of life and astral substance. We are parts of a great universal whole, hence it is not more strange that we see or feel objects at a distance than that we feel pain over crooked nerves in our own bodies, and are able to locate the seat of pain correctly. Pain conveying nerves extend only to the outer surface of the individual organism; but the nerves of feeling extend to the outer rim of the universe, as we may see the most distant star in space, if we have a telescope properly constructed. We are miniature universes, and the larger universe is re- flected in us and through us. The great sea of life connects the whole. 80 PLAN OF CEEATION If something actually went out from the mind or came back from the object, memory would be impossible; the mother would behold a strange child, every time she turned her eyes to her own offspring. No matter how many times she saw her child, she would never be able to recognize it. When familiar scenes and faces rise before us in the dark hours of night, these images are all we ever saw or imagined. To imagine is to form a mental image, and this is all that takes place when we see an object. To fully understand the mind and its workings, is to reveal the whole secrets of nature. No such attempt will here be made, but a few simple facts stated concerning the mind and its operations, in the hope that others may carry the investigation further. The Phonograph and the Mind. The mind is a machine, an organism, as truly as the phonograph is a machine or organism, the difference being that the one is conscious of what is passing through it, and the other is not. An imperfect phonograph, or a perfect one with imperfect rec- ords will render imperfect music. The mind re- flects the past history of the individual; and char- acter is determined by the perfection of the or- ganism, the mental training and environment. Things of value can only be obtained by conscious effort, and so it is that every individual is con- stantly growing more righteous, or less so. If one is growing more wicked, he is hastening to the time of his repentance, for wickedness is a con- OR SWORD OF TRUTH 81 suming fire. If one is growing less wicked, then lie is hastening to the day of his salvation. Na- ture has her price fixed on happiness, and all must pay the price, which is the same to all. Nature does not discriminate. She knows the value of her jewels and she means to make them all per- fect. We have our work to do. God can not think for us. We must think for ourselves, and how and what we think determines whether we shall be happy or miserable. What the Camera Teaches. In photographing any object or person with a camera, the film does not jump out of the camera box and fly to such object to get the impression that way. We know equally well that objects to be photographed do not pass into the camera box. But light vibra- tions act on the sensitized film, leaving an im- pression of the object there. These light vibra- tions dry up some of the chemicals on the film, more in some places, less in others, and the result- ing lights and shades give us a picture of the ob- ject thus photographed. From the camera we learn something of the nature of taking pictures of objects that come before our eyes. As with the camera, so with mind and memory. The Seventh Sense. The imagination is the seventh and highest sense in man. It is the im- age former and is the faculty that makes mind possible. It pictures all the objects that come be- fore us, and from these it makes new ones and new combinations. It is the historian and the inventor 82 PLAN OF CEEATION in man; it is the picture gallery where we go to review the past. It unites the present with the past. The sixth sense is wonderful in many ways, but is not on as high a plane as the seventh. It is through the sixth sense that "sensitives" read the mental messages of distant friends. It is the sixth sense that enables hypnotic subjects to read the backs of cards, and to decipher messages in sealed envelopes. And it is the sixth sense that enables lower animals to guide themselves back to their homes and to their young. We are as so many street lamps ; the mind is the flame we see, the Current is forever flowing through us, and like the current in the lamp, it must return to its start- ing point. Prejudice. The mind can no more arrive at correct conclusions along lines where there is an element of prejudice than it can work out math- ematical problems by ignoring mathematical rules. The mind must desire to know only that which is true. It must not seek to bolster up falsehood to look like the truth, for even though this deceives others, it does not deceive yourself. You will know at what point you turned from that which looked more like the truth. Prejudice is all that stands between mankind and a much fuller knowledge of the truth. A rift in this cloud of prejudice will reveal God and His plans and purposes to the human race. Here the so-called believer and the doubter stand equal- OR SWORD OF TRUTH 83 ly condemned in their own conscience, for neither will accept a suggestion from the other, and neither will acknowledge that the other has any truth on his side. One is no less stubborn than the other nor less blind than the other. Each one of us has some truth. But we do not obey the Divine injunction, "Hear all sides, hold fast that which seemeth good," for had we done this, the world would today be much further advanced in civilization than it is, and there would not be a hungry human being upon the planet, and not one in actual want of any necessary thing. Let there be rifts in the cloud of prejudice. If thoughts came to us like birds lighting in trees (some teach this doctrine), we would have no memory of them after they flew away. Thought stimulus comes from without, but the images rise within, and are therefore a part of our own organism. That thoughts can flow to us from without is impossible. The time will come when it will be an inspiration to listen to the words of any adult member of the human race. When that time arrives, man will be able to "think God's thoughts over after Him." Prejudice will then have lost its power over the human mind. All na- ture is to be revealed through the minds of the members of the human family, and in that day all will be Edisons, and will be looking and watch- ing anxiously for the new ideas and new inven- tions which will in that day come almost as thick and fast as snow flakes. Each human being rep- 84 PLAN OF CREATION resents a book of revelations and in the better day, which is fast approaching, these human books of revelation will be in every community, and finally all will be active and yielding up their fruit, as nature intends that we shall. Mind Not a Substance. The founder of what is known as the "Substantial Philosophy,' ' ex- plained light, heat, sound, mind, etc., upon the theory that each is a substance by itself. But this explanation, though apparently very simple, is not satisfactory. To call these various forms of expression different substances, is a child's ex- planation. The volume of memory is the volume of the soul, the sum total of life, for it is the meas- ure of all experience. It is the written pages of the book of life. The unwritten pages remain im- prisoned in the brain and nerve cells of the phys- ical organism. The soul, though composed of sixty-four elemental substances, the life principle is one indivisible substance. This substance is the sprit of God, and is the spirit and life of man, for it alone is life, and life alone is power. Life only can have power to move and act, and this in- divisible life substance is the molder and the builder, for "every house hath a builder, and God is the builder of the universe," for this indivisi- ble spirit is God and it is electrical in its nature. Vibrational Rates, or Cause and Effect. The soul through the eyes takes pictures of every ob- ject the eyes rest on, even for the briefest period of time; and though apparently not remembered, OE SWORD OF TEUTH 85 sometime these memory impressions will rise in answer to the right voice. Every voice is a rate of vibration, and the rate of vibration is deter- mined by the nature of the substance, through which the life substance is compelled to move. There is not white, red, green or blue light, for light is an effect, not a substance that exists as such. The nature and density of the substance through which light comes to us determines the rate and force of the vibration, and therefore the color of light is red or green or blue, depending upon the substance or material it must pass through in coming to us. The hard knot will al- most bring the circular saw to a stop, while soft wood allows it to revolve rapidly. Vibrations do not determine the nature of substances, though substances do determine the rates of vibration. We should not be misled by appearances. The sun looks red, when seen through red glass or smoke and the hard knot will slacken the speed of the saw, but we are not misled as to the reason in either case. Our lives are like chapters in books. Each chapter is given over to some special part of the subject; and so our lives are divided into varying experiences. In one set of experiences, the inci- dents of another are not vivid. But as the first pages of a book may be even less dim than the last pages, so the impressions of childhood may be even more vividly stamped on the mind than those of later years. It is a matter of joining the mem- 86 PLAN OF CREATION ory links, one to another. To recall the farmhouse of long ago is to call to mind the other buildings, the scenes, and faces of old acquaintance. Each new impression modifies our normal rates of vi- bration; we are not the same being for two days in succession. Every day nature stamps us with new impressions. The rates of vibration in the soul of a deep thinker and active worker are much higher than in the numb-skull and plodder, because activity sets free a greater quantity of astral or soul sub- stance. Thought releases the imprisoned sparks o£ life from the brain and body cells, and this re- leased substance is not under the power of grav- ity, which is the power of death. Gravity acts only upon physical matter. It has power over the soul only so long as the soul substance is confined in brain and body cells. All impressions are writ- ten in the indelible substance of the soul, and can- not be erased. Memory is not written on the brain, though it must express through the brain so long as the soul remains in the flesh body. The Complete Circuit. When the eyes are turned to any object, light waves from such ob- ject cause an image to form on the retina lining the eye-globes; the circuit is completed through the optic nerves and down from the ego point to the eye-globes. At the ego or memory point a single image is formed from those in the eye- globes, and it is this image the mind observes. When one eye is destroyed, the power of seeing OR SWORD OF TRUTH 87 remains, though weakened, for the reason that the induction coil completes the circuit through the lifeless eye, forming the image above and between the eye-globes as before. When both eyes are de- stroyed, the circuit is not broken through the eye- sockets, and memory images rise as before, for the law can not be defeated, though it may be crippled in the organism. Memory proves that seeing is not done in the eye-globes, but through them. It is well to bear this fact in mind. The blind could not call to memory an image of the face or faces of those near and dear, unless sight takes place in the mind instead of in the eyes. The expenditure of nerve energy is the price of a physical act; while the explosion of brain and nerve cells is the price of a mental act. A number of cells disappear in the brain and organism, to reappear in the soul as a new memory or a new experience. The Conscious Plane. It is not necessary that mind recognition accompany or precede an act of nature, in order that the act may be well done. Nature performs most of her work while the mind sleeps. The bullet from the rifle needs no eye to guide it, nor the river a hand to direct its course, but it is conscious recognition of the beauties and wonders of nature that makes it worth while to have a universe. The enjoyment comes from con- scious recognition of what has been done and what is being done. Even in our own organisms 88 PLAN OF CREATION much takes place that is not consciously observed, and mind is not present in greater degree else- where in nature. The river flows on in its channel unconsciously, and it is better so. The bullet is carried forward by the law of momentum, and it needs no other guide. Though in the perfect state, the mind will not sleep in the angel as it does not now sleep in the God-Head. The sleep- ing takes place in the current as it passes from planet to planet arid back to the God-Head, as it now passes through our organisms, for sleep is not death or inactivity, but merely absence of conscious recognition. And absence of conscious recognition is merely the phonograph running with the record removed. The life current is never inactive. The blood circulates more evenly when we are least conscious of its flow. Cause of Sleep. Sleep is a quiescent state of mind, a closing of the faculties, brought about by the drying up of the nerve fluids of the body, at least in the outer extremities of the nerves. This fluid is to the mind and muscular power of the body what steam is to the engine, and what chem- icals are to the film upon which a picture is to be photographed. The blood continues to circulate in all parts of the body during sleep, in the brain as well as in the body, but mind expression is ab- sent. The nerve fluid renders the nerves of sensation sensitive to light and sound waves, and to the OR SWORD OF TRUTH 89 world around us through any and all of our phys- ical senses. During the hours of mental and physical action this nerve fluid is burnt up or decomposed, leav- ing the outer ends of the nerves dry, and render- ing them unable to convey nature's messages to us. As every revolution of the engine calls for an expenditure of steam, so does every act, whether mental or physical, call for an expenditure of nerve fluid. For it is this fluid that makes brain and nerve cells sensitive, though it does not be- come a part of the organism, nor of the soul and mind. It is the steam that runs the organism, in- cluding mental operations, and it is nothing more. Like steam, it escapes as fast as consumed or con- verted to force in action. The internal world is active because the external world is bombarding one or more of the five physical senses through vibratory action. After the outer ends of the nerves become dry and unimpressionable, mental operations cease for want of outside stimulus. And thus the reason for not being over-particular about what we eat, for what we eat is not incor- porated in the soul. The soul remains in this quiescent state till sufficient fluid has been manu- factured from the blood to recharge the nerves, when mental operations resume. The recharging of the nerves with the battery or nerve fluid, be- gins at the inner ends of the nerves and continues outward. When recharging is complete, sleep is impossible. The fluid is consumed from the outer 90 PLAN OF CREATION ends of the nerves inward, and this continues un- til the outer world is dead to us. Even in dreams, some parts of the brain and some of the senses are awake, for in sound sleep there is no mental action at all. That sleep is due to the drying up of nerve fluids ought to be apparent to any one, for do we not see this law illustrated in the telegraph plant 1 When the battery fluids become low or weak, no messages can be sent over the wires. The life thread that connects us with nature through the God-Head does not animate our physical bodies; this, must come from the food taken into the stom- ach, and the air breathed into the lungs. The life thread makes it possible to reason and to think, but it can not take the place of food or air. The photographer can not take pictures on dry plates. Nor can the life thread animate dried up brain and nerve cells. This is not meant to furnish a complete explana- tion of the mind and its operations. The outer shell of truth has been broken, and in a few cases removed. But there are numerous inner shells yet to be removed, before the full truth is revealed. The first step is important, because it leads to the next. The Three Centers. The office of the mind is to think, the centers of feeling being located in other parts of the organism. The heart, lungs and sex organs are the three mental centers of feeling, and the only parts of the body that respond to mental impressions, by a distinct sense of feeling in these OR SWORD OF TRUTH 91 parts themselves. Here alone do we feel the pow- er of hatred, revenge, love, joy and emotion. Take away the power of feeling from these centers and man would be reduced to a cold calculating ma- chine, without feeling, sentiment or modesty. The only sensation that can be felt in other parts of the body is the feeling of pain or pressure and the sense of touch. God's Voice Within. The voice of God in the soul or individual is a soul faculty, and it is sit- uated in the upper top-head just under the faculty of firmness; the name of this faculty is Conscien- tiousness. With this faculty active, the individ- ual is safe as a moral being within the limits of his understanding. The faculty of firmness is placed over this faculty and in close touch with it, seemingly, that it may give power of decision in all matters where conscience is to be consulted. Of course, it must be borne in mind that the soul 's faculties live, move and have their power of ex- pression through brain organs, so long as the soul remains in the physical body. Where this faculty is wholly inactive, the indi- vidual is as dangerous and unreliable as a lower animal, providing, of course, the animal faculties combativeness and destructiveness are strong and active. With conscientiousness weak, and the an- imal faculties strong, such individual is not open to moral suasion. We can do no better than live in obedience to this voice within, guided by the best light at our command. We could not as in- 92 PLAN OF CEEATION dividuals be expected to be guided by the con- science of others, unless this be in perfect agree- ment with onr own conscience. He who refuses to obey his conscience will find himself moving to- ward the animal plane. Telegraphy. Telegraphic messages are not con- veyed by the current passing rapidly over the wires, but by opening and closing the circuit. The same principle illustrated in sending mes- sages across continents, over wires to distant points, is illustrated in mind action. Every men- tal a£t causes a break in the circuit. It is the breaks in the current, and not the undisturbed flow of it, that enables messages to be transmitted by wire. It is the breaks in the current at the car- bon points that produces the light. In the case of mental messages, so nearly instantaneous is the process that we need not spend any energy esti- mating the time required to complete the circuit. It is much as though a rod of rigid steel extended from earth to a fixed star, the intervening space being a perfect vacuum, thus assuring us that there is no friction. Distance is not a factor, for in interplanetary space, there can be no friction whatever, as will be brought out in a subsequent chapter. Force applied to one end of our steel rod pass- ing through an absolute vacuum, will be instantly carried to the opposite end. A shove on one end, produces a like motion at the other, without loss of time in transit. OR SWORD OF TRUTH 93 Lower Animal and Intelligence. The lower an- imal is not intelligent for the reason that its soul faculties are not developed; its soul must be trans- planted to better soil, before a high degree of in- telligence can be manifested or expressed. In man we find a much fuller expression of mind. The weak faculties in one, may be, and often are, the strong faculties in another. In the lower an- imal we find but a trace of the intellectual and moral faculties, too weak to manifest at all. Mind is measured by its power of manifestation, not by its quantity or volume as a stream of water. Mind is the soul's power of manifestation, and not the soul itself. The soul may exist and yet possess little power to manifest intelligence. Wood is not heat, though it has within it the pos- sibility of manifesting heat. Wood, through the action of combustion, gives off heat. This it does by liberating static electricity, and similarly the action of the mind liberates or sets free the tiny sparks of life bound in brain and nerve cells. Static electricity is that which is held bound in wood, coal and other combustible material. When re- leased, it becomes active. It exists in the cells of our bodies, in a similar state, and when released by mental action it joins the free soul ocean of ex- pressive life. Combustion is impossible in mate- rial that has no live atoms in it. Were there no live atoms to draw from, there could be no new growths, for static electricity is that part of the life current that is still bound to the material 94 PLAN OF CREATION atom. Even the flesh body after the soul leaves it contains live cells, and therefore static elec- tricity, but this does not belong to the soul. An atom of matter without an atmosphere would be the same as a planet without an atmosphere. It would be dead. Our atmosphere and the waters of the earth are composed entirely of live atoms. Growth will cease the moment there are no more live atoms to draw from, and just as a planet would cease to have life, heat and light if it lost its atmosphere. The soul is not mind, but an instrument, a ves- sel. Bearing in mind always the fact that mind is a form of expression, not a thing or substance as such, it is not difficult to understand that mind must express through an instrument, a vessel, as the power of steam must express through the engine of iron or steel. Man is made in the im- age of the God-Head form, and is destined to be- come as perfect as the Father. Xo power can de- feat this perfect ultimate. As in the Father, so in the Son, and in all Sons. That nature first cre- ated her architect or expressive head, and then worked through this expressive head, is not one whit more wonderful or harder to understand, than that she is now creating man and through him is building houses and cities. TTe have but a faint understanding of how nature does this, but one of the facts is plainly evident, and the one fact points to the other. Nature acts through faculties and functions, OE SWORD OF TEUTH 95 never promiscuously, or in a haphazard manner. She acts from definite centers and produces defi- nite results. She grows the oak from the acorn and she grows the organism from mental facul- ties, or rather, by acting through them. The Will. The will may be said to be the main- spring of the mind, while the faculty known as Causality may be said to be the eye of the mind. If the animal faculties are stronger and more ac- tive than the higher or moral and intellectual fac- ulties, reason will yield to the will and the indi- vidual will do about as the savage or lower an- imals would do under similar circumstances. But if the higher faculties are strong and active, the individual will live more in these than in the lower, and unless he be unduly tempted, he will refuse to yield to his animal faculties. Nor is it altogether a matter of strength of will, for the horse has a weaker will than man, yet he can not be made to drink, against his will. The individual will be true to the faculties that lead him. If his moral and intellectual faculties are weak, he will derive more pleasure from the animal faculties, and will therefore live in them. The higher joys of life are known only to those in whom the high- er faculties are strongest, and results from their exercise. Thus we see the futility of attempting to fight the evil desires with the will. The only way to weaken the evil desires is to cultivate the higher ones. It is the old, old story of overcoming evil 96 PLAN OF CREATION with good. So long as the higher faculties are weak and inactive, just so long must we expect to be cursed by over indulgence through the lower, for men will continue to do the things they most desire at the time. Only the fear of the penalty, or of losing a greater pleasure deters men from following their desires immediately s So what- ever we do, it is in response to the strongest de- sire. Physical or mental suffering, or heart-felt sadness, drives man from the lower to the higher. He hurts others, others hurt him. His desires lead him through fires that scorch and burn. He learns the best course at last. Of this there can be -no doubt, for suffering in one form or another grows more and more unbearable and leads either to reformation or to suicide. The lion, the tiger and the other flesh-eating animals have no reason to refrain from killing and eating other animals, for they have no higher pur- pose or pleasure than to eat and sleep. These an- imals live on a plane far below the intellectual and moral, and whatever they do is consistent with animal nature. But man is capacitated to live on a much higher plane, in fact he is by en- dowment of mental faculties, but little lower than the angels. He can and should live on a plane far removed from the animal plane and should refuse to yield to his animal faculties. The lower ani- mal violates no natural or moral law, for the lower animals have no conception of morality or justice. The mind of man is a kind of reproducer, of the OR SWORD OF TRUTH 97 forms seen around us in the physical world, and of the mental impressions of other minds. Music must, in order to be appreciated by us, repeat it- self in our minds, just as it expresses itself in the mind of the musician. Again, it is like receiving a message over a telephone wire. The listener must understand the value of the words spoken, and must allow to be repeated in his own mind the message that is active in the mind of the send- er. It is simply a case of reproduction. The men- tal instruments to communicate with each other must be very much alike in every essential. Light has no meaning except to eyes, and words are valueless except to ears. The mind must be able to reproduce whatever comes to it, for the princi- ple is universal. The mind is not one homogeneous whole. It is divisioned into parts. Intelligence is mental ac- tivity and can only manifest through a great num- ber of faculties, each of which expresses a certain phase of mind. Each individual is like a great number of individuals ; he is painter, artist, musi- cian, sculptor all in one. But few of us are suffi- ciently developed in all our faculties to do more than one thing well or in the best manner possi- ble. The carpenter is seldom able to do as good work outside of his profession. But even though we are not all musicians and painters, we all have some degree of appreciation, while there are none who are wholly lacking in any mental faculty or function. All have some knowledge of colors, va- 98 PLAN OF CREATION nations in sound, and in variations in size and shapes of things. The science of phrenology is a fact, though not all of what some phrenologists teach may be true or just what they think it to be. We receive impressions from objects within range of our physical senses, and these impres- sions become new information to us, worth more or less to us, depending upon our mental develop- ment or unf oldment. The same impressions to the mind of a dog or other lower animal would mean much less to it than to an intelligent human being. We receive music only when we are equipped with the faculty of tune, which may be called the men- tal reproducer of music. Intelligence is conscious recognition, and this in turn is mental expression. Nothing can be known to any being, God or man, except what is mentally expressed in the indi- vidual at that time. Just as we produce music by pressing the proper keys in measured time, so do we express all other phases of mind by mental ac- tion, and we are conscious only of what is ex- pressed. We could not say of a man "he is in- telligence,' ' for this would imply that intelligence or mind is a concrete object or thing. But we can say of a man that he is ' 'intelligent,' ' meaning by this that the man is capacitated to express intel- ligence. We can say of the phonograph record that it contains a fine piece of music, or has a fine piece of music engraved on it; though we could not say of the record that it is a fine piece of music, for that would be misleading. OR SWORD OF TRUTH 99 Again, there are those who declare that our mis- takes here and now make scars on the soul that never can be healed, and that words spoken go on vibrating for an eternity. If this were true God would be eternally limited by man's blindness and viciousness. A soul that could not be healed of its wounds would be destroyed, for an eternal curse could not be thought of. As to words spoken vi- brating for an eternity, that would be to curse the universe and all conscious life by the passions of a moment. It is simpler to imagine words re- peated, than to imagine them vibrating for an eternity. It is more in keeping with good sense to stop the machine and remove the record, than to keep it grinding away on one tune for an eternity. Human beings are much like parrots; they re- peat without careful thought much that is de- clared by others to be truth. Mankind is too prone to accept as truth a claim that is supported by a few strong points, without taking the time to look for the possible stronger points against such claim, which may not be quite so apparent to the careless thinker. When 'it is declared that "all is mind," even some of our scientists accept the claim as a fact in nature, not stopping to see where such assumption leads them. While many of the operations of natural law are seemingly acts of intelligence, careful think- ing will reveal the fact that these are not con- scious and willed expressions. Take, for example, 100 PLAN OF CREATION the action of the law of gravity. This law acts with a precision that is beyond man's comprehen- sion. No power directed by the intellect could possibly accomplish such accuracy. Were this power conscious, it would represent an intelligence more cruel than anything conceiv- able. The proverbial devil is an angel of mercy compared to the relentlessness of this law, if con- ceived to be the conscious expression of will. The power of gravity lies in chemical affinity or attraction, and needs no eyes to guide it or con- science to reprove. Nature's laws are as surely fixed in channels as the locomotive is fixed in a groove by steel rails, or the river in its course by a channel. Neither the locomotive, the river nor the circular saw are guided by any intelligence in- herent in themselves. The plow in the furrow is not self-directed, nor is it even conscious of what it is doing or is made to do. Yet there are some who claim that plants have eyes, and back of these eyes, minds. If plants be thought to have eyes is it not equally reasonable to assume the feet and hands have eyes and minds? It is far more reasonable to think of the feet and hands as having eyes, but the eyes are in the head, where they belong, not in the ends of the fingers and toes, where they could be of no possible use. The simple fact that there are mental faculties and brain organs is in itself ample proof that "all is (not) mind." If "all is mind," what reason is there for the subdivision? If this "all mind" OR SWORD OF TRUTH 101 fills every part of the human organism, why eclipse this universal mind with a lesser part for- ever groping its way in the dark? If there is one "all mind,'' heads and brains of men and animals represent egregious blunders on the part of the * l all mind. ' ' There would be no need of the sub- divisions if the "all is mind" had intelligence and power to accomplish the results required. Belief in anything not a fact in nature is as surely super- stition as a belief in wooden gods. Notwithstanding this "all is mind" doctrine has deceived millions of the human race, includ- ing some of its brightest minds, there is no truth more clearly manifest in nature than that mind is but a form of expression, and can express only through mental faculties created for this purpose. There is a universal substance that can prop- erly be called life; we may even call it force, for life alone has power to act. Even force might with reason be said to be a form of manifestation or action. But we are unquestionably safe in calling this substance life, for life alone can build a universe and bind it together by its power to act. The Hydraulic Nozzle. Those familiar with hydraulic mining know that a great quantity of running water can be forced through a small opening, as through the nozzle of a hose, under great pressure. This is not the result of com- pression in the water, which is impossible, but is the direct result of great pressure obtained by confining the water in a channel as it pours down FL_L\- . 7 CBEATIOX 7L-5 rrinzit'.f 12s :^: izllj ex- iri :: s. .7 ni li-ri :zl~ :e re- or :- :-: of as the ::zli iirlr -5 :: - i-sTizi -Jus -.'-.' is :i: _r ii'.t T_- 7 jane the L to tke God-Head Ego :: 3. slzz'.t man. Ttts Me4hiead entens the head ._ "_7 zTiii: :rriz zz: i :: "_7 :..:i:7 :: >gy as PhfloprogemtiTeiiess, situated at - :i.:> -?- :: :"_e s-ll. :: t^s-s :~: ATI the great dis:- e by man simply i: : Tze iisi-'.T^TT that a e, for mam is as truly a function of ■>: i-Z^i zs -±- tZ_~:_ l~ a ne~ — :: the _ -. — lightning speed at this point. OR SWORD OF TRUTH 103 is man the " quickening" power in nature and the " light of the world," for the same current that binds us to the God-Head develops light and heat in its passage through the earth and its atmos- phere. That man is "fearfully and wonderfully made" will not be questioned by the thoughtful mind. Our bodies are here, though we are rooted in the God-Head, and through God's eyes we see all that we see of the universe. It might be said that man or the organism of man are the tentacles of the God-Head projected into space. God sees through us "but dimly," though in time to come He will see through the faculties of man perfectly. A more complete understanding of the manner in which the earth receives its light and heat from the sun will be brought out in another chapter. Hypnotism and Hydrophobia. We have seen that variation is a fixed fact in nature; no two objects are exactly alike, and no two have exactly the same rate of vibration. Each one is keyed to a certain pitch. We each read the mental im- pressions that come to us in our own rates, and we know nothing of other rates. The hypnotist by changing the subject's rate of vibration com- pletely causes the subject to lose the power to feel pain. His mind being made to vibrate at a dif- ferent rate, can not read the pain message. What is true of hypnosis is also true of hydrophobia, for the same law governs everywhere. The germ from the mad-dog sets up a rate of vibration like that of the dog, which continues until the whole 104 PLAN OF CREATION organism vibrates in that key. Hence the victim can only think and act as the dog thinks and acts in the same diseased state of mind, and thus the reason for his acting and barking like a dog. This affliction could probably be cured through the power of hypnotic suggestion, which is faith un- hampered by doubt. Were it possible to cast all doubt from the mind, and live wholly in faith, there could be no disease in our systems, for faith is the power of God in man. Doubt nullifies this power. In the hypnotic sleep, many forms of nervous diseases can be cured, and surgical operations per- formed without pain, often without danger, as has been proven by European doctors. But the gen- eral use of hypnotism is not here recommended, for it may be used for evil as well as good. We here only point out the fundamental law back of hypnotism, and the explanation of hydrophobia. We see, feel, hear and taste in our own partic- ular and individualized rates of vibration, hence the hypnotic subject drinks water and thinks it wine, being under the control of the hypnotist. He sees or imagines what the hypnotist allows to pass through his own mind. And in certain states of this sleep, a pain inflicted on the hypnotist is felt by the subject, while at the same time pins may be thrust through the lips and ears of the subject and he will feel no pain. To change the rate of vibration of one indi- vidual to that of another, is to speak Latin to ears OR SWORD OF TRUTH 105 that know it not. At the same time we learn the power of faith from actual tests, which have been conducted by masters of the art of hypnotism. And as a closing remark in this connection it may be well to state here that many of the won- ders performed by the "fakirs" of East India, is the work of hypnotism. These men have so trained themselves that they can make mental images so strong in their own minds that these mental images overpower the minds of the un- trained, and thus are they made to believe they see these men rise and walk in the air, and per- form other impossible feats. Very strong mental images will fill other minds with the same images. The "faker" makes others see what he imagines or allows to form in his own mind. And many of our scientists have been blinded by the power of these men, and have given their false impression to the reading world. 