:%6 ^ ity of California lern Regional :ary Facility THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES IN MEMORY OF EDWIN CORLE PRESENTED BY JEAN CORLE THE DIARY OF JEAN EVARTS HE DIARY OF JEAN EVARTS Byv CHARLES FRANCIS STOCKING, E. M., AUTHOR OF CARMEN ARIZA, Etc. THE MAESTRO COMPANY PUBLISHERS CHICAGO ILLINOIS MDCCCCXXI COPYRIGHT 1912 BY CHARLES FRANCIS STOCKING PUBLISHED AUGUST 1912 All Rlghtt Reitrvtd TWENTIETH EDITION PRINTED IN U. S. A. DEDICATION To the one whose unfathomable love has made this book possible my Mother Truth is within ourselves . . There is an inmost center in us all, Where Truth abides in fulness; and to know Rather consists in opening out a way Whence the imprisoned splendor may escape Than in effecting entry for a light Supposed to be without. Robert Browning. MAY 8TH ALIFORNIA and May! The warm earth quivers with expecl- ancy, and the air is full of the promise of new life. The soft winds that blow from the inland are driving the rain clouds back t0 the ocean, and whispering to the barren hill- Asides and brown valleys a message of roses, of flaming poppy fields and summer's bounty. I hear the meadow lark's sweet call, a pean of sheer gladness for life. I hear the twitter of swallows, and catch the gleam of the tanager as it flashes past me, too occupied with its renewed responsi- bilities to be mindful of my presence. Far down in the valley below me, the cattle, just turned dnto the new grass, are rejoicing in the abundance that is spread before them. I love to watch the cloud-shadows glide along this great valley and melt into the hills far beyond. I love to sit here at sunset and see the wonderful changes of color that tint the landscape when the glowing sun tips those distant hills. I love to linger here when it has sunk behind the mountains, with night falling around me, and watch the stars come out and the lights appear in the farm houses far below. Be- yond those sentinel hills lies the bay, with its Golden Gate opening out into the great ocean. I .caught a glimpse of this when they brought me here, and my heart was filled with longing to sail out through that sunlit portal and into the vast unknown on and on, until I should come to that other gateway through which I shall soon pass. 9 THE DIAEY OF Why did I have to wait? Why was I brought here to linger in an agony of longing for life, while everything about me rejoices in the glad- ness of springtime? As I write I hear the sad call of a turtledove from the ledge below, and my forlorn hope responds to its mournful notes. It is not the fear of death that weighs upon me, but the thought of the injustice of it all I am so young, and poverty and sickness have given me so little chance. It is so hard to give up all that the years might have brought me of happiness and love so hard to know that my struggle has been vain, my hopes empty. I tried to read my Bible this morning, but I get so little from it that I have laid it aside. When I opened it and read Jesus 's words: "I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly," such a feeling of resentment came over me that I was afraid. Sometimes I wonder if Jesus really did live. Sometimes I think he must have lived, but that he, too, was mistaken deceived just as we poor mortals are whipped through a few short years by misfortune and calamity, and cheated in the end by false hopes and empty promises. The Bible is such a strange book ! No one understands it, and least of all, I think, the preachers. The minister from the little church in the village has been to see me. When I told him that I had been brought here to die, he asked if he might pray for me. And then he prayed to God to spare my life, if it be His will ; but if not, to grant me peace and 10 JEAN EVAETS fortitude to meet the end, and at last life eternal. It seemed a mockery! Must we die that we may live? Are we so imperfect that God must operate through suffering and death to make us whole! And if we are imperfect, who made us sol If God did not, is there another power that can mar His creation? And is God, then, omnipotent? There is no answer given us but the less than schoolboy logic of the preachers; and my weary thought long since ceased its efforts to accept this. In these last days the world about me has echoed the voices that I hear so constantly within. Sometimes they whisper patience, and bid me hope that the storms which have beaten down my soul in this experience called life shall rage in vain against that portal through which I go. Sometimes they ring through my soul with the wild clamor of huge bells, and stir my confused thought into fierce protests against the laws that foreordained me to misery and death. Again, they sink