106 PLAN OF CEEATION ACTIVE AND PASSIVE PEINCIPLES IN NATUKE. It is inconceivable that the active principle in nature could or would act upon itself. Steam acts upon the engine, not upon itself. Physical matter is inert; it is the engine, driven by life principle that acts as steam. Wherever the active and pas- sive are manifest in nature, the active can act only upon the passive; the inert. It is impossible to imagine the active principle in nature turning upon itself and forcing any part of itself to be- come inactive. This would imply that some part is less active than another; otherwise, how could one part affect the other? "If there were no ob- ject, there could be no subject," and this must hold good for time and eternity. "Matter can not exist and be operative without spirit or spirit without matter." If this is true now, it has al- ways been true, and must continue to remain true. Principles are not affected by age. They are al- ways young and assertive. From this we learn that spirit and matter have coeval existence and that one is not the product of the other. From whence comes the idea that matter becomes spirit, or spirit matter? If from the notion that the atoms composing a body are in constant motion, let those who make the claim prove it to be a fact, and not merely a theory. What reason is there to believe that the particles OR SWORD OF TRUTH 107 making up a stone are in constant motion, when the stone itself is motionless! How can the whole be inert if the parts are active? And seeing that inertia is as necessary in creation as activity, why imagine as a truth what the five senses clearly dispute ? We see the stone to be inert. If we pulverize the stone to fine sand, will not the particles be found motionless! The inertia of matter makes it possible for both God and man to mold it into a variety of forms. Active resistance in bricks would make it necessary to destroy the life in them before the mason could use them in build- ing. Though matter by its inertia offers passive resistance, this inertia is essential, for without effort nothing can be accomplished. Effort must be put forth in all undertakings and in all achieve- ments. Inertia in matter and activity in spirit are inherent and not created, and being inherent they are eternal. There is a perpetual warfare waged in nature between the tendency to reduce all things to a solid, and the tendency to reconvert everything into the gaseous state. This fact is witnessed at the poles of the earth, and in the cooler regions of the temperate zones. We may assume these tendencies to be equal or nearly so, since neither can gain the supremacy over the other. The tendencies are constant, but the conditions are variable, and in some localities winter reigns, while in others summer conquers, even when, as in the equatorial regions, the tern- 108 PLAN OF CREATION perature of the upper currents of air is freezing cold. "We can not afford to base our judgment on con- tradictions. We shall learn nothing and know nothing if we reject the evidence of our senses and accept a theory that is contradicted by all of them. "If there were no object, there could be no sub- ject; and if there were no subject there could be no object. For on either side alone nothing could be achieved." If the active principles in nature had not existed coevally, nothing could have been proposed, to say nothing of creation itself. And as one writer and would-be leader of men and women in spiritual matters claims that Christ's flesh body was "transmuted" into spirit, we are called upon to reflect but a moment to recognize the improbability of such a thing. It could not have been necessary, since if quantity were de- sirable, a greater supply might have been ob- tained by the transmutation of the body of some huge animal as the elephant or whale, or enor- mous mass of matter as a mountain. The quality would not have been affected, since spirit is spirit, wherever found, or from whatever source derived. The truth is simpler yet more wonderful than fic- tion. It is no more necessary for God to mold a part of Himself into rock, than for man to make bricks out of his own flesh. There is no more reason for supposing that mat- ter was formed out of spirit or life substance, than OE SWORD OF TRUTH 109 that all substance was originally a solid and that time reduced it to spirit or indivisible substance. All created forms had a beginning, though the substance or material itself had no beginning. Had there been no beginning to creation, there would be no history, for history has beginning and end, while space and eternity have not. Unorgan- ized matter and substance have no history, for they had no beginning and can have no end. But the universe has a history, for it had its begin- ning and it will reach its perfect or complete state. But the universe will not come to an end, though its history will finally be completed, and it is the history of the universe that claims the attention of man. The organism of man is poised between life and death; the visible and tangible part of his com- position consists of inert matter. But this body is animated by the presence and action of life substance. Life expresses itself in activity, but physical matter has no power to act. Both ten- dencies are inherent and eternal and both are nec- essary to organic life and intelligence. Life sub- stance can never grow tired or weak, though the material organism may do both, and finally wear out. It is not the life in us that grows tired or weak, though life alone has the power to feel tired and weak. But this feeling comes from a change in the organism. A pint of steam at a given tem- perature will be as active as any number of pints at the same temperature. But a single pint of 110 PLAN OF CEEATION steam would not drive the engine. It must be backed up by numberless other pints, to fill the cylinder and generate power. Electricity or life substance always acts through another substance that is coarser than itself, as the nerve fluids in the animal organism, and when these are burnt up in action as the steam is consumed in the mo- tion of the engine, the organism becomes weak and the tired or sleepy feeling is the result. Life feels the weakness of its lever or levers. As steam can not be inactive or powerless in a closed vessel, neither can this same universal life substance cease its activity. But different kinds of quali- ties of matter offer varying degrees of resistance to its action, in and through it. And just as power latent in steam is not denied by its being unable to move the piston, neither is the life agent proven weak or faulty when failing to accomplish a given result through the animal organism. The trouble in all such cases is found to be a change or defect in the organism. Nor can we believe that this universal life agent can will itself into inaction through the mental faculties of either God or man, and by the term God the God-Head form is meant. The action may be shifted from one channel to another, but action does not cease even in sleep. It operates through different channels and in a different manner merely. God is spirit or life, and this is the same yester- day, today and forever. It can not change or be changed. But the composition of matter can be OE SWORD OF TRUTH 111 changed, and this goes on continuously. Live at- oms bound in the flesh and live atoms bound in ice are held in bondage and inaction as steam in the boiler, for steam, like all other forms of force, is but a varying manifestation of the one uni- versal life substance, as explained elsewhere in this volume. Between those who imagine God able to do any imaginary thing in any imaginary manner, and those who teach the doctrine of chance, as most scientists do, the unbiased and unprejudiced mind finds little consolation and less help in reaching a true explanation of the action of natural law. That these laws are ceaseless forces, bound in certain channels by the forces of attraction and repulsion should be apparent to any observing mind. Some appear to think the laws of nature are willed into existence. As reasonably imagine life willing itself into existence, as to imagine it changing its inherent nature. The nature of life is to act or to be active as it is for steam to ex- pand. In fact, many have no higher conception of the universe than a kind of an invention arbi- trarily ruled over by an autocrat who wills laws into existence much the same as we shape bricks. Moreover, it is not one whit more of a problem why there is no conscious life below mental planes, than in pressing the proper keys of the musical instrument to produce music. All sounds are not music, nor is all action conscious expression. The mental plane is the conscious plane in nature, and 112 PLAN OF CREATION it is the highest plane. Eyes and ears are placed in the head and not in the hands and feet, and this fact alone is proof that conscious life resides in the mental faculties or is expressed through them. It also indicates to us that there is a conscious head over nature and that the organism of na- ture, like the organism of man, is conscious only at its God-Head or dynamic center. Mind is poised between the play of blind forces ; it ob- serves the action of these forces, and comes to un- derstand the law governing them. Only because these forces are fixed and eternal is it possible to make intelligent observation. It is because the forces of nature are not conscious of their action, that mind centers of intelligence are possible to establish or maintain. Mind observes change in the physical world as the eye observes color or the ear sound, or rather, as mind observes color and sound through eye and ear respectively. Nature having placed eyes and ears in the head, is there alone conscious of her operations here and now. Some qualities of matter are more refractory than others, some less; it is this fact that made it possible to organize a universe and maintain it. There are a dozen or more freezing mixtures, a number of which are so powerful in their action as to turn water into ice on a hot stove. Were it not for other classes of matter which show a tendency to vibrate at a very high rate, there could be no balance maintained, and so the uni- OR SWORD OF TRUTH 113 verse would either congeal into a solid or else be thrown back into its gaseous state. And even in our own bodies the warfare is waged constantly between the tendency to become petrified and the tendency to vibrate at a destructive rate. And in a few notable cases the human body has been known to petrify, before and after death. As it is in the physical so it is in the astral, for the law of quality is not confined alone to the physical. There are as many astral or soul sub- stances that have a tendency to solidify as there are material substances having the same ten- dency. But on the astral plane the rates of vibra- tion are much higher than on the physical; on that plane the mind will vibrate in a much higher key than here, at a rate that would destroy the flesh body. There is that fight going on night and day and every hour of time here on the earth, to lower the temperature to the freezing and zero points, and to raise it to the boiling point. If we conceive of this being the work of conscious ef- fort on the part of nature, we spoil the picture by the introduction of a curse. The spirit does not act against itself, though it does seek always to remove obstructions from its path, such as to melt ice and raise fhe temperature everywhere. If we conceive of mind as a substance as such, as water is water because of its composition or the stone because of its concrete form, then we conceive of a mind that is conscious of carrying on a fight it can never win. It is a supreme and 114 PLAN OF CREATION eternal blessing that there are two antagonistic tendencies in nature, namely, the tendency to re- duce everything to a solid and the tendency to reconvert the universe back into its gaseous state, for between these two antagonistic forces we live, move and have our conscious being. But this fight is all waged on the plane below the conscious or mental plane. The struggle is as devoid of feeling and knowledge as the struggle carried on through the gasoline engine to carry the big tour- ing car up a steep grade. The passengers do not feel sorry for the engine or the power that drives it, for they know that there is no feeling or intel- ligence in the struggle, either in the engine or the power that drives it. With the nerves of sensation paralyzed leading from the feet to the brain, the feet may be ampu- tated without feeling any pain. From this we must conclude that inanimate nature is free from pain, for had we evidence that all nature is con- scious, it would be a curse to live and the suprem- est of blessings to be dead. But let us console our- selves; the stones under our feet feel no pain and trees are not hurt by being chopped down and burnt. OR SWORD OF TRUTH 115 "TO HIM THAT OVERCOMETH WILL I GIVE TO EAT OF THE HIDDEN MANNA, AND WILL GIVE HIM A WHITE STONE AND IN THE STONE, A NEW NAME WRITTEN, WHICH NO MAN KNOWETH SAVING HE THAT RECEIVETH IT." The hidden manna is the joy that comes to one in love with the truth and has prepared his mind to receive it. Some Bible students have interpreted this Scripture as referring to a number of persons, and so make it read in the plural instead of in the sin- gular as here written. But in the wording as here given, God points to one individual; one who can do a special work. Bearing on this point, the writer begs permission to refer to a personal ex- perience which came to him in the spring of 1894, probably in the month of April. At this time, June 24, 1915, the matter is not so fresh in mind, but as I now remember it, the aching must have lasted a whole day and night, possibly longer. The pain was so severe that I could neither write nor study. I had thrown myself upon the bed, and had passed into some sort of semiconscious state when I was suddenly roused to full con- sciousness by seeing the name ARCHIBALD SIGNORELLI as in a vision. The name rose from the vibrations of the aching tooth, and as though directly out of it; it appeared in crystallized form 116 PLAN OF CEEATION as in a solid Mock of white metal rising from the cavity in the tooth; the letters were all capitals and considerably larger than this print. The name and the block of metal bore a close resem- blance to what one sees in a pressroom where a linotype is used. The first name, Archibald, is my own given name. ,The name Signorelli is in the singular number and agrees well with the prom- ise. The name rose as vapor from a volcanic crater, from the aching tooth to the memory point in the mind, where it took the form here written. A tooth is virtually a white stone, while it is known that certains forms of vibration produce figures of various kinds, depending upon the na- ture of the vibrations. But the purpose of the name may not be any easier for us to solve than the reason for certain forms of vibration produc- ing definite shapes. The Bible is a book of symbols; much of it was not intended to be understood prior to its fulfill- ment. The reason for this could be explained from several angles, though it is but necessary to re- member that it is unwise to forewarn a thief if it is really desired to catch him in the act of theft. To tell men beforehand and in plain language that God will bring to pass certain reforms in a definite manner at given periods, would cause them to act under restraint; they would not act naturally; they would play a part they did not feel. It is even probable that some would act in a manner to defeat, if possible, any and all re- OR SWORD OF TRUTH 117 forms. Others would act through superstitious fear, so that from whatever angle we view the matter, it seems wisest to catch the thief in the act; then he can not plead innocence. Whether or not this is the "little book" spoken of in Revelation, must be left to the world to de- cide. As a passing remark it may be said that mental digestion is not wholly unlike stomach di- gestion. Some foods taste sweet in the mouth, but turn to bitterness in the stomach, through its ef- fort to digest them. To read a theory or an ef- fort to explain a mystery may be pleasing as a pastime, but if it is desired to know the funda- mental truths of nature, to understand the reason for things, the brain stomach may find part of the process of digestion painful. The soul is filled with glory as each link of the chain of truth is revealed; but pain and suffering fill the whole be- ing in the effort to discover the next link in this endless chain. Thirty years of earnest and almost constant effort to persuade nature to yield up her gems of truth has filled the head with gray hairs and the mind with bitterness and joy mixed. In the beginning of this work I was very posi- tive in all my claims. At this time, I am much less so. For since that time more than a quarter of a century has elapsed, and many other books have been written by various writers, some of whom claim to be commissioned by heaven itself to reveal the truth to the world. Some of these are to me foolish in their claims, hence I here 118 PLAN OF CREATION claim no more than nature appears to support, leaving it to the future to decide how much is true and how much false. There is but one safe way and that is to apply the test of reason and common sense to everything that passes through our minds. I have found that writing under the stimulus of spirit influence is very trying, for in this state of mind, everything appears in magnified form, and f<5r this reason may be put down as truth, when in reality it may be only the imagination running wild under high pressure. This, then, makes it absolutely necessary to apply the test of reason, and accept what appears most rea- sonable, rejecting everything that is born of prej- udice. Look only for the truth, regardless of how often it is necessary to reframe your judgments and conclusions. Love for truth and a constant search for it seems the only reliable course to pur- sue, regardless of whether or not you feel yourself to be inspired. Clear seeing is the only kind of inspiration there is, even though the thoughts appear to come direct from God Himself. The pint measure will only hold its pint. ' ' The Shakespeare without can only commune with the Shakespeare within," is a truism we must ac- cept. Therefore the value of a theory lies wholly in the ability of the writer or speaker to weigh evidence for and against what he claims, bearing ever in mind the fact that one clear contradic- tion is as good as five hundred witnesses against OE SWORD OF TRUTH 119 his claim. A theory stands either condemned or proved by facts that may be seen. It is folly for a writer to continue along a line of thought after he comes face to face with a clear contradiction. If the writer receives the writing from an angel and under full control, then the writing is worth just what that angel's ideas are worth; this may be exact truth or it may be mostly false, depend- ing entirely upon the position taken. Some minds on the other side of life are weaker in judgment than some advanced minds on this side. Theories both false and true are ropes to which men are bound ; the false theory rope will not per- mit one to reach out very far, whereas a true the- ory will permit the mind to go as far as it will care to carry the idea, for truth is never contra- dictory. The majority of human beings shun ideas that differ from those in common use, over- looking the fact that we must cut loose from pres- ent-day thought, for we have not as yet discov- ered very much truth. There are many on earth today who can bear witness to the fact that spirits from the cause world do come and help the human mind to un- fold in many cases ; but these spirits can not cause to unfold what nature has not implanted in the mind. The florist will assist nature in her work of unfolding his flowers, but he will not succeed in bringing forth what nature has not designed in such flowers. Nature has designed a special revelation in each human mind — in the soul fac- 120 PLAN OF CREATION ulties and brain organs, but in most cases the design has been smothered by false theories or inability to unfold. Unf oldment is slow in most minds, whether here or on the other side of life. The advanced thinker here on earth takes up his work on the other side and carries it forward. All truth comes direct from the God-Head, and He gives it to whom He wills, and this means that He gives it to those who want the truth and have prepared themselves to receive it. To sum up: The human mind reflects about what it contains; if it is full of false theories, it will reflect them in all its work, unless disgorged beforehand. If the writer believes in an endless number of universes and is pleased with the idea, he will see this to the end. If he is afraid to dis- pute the contradiction that Christ is three persons in one, he will overlook the contradictions. If he believes the earth to be flat he will find evidence to support his theory; or that we dwell on the in- side of the earth he will bring his witnesses, though he will be careful not to call others who have a different story to tell. Could nature have reflected all beauty in one flower or one variety of flower, one variety would have been all she would have created. Each flower and each variety of flower reflects a beauty all its own. So of the human soul ; each will reflect a beauty and a glory peculiar to itself and each perfect in OE SWORD OF TRUTH 121 itself. That each human soul and mind is not here and now beautiful, is no reason that this will not be so when nature has finished her work. Men today are imitators of each other; instead of try- ing to unfold their minds, men seek to copy after each other, lest they give offense, one to the other. In striving to be popular men refuse to advance in new lines of thought, for fear of becoming un- popular. In the field of mechanical inventions men have shown a remarkable independence of thought, but in the field of natural science men have taken their thoughts from each other, and which, for most part, are contradictory. Truth is not truth to us unless we first weigh it in the balance of reason and find it to be just what is claimed for it. We are to challenge every- thing that comes to us, for in this way only can we be sure of receiving the truth. A truth not backed up by facts to support it is no better than falsehood to the mind that receives it. The Rift in the Cloud! Standing upon a moun- tain top one wintry day, where I had gone to get a view of the country around, there settled over this mountain a thick cloud; snowflakes fell thick and fast around me, so that it was impossible to see more than a few yards in any direction. The intense desire to get a view of the surrounding country, cou- pled with the inability to do so on account of the heavy cloud that overhung the mountain and the falling snow, became intensely painful — when 122 PLAN OF CEEATION suddenly — as by magic, this cloud rolled away! The effect was magical, though indescribable! The snow scene to me was not to be compared to anything on earth, nor surpassed by any scene anywhere. To the south of me there rose a high mountain peak, rising as if out of the bowels of the earth itself — a most impressive sight to me! Then came the revelation and the meaning of it — "the cloud of prejudice hides the truths of God from the mind of man!" For a time it seemed as though the soul would leave its fleshly prison, so great was the emotion! Nature had shown me in the most convincing manner possible, that man himself stands be- tween himself and the God of wisdom, justice and mercy! No power on earth or in heaven can come between any man and the God of love, except the man himself, by his own willful stubbornness and blindness. Prejudice is the worst enemy any hu- man being can have, and is the most unreasonable of all mental qualities. If a thing is true, we should be willing to know it, and should make diligent effort to find out what we can about it, for we must be willing to give a reason for the faith in us, and able to do so. To believe a thing merely because some one else believes it, is the silliness of a child. And even though the whole world believes a thing to be true, if there is no evidence that it is so, does not justify any sane man or woman in accepting it without examina- tion. If declaring one's belief in a thing was suf- OR SWORD OF TRUTH 123 ficient reason for others to believe it, the con- fusion in the world would be so great that no sane person could live on the planet and retain his reason. All would go crazy, for there are mil- lions who believe a thing because others believe it, and not because they have any idea at all of the facts that bear witness to the truth of it. This is not an argument against the belief in an ideal Christ. But it does argue the question with many who profess to believe, yet prove by their selfish actions that it is nothing more than a lip-to-lip belief, and is not a heartfelt conviction. A belief that never sinks deeper than a mouth profession, is hardly strong enough to be called a belief. There is plenty of evidence that the ideal Christ did live on earth, since it would have been abso- lutely impossible for a selfish man without ideals to have written the history of him. Blind selfish- ness has no ideals. Though we do find blind self- ishness occupying elaborate pews in costly churches, this is no proof that these people believe in the ideal Christ, or that they possess any of his unselfish qualities of mind and heart. Those who have the ideal Christ in their hearts and re- flected and imaged in the mind, have the proof in themselves of the reality of the concrete fact. The ideal and the concrete fact are inseparable. The two go together. Man has no power to paint a picture that does not exist in nature. Nature leads the mind of man. He cannot paint or pic- ture an ideal that nature has not already produced 124 PLAN OF CEEATION in the concrete. The mind reflects nature, not nature the mind. There is no devil that the mind of man can picture that has not been here and is not here now on this earth in concrete form. And there is no ideal man can conceive of that has not existed and that does not now exist. Nature will reveal to any unselfish and unprej- udiced mind the fact of the concrete existence of a personal God, and of. the living reality of Christ, and the purpose and plan of creation, as fast as the mind can unfold to receive the information. Nature caused to pass before the writer of this book* a panoramic view of the universe and the laws governing, and controlled the hand and wrote a description of it, and which was far be- yond the range of my intelligence. That writing was the words and wisdom of God, and for that reason would have been of no real benefit to the world. It was all destroyed, and then the work of writing this book and revealing the plan of nature, in accord with human understanding, be- gan. And for nearly thirty years I have labored night and day, to lay the facts as nature showed them to me, before the world. And this has re- quired reframing the work over and over many, many times, for it is hard to describe the wonders of nature, even after they are shown to you. But this is promised: Those who do read this book with the unprejudiced desire to understand the plan of nature and to know the truth, nature will reveal to them just what she revealed to the OR SWOBD OF TEUTH 125 writer. This all real believers will understand: the selfish man is no more a Christian than night is day. And it is the counterfeits in the church that have caused honest doubters to question the living reality of a Christ. And though I make use of the term honest doubters, it can be said at the same time that they have not exercised wis- dom in such doubt. It should be borne in mind that good coin only is counterfeited. You can- not counterfeit a counterfeit. Thieves and rascals flock to the churches and profess to believe in Christ, because they hope to get back good coin for the counterfeit they have been giving to the community in the form of pretense. Any man who says he is a Christian, and is not living the Christ life of unselfishness, is a liar, and the truth is not in him, for the law has not changed! The real believers in Christ have just as much proof for their belief as have any of us for any sensation or feeling experienced in our bodies. Abstract belief in Christ has no more influence on us than the same kind of belief in the outer cold of space. Devils believe and tremble, but not enough to shake the devil out of them. Great wealth in the midst of poverty and suffering is proof that the possessors of this wealth are not Christians. One cannot be a devil and an angel in the same breath. The ideal Christ within would expel uncharity of the heart. By this test you will know them: All wealthy people who do not strive to relieve the distress of extreme poverty 126 PLAN OF CREATION in their midst, are un-Christian at heart, no mat- ter whether they be king or president, pope, priest or preacher, and hereafter this test will be applied to all men in all walks of life. And this as fully applies to the writer of this book, as to any other human being. I have not tried to hide from my own eyes my own shortcomings^ any more than I have tried to hold back any essential fact that has been revealed to me. Love for the truth must be the compelling power to force us onward and upward. And though the reader of this book should find that the writer of it has be- come a drunkard and an outcast in human society, he must not allow that to weaken his own efforts to study this book, and nature through the book, for the writer has not the power to change the truth or alter any fact in nature. We do not kill the truth by covering it up in our minds, though we do kill the power of our souls to unfold by seeking to smother or cover up the truth. And in closing this chapter I wish to say to the reader that I cannot promise that my own course of life will be the best and the cleanest at all times here- after. None of us know how low we may sink, if the environment is favorable. At the present time the national environment is more favorable for the propagation of thieves and rascals, than it is for making saints out of sinners. And in order to change this order of things, we must be- gin at the head of the stream and clear away the rubbish and filth, otherwise the stream must re- OR SWOED OF TRUTH 127 main contaminated from its source to its month, and finally the nation die from the spread of po- litical corruption. We must not for one moment imagine that a nation can retain the ideals of moral and social justice, in the midst of political corruption. Might as reasonably expect to put filth in your coffee cup and not make filthy the contents, as to expect the nation's morals not to suffer from political corruption. The truth and the underlying facts concerning any and every- thing can be understood by any one, if close at- tention is given to the matter. No useful informa- tion can be hidden from the honest inquirer, if he is willing to pay the price, and the price is free- dom from prejudice. 128 PLAN OF CREATION ETERNAL LIFE IN THE FLESH NOT PROM- ISED OR POSSIBLE. "As in Adam all die, even so, in Christ, shall all be made alive.' ' This Scripture rises in an- swer to a question and declares that the body in- herited from Adam dies or disintegrates; but it meets this outward appearance of death with the declaration: "Even so, shall all be made alive," for Adam represents the physical, while Christ represents the spiritual, and on this plane there is no death. "It is sown a natural (flesh) body, it is raised a spiritual body," for the physical body is but the soil containing the seed, and the new growth can only come from the decaying seed and the soil. As no plants grow from the seeds that do not decay when placed in the ground, so no new growth can come from the flesh body unless it de- cays. Like the florist transplants shrubs to new soil, the human plant is transferred to better soil, when developed sufficiently. The kingdom of heaven is indeed a state of mind, but heaven itself is a place, and offers a proper environment for the soul mature enough to leave the physical plane. Flesh and blood are confined to a physical plane for natural reasons. Flesh can only be pro- duced and maintained under the power of gravity and under great atmospheric pressure, such as ex- ist here on the earth, where the atmospheric pres- sure at sea level is approximately 15 pounds to OR SWORD OF TRUTH 129 the square inch of surface exposure. And as for the idea that we can live here indefinitely, this is neither warranted by the Bible, nor supported anywhere in nature. It is a dream, merely, and is neither reasonable nor desirable. Countless billions are yet to be born on the earth and we must pass on to make room for these. No wise student wishes to remain in one grade at school, when he knows that there are more advanced grades waiting for him. That the children of one God, should forever wander alone or in the company of the select few through an endless number of universes, those more ad- vanced going on ahead of those they once knew and loved, never to meet again, not even in count- less billions of years — this is indeed a sad thought. In contrast to this gloomy concept of the future, what a glad thought it is that we shall finally gather around the Father's throne, a perfect and happy family, with not one member missing. A truth that can not be solved in a measurable period of time, is not truth at all. It is a retreat- ing rainbow; it will not stand close inspection. Some of our would-be teachers would have us be- lieve that we can not have eternal life except by a correct understanding of God and His purpose; but it should be noted that many of these would be teachers have a very imperfect knowledge of God themselves, and if we take their ideas, we shall all be lost. Pure and perfect love places the 130 PLAN OF CEEATION unlettered man or woman nearer God and His heaven than all the cold wisdom of this world can do. The humble washer-woman with a heart full of sympathy has a much better chance to see and know God, than have the most learned of earth who have not an equal degree of sympathy. Who is led by truth and justice can not miss the way. These would-be teachers paint for us a beauti- ful picture and then tell us we can not attain this in an eternity. One describes at least in a rough way the best he is capable of imagining, and this being so, these men are not far behind the highest they can imagine any of us ever attain. It is hard to imagine that a study of the so- called higher sciences places one in any closer re- lationship with God, than the study of housekeep- ing or farming. Does the geologist in his study of stones draw nearer to God than the farmer plow- ing in the fields ? Or does the astronomer search- ing the heavens for a new star come closer to the throne of God than the mother who holds in her arms the living image of God? Salvation is not through much learning, but through sympathy and good intentions. It is true that all things point to God, but many who study the so-called higher sciences get further and further away from Him, for they think they see a reason for there being no God. Ordinary occupations do not so often lead to disbelief, therefore we conclude that the common people have as much chance of seeing OR SWORD OF TRUTH 131 God as have the highly educated. Learning is good, but we should not allow it to lead us away from the truth. Regeneration. This doctrine is being taught in the world today, but while some appear to have the right idea of the meaning of regeneration, others have a very false conception of the same. Regeneration means turning from the sordid things of this life, to the higher and nobler, in which the mind is centered on love of truth and justice. It is a spiritual birth wherein the higher faculties gain the ascendency over the lower or animal faculties. It does not imply, as some teach, mere chastity in sex expression. Many who practice celibacy are of low cast mind. Sex love is the magnet that stirs the heart to action. And as to the theory of reincarnation, or numerous re- births in the flesh, we may well doubt the sound- ness of the claim or idea. Our experience begins and ends with memory, and having no knowledge of a former existence on earth, we have no reason for such belief or doctrine. If the soul must live this life over again, in numerous rebirths, why is the promise given that there is a chance for repen- tance at the eleventh hour? Repentance at the eleventh hour is good, else why is the promise given ? Soul substance contains the record of our lives on this plane, and this record can never be destroyed unless the soul itself be destroyed. That there is such a record of past experience, as mem- ory, is self evident. That no kind of record can 132 PLAN OF CREATION be kept except on some kind of substance, no thoughtful man will question. Darkness is death and inaction, and inaction is death. At this time the universe is more dead than alive; there is more of the space occupied by the universe yet in darkness and death, than has been, as yet, rescued from it, as is illustrated in the diagram here shown. The mind of man is yet mostly in darkness as all know. He has very little spiritual light, these faculties of the mind being almost inac- tive in a great part of the human race. The up- per or spiritual facul- ties are mostly inactive. The last enemy, death, is to be overcome, and darkness and inaction is death. The human ego has its polarity in the God- Head, as spoken of in another chapter, and there- fore that which is bound in the human head in darkness is at the same time bound in heaven and in the God-Head; and that which "is loosed on earth is loosed in heaven," for a circuit that is stilled at any point is stilled at all points. Here we come face to face with one of the most wonder- ful facts of nature, but unfortunately it is one the world has not stopped to consider. Familiarity with some things has taken from us the incentive , OR SWORD OF TRUTH 133 to learn much about them. All Scripture has a meaning; it was not written at random, nor was it intended that more should be written than was or would be necessary. When we are told that "that which is bound on earth is bound in heaven ; and that which is loosed on earth is loosed in heaven," it is the spiritual darkness in the mind of man that is meant. And since the human mind through the ego is polarized in the God-Head it is not past belief that that which is bound in the hu- man head is also bound in the God-Head. If a telegraph or telephone wire is severed, the circuit is broken for the entire length of the line. The space assigned to each mental unit by nature in her God-Head form is about one circular foot ; this is multiplied by eight diameters and so ap- pears in the eight foot circles on the inner dome of the sun. Man is the quickening power in na- ture, and by a proper exercise of his faculties, he stirs to mental expression so much of the God- Head form as is covered by his polarity. There is no more wonderful fact in the universe than the fact of mind and the law governing its operations. When all of man's spiritual faculties have been redeemed from darkness, then will he commune freely with God and the universe will have been freed from all dark spots. The universe with its sun and planets is to God what a city is to man; the universe is the city of God and in time He will be the light of this city where "there will be no more night, neither sorrow, sickness, death or 134 PLAN OF CREATION pain," for the former conditions will haev passed away. We shall not then see planets half in dark- ness, as now we do. Nowhere in the universe nor in the minds of men will there be any darkness. The universe will then be very much smaller than it now is, and in this contraction, this falling to- ward the sun of the so-called fixed stars which is a constant action, the astronomers have conceived the solar system to be swinging around some larger system. The truth is so much more wonderful than man has been able to conceive, to have revealed the sun as the home of the God-Head form would have made mankind a race of cringing cowards and superstitious slaves. It can be done now only by virtue of the fact that the mind of man is now un- folded sufficient to know that nothing happens ac- cording to the whims of any kind of hocus-pocus, but that we are governed by fixed and unalterable law. We have but one hint in the Bible of where God dwells, and that is where we read — "and I saw an angel standing in the sun," for the God- Head form would appear to be about the size of a man as seen from this earth. All Scripture has an exact meaning, and in time we shall know what is meant by each passage. All revelations must come in their time and season. It is useless to command a helpless child to run from danger. It is equally useless and foolish to expect anything from man if his salvation de- pends entirely upon something outside himself. OR SWORD OF TRUTH 135 His light and his guidance must come from with- in. This does not mean that he can not learn any- thing from the world outside himself, but it does mean that if he can only be saved by the arbitrary will of God or Christ, he can do nothing for him- self, but stand and wait like a traveler at a station for a coming train. Man has charge of his own mind and can make bad or good use of his facul- ties, just as he wills. If he wills against God and His Christ then he will be lost for he is only asked to conform to the requirements of unalterable and unchangeable law. If he wills to live in his animal faculties and refuses to yield to the higher, he must perish for only the spiritual and higher can endure for eternity. Therefore man should seek wisdom from anv and all sources and should make good use of his time and talent While here in the flesh. Salvation is held out to us, but no man can be forced against his will. God is powerless to save us unless we are willing to be saved. And we must save ourselves by complying with nature 's conditions, and these are the same to all. There are no favorites for God loves all and would that none should perish. And these are not arbitrary conditions, but are fixed principles and laws that must be obeyed or conformed to. Let us lay up our treasures in heaven, rather than spend so much time in an effort to get rich, which wealth would only serve the double pur- poses of giving us a stronger love for the things 136 PLAN OF CEEATION of this earth and at the same time a hatred for truth and justice. The jewels of rich thought, the memory of a life well spent, are all that we can possibly carry with us when we leave this earthly plane. OR SWORD OF TRUTH 137 THE DYNAMIC GOD-HEAD!!! THE KING OF THE UNIVERSE ! ! ! The God-Head form is a crystallization, as all forms are crystallizations. All forms of matter crystallize when free to do so, as water into ice, alum and salt into crystals, and molten metals in- to solids. The sun is the home of the God-Head and is composed of astral or soul substance and electricity or spirit. There is not an atom of phys- ical matter in the composition of the sun, for at the time matter rushed together at a common cen- ter, physical atoms were cast out, leaving a cen- ter of perfect harmony. From this center of per- fect harmony all other centers were established. From a center of inharmony no other center is possible; therefore nature's God-Head must have been perfect from the very beginning. And by perfection freedom from all disturbing elements is meant. Wisdom and knowledge are possible only by thought ; but nature builds her bridges ac- cording to law and not by mental calculation. As she builds the bridge she crosses it, and the pro- cess of reasoning comes only after there is some- thing to be seen and analyzed. All planets were formed around vortices, and the vortex at the universal center was so intensely active at the time that great center of harmony was being established that no live atoms of mat- ter could pass through this fire and remain live. 138 PLAN OF CREATION As they were torn from the astral and spirit and reduced to dead atoms, they were cast out, just as the particle of matter in the eye becomes pain- ful and must be cast out. Only the fine gold re- mained and this is the basis for the belief that the God-Head took on perfect form then and there. The free electric current then formed other cen- ters from this perfect center, until the law of affin- ity was satisfied. Each and every human being is polarized in the God-Head and in the sun, for we are bound to the universe through its God-Head, as the planets are. It is no more a superstition to believe in a God-Head form over nature or through which the forces of nature act than to believe there is no such head. And fuller light will reveal the fact that an organized universe without a God-Head form is as impossible and unthinkable as a light- ing system without engine, wires or dynamo. It is possible we may find a way to transmit power by wireless means at some future time, though we will hardly be able to do this except through a generating plant. The God-Head form is the uni- versal generating and distributing plant ; without this God-Head form a universe would be unthink- able. We might imagine the unreasonable, but in the past such imaginings have proven of no value. In imagination men have fancied our sun giving off light and heat and getting nothing back in re- turn. They have imagined that which could not OR SWORD OF TRUTH 139 be and which will be explained in the chapter on planets. The God-Head is one-eighth the diameter of the sun ; His form must be in proportion to the head diameter, for we bear the image of God and He is therefore in form like ourselves. The magnetic points which bind us to the God-Head form are about one foot in diameter while the sun polarity- is eight feet in diameter and both polarities are circular in form. The body of the sun is 64,000 miles in thickness for planets are not solid bodies. They are shells. It is upon these eight foot circles that God reads our fading and forming thoughts for in no other way could He "know our secret thoughts. " To think is to open and close the elec- tric circuits, as in telegraphy. A break in the cir- cuit at the earth station is instantly responded to by a break in the sun and fixed star stations, just as the click of the telegraph instrument in San Francisco is answered by a like click in New York or other distant point to which the message is di- rected. The one is visible to the soul's eyes, the other to the soul's ears. The one is in the form of sound the other in the form of light waves and these produce images in the mind. It is visible telegraphy. The mental image is instantly called forth from its retirement in the soul ocean to make its bow and instantly retire, to come again and again as often as the right mental key is struck. And the right mental key in this case is vibration in its multitudinous forms, and vibra- 140 PLAN OF CEEATION tion calls the substance of the soul from retire- ment that is in agreement with that voice. The flower image will be composed of astral substance that will be different from that which forms the face of a human being. This is crystallization on the astral plane, a more perfect form of crystalli- zation than is possible on the physical plane. At the God-Head center, not only the thoughts of men and angels take form here but all of nature's oper- ations show forth and God sees things as they really are while we "see through a glass darkly.' ' Nature is bound by inseparable ties to the God- Head form ; hence it is but natural that everything happening in the universe should be cast upon this universal screen in motion picture form. Men- tal pictures are crystallizations and are of short duration. They dissolve as fast as they form. Except for this constant action on the part of na- ture, the soul would crystallize into a solid, as water into ice. If not dissolved the instant formed these crystallizations would remain in the mind and make further thinking impossible. So long as the substance of which mental images are formed remain blended with the soul, they have much less tendency to crystallize. It is only when the substances out of which mental images form leap to the point of mental expression, that the tendency is strong to crystallize into solids. In- deed, it might be that something of this kind takes place in certain forms of insanity, when the afflic- OR SWORD OF TRUTH 141 ted stares with fixed gaze as is often observed. "LIVING JEWELS IN MY CROWN OFLIFE" At the end of creative or formative period of creation, the so-called fixed stars will settle down and form a chain of worlds around the great central sun as here illustrated ; while at the same time the then perfected human soul will take its place inside the great House of God and will be the "living jewels in His crown of life." "How can you love God whom you have not seen," and how would it be possible to love a God who would forever remain invisible to us? It is shortsighted to imagine that we could love or even respect a formless head over the universe. As a matter of fact there could be no formless head. It is plain enough that there could be no such head as a form- less head. As impossible as it would be for God to know our thoughts except they take form in His own mind. No man, not even God, can see or know what another thinks only to the degree that these same thoughts form in his own mind. Christ frequently pointed his hearers to a personal God for he spoke many times of his Father, of His wisdom and power, and as being not here on this earth, but at some distant point from the earth. We were then too weak to bear or hear the full 142 PLAN OF CBEATION truth, hence such facts must be left to a future time when superstition had been largely overcome by inventions, by universal education and by a more active imagination than prevailed at that time. Nothing has meaning to us that can not manifest through form. We have reached the age of reason and the human mind is therefore capaci- tated to trace any effect to its cause. Of course there are millions yet in darkness and under the power of superstition, and this can only be over- come by a direct revelation and by the efforts of those more advanced. Except for a manifestation from the cause world, a few might read this book and speculate over it, but fewer still would accept it as true in more than minor points. The God-Head form or personal God idea no more destroys or opposes the declaration that God is spirit, than placing water in vessels destroys the fact that it remains water whether in the ocean, lake, river or tank. The spirit can act only through vessels. The steam manifests its power in and through the engine, not after it escapes into the open air. The spirit can only be known to us in the form of personalities. And seeing that the real man is spirit, the idea of a personal God does not in the least oppose the idea that God is spirit. It may oppose men's ideas, but this only proves their ideas false. In- telligence, love and wisdom can only manifest through personalities — never out of them. We could no more love God except in personal form OE SWORD OF TEUTH 143 than we could love insensible perfumes, or invis- ible beauty. Hence Christ asks the question how can we love God whom we have not seen, for he knew it was impossible for us to love the invisible, except through the visible. We can love the visible, but never the invisible. God revealed His personal qualities and form through the person of Christ, for he bore the form we bear, and he was just in all his ways. We can love one we have not seen because it is possible for us to hold the image of another, in mind, and as- sociate it with good qualities. Thousands of his- toric characters claim our admiration for quali- ties they manifested. We can love God through the Son and we can love the Son through others who reflect his unselfish qualities of mind. Why did Christ ask the question how we could love God whom we had not seen, if he did not wish to point to a visible God-Head? No Bible believer will ac- cuse Christ of a hap-hazard use of words. He always spoke of definite things and pointed to facts, though he did not always explain exactly what he meant, and for the reason that knowledge ahead of its time is evil instead of good. Those who imagine that Christ controls the solar system have not the faintest conception of underlying truth. Before men and angels were created planets had to be formed, for no being could be created in space beyond the atmosphere of a planet. Therefore Christ like the rest of us was created after the God-Head was formed, and 144 PLAN OF CEEATION after other centers were formed. The universe is controlled from within and not from without. Therefore all the power Christ exhibited beyond what we all possess he drew from the God-Head through the law of harmony. All will have this power in time though it resides in the God-Head form, as the steam in the boiler. Christ never claimed this universal power as his own, but al- ways spoke of it &s belonging to his Father. The earth may have been created through Christ ; the Bible leads to such a conclusion, though the origi- nal fording may have been changed. For we have seen that the church has fallen into the absurdity of making Christ and God to mean one person, in- stead of two individuals having one purpose. Con- sequently it is more than probable that much Scripture has been changed to conform to this contradictory conception. To imagine a universe under the control of a man, no matter if this man possessed all wisdom — though he be as perfect in every respect as God is perfect, is to imagine a universe controlled by arbitrary command. It is just simply the ancient idea of master and slave, brought down to date. The steam engine is controlled through the throt- tle, not by word of command. The universe is controlled through dynamic mental centers, and it can be controlled in no other way. Every organ and function in the human body is controlled through dynamic mental centers. God or the spirit of God does not command some other agent OR SWORD OF TRUTH 145 to do its bidding, but it does its own work. The wind and the waves did not obey Christ through any understanding in themselves but were con- trolled through dynamic mental centers of the God-Head, and in accord with the law of harmony, for " whatsoever you ask, if it be good for you, God will give it to you." If you are in perfect harmony with God, He will respond to your re- quest by a manifestation of power. There are those who look forward to a time when they think they will see Christ sitting upon an earthly throne surrounded by worshippers or slaves, for, in accord with the idea, the slave would have to be introduced. Yet the Savior de- clares that "he who would be greatest among you, let him be the servant of all." Men show their greatness in willing service, and not by command- ing others to do for them what they can more eas- ily do for themselves. Christ did not stand around idle and command others to do this and that, but was fully as active as any of his disciples while he was on earth. And yet there are millions who look forward to a time when they imagine he is coming- back to earth and sit in royal robes on a golden throne and have servants to wait upon him and serve him as idle kings are now served. The power of the universe resides in the God-Head or must express through it, for this God-Head form is the only form extensive enough to receive this power. Size is essential in some things, as, for in- stance, it •would be impossible to convey the 146 PLAN OF CEEATION waters of the Mississippi river through an inch pipe or confine the ocean in a gallon measure. Neither of these things is possible, as even a child must recognize. Therefore the God-Head form is a large being. The God-Head form, is the great dynamo of the universe. And in declaring this fact the writer is fully conscious of the fact that it is no more wonderful that this is so than that dynamos of a given size must be employed to con- vey power and distribute it throughout a large district as a city. Everything unthought of before is regarded in the light of superstition. But we must learn to examine all things and reason with them as with the so-called ordinary things of life. There are no ordinary things; all the facts of nature are wonderful fa.cts, and we shall in time come to appreciate all and give to each the value it calls for. There is but one life substance. If more than one, each would act against the other, or if two or more were in agreement, more than one would be unnecessary. The reason for the diversity of manifestation is found in the nature of the sub- stance through which force acts. Sunlight appears red, green or blue in passing through colored glass, but it is the same substance in different manifestations. All forms of manifestation, or all natural phenomena are accounted for by dif- ferent qualities of substance, and difference in density of matter. OR SWORD OF TRUTH 147 "In my Father's house are many mansions." Imagine an open space more than 750,000 miles in diameter and yon may gain some idea of this house of many mansions. If you occupied one mansional apartment, there would be more than 350,000 miles of space between you and the walls of this great universal home, which would be mil- lions of times larger than our scientists have imagined the universe to be, for it is one thing to think in terms of figures, and quite another to be able to see with perfect eyes the vastness before you where there is no darkness. But our imagina- tion can not here and now conceive the immensity of our home as it will appear to us when We shall see with perfect light and with perfect eyes. The grandeur, the glory, distance are all past finite description. The imagination is here eclipsed. Facts are more wonderful than fiction, for nature leads the imagination. It can not rise above her. The number of human souls will be about the number that could stand on the outer surface of a globe a hundred thousand miles in diameter, allowing for each, one circular foot, or the num- ber that could stand on the surface of the earth, allowing a circular foot for each, multiplied by 120. Nature being the expression of mathematical law, moves along lines of creation until complete satisfaction along each line is reached. Man eats until he feels satisfied. Nature works until she is satisfied and this comes only when the law of 148 PLAN OF CKEATION mathematical chemistry has been run out to its end. The universe is a far more perfect design than anything man can design. Man could not design anything if he Were not himself a design. If the brain organs of man were not designed to do the work we see him do, he could not possibly design anything. In view of this fact, can we wonder that nature will reveal the purpose and the order of her design through the brain organs and soul faculties of man? It is the purpose of nature to reveal her works and her designs throtigh the mind of man, here and hereafter. Nature works through faculties and brain or- gans ; from mental dynamic centers our bodily or- gans are repaired, built and operated. Not all acts are acts of intelligence or conscious recogni- tion, but all operations in the human organism are controlled through brain centers and from brain centers. And this is true of the universe; each and every planet is controlled through the mental faculties of the God-Head form. But as growth and repair in our own bodies proceed independent of conscious recognition, but always from mental centers, so does the God-Head form control the universe. Or, more properly speaking, the uni- verse is controlled through the God-Head form, as the electric current through the dynamo, or the heart action through a mental faculty and brain organ. It is no more necessary for the God-Head to observe every movement in nature than for us to OE SWOED OF TEUTH 149 be conscious of every action and operation of our vital organs. Nature moves in agreement with fixed law and this needs no eyes to guide it in its minor operations. But the forces of nature do and must proceed from dynamic mental centers, as surely as light and heat from vibratory motion. "Be ye perfect as your Father in heaven is per- fect.' ' There are many who think man will never reach the high plane of perfection of the God of nature. But the truth is that God will make the soul of man as perfect as Himself, thus proving His power and wisdom. For the God-Head would not spend an eternity with beings inferior to Him- self in wisdom and perfection, any more than He would consent to pass to a lower plane and live in degradation. Eternity is a never ending circle and conscious life would be unendurable to any conscious being not made perfect. As God is per- fect, so will be all that He has created. Man is to be the companion and joint heir with God in all His glory, wisdom and appreciation, perfect as God is perfect, when finally "all power is given into your (our) hands." In that perfect state we can draw upon the God-Head for all power, for we will be one with Him then as Christ now is. Nowhere in Scripture will it be found that God does not purpose to carry His creation to a state of perfection, and there is but one kind of perfec- tion. Pain and suffering will drive man from the lower to the higher, when finally, a glimpse of the beauty of the higher will draw him upward and 150 PLAN OF CREATION onward at a rate he does not now dream to be possible. God can do many things not dreamed of by us, but pouring wisdom and knowledge into the mind like pouring water out of a pitcher is not one of the possible things. God can not do impossible things, nor is His power limited by this concep- tion. The slow unf oldment of the human mind is sufficient proof that man must do his own think- ing and acting. Had there been a quicker or bet- ter way, God would have doubtless discovered it and employed it. The same law that formed the God-Head and the universe through this head, formed man and will make man as perfect as the God-Head, spoken of as the Father. Nature can not stop short of perfection in all her parts. The human soul and faculties as a part of the God- Head, must become as perfect as this universal form. For, be it borne in mind, man is part of the universe and is closely related to the God- Head. The arbitrary and conscious direction of every act in nature by the God-Head would become a load nothing short of a curse. This life agent acts much after the manner of the flowing river, con- fined in a channel and flowing because it must, and not because it has any desire or choice in the mat- ter. Its inherent nature is to be active. The river, like the locomotive, moves in a fixed chan- nel ; were it conscious of its motion or had any de- sire in the matter, it would need no channel in OR SWORD OF TRUTH 151 which to run, but would take whatever course it willed to take. The king's wisest subjects are as intelligent as himself. The carpenter must be nearly as wise as the designer of the building. An agent with wis- dom to execute God's commands simply because they are God's commands would have to possess the wisdom and power of God — would have to be God. This then is what we find: There is but one God and one power in the universe, and this is called God or spirit, and it is an unbroken and in- divisible substance. It is the life and power of the God-Head through which it acts, as the elec- tric current through the dynamo. And it is no less fixed law in the one case than in the other, for the universe is not controlled by arbitrary com- mand. God is spirit, and spirit is life and power. It is the law. The God-Head wills to act only in accord with this law, and we shall finally reach the same high plane of willing obedience to this laiw. Where we read that God rested from His labors, we are not to understand from this that the forces of nature had finished their work and had ceased to act ; the forces of nature can never be inactive but will move ever onward as steadily and as surely as the river in its channel. That Scripture that declares that God rested from His labors refers to the conscious God-Head and to a particular work and to an anxious period, in which the wisdom and guidance of the God-Head 152 PLAN OF CREATION was required. And the fact that rest was possible reveals the fact that mental direction and con- scious guidance is not always needed; it also shows that conscious guidance may be necessary at times. As brought out in another chapter, the earth with organic life on its surface is an exten- sion of the plan of nature, and required mental direction in part of the process. During the for- mative period of this earth and until after man was # placed on its surface, the God-Head could not rest. But the human race in its infancy needed no special attention ; it was only after great num- bers appear that we find it necessary to hinder man along certain lines and to encourage him to move along certain other lines. From this time on there was no rest for the God-Head, and will not be until after the overthrow of the present capitalist system of robbery. Then God will rest for another thousand years, for during that pe- riod man will enforce rules of justice, and as long as justice rules it is possible for God to rest. During the time of planning and erecting the building the directing power of the builder is re- quired. But after the building has been finished, the power of gravity will hold it on its foundation ; the builder may then rest from his labors. Three Manner of Beings. — The figure three quite often appears in nature ; as, for instance, we have solids, gases and fluids, three distinct forms of matter. And our own bodies are made up of OE SWOED OF TEUTH 153 flesh, bone and blood, while in space we have three kinds or classes of planets, the very large, the medium size and the very small. And so it is in many instances that could be named. Man him- self lives in an organism that is made up of flesh, bone and blood, neither one of which could be taken from the organism without destroying it. And in like relation we find man joined to two other beings, neither one of which could exist without him or he without them. The universe is a great system of electric coils, that may be com- pared to an endless rope wound a number of times around a large pulley and passed once around a great number of smaller pulleys, and all revolving rapidly. Now it will be seen that if we cut this rope at any point at all, that it would at once un- wind itself from the small pulleys and wind itself around the large pulley. And this is exactly what would take place if a human being and his Ego could be destroyed ; the great endless cable of the universe would recoil and roll itself up in one huge globe at the universal center. From the foregoing remarks we are not to infer that the dissolution of the human soul would de- stroy the universe; but the destruction of the hu- man Ego would destroy the universe, for this would break the circuit as surely as severing the endless rope, as above pointed out, would cause it to unwind from the small pulleys and wind itself around the large driving pulley. And since it is impossible to separate mind from the 154 PLAN OF CREATION individual organism, the Ego must exist, other- wise there could he no organism. Even the small- est animals and insects have egoes, and which are just as essential to their existence as are the car- bon points to the arc light. But the ego of the insect and very small animal is on what we may call a short-circuit. These circuits are not com- pleted through the sun and fixed star, but are confined to the earth. For this reason the lower forms of animal life are not in communication with celestial objects. The eyes of mice and other low forms of animals are sensitive to light, but are not conscious of the existence of the sun, nor can a celestial planet image itself in their minds. In order to see the planets out in space, it is nec- essary to be on the universal circuit, for we really see the planets through the God-Head, and He sees them through our eyes. But in order for Na- ture to complete the circuit, there must be a third being, and this being is called Archangel or Demi- god. The breaks in the current in the case of the arc light is at the carbon points ; in the universal circuit the breaks are at the Ego points — in the God-Head, Archangel and man. There can be no breaks in the circuit except at the Ego point, for here the current is reduced from a foot cable down to the size of a single thread of a spider 's web, as elsewhere pointed out, as it passes through the human organism. The current that comes direct to each of us from the God-Head or sun center, passes direct OE SWORD OF TRUTH 155 to a fixed star and through the head and organ- ism of an Archangel, and from the fixed star back to the sun. In the chapter on the planets will be found fuller information on the subject of planets and how formed. As will be seen in that chapter, the claim is made that the earth and the other revolving planets of the solar system were made out of the matter of countless numbers of very small planets, and known to astronomers as as- teroids. But the current that went out to those small planets from the sun, now must go to the larger planets and complete the circuit through the planet Jupiter. This will confuse the reader to some degree, and must be here explained. At the time the planetoids (asteroids) were be- ing broken up to form the larger planets of the solar system, the Egoes were all passed through the sun and earth, and were carried back to the sun through the other planets and returned to it through the planet Jupiter, and on back to the earth. Many of the inhabitants of the asteroids had scarcely made any advance at all; and many of the organisms were broken up with their homes, only the Egoes remaining, for a book that contains only trash, will not be missed when it is destroyed. It would be unwise to speculate over how many of the inhabitants of the asteroids were destroyed with their astral shells or homes. But millions were destroyed, and their Egoes brought to earth and chained in the soil and in the vegetable, and later in the animal and finally 156 PLAN OF CREATION in the human form. But how much of the uni- versal current passes through the body of the earth cannot be stated; but it is known that when a human soul leaves the earth and passes to the next planet, that the circuit continues through the earth and follows the soul, and that it flows direct to its fixed star from wherever the soul is. Also we can know that as much of the universal current passes through the body of the earth and back to the sun through the planet Jupiter, as there were human Egoes that made the complete circuit at the time the earth was formed. We know, also, that the earth has sufficient current to heat it and give it light, for the wisdom of the God-Head was and is sufficient to enable Him to carry His work to completion. The God-Head knows all things, past, present and to come, because nature reflects all her laws through the God-Head, and it is upon this foun- dation fact that we read, "God saw the end from the beginning." Man meets with many surprises, but God knows what is to be, for He sees the uni- verse and its laws reflected from the inner sur- face of the sun. And this is the reason for the warnings recorded in the Bible; for nature could do nothing if she did not exact penalties for vio- lations of her laws, and reward those who obey her laws, but only so long as they obey. No re- ward for good conduct in the past, if the conduct of today is bad. Nature accepts the human coin at its face value, and she makes no allowance for OR SWORD OF TRUTH 157 what it has been or what it may be hereafter. If the human coin is good today, regardless of how spurious it may have been yesterday or may be tomorrow, nature receives it at its face value, and in doing so she puts the wisdom of man to shame. "As a man thinketh, so is he," and for this very reason man can be an angel today and a devil to- morrow, and in converse order. The arc light holds a deep-seated fact before us, which, if understood, will give us a good idea of the operations of our minds. At the carbon points of the arc lamp the current is greatly re- duced in size or volume, as it leaps from one point of the carbon to the other; the flame of the lamp is not a standing flame, but is a rapid succession of flames, and just as the images in the mind are a rapid succession of images, save for which there could be no mind. The mind is conscious only of breaks, disturbances and variations, and not in undisturbed stillness, as many might imagine. An unbroken landscape with no variations what- ever, if such a landscape could be found, would produce no effect upon the mind at all. 158 PLAN OF CEEATION THE LAW OF GRAVITY. The power of gravity is manifest to all. No one disputes the existence of this power. Every atom of physical matter and every object on and near the surface of the earth is under the power of this binding force. But the power of gravity is not the same as the law of affinity ; the power of grav- ity grips all physical matter of every class and nature and draws it toward a common center, while the law of affinity draws certain classes or kinds of matter together and acts upward or away from the surface of the earth as well as downward toward its center. The one has power over phys- ical matter only, while the other acts only on astral or soul substance. The magnet gives us some idea of the action of the law of sympathetic attraction or law of affinity, which is the same thing. The law of affinity or sympathetic attrac- tion acts in opposition to the power of gravity, for the magnet will draw bits of iron or steel up- ward as well as downward, away from the surface as well as toward the surface of the earth. Gravity has no power at all over astral substance that has freed itself from physical matter, while affinity would be powerless or non-expressive in physical matter except for the fact of the presence of astral substance in such matter. A body charged with all the electricity it will hold will weigh no more than when not so charged, thus showing that OR SWOKD OF TRUTH 159 gravity has no power over astral substance, for electricity is always clothed in astral or soul sub- stance, as declared in other parts of this book. The power of gravity is not the action of a mov- ing force, but is the gripping power of an electric sea that surrounds the earth, and which probably does not extend much beyond thirty miles from the surface of the earth, and possibly not over half this distance. The action of this power is much like that of an elastic band that is stretched over an object, as around the hand or wrist. Grav- ity has but one office to perform and that is to bind physical matter together and draw it toward a common center. And the knowledge that it shows no sympathy is the influence that teaches us to obey it. Life's course is much like a route across a vast plain to a city beyond. To reach the city you must follow the right course. Disregard directions and you lose your way. It is this law of death we are so often warned against, for this power knows nothing else than to grip with grim- like death all that comes under its power, and this is everything that is bound in physical matter. Nature's conscious God-Head can not make the terms easier for us. Had it been possible, it would have been done. It is the rankest nonsense to imagine that God can in a direct way think and act for us. Man must think and act for himself. And it is neces- sary to obey the law, for death grips the soul that 160 PLAN OF CEEATION fails to live in harmony with the golden rule. To get right in both head and heart it is necessary for us to develop sympathy by mentally putting our- selves in the place of others. Do not be afraid to do this. It will not hurt you. Plain honesty will make us right and keep us right. Love of self and forgetfulness of the rights of others places us under the power of this law of death. If one is disposed to consider himself big and the other fel- low small, he should get love and sympathy to throbbing in his heart. Self-love is suicide and death. The action, or rather, the power of grav- ity might be compared to an attempt to walk with the feet bound to the ground by elastic bands. To walk with ease and freedom requires an act of the will, conscious or otherwise. The mind releases the hold of gravity on the foot that is thrust for- ward, and transfers it to the other foot, thus tak- ing much of the weight out of the lifted foot until it again comes in contact with the ground. Were this not true, every effort to lift the foot from the ground and thrust it forward would be resisted by a pulling sensation similar to that which would be felt if the feet were chained to the ground by elas- tic bands. Walking is only possible through faith. This is proven in the case of the hypnotic subject that is told that he can not walk. In this state of doubt he stands glued to his tracks, struggle as he will. Those partially paralyzed and those with artificial limbs walk with great difficulty. They feel the weight of the leg and foot thrust forward. OR SWORD OF TRUTH 161 Were the power of gravity suspended for one brief instant, all would be lost. The atmosphere of the planet would instantly separate from the body of the earth, the wall of fire surrounding the great stomach of the earth would instantly leap to its crust and reduce the earth to its elemental or atomic state. And this would be done as quickly as a stick of giant powder would split a boulder. (For further information regarding the so-called wall of fire the reader is referred to chapter on planets.) The theory has been advanced and has been ac- cepted by many, that we are held to the earth by outside pressure. But those who support this theory have overlooked too many facts that con- tradict it. Under such a form of gravity, a body in a vacuum would be without weight, while it is known that a body in a vacuum weighs slightly more than when exposed to atmospheric pressure. A steel rail or other body of metal weighs less in deep water than out of it. There is considerable buoyancy in the atmosphere, hence the balloon floats in air, when filled with lighter gas. If an outside force held us to the earth, all objects hav- ing the same surface exposure would have the same weight. Under such a form of gravity only top surface pressure could give weight. Bottom pressure and side pressure would overcome weight. To expose any other than the top surface would be to overcome all weight in the body thus 162 PLAN OF CREATION exposed. A wooden dining table laid flat on the ground, would, under such a form of gravity, weigh more than a locomotive. Indeed, under such a form! of gravity, a locomotive would not weigh anything. Gravity, as such, has power over physical mat- ter only. Over astral substance it has no power. Astral substance is soul substance, the substance of which the nerve and brain cells are the sheath. Thus gravity has power over the soul, but only to the degree that the soul is yet bound in the flesh. We think ourselves out of these flesh body shells, as the chicken pecks its way out of the egg shell. Electricity is the power we call gravity, and the nature of this agent is to encircle and embrace something, and so long as it is confined to the single atom of matter, it knows no bigger world. The earth is a larger atom and as fast as growth and decay or these processes break the hold of this spark of electric fire on the smaller atom, it embraces the larger atom and its affec- tions are transferred to this larger world. The flesh body is composed of these atoms of matter and these are the direct cause of abnormal appe- tites and cravings, which if given way to confine our thoughts and affections within ourselves, ren- dering us nearly as blind as the spark of life in the single atom which knows no larger world than it- self. And at this point it is well to note the fact that this life agent acts always in or through OE SWORD OF TRUTH 163 channels, and not in the manner of an explosion. Electricity is life and the only power in the uni- verse, but it acts through channels, as the river conveying the waters of a lake to some lower level. The lake as a whole is comparatively still, but its waters are in active motion in the river. If this life agent was active in a promiscuous sense, a universe would be impossible. The same law that gives lovers the desire to em- brace each other is the law of force that binds our physical bodies to the planet earth: To come from under the power of this blind force, which is the power of death, we must wrench the tiny sparks of life, with their astral covering, from the body cells, and thus from the grasp of this power. This can only be done by earnest effort. To close the mind to truth, justice and mercy is to close the door of escape. The ideal Christ within must have full voice in shaping our lives for this spirit points unerringly to the narrow way. And this power is indivisible and unbroken, and it is the spirit of God, for spirit is not divided as atoms are. The tiny spark blends with the great ocean of spirit as water with water, and the blend- ing is perfect. Gravity is the power of God, for spirit alone is life, and it alone can manifest power, for it is not a rope of sand, but is unbroken and indivisible. But gravity is not endowed with intelligence. 164 PLAN OF CREATION The second death or dissolution of the soul, doubtless takes place if the individual refuses to turn from his selfish ways, for God does not save men in their sins, but from them, if they are to be saved at all. If the soul refuses absolutely to fol- low the ideal Christ within, then it must perish, for only the perfect can enjoy the blessings of eternal life. But if the soul suffers the second death or dissolution, the Ego is transferred to the vegetable world to begin its upward march over again, and from the vegetable kingdom up through the animal and back to the human, gain- ing strength as it climbs. Thus do we see the possibility of nature being defeated in individual cases ; for where the soul will not unfold it will de- generate and finally disintegrate for want of sympathetic binding power. But a book that con- tains only trash will not be missed when it is de- stroyed. But it can hardly be supposed that an intelli- gent man or woman would suffer themselves to sink to that point where dissolution would take place. Pain and suffering in some form or other would compel them to form new resolutions and to move forward toward an ideal. OR SWORD OF TRUTH 165 "THE WORD MADE FLESH." The principles upon which governments are founded and maintained are mental principles; they are held before the minds of men and exist in the minds of men. Words and principles, aside from flesh and blood as we on this earth are af- fected by them, are meaningless. There is no power in a principle except it be engraved upon the heart of man. All the principles in the uni- verse, though written out and hung before us, could have no power to save us unless we' take them into our minds and hearts. The word that was made flesh is truth, justice, mercy, and Christ fully represented these principles. To receive this triune principle from the fountain-head of wisdom and power, and carry it to earth and plant it in the mind and heart of man required, above all else, a vessel without a flaw. No defective ves- sel could convey so perfect a principle to an earth like this, and transplant it in the minds and hearts of a race who, up to that time, had never known what absolute justice meant. Ages of suffering might have brought out this triune principle in the heart and mind of man, though how long it would have required to bring about this result would be mere speculation. It was to quicken the higher mental faculties that Christ came to earth. And except the "word (triune principle of truth, justice, mercy) be made 166 PLAN OF CREATION flesh," except men in the flesh be made to love this triune principle, there could be no peace on earth nor salvation for the soul at dissolution of the physical body. To awaken this triune principle in the mind and heart of man required that some one live this principle in his own life, and this was fulfilled in the person of Christ. There is no other way, nor should there be, for no man who is not just and is not willing to show mercy has any right to expect justice or mercy. A heaven filled with such cold hearted beings would be a hell. And when* we are told that there is "no remission of sins except by the shedding of blood," this is the full proof. Great wrongs are not given up by per- suasion but by force. Selfishness becomes less selfish after a baptism in blood. The declaration has little reference to Christ's blood, and not at all in the way generally understood. If Christ be "held up — lifted up" in sermon, book, etc., he will draw all men unto him ; but if he be not mentioned, the spilling of his blood would have saved no one. It is by being "Iff ted up" in song, sermon and in the spoken and written word that Christ saves. And it is by meditation, by loss of fathers, sons, husbands and lovers that men are turned from the evil thing that caused the war. Thus and thus only is there "remission of sins by the shedding of blood." All past history bears witness to the fact that great national wrongs were not given up OB SWORD OF TRUTH 167 except through prolonged wars in which much blood was shed. As to faith, we all know that reason begins where the five physical senses end. These senses must be silenced before reason can begin to mani- fest. If man limited his mental operations to the range of his five physical senses, he would forever remain on the animal plane. And even here, the lower animal is better equipped than man. The dog is keener of scent, sight and hearing, excelling in at least three of the five senses, to say nothing of the sixth and higher sense, which enables the dog and some other lower animals to find their way to distant points and back home when away from home. Therefore it is more like death than wisdom to doubt. Man should seek to prove the reason for his doubt, no less than he should seek a reason for his belief. So called "blind faith' ' is not half so blind as "blind doubt.' ' Doubt is reasonable only when there is reason for it. Let no man boast of his doubt. The blind man might with as good reason boast of his sightless eyes. As to whether Judas was forgiven or condemned there is no room for contention. Judas was forgiven if he repented ; but was not forgiven if he did not re- pent, for men are not saved in their sins, but from them. We forgive ourselves when we turn from evil; we condemn ourselves when we turn to it. We would not be asked to obey the will of God if 168 PLAN OF CREATION we had not His voice in our mental make up. The conscience, coupled with reason, is the voice of God in man. We may sear the conscience, but we can not silence the voice completely. As long as there is guilt within, it can not be forgiven, except arbitrarily, and we are not dealt with in this man- ner. Christ brought to earth the sword of truth. This sword will yet cut down all evil. The triune prin- ciple of truth, justice, mercy could never have been established in the world by mere talk, how- ever much. These principles had to be reflected in his own life. Millions are longing for the bet- ter day and thousands are willing to live the golden rule. But there is a trinity of evil that prevents this. Interest, profit and rent stand di- rectly opposed to the golden rule. But what is overcome in the parent is overcome in the child; a thousand years of the "rod of iron" rule will make man a law unto himself; he will be trained into a righteous being. Christ is our pattern, and we must conform to this pattern. Man can never rise above his ideal, though he may sink below it. Slavery was well-nigh universal at the birth of Christ. Slaves were bought and sold with as little regard for human rights as are houses and lots. The old slaves were killed, when they could not be sold, to save the cost of keeping them. Christian- ity could not destroy this evil in a day; it could not be overcome in a year but it was made a crime OE SWOKD OF TRUTH 169 for a man to injure his slave and this not so many years after Christianity began to spread over the earth. The word made flesh is as plainly evident to the doubter as to the believer, for men can not doubt that of which they have no knowledge. We all have some idea of right and wrong. Man can not break a law before it has been revealed to him. Since Christ, man has known a higher law, and now he must live in obedience to this law. The "comforter' ' is the Christ within. So long as he stood visible before his disciples, they would look without instead of within for help and guidance. It is not a person but the spirit that makes alive. This permeates all things. It is the life of the universe and it proceeds from God. Christ could not give us new powers. He only sought to awaken the powers that lay dor- mant in the mind. We already possessed the fac- ulties through which he could appeal to us, and he had no power or intention of supplying us with other faculties. He needed to rouse to activity those we already had. We all have some of the power Christ himself possessed. We may talk and persuade, but we must practice what we preach. We must live the life we ask others to live. Christ did this, and so far as we know he was the only one who ever did live the perfect life up to that time. "He that hateth me hateth my Father also," for after your own soul has re- vealed to you this state of perfection, you hate 170 PLAN OF CREATION God for having placed within you this holy prin- ciple, unless you are willing to live in obedience to your conscience. We must not despise the more perfect way, for sooner or later we must travel the more perfect way, even though Christ had not come to earth. The soul can only reach its goal by a straight course. It is not the fault of the truth that con- tention has grown out of Christ's teaching; the fault is in those who are opposed to this teaching. Had his purpose been only to bring peace to the world* Christ would have taught reconciliation on old lines and thus bound men in slavery for all time. But his mission was to set the captive free, by revealing the true and only way. We see this same contention in the effort to free the wage slaves. Is there any other way to establish right conditions except by bitter contentions? Not so long as there is selfishness to contend with. Of course, the setting free that was promised was not merely the setting free of the slaves, but it was to set man free from his own animal nature, to lift him above the animal plane. Not all Christians are in the church, nor all in- fidels out of it. Pruning a tree will make it no less fruitful. It must be dug up by the roots and cast out entirely, to destroy it. The passover supper also has its lesson for us. In eating and drinking is represented a principle that must become a part of our very lives ; it must OE SWOBD OF TRUTH 171 be as the food we eat ; it must be our strength and our nourishment. As the body would die without food, so will the soul that fails to incorporate the Christ principle of truth, justice and mercy into itself. The lesson is a deep one. It was put in the manner it was to draw out the truth, and to show men that it is not enough merely to mentally grasp a principle, but that this principle must be incorporated by digestion and complete assimila- tion. We are not merely to acknowledge the golden rule as a good rule to be guided by, but we must be guided by it, we must assimilate it ; must make it a part of our lives; it must circulate through our heart's blood, and it must be the gov- erning principle of our thought and conduct, one from which we have no desire to be free. We must learn to love this rule ; we must incorporate the whole Christ, we must put on the full armor. A literal eating was not thought of, for that would have been cannibalism, and the mission of Christ was to make men better, not worse. We do not grow to be like the things we eat ; the eating must be mental assimilation of the great Christ prin- ciple. The word must become flesh in each and all, for no unclean thing can come into the pres- ence of the God of justice, mercy and power. The terms are the same for all, and it would be im- possible to make them easier or different. Since following Christ in the literal sense was not possible for all, it was not meant for any. 172 PLAN OF CREATION Those who did follow him in the literal sense fol- lowed him also in the spiritual sense and the true sense, for a literal following without a spiritual agreement would be anything else than following. Bible students will recall the fact that the paschal lamb was to be all consumed ; there was to be none of it left. And so the true follower of Christ must incorporate all of the Christ principles, otherwise he will find himself limping his way to heaven, with the road growing ever longer and the load heavier. He must put on the whole armor of righteousness. The setting of the members of the family one against the other is but a necessary prelude to a right condition and understanding, which can come only by separating the wheat from the chaff. The sword of truth must cut away all that is false, for the true and the good can endure for time and eternity. Better contend for what we believe to be right, than to be luke- warm or indifferent. Better be right and have every one else against you than be wrong and re- tain the friendship of all. In pointing out the way men should go Christ is not to blame for the course they take or for the contentions that grow out of it. The contentions we see going on in the world is but the effort to separate the chaff from the wheat. And this separation must take place. Why a Pope! Protestants no doubt would re- sent the imputation that they are in great meas- OR SWORD OF TRUTH 173 tire to blame for the existence of a pope and his power over the minds of millions of professing Christians. But when we consider that nearly, if not all Protestants consciously or unconsciously look upon God as a dictator, who arbitrarily for- gives sins, it is not difficult to see that the pope's position is founded in their faith. Dictatorship has no other foundation than that of arbitrary rule. If God can arbitrarily forgive sins, there is no reason why the Pope of Rome may not do so. The idea rests entirely upon the power to enforce or compel. And if a man can hold the position of dictator over the world, he may forgive sins as well as God, since it is merely a matter of will. And it matters little whether the sinner pays in coin or in confessions, so long as he does not give up his sin. The truth is, God forgives the sinner, but not the sin, and only after he has given up his sin. The pope forgives both the sin and the sinner, and for a money price allows the sinner to continue on his course. Granting indulgence to continue in the sin, is not different from forgiving sins that have not been given up through the power of re- pentance. If the sinner has not repented he can- not be forgiven, for God can only forgive after re- pentance, not before. Sin can not be arbitrarily forgiven by either God or man, for the simple reason that its nature remains unchanged. The moral law is a fixed principle, and God can no 174 PLAN OF CREATION more forgive the unrepentant sinner than He can change Himself and His laws. The sinner forgives himself in his own con- science when he turns from his evil course; he condemns himself when he turns to evil, for the voice of God is in the human conscience. The for- giveness must come from within, and not from without. And when the Catholics understand this principle, they will not pay a priest or pope to do for them a thing God Himself is powerless to do ! Most Protestant churches preach the doctrine that moral conduct counts for nothing, unless it bears the stamp of Christianity. This is in effect to declare that sins can be arbitrarily forgiven, and that nothing is good unless there be an open profession. And thus is the foundation laid in Protestant faith for Catholic confession and con- fessional. A good intention followed by a good act needs no profession to give it strength. A good deed backed up by good motives, is its own strength. A charitable act by a doubter is of much greater concern to God than are the barren professions of so-called Christians. Let those who doubt this declaration, turn to the twenty- fifth chapter of Matthew and make a close study of that chapter. The belief in a pope and his power would have disappeared a thousand years ago, had it not been for the blind selfishness that has steadfastly remained in the various Protes- tant churches. An understanding of the truth and OR SWORD OF TRUTH 175 love of the same, will free the world from the evils that curse us. God can not change a sin into a virtue by arbi- trary rule ; neither has He the power to change a virtue into a sin. If He had such power, then He could make all things right by a mere act of the will. But the idea of arbitrary rule and forgive- ness of sin apparently dominates the mind of the average church member. The idea seems to pre- vail that all that is necessary, or at least the most necessary, is to give lip praise and credit to God, and still continue to live the selfish life. Profess- ing Christians appear to take pride in the fact that they profess a belief in God, while the doubter does not. It is well-nigh past belief that intelligent men and women could be persuaded that a pope or priest' can forgive sins. And it is fully as hard to understand why Protestants place faith and professions above good deeds and right motives, in view of the fact that the Bible plainly declares that "faith without works availeth noth- ing.' ' Why the dialogue in the twenty-fifth chap- ter of Matthew, if not to bring out the fact that acts of charity and kindness are placed far above professions? Faith is a blessing, but not a vir- tue. It is a bright star of hope to the well-mean- ing and makes the cross of life more easy to bear. To the selfish it is an accusing witness. If one throws himself into a swift stream of water and pulls a drowning man from it; if he relieves suf- 176 PLAN OF CKEATION fering wherever and whenever possible, and does a thousand and one other good deeds, and all with- out hope of reward, is he not "proving his faith by his works V J Is that not the right way and the sensible way? If getting up before an audience and declaring one's self a Christian would make him one, the world would now be in the middle of the Millennium. To "confess our sins' ' to a man is to degrade both ourselves and him. At best, such confessions would be less out of place in a criminal court of law than in the "house of God." Subject of Baptism. Our great fight in this age is to overcome the false beliefs of a past and more ignorant age. The ignorant age had to be, but it must not be allowed to continue indefinitely. The reflection of an error that is essential to a revelation of the truth, is just as essential to the mind as the truth it reflects. The Bible reflects both the plain statement of facts and the errors necessary to reveal them, to a world of people in a more advanced age. This again shows us the wisdom of God, for no man can understand a truth that is not contrasted with an error or untruth. Evils of all kinds and errors of every nature and variety had to be permitted to express in the world, and for a long period of time, that we of this age and those of future ages might see the evil of evil and the good of good. All things are seen by contrast. Therefore let no one imag- OR SWORD OF TEUTH 177 ine that God has led any of us to believe in errors. The truth is before us all the time, and it is both our privilege and our duty to discover it. Water baptism had an uplifting effect on those of the past who complied with that practice and who had a strong faith in it. And to those of today who still believe firmly in it, it still holds a moral value, for all are advanced in morals, by complying with what they conceive to be moral re- quirements. But it must be noted that it is the belief in water baptism, and not the submersion, that stimulates the resolve to live a better and cleaner life. Crossing oneself or walking back- wards, would have the same eifect on the mind, if the belief that it would do so existed in the mind. The point is that water baptism is not essential to the soul's salvation, for if it were, then men and women could be saved by arbitrary rule, and good deeds and good intentions need not be in- cluded. One writer, in speaking of baptism, declares: "a correct understanding of the subject of bap- tism involves the fate of every man and woman on earth." A matter so important, would have been established in the conscience and in the reason of each individual. A subject over which there is a world of conflicting ideas and opinions, cannot be essential to the soul's salvation, otherwise God must be regarded in the light of a tyrant and dic- tator, and in the end, would be as liable to save 178 PLAN OF CREATION those who have the courage to stand out against a foolish ordinance or waste valuable time in a study of it, as He is to save those who act the part of cringing cowards, afraid to obey the conscience in them, and which is our only true moral guide in any emergency. If God's will in- cludes ordinances that are mere outward per- formances, and that have no saving power in them- selves, then indeed would He rule by arbitrary authority, and moral goodness would count for nothing, unless it chanced to be included in the ordinances. The whole subject of moral justice and the range of man's conduct, are not covered in the Bible. If we are to confine ourselves to doing only the things spoken of, and regard not the rest, we can sin as much as we like, and yet be saved, by observing the written ordinance. The discus- sion of the subject of water baptism seems a waste of time, for if we are to get to heaven by mechan- ical obedience to ordinances, we had just as well remain indifferent about good intentions, only in so far as they touch the subject of an ordinance. The conscience is the voice of God in man. Nothing is good that this voice does not feel to be, and nothing bad, that does not so appear to the individual himself. Outward signs and out- ward things are to teach, but the voice of ap- proval or condemnation must come from the voice of God in each individual, for God cannot speak OR SWORD OF TRUTH 179 to us collectively; He speaks to each individual through his own conscience — the still voice within. It is our duty to seek light and guidance from one another; but since each individual of neces- sity must rely upon his own judgment many times during the course of life, and must obey his own conscience, there being no one near him to counsel with, it follows naturally that the individual's conscience is his only moral guide. And this still voice within is to be obeyed as well after being ad- vised by others, as before, though perhaps the act will be under the direction and guidance of better judgment. It is possible to curse oneself and bless another by the same act. To illustrate: Suppose you have a neighbor whom you do not like ; you go to him with the pretense that you wish to help him, but with the intention of getting him into trouble. You give him what you suppose to be a twenty dollar counterfeit coin. It turns out that the coin was good. But your intentions were not good. You have thus rendered your enemy a service ; though you have at the same time cursed your own soul with an evil intention. If you reverse the order of this, you bless yourself, but uninten- tionally bring the other man to trouble. Good deeds and good intentions bless the soul. Evil intentions curse the soul. We inflict on ourselves the wounds we intend for others. The world may not know of our crime 180 PLAN OF CREATION and there may be no court of law that would try us for the crime of evil intention, unless there be some outward sign to indicate it. But the court of our conscience has already tried the case, and it has found us guilty. "He that thinketh to do evil, hath already committed the sin," or words to that effect. There are many fine distinctions to be drawn in life's course, though none of them are so complicated that the individual does not know when he does wrong. The way is plain, and none need err therein. If baptism works any good in the sinner, it must be through the faith he has in it, and not the bap- tism itself; for if submerging in water washed away sins, it would have the same effect if one fell into the water by accident. Many subjects are cured of pains and other forms of disease, through faith. "Thy faith hath made thee whole," though not the water you were baptised in nor the words said over the performance. "I do not frustrate the grace of God: for if righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain. ' ' The writer of the pamphlet from which this quotation is taken, with many others of like faith and belief, appears to take a wrong mean- ing out of the above words. It is very true that the law alone, unaided by our willed effort, would not save us. But it is just as true that faith in Christ cannot save us. What Paul really means to point out is that if we relied on the law to save OR SWORD OF TRUTH 181 us, in the same sense that we rely on the law to circulate the blood in our veins and repair the waste in our organisms, that we could never reach a higher plane than the one on which we find our- selves. Christ pointed out the way, and he in- vites us to follow him and carry our cross. And this is possible only by willed effort on our part. The law, without our willed effort, would never make us like our pattern. The law will grow the crop ; but it will not prepare the ground, sow the seed or harvest the crop. We must do this for ourselves. We must strive to be what we have been shown we should be. We are not like inani- mate objects. We are to be governed from within, and we must will to do the things we know we should do. The mission of Christ was and is to bring us all into harmony with God, for God is nature's expressive head. He is the very heart of nature, and when we are in harmony with God, we are then in harmony with all the laws of the universe. But the harmony between an individual and God, can only be established through the will of the individual, for the will is the mainspring of the mind. If we will to do only things God would have us do, then we cannot go wrong. But if we will to have our own way, regardless of what affect our actions will have on others, then we turn from God, for the will of God is founded on absolute justice to all human kind and to all life. 182 PLAN OF CREATION And since God alone is in a position to know with absolute certainty, the ultimate of all actions and intentions, it follows naturally that through Christ, God alone can lead us to a final ultimate of peace and happiness. Any other course is simply the old story of "the blind leading the blind and all falling in the ditch." If we have no faith in our guide, how can we have faith in our- selves ? Are any of us wise enough to know the ultimate effect of any act or intention? For this reason has God placed His voice in the conscience of each individual. We must will to obey the still voice within us, for it is, after all, good or evil in- tention that will judge us in the end. Subject of Sanctification. Much has been said about sanctification, and men get up before audi- ences and make long talks on the subject. It is not here disputed that there are exalted states in religious experience. It is quite possible for all to reach this high plane. But man is not like a board nailed to the floor — he must strive each day and each hour to strengthen his resolves, for there is no safe resting place on this earth plane. It would be harder for one on the higher plane to fall to the lowest level, than for one with a much weaker resolve and less experience. But the pos- sibility that he can fall is ever present. The so- called sanctified man might have further to fall than would the man of more shallow experience; but one step at a time downward may finally carry OK SWOKD OF TRUTH 183 the more resolute man down to the lowest level. The convert who gets up before an audience and declares that he is sanctified, and feels that he is safe, may yet be undeceived, and is likely to be. No man in this life ever gets to that point where he can rest in absolute peace and be sure that he will not fall. The only assurance any of us can have against a fall, is the constant effort to climb. It will be remembered that Peter denied his Master, and this was at least one step downward. A little more pressure would have compelled a second step in the same direction. We cannot know beforehand what the nature of the temp- tation will be, or, how we will feel about it when brought face to face with it. Great hunger might tempt the hand to reach out and take what others claim. And this might start a train of thought that would undo all former resolutions. And since Peter's religion was not nailed down, it is unwise for any of us to imagine that we have a better or different brand. We cannot know in one state of mind what we would do or would not do in another and different state of mind. And our states of mind are largely governed and controlled by our surroundings and states of health. The well-fed and contented man of today may find himself on a desert next week or next month, hungry and dying of thirst. He does not know what he would then do in order to save his life. Peter saw the possibility of dying with Christ, 184 PLAN OF CEEATION and he did not like the idea of dying just then and in the manner planned. So we see him take what he considered the safest way out of the danger that threatened him. Nor must we think to pass judgment on him ; how do we know but we would do even worse under the same conditions? It is not wise for us to judge in such matters, though it is highly important that we should strive to make our environment favorable to our good reso- lutions. A Christian can no more grow in the midst of national corruption, except he fights it, than can a tender plant grow and reach full maturity, sur- rounded by noxious weeds that take away its nourishment. The churches today seek to save men and women who are being choked to death by an unholy and ungodly system, and yet pay no at- tention to the system itself ! You cannot lift men and women from the gutter and hold them up to the stature of men and women in the midst of evil conditions you do not fight, no more than you can grow the tender plant to maturity that is being choked by noxious weeds. And why did you ever think you could do so 1 What evil influence led you to think you could save men's and women's souls, in an environment that is starving their bodies, and which is an outrage on justice and the higher human sentiments ? It is impossible for one to retain his own man- hood under existing conditions, except by making OR SWORD OF TRUTH 185 a bitter fight against these national wrongs, to say nothing about converting men and women and keeping them converted, in the midst of such en- vironments! So far the church has waged its fight against the sins of the individual, while ignoring the sins of the nation. A system that is wrong must of necessity produce wrong growths. The system under which we live, destroys more than can possibly be saved. And even those who claim to be saved, are far from being, for no man or woman can be a true Christian and ignore the ungodly system that robs the many for the benefit of the few. If the professing Christians are so ignorant as not to know that God does not and can not approve of the system under which we live, then they are in more need of saving, than is the drunkard they are trying to pull from the gutter, or the prostitute they are trying to find a place for at starvation wages at disheartening work! The truth cuts, but some one must speak the truth ! As it is, national evils have been winked at far too long. If this nation and its free institutions are to be saved, vigorous condemnation of political and social corruption must at once begin ! Men and women workers in the churches, who are ignorant or indifferent to national corruption, surely are not properly equipped to go forth to battle against the rising tide of individual sin, nor have they any right idea of how best to save, the souls of men and women. Our national Govern- 186 PLAN OF CREATION ment is corrupt from its source to its mouth, and in order to make healthy the members we must doctor the head and the trunk of the "grand man" of the republic. Imagine, if you can, the children remaining pure in mind and heart, when the parents are active in wrong doing ! To save the plant we must fight the weeds that take from it its nourishment. As the child is in- fluenced for good or evil by the sentiments and condyct of its parents, just so are men and women in all walks of life, influenced by the conduct of the ruling or controlling heads of a nation. If only we could convert the church people, this nation would be saved in the short space of six months. Even if only the active heads of the churches lifted their voices against our national sins, the national household would soon be put in order, for evil brought to light by pulpit exposure, could not long survive. The shame would be so great and the humiliation so overpowering, that continuance in evil would be impossible ! Will the pulpit exorcists of this nation take advantage of their opportunities, and thus fulfill in the highest degree that which the suffering masses of our people have the right to expect of them? This is what Christ expects, and it is what God demands of you! Also, it is what you yourselves declare to the world when you take up the profession of preaching the word of God. Are you doing it, or even, are you desiring or intending to do it ? The OR SWORD OF TRUTH 187 need is here ! The harvest time is upon us ; and the reapers must now do their work, or a worse fate will befall us than the sins that now curse us ! When once a national sin is exposed, and the necessity for its removal made plain, silence and indifference on the part of those whose duty it is to speak out against it, become more dangerous than the most deadly explosives. Let us bear in mind the fact, that while God is not the heartless monster some church people have pictured Him to be, nevertheless, He will force a nation of people to live in accord with the light of its con- victions. Once a nation knows that its national sins can no longer be covered up, indifference and peace of mind is no longer possible. Our national sin will from this time forward become a night- mare to those who are responsible for this heart- less condition. Freedom from the evil will become far more desirable than the retention of the evil. Evil is a thing of darkness ; it can not live in the light. Knowing this, somie have sought to have laws passed to prevent the press from exposing evil. But that would not stop the growth of the evil ; once it was known that the press would not be allowed to expose certain evils, those same evils would spread so rapidly that the whole nation would rise in armed rebellion against it! It is too late in the world's history, to attempt to shut off the light ; light will continue to come, and there will be floods of it from this hour on ! 188 PLAN OF CREATION The Conscience. The conscience has its polar- ity in the heart. The reader must bring himself to understand that knowledge without feeling, is not much different from a calculating machine that is made of iron and steel. Therefore the reason for that Scripture which reads: "As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he." Strictly speaking, we do not think with the heart ; but we do feel with the heart, and this feeling is reflected to the heart from the mental faculty of conscien- tiousness, and which alone is the true voice of God in man, as relates to moral conduct. But it is the duty of the conscience to seek light on all matters relating to moral conduct, and to act accordingly. It is possible to hold out for moral principles that were based on conditions that existed in the past, but which it would be unreasonable and unjust to contend for at a later period of time. Today there is a great world-war raging, in which each nation is fighting for its national ex- istence. And it so happens that we have in the presidential chair a man who is stubbornly con- tending for strict adherence to what is known as international law, a law that was framed some forty odd years ago, and relates to a war machine that existed at the time it was written. And seem- ingly our president has taken the "bit in his teeth," and is determined to have his own stub- born way, regardless of the consequences. The great trouble with him is that he insists on ad- OR SWOKD OF TRUTH 189 hering to conditions that have passed, instead of adjusting his mind and heart to the conditions as they exist at this time. The conscience is right only in so far as it can justify its actions. And this shows the wisdom of majority rule; never again must this nation place plenary authority in the hands of a few men. We must hold all power in our own hands. Then the major- ity will be responsible for what may follow any course of action. International law can have no bearing on inven- tions that do not exist at the time it is framed, unless it forbids such inventions and their use. Even in time of war justice may be maintained. The war is no sign that the masses of mankind have lost all sense of justice, or even that the sense of justice has been weakened in the minds of any. A more perfect conception of justice will rise from the ashes of this war now raging. The fact that the planet still revolves on its axis and goes on its course around the sun, is proof that millions still love justice. For if no one loved justice, God would destroy the earth. This earth would be destroyed in less time than it takes to write these lines, should the inhabitants of this planet suddenly become unjust in mind and heart- felt feeling! In order to have any justice on his side, our president would first need to order the destruction of all our submarines, and insist on it that no 190 PLAN OF CKEATION more be constructed, before ordering a nation at war to obey a clause in international law that would render submarines useless. We must be just and reasonable, even in the midst of war. God chastises one nation through another, and just as He chastises an unruly child by punish- ment inflicted through its parents. He does not dwell here among us only in the spirit. And God is never indifferent to our actions nor unmindful of our needs. Today the world needs a severe lesson of rebuke, and through much bloodshed it will give up its sins. For it is still true that " there is no remission of sins, except by the shed- ding of blood,' ' as declared nearly nineteen cen- turies ago. And this being true, our business is to put our own house in order, and leave the out- come of the present world-war in the hands of God, who will continue to "work good out of evil," and who will do so as long as evil exists in the mind of man. In justice we may do what we can to bring the war to a close ; but we are not to take the side of one nation against that of another nation, for that would be a crime and we would have no excuse to offer. Even while the war rages and men are dying by the thousands, our capitalists are plot- ting to steal world markets after the war is over. A severe rebuke will be administered before the end of the world trouble is reached. Love of truth and justice will right all wrongs. OR SWORD OF TRUTH 191 Let us cultivate a love for truth and justice, and this world will be a happy home for all. Faith in God would have averted the present world-war. Faith in the power of money has brought it on. Then who is ready to laugh at faith and praise the lack of it? Lack of faith in a living God of justice has brought the world to ruin! Passive, watery faith has no power over the mind of man. But a living, active faith in God instead of in gold, would have made it im- possible to have even prepared in the least meas- ure for war. And to the degree we ourselves prepare for war, in that measure will we show our lack of faith in a God of justice. We cannot get away from this conclusion, and if we go ahead on " preparedness' ' lines, freedom and justice will bleed at our feet. A tooth for a tooth was the practice of long ago. Vengeance belongs to God. An invasion of Mexico will be primarily for gold. Literally it will be the old law of an eye for an eye brought down to date. Those who would take up the sword will die by it. If not literally, at least spiritually. War is a devilish method of retaliation and devastation. God's ways are ways of peace. The former will make us both feared and hated by all the peoples of the western hemisphere. The latter will lead us to peace and happiness. 192 PLAN OF CREATION THE MARRIAGE INSTITUTION. Without the institution of marriage the home is impossible, and it is in the home that the child receives the sweetest impressions of its life. There are few even among the best and wisest women who can take the place of the mother. The child needs the tender care and training of its mother and the protection and influence of its father. The child that loses either of its parents during the tender years of its life is to be pitied. The mother is well-nigh indispensable in the life of the child up to ten or twelve years of age. Of course, thousands of children do not know what a mother's influence is, but who can say how much happier and better the motherless child would have been had it not been deprived of her influence and training? Hence the so-called contract marriage is a kind of nightmare to the more refined and sensitive for in this provision the rights of the child seem to be overlooked and forgotten. To guard against pos- sible disagreement by a marriage contract is about as unreasonable as to abandon a selected plot of ground as a building site out of fear of an earthquake when there was no record of an earth- quake having visited this particular section. Di- vorce or power of separation will always be in vogue where there is a reason for separation, hence the marriage contract or contract marriage is a useless provision. OR SWORD OF TRUTH 193 The contract marriage offers an inducement to look for other attractions since it is binding only for a limited time, and may be terminated by a second agreement. The right of the child to parental protection is as sacred as life itelf, so long as the parents live and are free to give such protection. One must depart from a belief in the ideal Christ and continued life beyond the grave before he can take up such doctrines as free love and marriage by contract. The soul has a beauty apart from mere beauty of face and form, and so long as the heart is right the union should be unbroken. The contract marriage reduces the marriage institution to the basis of a stock farm in which the offspring are treated as mere ani- mals, without desire or preference. To disregard the sacredness of marriage is to treat the issue as a mere obligation to feed and clothe and this may as well be done by others as by the parents. If human life is sacred, then the marriage rela- tion is sacred and they who enter marriage as- sume all the responsibilities of fatherhood and motherhood, even though no children be born to them. The marriage contract anticipates trouble, and it lays the foundation for trouble — even invites it. If love and courtship do not reveal objectionable traits in the contracting parties, why look for their development at some future time? Divorces must be granted, for greater evils result from con- 194 PLAN OF CKEATION tinning inharmonious relations than from their dissolution. But society should require a season of good conduct on the part of the divorced be fore granting them the right to re-enter marriage. Training Children in Good Manners. To teach children good manners in the home, in and out of company, at table and in their association with their elders and with other children is highly im- portant and should not be neglected. They should be taught to be thoughtful and companionable, but this should not be extended to making them slaves to rules of etiquette. When children are tauglit to depart from naturalness, they become mere human monkeys trained to perform a va- riety of tricks; tricks designed by idle brained men and women who were incapable of designing anything else. You will never find a great man's name affixed to a book on etiquette as its author, for great men find no time to waste on that which trains in deceit and deception. The rules of eti- quette might be compared to plans of a battle outlined by a commanding officer without first having acquainted himself with the topography of the country, nature, number and strength of his foe. When we meet people, having the bare training of good manners and the strength of good breeding, naturalness will tell us how to act upon all occasions. Etiquette is a straight-jacket and to keep out of it is good conduct. There is nothing so becoming on all occasions as natural- ness ; there is nothing more vulgar and degrading OR SWORD OF TRUTH 195 than to act the part yon do not feel — to play the hypocrite. Nature saw fit to make ns all different, one from the other, and beyond a few simple rules, to make us thoughtful and prevent us acting in an awkward and clumsy manner, there is no occa- sion to go. We find that etiquette trains men and women to go through fixed rules of perform- ance and none but monkeys and brainless men and women will long submit to such silliness, for people of good sense and naturalness respect others who are polite by nature and not by rule. Children should not be brought up in idleness; many mothers today bring up their daughters in idleness, thinking this a kindness to them. The daughter trained to stand idly by while her mother does the work will finally come to regard herself as above those who work, and her mother as specially fitted mentally and physically to do the work. Children able to work should be trained to help their parents not alone for the purpose of making the load lighter for such par- ents but to make the child thoughtful and useful to society. For children reared in idleness are likely to grow to be grovelers. The surest way to produce a groveler is to train an idler. No one trained in idleness that is not forced can be as thoughtful and helpful as those trained in useful service. Parents should not indulge in idle and silly talk in the presence of their children, such as recount- ing their own childish actions in youth; for even 1% PLAN OF CREATION though the child may reason that the parents were once children like itself, it does not like to think of them as having been silly. We have no account of our Savior having indulged in idle or foolish talk, and it does not appear there is any reason why parents should do so, and more espe- cially when there are young and tender ears to hear such silly talk. Nor does it appear that dancing is the highest form of pleasure possible; moving the feet to express joy and gladness is only so much evidence of the savagery we inher- ited .from our forefathers. I am grateful that I never saw my parents dance, and it seems to me I should have had just a little less respect for them had I ever seen them do so. Sacredness of the Home. No officer of the law should be allowed to enter private homes other than his own, as an officer, for such authority rightfully ends at the doorstep. It must not ex- tend further except by due process of law, as pro- vided in our constitution. Complaints of children against parents, or wives against husbands should be investigated and proper protection given so that the child or wife may not fear to tell the truth. As far as may be, men and women should be free and above the fear of the law; but at the same time we can not afford to have women and children caged with bears. We must be quite as diligent in our efforts to keep poison out of the soul as we are to keep it out of our food. If di- vorced couples should be compelled to show at OR SWORD OF TRUTH 197 least three years of excellent conduct before re- entering marriage much evil growing out of crabbed dispositions on the part of men would be removed. There are men who are as cruel as bears and they would threaten the life of a woman who would lodge a complaint against them. In such cases give the wife a divorce at once. This destroys his power over her to some extent at least. The Green-Eyed Monster! This monster is known by the common name of jealousy. It is the most senseless and unreasonable of all mental qualities, and has been the direct cause of more heart-aches than all the wars, famines and earth- quakes recorded in history! This may appear to be an extravagant statement, but jealousy is far more common than is generally known. There is scarcely an adult of either sex that has not been cursed by this green-eyed monster at sometime in life, and millions never know what it is to be free from it. It devours reason and blights hap- piness, and it often leads to murder, suicide and insanity. The man or woman who deliberately acts in way to torture another with jealousy, is guilty of a crime, and such actions only too often end in murder or suicide — if not insanity. Jealousy is a contradiction in the human mind, and more often than otherwise leads straight to the thing it envies. In other words, jealousy fre- quently materializes an imaginary condition into a fact. The man or woman who is jealous without 198 PLAN OF CREATION a cause, will by this same insane jealousy create the cause. The man or woman who is jealous without a cause or an excuse, will drive the object of their affections from them. And there is never any real reason for being jealous, for the unfaith- ful one is not worthy of thought or care. The high- spirited will not tolerate a deliberate slight, and so the teaser will likely find that he has lost what he or she hoped to gain by making the other party jealous. Love is not to be trifled with, and when it is, further relations should be broken off. This will probably save many bitter heart-aches; for one who will trifle with love before marriage will forget to love after marriage, for jealousy is more common between the sexes than in other rela- tions. Women are quite frequently known to envy some other woman a new dress, however, and envy is a near relative of jealousy. Thoughtful men and women will carefully avoid outward acts and conduct that would be likely to lead to jealousy. Those whose conduct is such as to create suspicion, are unworthy of love and affection, and therefore all grounds for being jealous are swept away by their unworthiness. No sane man will or can love a woman for mere beauty of face; if he loves her at all it will be for her true womanly qualities of mind and heart. Beauty of face is an adornment to a woman of good character and disposition; to a lude woman it advertises her shame, and is much like a fine painting on a cheap canvas or background. Even OR SWOED OF TRUTH 199 the lowest of vulgar men think more of a virtuous woman than they do of the low and vulgar, and face beauty that is not backed up by virtue soon loses all attraction to all men, both low and high. Those who fail to rise to the plane of reason will remain on the low level of jealousy and hatred, for reason lifts the mind above jealousy and hatred. There is no reason for being jealous, and reason enables the mind to see the folly of it. Mar- riages that are not based on soul harmony and agreement, must of necessity lead to disagreement and misery in all its forms. The man or woman who is on the lookout for a new attraction in the form of a new face or form, will not succeed in obtaining any lasting pleasure or happiness, for even though one of good sense and good conduct be misled by such person, the mistake will soon be discovered, and then will come the unhappi- ness that must forever follow a wrong choice. Oil and water will not mix; nor can a man or woman of good sense enjoy the companionship of one with less mentality. The flirt and the philosopher are as far apart as the poles. The sensible woman can never love a man who is not on the same mental plane with her. Or if the man marries a woman who is on a much lower mental plane than the one on which he stands, he can not love her, though she may love him. The sensible thing to do is to become right in both head and heart, for between the sincere and the honest and those who are neither sincere nor 200 PLAN OF CEEATION honest, there is no agreement and never can be. The honest man will despise the woman who is not honest. And so of the woman; the virtuous woman will abhor a man of low caste of mind. And even though a man may deceive a woman be- fore marriage, if his mind is full of trash, the woman will soon discover it after the marriage, and then there can be no more peace in that house- hold. It is the duty of men and women to test each other out before marriage; it is the most fatal of mistakes, to marry one morally inferior to yourself. But where the ideals are in agree- ment, the other differences can be adjusted. And while book learning may have much to do in the matter, it is at the same time quite possible for an illiterate person to marry one highly educated, and yet live happily together. Indeed, such unions more often lead to happiness than otherwise, for they are usually contracted on the strength of moral agreement. It is quite the proper thing to ask each other direct questions before marriage, to find out the number of points upon which there is agreement, and bring out those upon which you are not agreed. Then find out, if possible, whether or not the points upon which you do not agree are likely to prove bones of contention after marriage. There are men and women who seek to control absolutely the object of their affection. Love is a free expression, and it cannot exist in slavery. The loved one will not and cannot return love for OR SWOKD OF TRUTH 201 suspicion and mistrust. If there already exists any reason for doubting the faithfulness of the one you love, the grounds for jealousy no longer exist, and there remains nothing else to do but forgive and forget. We will receive in kind just what we give, and so long as we ourselves are worthy, we will draw those to us who are worthy. We will retain in love measure for measure the kind we ourselves give. Faithlessness on either side breaks the chain of love, and a chain of that kind cannot be welded at a blacksmith's forge. The welding must take place in the mind and heart of the treacherous party to the contract. Women who fall in love with a man because of the way he combs his hair or because of his white teeth, and many rush into marriage with no higher ideals, find later on that no number of outward appearances will or can wash away the sins of a bad character and ugly disposition. If only men and women would exercise as much common sense in the selection of wedded mates, as they do in fitting a pair of shoes to their feet or a collar to their necks, domestic troubles would seldom rise, and could be so on adjusted when they do. And only too often we find women jealous of other women because of some possession. Often it is nothing more than a new dress or hat. Some- times it is an automobile or an ostrich feather. This form of jealousy is peculiarly a feminine trait, and is not common to men. Our own happi- ness is not increased by the diminution of it in 202 PLAN OF CEEATION others. Just in proportion as we lessen the hap- piness of others, in that proportion will we diminish our own happiness. Our happiness is a mental Condition, and it cannot be obtained through material possessions. One might own the earth and still be the most miserable of human creatures. Moral justice is the basis of all happi- ness, and it is only those who love truth, justice and mercy that are happy or ever will be. As contradictory as it may sound, if there is "room for being jealous," there is no reason to be jealous. For as we cannot "un-scramble the egg," neither can jealousy win back lost love. The only way to win back lost love is by ceasing to be jealous. Jealousy only drives the former lover further and further from you. Jealousy has about the same effect on love that water has on fire. Small quantities result in explosions, while large quantities overcome it entirely. The one great lesson we all must learn, is that we cannot add to our own happiness by making others less happy. The one thought with most people is to seek revenge. Vengeance belongs to God, not to us. When we seek revenge on another for any cause whatsoever, we move away from happiness and not toward it. We cause not alone the object of our revenge to despise us, but we at the same time reveal to others an unlovable dis- position; and even though we do succeed in re- venging ourselves, we at the same time make our- selves all the more uncomfortable, for the satis- OB SWORD OF TRUTH 203 faction that comes from revenge is the satisfac- tion that fills the heart of the murderer after he has killed the object of his hatred! Do you call that happiness? Bear in mind the fact that hatred, jealousy and revenge are daggers you thrust into your own heart, even though you do succeed in "bringing to earth" the object of your hatred. To hate anything or any one, is to hate your own soul; for as we found in the chapter on the mind and its faculties, we do not see external or material things. We see only an image of the person we love or hate in our own minds, and this is formed out of the substance of our own souls. We hate our own souls by hating this image. We cannot love or hate any human being in a direct way. We each live in our own mental universes, and the freer we can keep these from the insane folly of hatred, revenge and jealousy, the larger they will grow and the more beautiful will they be. We must hate our own souls in order to hate any one or anything. And this is the reason for that Scripture which reads: "If you have thought to do evil you have already sinned." The mur- derer has already committed murder in his own heart and has inflicted a deep wound on his own soul, the moment he made up his mind that he would kill the object of his hatred. From this we are enabled to see that those people in the Southern states, and occasionally in some of the Northern states, who have burned colored men at the stake or lynched them, really 204 PLAN OF CREATION committed a crime on their own souls! These brutish men did not and could not touch or injure the soul of the man they lynched or burned at the stake, though they did succeed beautifully in in- flicting wounds on their own souls, and before these wounds heal they will suffer the same degree of torture they inflicted on the victim of their revenge! We cannot escape the penalties of na- ture! There is no possible way we can avoid pay- ing back to nature every debt we owe her. Why do we so often hear of men repenting just before death? Is this not sufficient proof that when the soul has escaped from its flesh prison, that the voice of conscience will be active, and "burn as with fire," until the soul has been purged of sin and evil intention? The soul in the flesh may, in a large measure, silence the voice of conscience; but the soul out of the fiesh cannot do this, any more than it can will itself into a state of death and inaction. If we could follow the wicked mail or woman and see them as they appear in their own eyes after leaving the flesh body, we would see the folly, the blindness and stupidity of trying to make ourselves happy by seeking to make others unhappy. Let us bear ever in mind the eternal truth that we ourselves will pay in sorrow all the unhappi- ness we force upon others! Nature is not to be defeated or cheated; for just as unerringly as She weighs the grains of sand upon the earth, just so sure will She weigh our actions and intentions — OE SWORD OF TRUTH 205 good and bad! For "as a man thinketh in his heart, so is he," since it is only reasonable and just to judge by intentions, and not by acts that were not evilly meant. And thus again do we see that the wounds we intend for others, we inflict upon ourselves. Let us not fear that an unworthy person will get more than his share of happiness. No one can succeed in gaining lasting happiness, without paying the full price. There is no lasting happiness that can be had for any other coin than love of truth, jus- tice and mercy. Man can only destroy the flesh body, and after that he can do no more. Nature alone can destroy the soul. And God is Nature and Nature is God. No fear. that Nature will make the mistake of receiving counterfeit coin for the genuine. A law that is so evenly and so ac- curately adjusted that it weighs (counts) the hairs on our heads, will not overlook any of Her jewels, but will polish all, even though She must wring the heart ^nd compel much pain and suf- fering. All of the jewels will be polished and made perfect in the end, and so let us forget our little jealousies and other little quarrels, for we cannot afford to waste time and inflict wounds upon our own souls. 206 PLAN OF CEEATION MISCELLANEOUS. Can Evil Spirits Control Us? It is not reason that persuades men and women to conclude that evil spirits can have any control over our inten- tions or purposes, for our moral natures are in our own keeping. Have evil spirits the power to make you believe it right to commit murder, to lie, steal, or slander another or to turn a deaf ear to all ap- peals for justice and mercy? If they could have such power that which you now regard as right would in the light of your own reason and con- science become wrong; while that which you now hold to be wrong would become right to you, and if one do only the things his reason and conscience tell him he should do, he can commit no wrong. If such changes could be wrought in the mind of man by beings from another plane, persons so afflicted would be insane and not morally respon- sible for their acts. The spirits from the other side of life can do no more than test us, as a man would test the temper of an ax in hard wood. If we yield to evil persuasions, it is because we fall the way we lean. Persuasions can only come as pleadings of our own faculties, for no being can reach us except through these faculties. A spirit in the flesh may back up his pleadings with threats and therefore the evil minded man before you is far more of a potent factor for evil in your life than all the billions of spirits who once lived on this earth and are now invisible to phys- ical eyes. OR SWORD OF TRUTH 207 Would the reader regard his mother as an evil spirit simply because she placed before him a tempting dish, one he had found to be injurious to his health? This is not likely, though such a temptation would be tenfold harder to resist than any temptation an unseen spirit of evil intent could possibly set before us. How can an ex- ternal being taint our moral nature? How can evil spirits without commune except with evil spirits within? As to spirit seances, it might be slightly more instructive to attend them than to attend a dog fight, and also less harmful. The question is, do we serve God by rule, by forms and ceremonies or do we serve Him by good intentions and right motives? Can God be served by a mere act of outward show, or is this not rather to mock Him? Is it not mockery to keep commandments with the hands and with the tongue when at the same time the whole law is broken in the heart? If we could serve God by what the world calls acts of charity and kind- ness, the wealthy classes would find the way to heaven smooth and easy, and they could do this without feeling the strain. It really seems we have in our midst wealth worshippers who would regard the gift of a few millions to some so-called institutions of charity as entitling the giver of this stolen wealth to overthrow the God of justice, if this were possible. Let us be thankful that it is not possible. Sin comes from the heart and not from the 208 PLAN OF CEEATION hand. If a life is lost through accident, there is no sin connected with the act. We get out of life what we put into it. If our purpose in at- tending spirit seances, be selfish, if we go to find encouragement in the pursuit of an evil course, we will likely find what we look for in that line. "God tempts no man," and yet He would be guilty of tempting us if He permitted unseen powers to lead us to destruction, when it is easily in His power to prevent our being led astray. It is within God's power to shield us from undue influence from an unseen source and He has made ample provision along that line. He has placed His voice in our conscience, and this voice never sleeps except we kill it by willing that it shall have no voice in the matter of our conduct. These remarks suggest a conversation de- scribed by a modern writer, in which certain "adepts" are supposed to exercise unlimited powers, powers God Himself could not claim and does not possess. To quote from the writer, the following will illustrate to what depths thought- less men will descend. Note the following: "Should B succeed, even partially, there would be a different turn of affairs, then the prophecies of the Bible would come true, or par- tially so, depending upon which side wins. Should we (Theosophists) win, a black atmos- phere would surround the planet and most people would perish; only those who live in evolutionary development on a higher plane would survive for OR SWORD OF TBTTTH 209 spirituality is a descending power and does not come from this planet. Then we would have to exist and develop as best we could with what en- ergy and power we had absorbed in the past from the sun. Our adepts believe that we have, even now, absorbed enough to carry on development of our own independent of the cause world.' ' If this means anything, it means, or is meant to mean, that if the sunlight and heat were shut off from the earth, these persons could continue to live without light and heat. This point will be discussed further on. Concerning the reincarnation of Christ, the same writer says: "Should another incarnation like this occur, he would be taken quietly and his life (physical body) destroyed, but in such a manner that he could not ascend, but would be bound to our planet and in that way we would ab- sorb him, have something to brace up to and raise ourselves in the scale of evolution; in the other way there is reaction against us that is deadly. It is dangerous to persecute any one, and doubly so to fail. Some of our adepts are on the lookout at all times." There is no need to quote further. This is sufficient for our text, and is a fair sample of the conversation referred to. It will be ob- served that this writer holds to the idea that wis- dom, goodness, life and energy can be absorbed; that the "adepts" have power to prevent Christ from leaving the earth, and power to "absorb" him after his arrival. What is to prevent these 210 PLAN OF CKEATION persons from " absorbing' ' each other, after they have ' ' absorbed ' f all their enemies. Finally there will be but one monster left. The manner in which Christ is to be put to death, is to determine his fate. If put to death in some different way, we are led to believe he could leave the earth. These " adepts" are supposed to have power to pro- nounce curses upon people so they can not be re- incarnated, and so those who pronounce the curses can not be reincarnated, and so far as known are utterly destroyed. In this writer's imagination they have wonderful power. And not this man alone, but many writers hold the same absurd idea. They would prevent a human being from being reincarnated, and would themselves be destroyed for having exercised this power. A power, able to destroy lives, waits for them to destroy others, and then destroys them. Such thoughts as here quoted could only orig- inate in the brain of a madman or lunatic, and were it not for the fact that a publisher and au- thor of some influence used the article with edi- torial comment more favorable than unfavorable, they would not be worth our notice. Is there any evidence to indicate that the arc light will con- tinue to give off light waves after the dynamo stops? The earth can no more absorb light from the sun than heat can be preserved in an iceberg, or ice in a heated furnace. Absurd thoughts, when clothed in correct language have more OB SWORD OF TRUTH 211 weight with the average reader than the truth ex- pressed logically, though plainly. If these much feared spirits, having power to reduce people to a state of helplessness, yet re- frain from doing so, of their own free wills, they are not worse than those who fear them. If they have no such power, then they need not be feared. They are out of reach of our courts, and if they have power to injure and fail to do so, they must be restrained by their own wills. In either case they are harmless. The idea that the earth stores up heat and light from the sun is contradicted by every cloud that hides the sun from view, and by the close of every day and the approach of night. It is contradicted at each polar end of the earth six months of every year. Our light and heat from the sun is a constant quantity and if withdrawn entirely even for ten minutes, there is no doubt but this earth would be frozen into a solid, without a single an- imal left to tell the story. No reflective mind would dispute this evident fact. In the childhood state of the human race it was necessary to lead the mind to believe in the existence of a personal devil, for in such a being men saw a monster seek- ing to pull them down from a heaven above to a hell below, and primitive man struggled against the effort, and the evil tendencies. Had primitive man known that evil thoughts sprang from his own faculties and not from an outside source, he would doubtless have regarded one set of 212 PLAN OF CREATION thoughts as good as any other set. He might have been expected to struggle against external evils, though he would hardly have mistrusted evil from the workings of his own mind. Even here in our own time there are those who allow low, vulgar thoughts to debase their minds, and yet conceive these thoughts to be injected by a per- sonal devil. The idea of a personal devil (the embodiment of evil) was as necessary to the race in its in- fancy as was the idea of good. All good was em- bodied in a personal God while evil in all its forms was embodied in a personal devil. The idea loses its value only in the mind that is wise enough to see that good and evil result from the exercise of our own faculties, and that in order to develop and strengthen our better nature, we must strug- gle to overcome our lower or animal nature for good can only grow out of evil. And there are men who believe that thoughts float through the air like balloons or feathers entering the mind ready to receive them. How then can we wonder that the race in its infancy regarded good and evil as being exterior to us, something coming to us from the outside world? Even yet, men of learning are discussing the question as to why God allowed sin to appear in the world, as though it were a substance of some kind created for the occasion. It would be as rea- sonable to discuss why God allows ignorance to remain in men's minds. Sin is a form of igno- OE SWORD OF TRUTH 213 ranee. To ask such questions is as foolish as to ask why foundations are placed under buildings. Good grows out of evil, as wisdom out of igno- rance, for all knowledge is comparative; all things would be alike to one who had no comparative knowledge. Another writer, also a publisher, having a na- tional reputation, and a wide influence, may be cited, for his weakness and superstition concern- ing spirits and spirit influence. At one time when alone with his own thoughts he received a por- trait of his spirit mother, and this is what he says of it: "Then, to my great astonishment, her portrait was instantly and with consummate skill drawn on the paper before me." According to his state- ment, this was an exact image of his mother and the message contained two words, "save souls," and this in his mother's familiar handwriting. "The words were written three times and with a quick movement the pen was made to drop," from his grasp. But unfortunately for the proof of all this, the good man proceeds to burn the portrait and the message. What must we think of the intelligence of one whose profession is to save souls, burning a message presumably sent to encourage him to go on in the good work. What harm could a mes- sage to "save souls" do to a minister whose de- clared purpose was to sav« souls, even though the 214 PLAN OF CREATION message be from some other spirit than that of his mother ? On another occasion, a supposed evil spirit came to thi3 man and after a short conversation in which he expressed his desire to serve God the spirit declared to him: "Yon are free; yon can not come within my province. I only punish those who will not ob d, and now I leave yon." It seems to have been a pretty good sort of spirit to inhabit the infernal regions, one who is only serv! ,d, and working in harmony with -..justice. That kind of a spirit is not half so bad as millions here and now in the flesh. Spirits wonld have to lead us through our own faculties, or mental organs, in order to influence us, for it .ot claimed they can handle us like a man han- dles a brickbat. From another writer, with editorial comment, we have a letter inclosing a prayer. The letter res This prayer has been sent by the Bishop of Illinoi mending that it be sent to nine per He who will not say this prayer will be afflicted with great misfortunes. One person who paid no attention to it met with a bad accident, who recites the prayer for nine days, and will distribute it to nine persons, will have great joy after nine days. At Jerusalem a voice was heard to say: 'He who will say this prayer will be delivered from all calamit; nen!' Prayer: '0, Lord, Jesus Christ, we implore th Oh, Eternal God, have mercy on us and all man- OR SWORD OF TRUTH 215 kind. Purify us from all sins by thy precious blood, and take us to be with thee eternally. 0, Eternal Holiness, Amen. Have mercy on all man- kind. Pardon our offenses and deliver us from all trials by thy precious blood. Amen. ' ' p The publication in which the above appeared claims to be commissioned by God Himself to fill the world with light, and to interpret the Bible. We may well wonder that an intelligent man, the editor of a magazine that claims so much for its mission, would voluntarily permit it to become the vehicle for spreading so much superstitious nonsense. Would not a good purpose and a steady aim be better than a nine days' prayer? And if the prayer quoted is so potent to save, why limit to one a day for nine days ? Why not send out a hundred or a thousand a day, indefinitely? If it is such a good thing and so sure in its results, why not send it out by the carload? An honest mind knows that it is not the words uttered that saves or that brings consolation to the tired soul, but that it is the outpouring of the heart's deepest feelings, no matter what form the words may take, or whether the prayer be formed into words at all. To lead men and women to place faith in the so-called prayer quoted above, is to lead them toward superstition and away from reason. If such a voice was heard at Jerusalem as claimed above, it was a lying voice, for God does not offer salvation on such terms. How cheap our salva- tion would be if we could be delivered from all 216 PLAN OF CREATION calamities by the mere utterance of a few words. We are not even asked to have faith or to utter the words out of a heart full of gratitude but merely to repeat the words as the "good Cath- olic ' ' counts his beads. If we utter the words, re* gardless of our motive, or understanding, we will be sure of reaching heaven and escaping the hard- ships of this life. Still another, this time a woman, puts herself forward as a leader and instructor and claims healing power. Another woman writes to her: "Mrs. B — I took your advice and named the thing you have been treating 'phenomenon' and it has disappeared. ' ' From Mrs. B 's reply we learn the trend of her mind. She says: "Let us know with our minds (it would be hard to know anything without our minds), feel with our hearts, and affirm with our tongues that the things that are not in God can not by any sort of means contrive to be in the people.' ' That may sound well, but let us examine it. Man is ignorant and selfish and God is wise and just, if we are to believe the Scrip- tures. Disease and pain are as real as health and fieedom from pain, for pain and sickness are states or conditions and not entities or things. Neither is health or freedom from pain an entity. This woman writer, in her editorial comment fur- ther remarks: "Discord is a breach of harmony. So, if there were no basic principle of harmony there could be no discord. So, if there were no good there could be no evil. ' ' Quite true, for good OR SWORD OF TRUTH 217 and evil are mental conceptions — we see one through the other. But how account for the con- tradiction in the words first quoted? This woman should have allowed her wisdom to be her guide. That she is able to see the truth is proven by the last quotation. Some one has said — " there is neither good nor evil, but thinking makes it so.'' Things of themselves are neither good nor evil from a moral point of view. In the lower animal kingdom there is no such moral quality as good and evil, though there may be and is pain and suf- fering. We are told that if we have thought to do evil that we have already sinned. Where there is no evil intended there is no sin committed, even though death might result from the act, for as be- fore stated, sin lies in an evil purpose or intention. There is also the false notion in the world that neither God nor Christ has any knowledge of the physical world. We are told by these people that Christ lost all knowledge of the physical world and sin the moment he passed from the physical. This is neither reason nor Scripture. Conscious life for the individual ends where memory's chain is broken. Nowhere does the Bible lead us to be- lieve that God is not conscious of man's existence on earth. And nowhere does it intimate that God is not conscious of man's ignorance and sinful state. Some Practices that shall not Be Allowed. It is not generally supposed that the mere habit of men and boys lining up along public highways 218 PLAN OF CREATION and sometimes climbing upon top of fences and sitting like so many crows, staring at people as they pass by, and making remarks that are meant to be uncomplimentary, is an offense against society. Yet such is the case, for the sensitive and refined have their rights, and we must respect these rights. Men and boys must go a considerable distance away from trails and roads and cross- ings, and even here they must behave as becomes civilized beings. The passerby shall not be in- sulted or humiliated by any act or word. Neither shall contests in which the physical strength of one is pitted against that of another be allowed. This shall apply to base ball games, foot ball games, prize fights, wrestling, and all games of every kind and nature where there is a contest of physical strength. Even the horse race is a form of cruelty, and it begets in men wrong states of mind. These things may be justified in the minds of the winners and their friends, but how do they appear to the losers and their friends? In all cases where there is a losing side, there must be no such game allowed. If we must have games to amuse us, let mechanical toys be employed, for this is not a difficult task for the inventors of our day. Men shall not lift their hats to women. Such silly practices feed the vanity of women and en- courage their weakness. Women are neither bet- ter nor worse than men, and there is no reason why a man should lift his hat to a woman. We are OE SWOED OF TEUTH 219 all children of one Father, and there are no high nor low. We do not lift our hats to our own mothers, and we shall not lift them to other women. The idea of caste must pass from the human mind. Nor shall boys be allowed to carry fire-arms and shoot even at targets. Teach the boy the " manly art" of good behavior. Do not scold without good cause, for this puts bitterness in the heart of the sensitive and this may last for days. Domestic animals should at all times receive our care and consideration. We shall see that they are shielded against storm and well fed. We can learn our duty regarding women's dresses and hats from the Scriptures: Ezek. 13: 18-23. Isaiah 3. Here we get a good idea of the foolishness of our day. Unless these stumbling blocks are removed from woman's path, she will sink to lower levels and drag man down with her. Mothers should suckle their own children. There are several reasons for this, the foremost of which is that the mother's milk is best for the health of the child both mentally and physically. A stronger love is created between mother and child by her nursing it at her own breast. Lack of health alone will excuse a mother in future from suckling her child. Women hereafter shall curb their desire for showy hats and dresses, that, in truth, mark them as walking advertisements. Scores of husbands, fathers and sons, are this hour serving terms in 220 PLAN OF CEEATION states prisons, because of this insane folly of women. In order to obtain showy, expensive dresses and bats, women have driven fathers, sons and husbands to desperation in many in- stances, and to suicide and to the penitentiary, in a desperate effort to satisfy the foolish desire of the ones they loved, and to keep peace in the fam- ily and in the home. It is nothing short of crim- inal for women to spend so much of their time talking and thinking of dresses and hats, that make them look more like a lot of lunatics than sensible wives and mothers of children. Any hu- man faeing, man or woman, looks best in a plain dress, and in a hat that does not attract special attention. There are a few women who exercise common sense and reason in the matter of dress; but since the great majority of women worship this false god, it must come to an end. And men also must hereafter dress as becomes sane human beings, and not act the part of foolish monkeys. We want to preserve both beauty of face and form of body, but this cannot be done by trying to shape the body to fit the clothes, instead of fitting the clothes to the body. It is painful to have to write in this strain; but night and day the necessity for this plain warning to foolish women has come before me, and voice must be given it. Having reached the plane of understanding, we have to obey common sense and reason, or a worse fate than has heretofore been known will come upon us! OE SWORD OP TRUTH 221 ASTROLOGY AND ALCHEMY. Great claims have been made for these two sci- ences, if such they may be termed. The one claims to point out important events in the life of the in- dividual; the other claims to change base metals into gold. Little is to be gained from the study of such so-called sciences, for none would profit by them, save through their secrecy. In a general way and in one or more particulars, astrology may enable one to determine a few facts in the life of the individual; but no astrologer will attempt more than 144 different readings. Each of the twelve signs of the zodiac is divided into twelve subdivisions, making in all 144, and it is not known that any astrologer attempts more than this number of analyses. Out of one and one- half billion inhabitants of the earth today, each one is placed in a class with ten million other hu- man beings, each of whom would receive from any astrologer the same identical reading. Each of the ten million is subject to the same diseases, accidents, weaknesses, losses, on the same days and under the same conditions, on account of hav- ing been born in the same subdivision of the zo- diac. Can we derive anything useful from such a science? Can we afford to pay for such guidance, and be governed by restrictions as to its " lucky" and "unlucky" days? Shall we believe that we are influenced more by the planets millions of 222 PLAN OF CREATION miles out in space, than by the material things of this earth? The writer once sent to Professor E for a horoscope or reading. Some time previous to this, in a dream or vision, was disclosed to me the face of an old man whom I knew; he was con- cealed behind a curtain, and only a part of his face was visible through an opening. He was ad- vertised as a great seer — a fortune-teller, who could read the future in the stars. Knowing this old man had no knowledge of the stars and their positions, the fraud and deception was painfully apparent to me, and my heart bled for the many men and women gathered to hear their fate, none of them appearing to have money to spend for this wicked pretense. This dream or vision rose again in my memory, after writing to Professor E (for I had quite forgotten it), and the more I thought of it the more I became confirmed in my belief that astrology has nothing good to offer us. This ex- perience is here related in the hope that some reader may be benefited by it. Reader, whoever you may be, the so-called sci- ence of astrology classes you with ten million others, and advises you all to begin the same work on the same day, and to avoid transacting any kind of business on certain other days. You are given the same advice and instructions as would befit hundreds of millions who lived in past ages, as well as billions yet unborn. It may be that OR SWORD OF TRUTH 223 there are twelve general types of human beings having some characteristics in common, but they will differ from each other in all other particulars as widely as one type differs from another. Even those born at the same hour and minute, differ as much or more than others born in different signs, or separated by years. To believe that certain days are " lucky" or "unlucky" is to injure one's self, for who can do his best, believing that the planets are acting against him? The wise and foolish are born un- der all signs, and he who pays least attention to "lucky" and "unlucky" days is wisest, at least in this respect, and will accomplish far more than if he fears the influence of the stars. All days are good to him who does the best he can, while all days are evil to him who thinks evil and intends evil. "If astrology is a science, then Judas was just as much ordained to betray the Christ as Christ was to preach the Gospel and be betrayed," re- marks a writer who defends astrology. He de- clares that Christ was born a perfect man because He was born at a certain conjunction of the planet ; that He could not have been a perfect man had He been born at any other time. He forgets that hundreds, perhaps thousands, were born at the same hour the Savior was born, many of them from parents of equal physical and mental devel- opment, though perhaps less virtuous. Astrology is the doctrine of fate. To accept it 224 PLAN OF CREATION is to set aside the law of moral responsibility. If fate marks out an evil course for one, and a good one for another, there is neither good nor evil in either, and Christ was not superior to Judas mor- ally. Had Judas been compelled by fate to do as he did, he could have felt no sting of guilt. No one can be to blame for doing what he is com- pelled to do. If, as some declare, Judas did only his duty, then the thief, the murderer and the criminal of all kinds, are not criminals at all, but good men, each one performing his part. It 'is destructive to human reason to teach a doctrine of fate. Man is a free moral agent, al- ways has been and always will be. Some things he must do, and some he can not do, but these have no moral quality. The things of this earth influence us far more than do the distant planets. As some one has said: " Fools are controlled by their stars; wise men control their stars." As to the so-called science of alchemy, the writer knew one woman who published a paper to spread the doctrine; she also had high priced books for sale claiming to teach the art of chang- ing base metals into gold ; but later on we found her engaged in the more lucrative business of rais- ing ginseng. Some of the books sold for prices ranging all the way from five dollars up to as high as fifteen. Now if this good woman failed in her efforts to transmute the baser metals into gold, aided by such high priced books, what are we to OR SWORD OF TRUTH 225 think of the claims made for this so-called sci- ence? A careful reading of her paper revealed the fact that there was just one or two little de- tails to be worked out, and then the great secret of the ages would be unlocked. That she quit her efforts in that direction and devoted her time to growing ginseng, is proof that " transmutation' ' was a failure. It is reasonable to conclude that should a man discover a method by which he could change the baser metals into gold, that he would use it for his own benefit, instead of offering to sell the se- cret. The very fact that a secret of that nature is offered for sale, is proof in itself that nothing of value has been discovered. The same common sense test applies with equal force in the case of those fortune-tellers who ad- vertise themselves as being able to locate rich mineral deposits and to give valuable advice re- garding business deals. If they can do so much for the two or three dollars they insist on being paid for such "valuable information, ' ' why do they not go and locate the rich mines in their own names, and then if they are really anxious to serve others, give the service free of charge? The test of reason should be applied where rea- son is called for. One able to tell others how to get rich, can make himself rich. He would not have the least excuse for charging a fee for his advice. That a money fee is charged, is proof that nothing of value is given. 226 PLAN OF CEEATION Fore-ordination is a fact in nature; but fore- ordination of the kind here referred to does not fore-ordain men and women to be thieves and rascals, liars and hypocrites. The oak is fore- ordained in the acorn and the apple in the seed, and men born under certain signs of the zodiac are fore-ordained to be of a certain type, with mental characteristics peculiar to that type. But this does not mean that they must be thieves or that they must be born into the world deformed in either body or mind. If they are so born, the fault can be traced to their parents or grand- parents. But if a child is not born an idiot, through the exercise of reason it can unfold its mind and grow up strong in the love of truth and justice, and this is all that is required of any of us. And love of truth can fill the mind all days of the week, for good intentions are " lucky' 9 pos- sessions to have at all times. The point is that those who advertise as fortune tellers have not discovered enough about the law governing us to be able to give us much useful information. I know a physician who locates dis- ease or weak points in his patients through a knowledge of birth dates, and he is very success- ful in helping men and women to regain lost health. He says that astrology is a great science, and I am willing to give him credit for being a man of honor and ability. But the so-called astrologers who claim to foretell future events and " lucky days to buy and sell" and who advise OR SWORD OF TRUTH 227 men and women not to undertake certain things on certain days, and to do so on certain other days, have not discovered anything of much value to the world. The author of "Back to Nature' ' (my good friend, the physician, above referred to), has doubtless made a discovery, and he has set many other physicians to "guessing"; but this does not prove that men are predestined to lead immoral lives, for God has placed His voice in the human conscience, and it would be a use- less provision, if man was compelled to go con- trary to this voice. And it is a pleasure to know that the author of "Back to Nature' ' lives close to his conscience and is as nearly a Christian as the cursed capitalist system will allow any of us to be. 228 PLAN OP CREATION THE TWO CHERUBIM GUARDING THE WAY OF THE TREE OF LIFE. The "tree of life" is the human soul. In many ways the soul is like a tree. The tree stands erect and has many branches. The human soul stands erect and has numberless branches. The "way of the tree of life" is through the female sex organs, for here the soul is molded into human form. The human soul had its beginning in the vegetable kingdom; from the vegetable it passed up to the animal kingdom, from the animal to the human world. This accounts for the wide gulf separat- ing the hum»*** »* S? \\ '*Mfc \ \ v ^V: elares to be the case. The idea involves a sense- less waste, and not a lawful method, as will be seen by a glance at the diagram here shown. This same astronomer assures us that the cen- trifugal pull of the earth on the sun, is great enough to break a cable of cast iron as big in di- ameter as the earth itself. Can the reader see the evidence of such a cable in the first diagram? By a study of the second diagram, and which is here shown, the reader will see Nature's method ,252 PLAN OF CREATION of holding planets in their orbits. In this diagram we see a principle illustrated that represents law and order. By the senseless act of waste we can see neither method nor law. To declare in one breath that energy in the form of broken particles is thrown out in all directions from the sun and wasted in space, and in the next breath declare that the pull of the earth on the sun is great enough to break a cable of iron as big in diameter as the earth itself, is to flatly contra- dict one statement with the other. Eevolving planets whirling round a central sun, call as loudly for direct connection or union as does the stone the boy swings around his head at the end of a string. By no other imaginary method is it pos- sible for Nature to hold planets in orbits. Why the Sky Looks Blue. The sky looks blue because of the dark background beyond. Space OE SWORD OF TRUTH 253 beyond the atmosphere of the earth is dark and lifeless with no ray of light or heat. The deep waters of the ocean appear blue for the same reason that the sky looks blue. Light can only penetrate water a few hundred feet; the inky waters below the light line reflect to us the appear- ance of blue. Cause of Tides. The moon has no more power to attract the waters of the earth to the exclusion of the rest of the planet than it has to draw the hats off our heads. The moon acts upon the planet as a whole, not alone upon its waters. Tides are due to a swelling of the earth's crust at the equator, caused by a rush of waters to the interior of the earth. Except for this drawing in of the waters and purifying them they would be- come so salt that no animal life could survive in these waters. The process of retorting raises the heat on the interior of the earth and this causes it to bulge out at the equator. This swelling of the earth at the equator throws the waters toward the poles, thus causing the tides. The secondary tide is a reaction from the first or main tide. As the heat subsides in the interior of the earth the equator narrows down, thus allowing the waters to rush back, and when they pile up at the equa- tor they again rush toward the poles, but in dimin- ished degree. The earth draws her waters in once in each twenty-four hours, and it is done through the law of negative action. We take food into our stomachs when this organ is negative to the rest 254 PLAN OF CEEATION of the body. As the earth bulges at the equator it draws in at the poles in corresponding degree. The waters of the earth circulate as blood cir- culates through our bodies. At the time the earth swallows her waters she at the same time draws in gases from the atmosphere, and this takes place at that point of the earth turned directly toward the moon. The electric cable that binds the moon to the earth has something to do with this action, but in just what way the writer is not able to state. The Moon Helps the Earth. At the instant the eartfi swallows her waters and gases the moon dips toward the earth. This action of the moon is caused by the atmosphere of the earth drawing downward or contracting at that point directly under the moon between the two planets. And this contraction of the earth's atmosphere is due to the fact that the gases that are drawn in with the waters is drawn in from this point. The con- traction of the earth's atmosphere results in a like contraction in the current that binds the two planets together. Hence the cause of the moon dipping. The moon flies back to its normal posi- tion immediately after and which is but a few sec- onds. Mountain ranges are watersheds to turn the water to the valleys below; it is not likely that rains descending on mountain ranges percolate to any considerable depth, and therefore we must look for the cause of water pressure in some other OR SWORD OF TRUTH 255 direction. And we find it in the fact that the earth is an organism and that it circulates its waters in accord with the same law that governs the circulation of blood in the veins of animals. It is not necessary, however, that the earth be sup- plied with heart and lungs, for trees circulate their saps and they have no such organs. Electricity is the agent that causes the blood to flow through our veins, and it is the agent that forces the saps up through the channels of circula- tion in the vegetable. Each inflation of the lungs furnishes sufficient current to expand the heart about four times; in this expanded state the heart receives the blood from the contracting veins; the current leaves the heart and passes out through the arteries to the extremities of the body where it passes out through the pores into the open air. The contracting heart forces the blood out, the ex- panded arteries receive it and convey it to all parts of the body. If the pores of the skin could be all sealed up tight, the blood would imme- diately stop circulating and death would soon take place. It is the outflowing current that draws the blood out through the channels of cir- culation and carries it to the extremities of the body. And it is the outflowing current of the earth that conveys the saps of vegetables up through the channels of circulation and makes vegetable growth possible. (The credit for this discovery is due entirely to Mr. H. B. Philbrook, author of "Electricity in Nature," "What and 256 PLAN OF CREATION Where is God," "Cause and Cure of Disease," and a number of other books. If still living, Mr. Philbrook will welcome the appearance of this little book.) "The Bottomless Pit." This is an open space in the interior of the earth; it is the earth's great stomach where the waters and the atmosphere are purified by the process of retorting. There is no center of attraction in this great open space; the power of gravity does not extend to this great open space in the interior of the earth, and hence when the earth draws in her waters through the north polar opening in the crust, they decombine on reaching this point, for water will not com- bine except under the power of gravity or remain combined when either above or below the gravity line. The casting of Satan into the bottomless pit and binding him for a thousand years simply means that a disturbing element will be removed from the atmosphere of the earth by being drawn into this great retort, where it will be eliminated; that for a thousand years the stomach of the earth will be able to keep the atmosphere and waters in a normal state, thus removing and subduing an element that is a great annoyance to man, and is the direct cause of much of the evil we see in the world today. At the end of the thousand years another disturbing element in the form of a pois- onous gas belt settles to the surface of the earth, and will cause many to allow the animal side of their natures to rule them. But that belt is not as OR SWOED OF TEUTH 257 large as the one that is now nearing the surface of the earth, and will for this reason soon be over- come and the world again restored to normal. The dead gases are discharged at the south polar open- ing, but in just what manner this is done we need not try to fathom at this time. This open space in the interior of the earth is about five thousand miles in diameter. It is surrounded by an electric wall about one thousand miles thick; and between this electric wall and the crust of the earth there is a gas chamber that is about four hundred and fifty miles across, and here a constant pressure against the crust is maintained. The live water and air elements pass through the electric wall into this gas chamber, and at a midway point in the crust of the earth the steam condenses into water and flows to the surface as such. The larger channels permit some of the water to reach the surface in heated form. To imagine that a personal devil is the cause of man's wickedness, is to credit some other being than God, with the invention of his animal or lower faculties, and which faculties are as essential to man as are his higher or moral faculties. The purpose of life here is to subdue the lower through the exercise of the higher. If man had nothing to overcome, he would have nothing to gain. The goal is worth the price we pay to reach it. Rainbow and Flood. Before the flood the sun had never shone with direct rays upon the earth. The face of the sun was hidden from view by a 258 PLAN OF CREATION vapor cloud that overhung the whole earth. After this vapor belt settled down to the condensing point and fell in form of rain, the sun shining on the falling mist formed a rainbow, the first ever seen by man, and it was a sure promise that the earth would not again be destroyed by water. This water belt was formed at the time the earth was formed; intense heat forced this water belt to a great height in the atmosphere of the earth. If any reader wishes to make a study of the condi- tion of the earth prior to the flood or second fall of water, he is referred to the writings of Prof. Isa^c N. Vail, of Pasadena, California. His " An- nular World Evolution,' ' gives ample proof that there was a flood. The purpose here is to point out that the earth was at one period in its forma- tion covered with water and as these waters be- came deeper and offered resistance to the outflow- ing current, the "land rose up out of the waters and the waters were divided" by mountain ranges and valleys. Compared with the present state of the earth, the mountain ranges were mere hills, which were elevated to their present height after the deluge. As they rose to greater height the "waters receded or subsided," for the crust was forced up forming the mountain ranges, while it bended down in corresponding degree, forming the beds of the oceans. The vapor cloud that overhung the earth made it impossible for the sun to shine with direct power upon the earth and therefore a rainbow was not possible prior to the OE SWORD OF TEUTH 259 deluge. When it did appear it was nature's sign to man that the earth would not again be de- stroyed by water, for the only water belt remain- ing above the firmament (above the condensing line) had descended and joined the waters below this line. Hailstones and Meteors. We may be assured that meteors do not fall to the earth from other planets, neither do they come from space beyond the atmosphere of the earth. And being quite sure of this, we must look closer home for the cause of meteors. No solid can form out in space beyond the atmosphere of a planet for there is no sub- stance there, from which it could be formed, and neither can a solid form except under pressure or the direct power of gravity. Besides, the gravity of a planet would not allow any part of it to pass beyond its atmosphere into space. It has been suggested that possibly meteors may have been formed from volcanic dust in the upper regions of our atmosphere. Portland cement forms into stone, when wet. Why not stone, from volcanic dust, in like manner? There appears to be a neutral point within the atmosphere of the earth, above which point the law of affinity takes the place of gravity, a point at which objects lose their weight, yet are held by the power of affinity within the atmosphere of the earth. Is it not possible that in the earlier ages of the earth stones were shot from volcanic craters above this neutral line, and that an electric storm 260 PLAN OF CREATION in the upper regions of the atmosphere may be the means of causing these stones to come within the power of gravity, which draws them back to the surface of the earth? This is merely a suggestion. We are told the heaviest fall of hailstones is in the equatorial regions, where ice has been known to fall in masses as large as " sheep, or even ele- phants. " This would indicate that something more than a current of cold air is required to ex- plain hail. A union of certain chemicals will freeze water into ice, and some of these chemicals are so quick in action that water will congeal even on a hot stove. Such chemicals accumulating in a moisture belt might result in the formation of hailstones, and the extent of this belt and nature of the chemicals would determine in such a case, the extent of the storm. If the moisture be exces- sive at one place, and the chemicals be of the kind that act very quickly, large masses of ice would naturally result. Ice is said to be a nonconductor of electricity, and if this be a fact, would not the forming ice offer resistance to the outflowing cur- rent from the earth and thus account for the phe- nomena of rain and thunder accompanying such storms? Who can say but the peal of thunder may have been an explosion in the upper regions of the air, and a danger averted by turning ice back into the liquid state? Who has not noticed the heavy downpour of rain after the sharp peal of thunder? The hailstone must begin to fall to- ward the earth the instant it begins to form, there- OR SWORD OF TRUTH 261 fore quick action is necessary, and it puts one's faith to a strain to believe that a mere current of cold air could produce some of the larger hail- stones. The Thermos Bottle and What It Teaches. The thermos bottle furnishes another proof that heat and light do not pass from sun to earth as from a lighted lamp. Even granting that a sea of ether fills all planetary space, the same ether would fill the vacuum chamber of the thermos bottle, and if we are to believe the evidence of our senses, how can we persuade ourselves that heat and light waves cross over millions of miles of space and reach the earth as such, when it is known that heat will not cross the narrow vacuum chamber of the thermos bottle? This medium which is supposed to be necessary to conduct the light and heat of the sun to the earth and other planets, would if it actu- ally did exist, render such light and heat impossi- ble. The power of the sun must be focalized in or- der to be effective. The existence of a conducting medium such as is supposed to exist would dissi- pate this power and render it ineffective. The ex- istence of such a medium in space would make it absolutely impossible for light and heat to mani- fest at all. The earth receives its light and heat through the action of convergent energy, and not by divergent energy, which dissipates and de- stroys power. How could divergent rays of en- ergy hold a planet in its orbit and guide it so per- fectly in its course around a central sun? 262 PLAN OF CREATION The universe is an organism and the planets are bound together in a direct way through a circulat- ing medium. This current passes from one planet to another as veins, arteries and nerves connect the different organs of the body. As pain in any part of the body is felt through crooked nerves, and located in its proper place, so do the planets appear to us in their respective places, for all our senses are senses of feeling. Let the feeling be in the form of pain or in the form of sound through the ear or through the eye as sight, it is through mental images the external is located and ana- lyzed. Seeing is visual feeling. We feel the plan- ets to be where they are, as we feel pains in the body to be at the point of discord. The organism of man is an epitome of the universe. Or in still plainer terms, man is a miniature universe or the universe in miniature, and the mind locates and analyzes the external and larger universe through the miniature universe. Like a mirror the mind of man reflects the universe and its changing fea- tures. Man sees (feels) the planets to be in their positions, as he locates pain at the extremity of a nerve. Both senses of feeling are governed by law — the same law. As shown in the chapter on the mind and its faculties, all seeing and all feel- ing is confined to the individual organisms ; we do not see material objects; we see mental images only, and these reveal the physical universe to us by vibrating in unison with it. Comets. Comets, like planets, must be polar- OR SWORD OF TRUTH 263 ized in the earth's atmosphere to he seen hy the inhabitants of this earth. Set a lighted lamp in a window on a dark and foggy night, and the streak of light that penetrates the fog will illustrate how the "tail" of a comet switches around so quickly when it comes near the photosphere or polarized image of the sun in our atmosphere. The comet is composed of gases. It is not a solid, and these gases accumulate in space between the planets. If they continued to accumulate they would in time interfere with the planets in their motion around the sun. But these gases are gathered up and car- ried beyond the universe of matter and discharged back into "outer darkness," extending through endless space from whence they came. The comet itself has a concrete existence, but its "tail" is an effect, produced by the sun shining through it and reflecting this light in the gases of our atmos- phere. No such effect could be produced beyond the atmosphere of the earth, for there is nothing in space to reflect the light and form a "tail." It may be well at this point to explain what is meant by the term polarization. It is a magnetic center, that vibrates in unison with another and a greater center. It is, in one sense, like the reflec- ted image in a mirror; the features are polarized in the mirror and reflected back to the mind, save for which you could not see yourself at all as you appear to others. The earth is not old. Nature works not as a man, upon one thing at a time, but upon all, and 264 PLAN OF CEEATION in and through all. It is a greater superstition to believe the earth to be millions of years old than to place its age at only a few thousand years. The earth was evidently made for man, and its pe- riods, its age and duration are not above the finite comprehension of man. Knowing that nature works upon the whole at one and the same time, days of a thousand years each were quite long enough for its creation. We may believe with reason that "a thousand years with God are as but a day with man" for nature's conscious head could not be impatient in His work, neither could He-require millions of years to develop so small a mass of matter as this earth. A being who could "hold the earth in the hollow of His hand" would hardly spend a million years nailing down one shingle. The Bible has been proven correct in so many of its claims, while man has been wrong in so many of his, it appears to be unwise to accept from man anything clearly contradicted by the Bible. Before me lies a paper containing the ideas of a leading astronomical writer of today. This writer declares that the greater part of the sun's energy is wasted in space. He says: "Two thousand millionths of the sun's radiant energy is inter- cepted by the earth and only about one two hun- dred and twenty-five millionth by all the planets together. Think of it. The sun is supposed to expend in a useless way 224,000,000 times more energy than is OB SWORD OF TRUTH 265 required to give heat and light to all the planets. The expressed thought kills the value of the claim if it can be said to have any value. Here we see scientists introducing a very large element of chance into an operation admitted to "be governed by mathematical law. The idea is belittling to any mind, scientific or otherwise. If light be a detached substance thrown off from the planets it must be moving through space in every conceivable direction; it must fill space as completely as the ocean beach is filled with sand. And if light results from bombardment, why is space not ablaze with light 1 And if space is filled with such broken particles of matter, moving in every conceivable direction, how do they pass each other in space? Since we know that light and heat do not flow out over the wires from the dynamo to the street lamp, we have no grounds for the belief that light and heat as such cross from planet to planet, over millions of miles of space. A sheet of thin paper offers resistance to air. Water can only be forced through the pores of glass when under very high pressure, while an air current moving at the rate of a hundred miles an hour, a very high rate, would not be sufficient to force a single particle of this through the thinnest layer of glass. Yet, scientists hold that the sun, the electric light, even the tallow candle force broken par- ticles of matter through panes of glass. To accept this theory of light we must persuade ourselves 266 PLAN OF CREATION that the minute openings through the pane of glass are perfectly parallel to each other an<£ at right angles to the pane of glass itself. Such a concep- tion is too absurd to require denial. There are three distinct kinds of sabstance, phys- ical matter, astral substance and spirit, which may be called by its modern name, electricity. Astral substance does not exist in the form of atoms and is much finer than physical matter. Electricity is fineness in the absolute sense, and would pass freely through any kind of substance in a free state. It would meet with no resistance whatever, except that it is clothed in astral sub- stance, always, and some kinds of matter offer re- sistance to the free passage of this substance. The thin clear pane of glass, and the thin clear layer of ice offer little resistance to the passage of astral substance, hence transmit light freely. Scientists tell us that a piece of clear ice cut in proper shape may be used as a sun glass, with the temperature several degrees below zero; that combustible ma- terial may be set on fire by means of this ice sun glass and this without melting the ice. This proves that arrested light waves develop heat. That the ice does not melt proves that heat as such does not pass through the ice but is developed be- yond it. Thus we are led to see that heat and light are not developed by the bombarding of atoms in interstellar space as has been suggested by some astronomers. In addition to the foregoing, it is common OE SWOED OF TEUTH 267 knowledge that a room may be heated up on a cold day by the free passage of sunlight through a window, while the panes of glass remain cold. To term atoms of matter electrons does not lessen the difficulty. They are still atoms, though in- finitesimally small, and are therefore measurable in three directions, length, breadth and thickness. If scientists have not yet been able to conceive of a substance that does not exist in broken form, it is about time they did so. The power of gravity as is elsewhere pointed out, shows the necessity of an unbroken substance. The facts here pointed out confirm the conclusions that were reached in that chapter. Sir Isaac New- ton was able to conceive of such a substance, and also the endlessness of space, while today some who pose as scientists seem unable to conceive of either. It will yet be seen by all, that a substance finer than the finest broken particles of matter exists. A substance that is fineness in the absolute sense. The law of opposites tells us that spirit is the very opposite of matter and that it has none of its qualities. PLANETOIDS AND FIXED STABS. The earth with its animal life is an extension of the plan of creation. The earth was formed thousands of years after the birth of the universe. All the planets of the solar system, so-called, were formed at the time the earth was formed. All planets represent incubators or eggs; and in the 268 PLAN OF CEEATION very beginning of creation all contained life with- in the shell, but no life of any kind on the out- side. It was not until after the earth and the other revolving planets of the solar system were formed that we find organic life on the outside surface of a planet, and this perhaps is confined to the earth alone. The planet Mercury may be in- habited by beings on its outer surface, though the writer has no information regarding this particu- lar planet. But our moon and all the other plan- ets of the so-called solar system, including the planetoids, are inhabited on the inside, for plan- ets* are shells or hollow globes in all cases. When the Bible speaks of "on earth" it means exactly what it says, for we do not dwell on the inside of the earth, as one scientist claims. And when it speaks of "in heaven" it means exactly what it says, for all the planets except the earth and per- haps Mercury, have more light within than with- out. At the very dawn of creation the human ego and its organism was formed on the inside of what is known as a planetoid; there were as many of these as there are fixed stars, these being the connecting links between the God-Head and the Archangels or Demigods. The Archangel or Demigod inhab- its the inside of a fixed star, there being but one such in each star. In size and function the Arch- angel comes next to the God-Head, for here, too, we find the universe and its laws and operations reflected from the inner dome of the fixed star. OR SWORD OF TRUTH 269 There must be an external world as well as an in- ternal or mental world, for it is the external that stimulates and makes active the internal. With the five physical senses closed to outside stimulus, the mind of man would be as dull as the worms of the dust. When man or the soul of man inhabited a plane- toid he also saw the universe and its laws and operations reflected from the inner dome of his planetoid shell. This compelled mental action to some degree. But mental unfoldment was very slow; hence the reason for the conscious extension of the plan of nature. Nature, acting without con- scious direction, would never have created an earth and placed animal life on its surface. This had to be done through the wisdom and power of the conscious God-Head, and the facts prove the claim. Here in the busy hives of industry the mind of man unfolds at a much faster rate than would have been possible in the isolated state. " Other sheep have I, that are not of this fold; them also must I bring, that they may hear the shep- herd's voice.' ' The shepherd's voice in this case is the familiar scenes of earth life, with its work- shops, its farms and the familiar faces and voices of human beings. All of us can testify to the fact that useful employment and intermingling with other human beings are great mental stimulators. Untold advantages for rapid mental unfoldment are offered here on the surface of the earth for the soul of man in the flesh body. If it were not so, 270 PLAN OF CREATION then rest assured of the fact that there would be no earth and no animal life such as we know here on the outer surface of the planet. There yet remain a few planetoids back in space beyond the planet Mars; the human occu- pants of these will also be brought to earth and born in flesh bodies, that they may unfold at a faster rate. There is not a scientist living worthy of the title, who does not see in much of his work of in- vestigation, the absolute necessity of mind inter- vention, and the guidance of wisdom in part of the wofk of creating the earth and making it possible for human beings to live upon its surface. If there are any scientists who do not see this necessity, then there is evidently something wrong with their ability to reason. Prof Huxley saw this ne- cessity, and Darwin is said to have confessed that he saw the necessity of mind intervention at a certain point of his investigations, and others have professed to believe in the wisdom and guid- ance of the directing hand of God creating the earth and placing man on its surface. All the planets of the solar system were formed out of the material composing the planetoids, which, prior to the extension of the plan of nature, occupied the space between the sun and the planet Neptune. A few planetoids were left to bear wit- ness to God's wisdom and power. It was the breaking up of these planetoid worlds and binding them into the body of the earth, that gives the rea- OE SWORD OF TRUTH 271 son for that Scripture that speaks of war in heaven and of casting Satan and his angels down to earth. For be it borne in mind that the inhabitants in those planetoids really did war against the effort to destroy their homes and bring them here and chain them in bodies of flesh; but since they were not unfolding, or if unfolding, it was at such a slow rate that God saw that it would shorten the period of creation fifty thousand years or more by creating the earth and the other planets, for here they can help each other to advance. What is the purpose of the planetoids if not in- habited, to look at ? Well, if that is all, they serve no purpose unless it be to puzzle astronomers, for they are invisible except through telescopes of high power. "Ye are fearfully and wonderfully made." Do you, professing Christians, believe this? If the earth end of the mental circuit be "grounded' 'we would naturally expect to see the light at the other end of it grow dim. This would be the case if it were a metal battery, as all elec- tricians know. If the human soul suffers dissolu- tion it is natural to suppose the current affected from earth to fixed star and on to sun center or the whole length of the circuit. When the human ego drops back into the earth it surely could be said to be "grounded," while astronomers have observed many times fixed stars grow dim, and others to flare up and blaze with great brilliancy for a time. Do we not see men wake up from drunken stupors and become mentally active for a 272 PLAN OF CEEATION time or until they take the notion to go on another drunken spree? And in other ways men become dull and stupid, sometimes from long spells of sickness, at which times the mind becomes inac- tive to a large degree. Experiments conducted by scientists show con- clusively that the brain of man and the stomach are electric batteries. An electrode dropped down a man's throat into his stomach produced sufficient current to enable a message to be transmitted over a wire to a considerable distance. Is this not suffi- cient proof that man is an electric machine or or- ganism? And a leading scientist who helped to conduct this experiment declares that ' ' electricity is life." Is man not dependent upon this life? Is it not the life in us ? Or do we think there is some other brand of life? God is life, and electricity is the spirit of God, and we are bound in a direct way to the God-Head, hence we are the children of one Father. Man's wisdom compared with the wisdom of the God-Head is as something filthy compared with something beautiful and wonder- ful ; and yet, even the little wisdom man possesses would be a marvel that could not be explained ex- cept for the fact that he is joined to the God-Head in a direct way. The rotation of the earth on its axis results from positive and negative action of the sun; the day side is repelled or driven from the sun, while the night or negative side is drawn toward it. But the planet in its orbit is carred forward by the law OE SWORD OF TRUTH 273 of momentum. There is no other force to carry it forward; and we know that the stone the boy swings around his head at the end of a string, will soon come to a stand-still, unless added momentum be continually imparted to it. The earth moves forward in its orbit by what we may call stored up momentum. The momentum of the earth is being overcome continually, but the contraction of the orbit of the earth is in exact ratio to the loss of motion. Hence its times of revolution around the sun remain as at the beginning. When the earth was formed, its approximate distance from the sun was about 113,000,000 miles. It is now about 20,000,000 miles nearer the sun. In the revision which is planned two years hence (1918), this book will go a little more deeply into some matters that are only lightly touched at this time. Earth Settles to Sun. On the whole the earth is constantly settling to the sun, and at the end of creative time it will have settled down to the sun by the law of sympathetic attraction, when it will be "destroyed by fire" or electric action, for the pent up forces that are bound in the body of the planet will be set free, and these forces will "melt the earth with fervent heat." The then perfect soul of man will pass to the interior of the sun to dwell with the Father for all the endless ages of eternity. And there on the inner dome of the sun the soul of man will see the universe with its full history, and this will be before our eyes contin- 274 PLAN OF CEEATION ually. Our lives here on this earth and all the scenes that we hold dear will there be seen in far greater beauty and vividness than the mind of man can at this time conceive to be possible. Not one note of harmony or one single object of beauty will be lost, but will be eternally reflected in the spiritual universe. There we will see ourselves as little children in the presence of parents, and have the supreme satisfaction of knowing that our par- ents are there also, together with all the members of the human race, with not one missing and none lame or halt or blind or in any manner imperfect. There the human mind can recreate the earth and people it over with figures that will look like real human beings ; figures of animals also can be made to appear in living form, together with all the planets of the solar system, including the great planet Jupiter, and all will have plenty of room to revolve on the inside of our great sun home. For then "all power is given into your hands,' ' by the law of perfect agreement, as it now is with our Savior, who is "one with God." Pulse Rates. Nature has sixty-four (64) pulse rates, or one pulse for each class of matter. The childhood pulse is the quickest pulse, while the old age pulse is the slowest and the strongest. Be- fore the earth was created a thousand years was required to run out each pulse, or 64,000 years to run them all out. Therefore the universe was at least 64,000 years old when the earth was first formed. At least one complete cycle had passed OR SWORD OF TRUTH 275 before the earth was created, and the length of a cycle was then 64,000 years. And it is assumed here that Christ broke away from his planetoid shell at the end of the old age pulse and the be- ginning of the youth pulse, for at the instant this break between the slow and quick pulse takes place the universe is thrown into chaos for an in- stant of time. Christ himself can give the world this information, for he declares he was with the Father before the earth was created, and since that was the declaration of a literal truth, it is assumed here that he broke away from his planetoid shell at the instant of the break between the two pulse rates. At the end of creative time the pulse rates will be reduced to 187% years each, or from 64,- 000 to 12,000 years, which will then be the length of a cycle. "In the twinkling of an eye ye shall be changed" from the old age pulse back to the youth pulse. And thus is "youth eternally re- newed.' J No such quick change is promised in this life, though it will be fulfilled to the letter in the perfect state. We will be youthful in old age and full of wisdom in youth, though we will not be the same in the different pulse rates. Each pulse rate will satisfy us while it lasts, for har- mony will never end. God will be the light of the great universal city, for then light will be every- where and there will be no darkness anywhere, neither sorrow nor pain, for the former things will have passed away forever. One Sabbath of a thousand years has already 276 PLAN OF CREATION passed and we are coming into the beginning of the second; therefore the age of the earth is about 13,000 years, and God will soon enter into His second Sabbath of rest, which will extend over a period of another thousand years, while His third Sabbath is never to end. Therefore, all the years of this physical earth will be 20,000 or 21,000 years, depending on whether it is destroyed at the beginning of the third Sabbath or at the end of it. And the universe itself at the end of creative time will be either 84,000 or 85,000 years old, depending upon whether the earth is destroyed at the begin- ning of the third Sabbath or at the end of it. Time merely marks change in matter, but has no power to change anything. All that we know about time or can know, is what we observe in the changing relation in the planets, one to the other, and the changes we see going on in matter. There lies be- fore me a stone that was formed in a few hours and its age is about four years. It might be taken for a stone millions of years old. Appearances count for little in many things and in many in- stances. The Grand Canyon of Arizona and the other deep gorges of the earth were formed by the retreating waters at the time of the deluge, for as the mountain ranges were forced up to great height by the pent up forces on the interior of the earth, the waters rushed to lower levels with a swiftness almost past understanding, and the crust of the earth was not as hard as it now is. The electric current is not weakened in its pas- OR SWORD OF TRUTH 277 sage through space. No loss of power is suffered, hence the most distant star reflects its light to us as freely as though it were millions of times closer to us. When sympathy is weakened at the earth end of the circuit, we may expect to see the law of repulsion drive a fixed star back further from the center of harmony and observe it to grow dim- mer; when sympathy is again renewed at the earth end of the circuit the star will again grow brighter and draw nearer to the sun center of har- mony, for it is a violation of the law of harmony that repels the stars. And this is not by any willed act of the God-Head. God repels all conscious acts of evil; He welcomes all conscious acts of good intent. And space being an empty void, the law of repulsion will drive a star back in space at an incredible speed, and will likewise draw it to- ward the center of harmony with the same degree of swiftness. Nothing else could account for the queer action observed by astronomers among the fixed stars. On the wnole, the universe is contracting and drawing nearer to the sun, and it is this change in angle that leads our astronomers to conclude that the solar system is moving through space. This is not likely, for the impact was equal from all di- rections when matter rushed together at the com- mon center. The Simple Truth Revealed. Instead of pass- ing time, we simply have change in relative posi- tions of planets, and changes in the composition 278 PLAN OF CEEATION of matter. As observed from the surface of the earth the rate of change is about four times slower than it is on the planet Mercury; whereas on the planet Jupiter time would pass about twelve times slower than it does here on the earth. On the planet Saturn time would pass thirty times slower, and on Uranus eighty-four times slower, while on the planet Neptune, time would pass one hundred and sixty-five times slower than it passes here as viewed by us from the surface of the earth. So-called time would pass about 680 times faster to an observer on the planet Mercury than to an observer on the planet Neptune. Is this not proof that it is rates of change in matter that gives us the idea of passing time? Do we need further proof of the fact that there is no such thing as passing time? The ability to foretell future events, in one or in many instances, is proof that there is fixed law working to a definite and ultimate end. And in many instances have future happenings been ac- curately foretold, even years before their actual occurrence. No number of guesses can possibly describe a future accident. Foreknowledge is possible only by virtue of the fact that there is fixed law working to a definite and ultimate end. The truth of this declaration will not be questioned. To declare the earth to be millions of years old, is simply to dispute the evi- dent fact that nature is unfolding to a perfect ul- Neptune, or the life span of Methuselah with that OR SWORD OF TRUTH 279 of an Edison. We see quick action in the one case timate by rapid strides, a fact that is plainly evi- dent to all. From the cradle to the grave is but a swift foot-race. On the invisible plane the motion is still more rapid. In point of time we are standing stock-still. In relation to change we are moving rapidly forward, from one stage of development to that of another. We live, move and have our being in the eternal "now." "Book of the Dead." It is said the Egyptians in their "Book of the Dead" held "In the begin- ning was the Noun, the primordial Ocean, in the depths of which floated the germs of all things. From all eternity God generated Himself, and gave birth to Himself in the bosom of this liquid mass, as yet without form and without use." From this we can see that the author or authors of the "Book of the Dead" had but a vague un- derstanding of the term eternity. From that book we get no explanation of how it was possible for God to give "birth to Himself" for an eternity, and then make up His mind to do something dif- ferent. Seeing that eternity could have had no beginning, we must know from this that there could have been no beginning to the formal universe, had the matter of which it is composed been massed or in close contact. Any theory that does not explain how past eternity has been spent is not of importance. We must fill every stage of beginningless and endless duration 280 PLAN OF CEEATION with design, or else show that there is no law and no design. And this as fully applies to eternity future as to eternity past. Where design ends, reason and order must of necessity come to an end. Natural Law not an Accident. Foreknowledge of events or happenings, is possible only by virtue of the fact that there is fixed law working to a definite and ultimate end. The truth of this dec- laration will not be questioned. Astronomers fore- tell eclipses, not by guessing, but by determining the rates of motion, distance and changes in rela- tive positions, through the law of mathematics. No number of guesses can possibly describe a future accident. In nature there are no accidents. A break in the law of design would be as de- structive to the universe, as a break in a rope would be to a man swinging a thousand feet from the surface of the earth, at the end of it. Nor can we imagine either the universe or the rope being created, except through design that led up through unbroken form to their creation. Nature would be just as powerless to produce order through a series of accidents, as man would be to make a steam engine by a great number of aimless operations. And the greater the number of accidents or aimless operations, the greater the confusion and distance to harmony and order. Yet scientists come dangerously close to declaring the universe a jumbled mass of accidents, w^hen they speak of the sun losing its light and heat, and of planets crashing together ! OE SWOED OF TEUTH 281 THE BEAZEN SEEPENT. Commercial value is an invention of man; it is an arbitrary value, and not a real value. Commer- cial values rise and fall with reports either true or false. The price of flour goes up, with the report that there is a shortage of wheat. The only value there is in flour is its intrinsic food value. Labor can not put value where there is none. The value of flour can only be increased by adding to the quantity or improving the quality. Price is not a natural law, as some would teach; nor does the act of exchange determine the true value of any- thing. What is here stated of flour is true of all commodities, including gold, silver, diamonds and all articles of a like nature. The only commercial value gold has is fixed by arbitrary power, by the will of man. It is the government stamp on money that gives it its value. Though the material upon which the stamp is placed may have commercial value, it is not necessary that it should have. The value of a note is not in the paper on which it is written, but in the promise written on it. It has value, that is commercial value, for the reason that the man who gave it is the possessor of values sufficient to meet it. Money is a medium for the transfer of ownership of a commodity from one person to another, while cars are mediums for the transfer of a commodity from one place to another. The one is used to transfer ownership, the other to transfer the thing itself. 282 PLAN OF CEEATION There should be, and will be, a dollar issued for every dollar of commercial value created, and this will make profit impossible. Price is an out- growth of profit. But for man's desire to get something for nothing, as interest on money, and thus be enabled to live without work, the price of all necessities would have been honest effort on the part of each individual who used them. The law is and should always have been, "render unto each according to his need." We are all children of one Father, and are therefore brothers and sis- ters in the fullest sense. Since a good father would not charge his own children a money price for the things they must have, neither could it have been the will of God that money should be used at all. His expressed will is to render unto each accord- ing to his need. Money is a makeshift in the affairs of man. It is blindness to imagine that it has any real value, or that human labor expended in mining it from the earth adds to it any real value. Human labor cannot put value where nature has not placed it, nor add to, or extract from such value by time service. Money will be used during the transition period from incivility and ignorance to a true con- ception of life and living, but it will be issued to each individual worker and ward of the nation, and will not be transferable. In this way money will serve us until we become civilized, but will offer no opportunity as now, for the privileged few to take advantage of the less fortunate. OK SWOKD OF TEUTH 283 A thousand years of sane living will lift man- kind to a plane in which the idea of commercial value will have faded from the human mind and money will be known no more after. The love of money is doubtless the root of all the evils that curse us and in its present form must therefore be done away with. Utility should be the measure of value. A yard-stick of the cheapest wood has as much utility as a yardstick of gold, hence serves the purpose just as well. Paper is better than gold or silver for money, for it is cheaper and more convenient to carry. All services are finally paid for in labor or the products of labor, money being in reality a species of due bill transferring the credit of one to that of another. For one nation to borrow money from another nation or from individuals for the purpose of car- rying on war or for any other purpose, reveals a stupidness that is painful to say the least. Such an idea sprang from the money loaning class and their beneficiaries, and is kept in current by them. The value of every dollar now in circulation is based on the value of gold bullion, so that no mat- ter how much money there is in circulation, its value is the same as the gold brick, no matter if it be nothing but paper. The commercial value of gold bullion is always high because the supply is never equal to the demand. Thus the base is al- ways narrow, and the dollar calls for so many grains of gold, let it be silver or paper money. 284 PLAN OF CREATION All debts, bonds, mortgages, notes, etc., are made payable in terms of dollars, and not in terms of bushels, pounds or yards. Hence the money lender in buying government bonds lends money to the whole people through their government, money that is stamped by the government, and by rights belongs to it. The money lender asks of the government a high rate of interest, and forces the price of money up, by narrowing or limiting the basis of its value. He in this way lowers the price of raw material, including labor power, so as to get more for himself, while giving nothing in return but what the people, through their govern- ment," already own. In this way a public debt is never paid, but grows ever larger and the load ever heavier on the backs of the people. Were all debts payable in terms of bushels, yards and pounds, the rich creditor would no more profit by a contracted money volume than the masses. The price of wheat, corn or cotton would make no dif- ference in the contract, since quantity and not price is specified. The time required to mine gold serves to keep it very much limited in volume, hence the price is always high. That which is made to appear as the cause is in reality the effect, for the price of gold is not determined by the amount of labor and time expended in its production, but by its volume. The law of supply and demand is the only law gov- erning commercial value, and this is a fictitious value placed there by man. If average social OR SWORD OF TRUTH 285 labor time determined commercial value, which is always expressed in price, shoddy goods would not be manufactured, nor would adulterations be found in food and drugs. Instead of "to the worker belongs the full product of his toil, ' ' it shall read, "to the whole people belong equally the products of labor.' ' Children must eat and the aged and infirm are entitled to sufficient for their needs, to the voluntarily idle nothing shall accrue, for "he who will not work shall not eat." No matter how healthy and strong he may be now, each man was at one time a helpless child, and all his wants were supplied by society through his parents. Man does not live to himself alone; he is a member of the human family and serves himsef best when he serves society best. The plea that the specially talented or the specially strong are entitled to a larger share of the wealth of the world than the less fortunate is born of selfishness and will not be recognized in future. We are all cogs in a great world machine, parts of a great hu- man organism, each performing his special ser- vice to the whole, as wheels, screws, pinions serve in a clock, or as heart, lungs, stomach serve to sus- tain life in the individual. Social service, not self service, shall in future impel men to activity; a social conscience will supplant the individual con- science and become the guide to future effort. Since all service must be repaid in products of labor, the coat made by one man is intrinsically as valuable as the shoes made by another, regardless 286 PLAN OF CREATION of the amount of labor power stored up in brain and muscles of either. Much more average social labor time is ex- pended upon production in China than in the Uni- ted States, and according to Marx, prices should be highest in China and lowest in the United States, while the exact reverse is true, Man is not in any true sense a creator. Nature is the one and only creator. Man takes the mate- rial which nature places in his hands and he molds or shapes it to serve some use, thus giving it an exchange value; but its intrinsic value is the gift of nature. If man could, by his labor, create real or intrinsic value, then there could never be set upon this earth the co-operative commonwealth, except by force and fraud. The reason is clear. One real or intrinsic value is as great as any other or as the whole. The smallest necessary part of a watch is as valuable as the watch, for without it the watch is useless. If a man by his labor could create a real or intrinsic value, he could pit that value against any other value or against all other value and could claim it as his own. To illustrate : If we allow that one man can create a real value of five dollars a day and another only two and a half; could not the one allow a part of his five dol- lars to remain to his credit, while the other con- sumes his share in food, clothes, etc.? The gov- ernment would become a debtor to the one, who would pile up a large amount in a few years and demand for it a piece of land, a house and lot, a OE SWOED OF TEUTH 287 factory and machine, which would be to obligate the entire nation to contribute to his individual wants in preference to those of the less fortunate. But when we admit that no man can create value, but can only contribute useful service, and that his time can be placed against the equal time of another, then we can pay for the services of one in the products of another and God will continue to own the earth and will continue to be the crea- tor of all value. Is it not strange that an apostle of freedom should himself teach a doctrine that if carried into effect would forever forbid the realization of the very thing he advocates ? The Marxian law of value places an insurmountable obstacle across the path to the better order of living. To conceive the motive power as residing in the cart instead of in the horse is not more far from the truth than to assume that average social labor time in production determines commercial prices. The average social labor time required to produce a commodity determines largely the quantity to be placed on the market, but the price is deter- mined by the law of supply and demand. If no one wants a thing that particular thing will have no commercial value, for the commercial value of a commodity is the price people will pay for it. If no one will buy it, then it has no commercial value. This would not be so in the case of a real or intrinsic value. The bushel of wheat would con- tinue to retain its units of food value regardless 288 PLAN OF CREATION of what men thought about it and regardless of whether it be worth a cent or worth nothing. One value is a human idea only, whereas the true value continues to exist independent of ideas. The food value in wheat will sustain life in dog, idiot or child even though neither of these recognize any kind of value in wheat. One value exists inde- pendent of the mind, whereas the other depends for its existence entirely upon the mind. There will be a strong tendency to limit the quantity of those articles which require a great deal of time and energy in production. Prices rise and fall every day in the markets of the world, swayed by the law of supply and demand; whole cargoes of fruit, vegetables, fish, etc., are wan- tonly destroyed in order to keep prices high. If Marx be right in his claim, the price of an article already produced would not be affected by destroying a part of the product. And in the new order it will not be so, for then there will be an equitable exchange and no profit allowed. The history of labor and wages may have occu- pied the life-time of some men to study out. But the facts are simple and they require no study. Commercial value is not a law; it is an invention of man, and inventions are sometimes complicated and hard to understand. Man's selfishness and dishonesty, no doubt, made this invention neces- sary, and just as the invention of the lock is in many cases a protection against thieves. But when we try to make an invention of man equivalent to OE SWOKD OF TEUTH 289 a natural law, we succeed splendidly in deceiving ourselves. God Owns the Earth. No human being, be he king or slave, can own a single square foot of the earth's surface. God could not, in justice to Him- self and to humanity deed over to any person or any number of persons the smallest part of the earth's surface. God owns the earth and holds it for the common use of all. He can not transfer His ownership to any number less than the whole of the human race. The old claim that "the king can do no wrong" is not founded on truth for jus- tice can not be fixed by arbitrary law. Arbitrary rules are not even to be thought of; we are to be governed by absolute justice and when all submit to this rule, friction in all its forms will cease. Some men have queer notions of law and justice, and still queerer notions of God and His relation to fixed law. God has neither power nor authority to arbitrarily fix the terms of our existence and progress. The right to live carries with it the right to live on equal terms with every other man, woman and child. One can only lose this right by rebelling against the law of justice, and then only so long as he holds himself in that attitude of mind. The right to be born carries with it the right of equal inheritance to all the bounties of nature. A government if honestly administered is the expressed will of all its members, as well, the will of God in man; and the government or the will 290 PLAN OF CREATION of the people through their representative heads determines in what manner and by what means industry shall be carried on. This government in the name of the people and for the benefit of all controls the land of the whole country or nation, including its mines. God can only express His will to a nation through its representative heads, and if the people are properly represented then the government, while representing its citizens, is, at the same time, the agent of God. Therefore, a ruler, be he king or president, is held responsible for his stewardship by both God and man. He may err; he may use his power in the interest of a class, but if so, he is a traitor to both God and man. If he use his power in the interest of all the people, he is a true representative of both God and man, but be he true or false, the just commands of a government are the commands of God Him- self. It has been wisely said: "In the presence of stupidity, the gods themselves are helpless.' ' But thanks to man's inventive genius, through the dis- covery of steam and its uses, and through electric power and display, superstition is fast dying. Men will be compelled to live in obedience to the de- mands of justice, when once their eyes are open to the facts ; with superstition dead, God will compel the world to live in accord with the dictates of en- lightened conscience. God could not enforce jus- tice in the past, when men's minds were filled with superstition; now it can be seen that there is an OR SWORD OF TRUTH 291 active cause back of every effect, and that nothing happens by chance. Not even a millionaire be- comes rich by chance, but by robbery. Private or individual ownership of the means of life is out of harmony with all reason and all justice. There- fore, we may know that the change is at our very door. In future, the people will make and unmake their own laws through the initiative and referen- dum. The recall of officials from public office will place power in the hands of the people at all times. No man can attain so high a position or standing that he may not be recalled from his exalted sta- tion, in the event of his failure to carry out the will of those who entrusted their welfare to his power and keeping. The people will be the real rulers, the officials being only the agents of the people. Let there be a full exposure of all wrong doing, whether great or small, for small evils be- come great if left to grow. Cut down the tree of evil, root and branch, and thus avoid danger and attain security. ' ' The original deeds were written with the sword — blows were the current coin given in payment; and for seals blood was used in pref- erence to wax." Thus spoke one of the world's greatest philosophers, Herbert Spencer. It is not hard to see the truth of his assertion. You, reader, and I have no right to live if individuals have the right to own the land and tools of production. In- dividual ownership resolves itself into priority of possession. It has no other foundation, and this 292 PLAN OF CREATION is a sandy one. If priority of possession consti- tutes a just claim to the landed surface of the earth then the legal heirs are all dead. The In- dians, according to this claim, have the first right to both North and South America. If one man steals a horse from another and sells it to a third party, the rightful owner could not be said to have lost his ownership by this transaction. Most of the fertile valleys and plains of the earth have been taken and held by first one warring tribe and then by another, and the only deeds any of them had to the land was the deed that " might makes right." The original owner of the earth has not lost His title to it, and the time is near when a bon- fire will be made of all wills, deeds, mortgages and bonds. The inequality of the soil and location forbids a division of the land and equal distribution, even though attempted by men of perfect honesty. The landed surface of the earth is not one level plane, equally fertile in all its parts. Neither would it be possible to make up for this difference by giv- ing one more, another less. Without government, society is impossible. It would be a waste of time to attempt to establish peace on earth by allow- ing men to own separate portions of land, and to occupy themselves each in his own way. Besides, each new birth would call for a readjustment and a redistribution. Government ownership and man- agement of all industries makes all things right. The last and the least are entitled to as much as OR SWORD OF TRUTH 293 the first and the strong. Equal rights without equal opportunities are nothing; a dream that could never come true. The very idea of law and government forbids private ownership of land and the tools of produc- tion. A government of proprietors would be chaos and disorder, for each would be king over his own possessions. Those who own the land and tools of production own the government, and dictate how it shall be administered. One who is so mis- guided as to defend private ownership of public utilities has no right to say a word about the law or the form and function of government. If the rich justly own the country, then they have a right to run it to suit themselves. We have come to the parting of the ways. We must have either no voice in the government, or no share in the en- richment of a few. We must have either the rich and anarchy, or justice and law, without the rich. This does not mean poverty for any, but peace and plenty for all. He who defends private ownership of land and tools of production, contradicts him- self every time he casts a vote or has anything to say about statute law or form of government. If we grant others the right to own the means of life, we must grant them the right to rule. If a man has a just right to claim as his exclusive property any part of the earth's surface, we can no more ask him for the privilege of benefitting from that land, than we can ask him to cut off his legs and give us the use of them. No power can justly de- 294 PLAN OF CEEATION prive a man of what belongs to him. We are noth- ing less than trespassers every time we set foot on another man's holdings if he has a just claim to possession. Private ownership of public utilities and natural resources makes us all invaders and trespassers. It is folly and blindness for preachers and would-be Christians to preach God and His salva- tion and at the same time ignore the economic wrongs of our time. It is as though one went among a band of robbers and murderers and preached salvation to them, yet made no effort to induce them to reform their conduct. The rich man can not be saved in his sins, but from them, if at all, and the only true preaching is that which seeks to turn men from wrong doing. Men's feel- ings can not be spared when it comes to reform. If there was ever a time in the life of man and the history of this world when plain talk was needed, it is here and now. The rich are even less to blame than are those who defend private owner- ship of public utilities; and when the day of re-ad- justment arrives, the rich will have a just com- plaint against the trucklers and knaves who have defended them in the possession of their ill gotten gains; for by this very defense the rich saw that what they would give up would be taken by these knavish defenders and made the same bad use of as they are making of this stolen wealth. The socialists are the only true ministers of God and justice on earth today, for they go to the f oun- OE SWORD OF TRUTH 295 dation of wrong and seek to remove the tree of evil. They propose to open the door of oppor- tunity and hold it open to the least as well as the greatest; to the child of today as well as to the child of the past. Our wise teachers offer light for the soul, but nothing for the starving body. A poverty that holds a human being chained to one spot, not even allowing a visit to a dying father, mother, brother or sister, forbidding change of climate for the sick and rest for the aged is a condition hard for those who have never ex- perienced it to understand. We at the bottom have all these trials to bear and thousands more un- known to those at the top, the more fortunately situated. The Beast and Its Image. Few in this enlight- ened age will dispute the claim that the Catholic church is the " beast" referred to in Revelation, and fewer still will dispute the assertion that capi- talism is the " image of this beast," when they consider the meaning of the Scripture here cited. The Catholic church claims power over heaven and authority over the soul, while capitalism claims power over the bodies of men, women and children, and the ownership of the earth. To own the land and tools of production is to own the masses, soul and body. In view of these evident facts, can we doubt that capitalism is the " image of the beast"? Why does the Roman Catholic church spend so much time in defending capital- ism if it is not her image? 296 PLAN OF CKEATION The two " beasts" have one mind and one pur- pose, the control of the lives of the people. And now, having fulfilled their purpose, the two beasts will be destroyed, by taking away their power. Man is stubborn, blind and selfish; he refuses to learn in any other school than that of bitter ex- perience; hence the reason organized evil has been permitted to remain in the world as long as it has. But now that the people can see the wrongs that are being carried on by both the " beast and its image," their removal from the world becomes absolutely necessary, that further progress may be made. When the last rascal in office has been over- thrown, and the Constitution restored to the people, it will be found that Article XIII, Section 1 of Amendments to the national Constitution for- bids wage slavery, *as the wording clearly indi- cates. The old political parties bear the same re- lation to progress and prosperity that a brake on an engine bears to its speed. They hinder prog- ress but do nothing to help it along. Conditions now existing were born but yesterday. A change is much nearer than men dream. The last fifty years has given us most of our labor saving de- vices. But their benefits have accrued to the owners, not the workers. All the labor saving machines and efficiency systems have not lessened the hours of labor for the workers, but served to throw out of employment a growing army of men. Economy must be adjusted to meet intellectual and material progress. The masses are bound OK SWORD OF TRUTH 297 hand and foot, and they are asleep as to the cause. "I have provided a means for your escape" has no reference to belief in Christ, but to a political escape from industrial slavery. The forces are lining up for the final struggle. Capital backed by the Catholic church, and labor backed by in- telligence are soon to engage in a deadly struggle, the equal of which the world has never known. The secret and open efforts to bind the hands of the masses is past belief, except to those who give the matter serious thought. The powers that be seek to imprison and otherwise silence the agita- tors, that the work of tying hands may not be dis- turbed. But it shall not be written "Ye are eter- nally lost." We will be saved. Wage Slavery Prohibited by the Constitution. In Amendments to the Constitution of the United States, Article XIII, Section 1 reads as follows: "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude ex- cept as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction." The word "involuntary" has but one meaning, "not having will or choice; unwill- ing." (See Webster's Unabridged Dictionary). The man compelled to work for a small wage is a more helpless slave than was the negro before he was free to leave his master. Let the reader answer whether this is true. The voters of this country have the right to compel obedience to the 298 PLAN OF CREATION Constitution, and it is our moral duty to compel obedience to its just demands. The opinion of Justice Field, concerning the term "involuntary servitude" is expressed in his own words, which follow: "The words * involun- tary servitude' include something more than slavery, in the strict sense of the term. They in- clude also, serfage, vassalage, peonage, and all other forms of compulsory service for the mere benefit or pleasure of others. Nor is this the full import of the term. The abolition of slavery and involuntary servitude was intended to make every one born in this country a free man, and as such to give him the right to pursue the ordinary voca- tions of life without other restraint than such as affects all others, and to enjoy equally with them the fruits of his labor. A person allowed to pur- sue only one trade or calling, and only in one lo- cality of the country, would not be, in the strict sense of the term in a condition of slavery, but probably no one would deny that he would be in a condition of servitude. He certainly would not possess the liberties, nor enjoy the privileges of a free man. ' ' He is not a free man who is forced to work, allowing a profit on his labor to accrue to an employer. A number of assaults have been planned against the national Constitution, one of which appeared in the pages of no less an organ than the Wall Street Journal. But this document still lives, and it must live till freedom has been OR SWORD OF TRUTH 299 gained, after which a stronger Constitution may be framed. The so-called Supreme Court of the United States is the most unconstitutional thing we have in this country today. It should and must be abolished. The Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States are valueless documents so long as capitalism be allowed to live. We can neither live in accord with the spirit of the Constitution nor the plain commandments of God, so long as we permit the "beast" and its "image" to reign. Commercial trusts threaten the existence of the nation, while the labor trusts threaten the life of the individual who has only his labor to sell. One evil grows out of another; even makes it justifiable under the conditions. The labor union is justified under capitalism, yet one is as dangerous and as unreasonable as the other. The Inventor. The rights of an inventor die with him. As an incentive and stimulus to inven- tive genius, all worthy inventions shall be ap- praised and an amount placed to the credit of the inventor. Upon this sum the inventor may sub- sist for one, two or ten years, depending upon the value of his invention. He may employ his time in the effort to work out other inventions and if successful may continue to live by this method, instead of being compelled to engage in other kinds of productive work. But an inventor must bear the expense of his own models except per- 300 PLAN OF CREATION haps in rare cases; otherwise the nation would run the risk of being cursed with "cranks working on windmills.' ' If an invention is a mere novelty, it is not probable the nation would feel itself in- debted to the inventor. Nor would we permit an allowance unused by the inventor to pass to his family or relatives at his death. For under the new order all are considered and their wants amply provided for. Hence a pension granted to one should not be passed to another, nor would there be any ne- cessity for such a provision. Useful Professions. All professions of service will be sought under the new order, though many positions now filled by men would be valueless and wasteful. Phrenology, though not fully recog- nized as a science, is without doubt an important branch of knowledge of our time. There are many impostors in this profession, doubtless, but it is not impossible to find those who can contribute valuable service to the nation through their knowledge of this subject. All will serve the gen- eral government, and thus fulfill that highest re- quirement, "each for all and all for each." This identity of interest can not be expressed except through a central or general government. "The impossibility of paying one laborer except in the products of another, justifies the equality of wages," says the great political economist, P. J. Proudhon. To pay unequal wages would be to build back to capitalism again. OR SWORD OF TRUTH 301 No man can live in isolation and retain Ms reason. That is to say, no man could live in isola- tion from childhood to old age and reach a mental plane above that of the savage. And should our talented man isolate himself from human society after he reached manhood, and push back into the wilds and locate a vast tract of land and claim it as his own on the strength of priority of discovery or possession, this land will have no commercial value, except society closes in around him and his possessions. No amount of labor and improve- ments will give to our talented man's holdings any commercial value, unless civilization follows him. Except for the labor of others and an army of consumers, who would allow him a profit on what they consumed, his holdings could not have any commercial value. Commercial value is an engine; the steam and the power of this engine lies wholly in an army of consumers who allow a profit on what they con- sume to go to a privileged few. Commercial value had its birth in the minds of human devils, who saw a chance to make the vast majority of man- kind pay a profit to a privileged few. And while we cannot at this stage in history destroy the idea of commercial value in the human mind, we can at least prevent a profit going to the few. The government will be the only buyer of labor and the only seller of products, and in this way profit or increase will be eliminated. And finally the idea of commercial value will fade from the human 302 PLAN OF CREATION mind, and then will come the true brotherhood of man. "Take no increase" is a direct command of God Himself to man. And all who willingly and know- ingly permit an increase or profit to go to a privi- leged few, are as guilty of violating a direct com- mand of God, as are those who receive the profit or increase. The true brotherhood of man is yet a thousand years ahead of us; we will finally reach the plane of understanding where we "become a law unto ourselves/ ' and organized government goes out of existence. An institution or an organ- ization can only exist as long as there is anything for it to do. When there are no longer any crimi- nals there will be no more jails and penitentiaries. And when man reaches the plane where he is per- fectly willing to remain in his own orbit, govern- ment will go out of existence, because there will be nothing left for organized government to do. But in the meantime we will live and let live, and those who rebel against justice, we mill have to restrain them through the arm of government. Privilege and profit, however, will be allowed no longer. Not even our highest officials shall receive more for their daily services than is allowed to the com- monest ditch digger, for one service is equal to the other, so long as it is necessary. Let those who dislike to abide by the law of justice go and make their homes with the savage. Those occupations that require close attention and those that tax the OK SWORD OF TRUTH 303 vitality to its utmost, will have to be regulated through the hours, but not by any difference in wages. The income of the nation will be divided equally among its members, for those not able to work are entitled to live as comfortably as those strong and healthy. No man or woman will be persecuted for their past beliefs and conduct. All will be compelled to conform outwardly to the new order, though it can not be expected that men and women will of a sudden forget their life-long beliefs. The errors of the past will be openly criticised and false sys- tems exposed, but pity will take the place of blame when it comes to dealing with individuals, for no man, not even God Himself, can undo the past. That is why repentance up to the very hour of death is promised, for the best any of us can do is to turn from evil and turn to good. As long as the people themselves uphold a system that sanc- tions legal robbery they are more to blame than the few who profit by it. Indeed, it could hardly be expected that the rich would give up an advan- tage the people themselves believe in. God Himself is powerless to compel men to think right, though He will compel men to act right, one toward the other, in the future, for when once man is shown the course he is to follow, after understanding the justice of it, he will be compelled to move in his own orbit and allow others to move in theirs. Thus will he be made to 304 PLAN OF CREATION act as orderly in his outward conduct as the plan- ets do. Those who would persecute are no better than those who did persecute. Therefore, while we will proceed with promptness to destroy the monarchy of past systems and slavish beliefs, we will spare the individuals themselves. Woman and Her Place in the Co-operative Com- monwealth. It would be nothing less than selfish- ness and blindness to think of paying to a woman a lower rate for her services than to a man for his. Her needs are at least as great as his, and justice demands the same pay for all adults, regardless of sex or color. Whether or not a married woman with children shall receive wages for keeping her home and caring for her children is a question that must be decided under the co-operative man- agement. But of one thing we may be quite sure : Children being wards of the nation will be insured sufficient food and clothing, and opportunity for growth, healthful activity and education. Other- wise there could be no foundation for justice or equality, either in the life of the child or of the parents. The government should make provision for the welfare of each child, so that the man with a large family will be on an equal footing with the man who has a small family or none at all. The one sure cure for "race suicide' 9 is to provide for mothers and children, but in just what way this is to be done must be left to the future to work out. But it must be worked out with absolute jus- OE SWORD OF TRUTH 305 tice to the mothers of the nation and to the children. Form of Money to be Used. Labor checks or certificates of credit will be issued to the workers, including all official heads. These will not be transferable, thus preventing gambling for money. These certificates may be similar to postal money orders, with provisions for stamping out values when used. On a center square a photograph of the worker may be taken, as a means of quick identification, since these certificates are to take the place of gold and silver, and will be good for their face value anywhere in the nation. The de- tails can be easily worked out when the intelli- gence of the nation is directed toward the estab- lishment of the new order of freedom and equality. THE END. Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide Treatment Date: Oct. 2004 PreservationTechnologies A WORLD LEADER IN PAPER PRESERVATION 1 1 1 Thomson Park Drive Cranberry Township, PA 16066 (724)779-2111