into whispered temptations to destroy my life, and end at once the confusion and pain. But I dare not do this weakness has sapped my courage and I could not know that in killing the body I had destroyed the Self. How the awful thoughts of Self beat upon my tortured soul when the storms of temptation are raging! This Self that I have found here, cast into the world without my knowledge or consent, emerging from utter darkness, only to sink again into darkness just as profound and mysterious! This Self that in its brief passage between the 11 THE DIARY OF two dark mysteries carries the weight of ages of faith and prayer, a crushing burden of countless longings and fears bearing the executioner's awful sentence, yet striving to illumine the stony pathway along which it journeys to the end with the feeble light of a hope that it must have brought from the darkness without. And these storms are followed by hours of deepest gloom, of mental exhaustion and despair. At such times I lament bitterly the slavery of my struggle for existence that gave me no oppor- tunity for study and meditation, for perchance I might have found that which now would help me bear the limitations of life and reconcile me to its end. But I have known only work work that mounted to desperation, that crowded my life with cares and worries work that had no end beyond the procurement of the bare necessities of a futile existence. Often at the close of a Sunday of feverish preparation for the cares of the com- ing week I have crept into the restful calm of a church, and there, in the atmosphere of humble devotion, apart from the turmoil of every-day living, have prayed that I might learn something of the great Spirit that the preachers tell us stands back of all life. There I would hear much about the goodness of God, and the need of shap- ing my course to the Infinite; but, alas! no one seemed to know just how this could be done, and no one could tell me. I would come away in greater confusion, convinced that the end of all philosophy is that we can know nothing. Wise 12 JEAN EVAETS men may continue to argue and dispute, as they have since the dawn of reason; but the children of this world still suffer and they still die. The heavens are of brass, and the ear of Omnipotence is stone! And I am waiting waiting. While the warm sunlight kisses the hilltops and flows out into the budding valley beneath, while the birds carol forth their joy, and the cool winds leave the em- brace of the snow-clad peaks and hurry out to sea, touching the sleeping foliage as they pass and bidding it come forth, I am waiting. And yet though I know the words are vain my torn soul pours out its agony in a prayer that I cannot check as it struggles to my lips in this dark hour Heavenly Father, if such there be, and if Thou dost see and hear the children of men, whose hearts are bursting with an unutterable longing to know Thee, look upon me, and if Thine arm be not shortened, stretch it forth and let me live, O God, let me live ! 13 MAY 10TH MAY 10TH OW the charm of this glorious springtime grips me, body and soul, despite my sufferings ! To- day I saw the sun rise. From my ledge of rock I watched the dull sky take on its parti-colored morn- ing robes, gray, purple, pink, and then a dazzling white, as the sun itself, heralded by long arms of light that pierced an opening for it through the pearly clouds, stood forth boldly upon the glitter- ing peaks and seemed to bid the darkness flee be- fore it. Whose mandate did the sun obey? Who framed the law by which the clouds parted and the darkness fled? Is there an intelligence, not yet understood by men, that manifests itself through Nature and through us or is it chance? And can a power expressed through such imper- fect agencies be itself more perfect than they? No, there is no other conclusion admissible. The hunting season has opened, and the sound of shooting is heard from all directions. I pity the poor quail, such innocent, pretty things and yet, their lot is far less desolate than that of man, duped by promises always held before him, but never fulfilled. I have disobeyed the doctor by coming out here today, but I feel now that I shall make but few visits to this beautiful spot, for the warning that came yesterday bids me remember that my time here is short. It was a hemorrhage, and I cannot but think it the beginning of the end. I had been watching the hunters in the valley below, 17 THE DIAEY OF and as I leaned over the ledge I caught sight of a man coming along the path that leads to this place. I must have made a noise that attracted him, for he looked up, and when he saw me he smiled and touched his cap. Then I felt the blood rush into my throat the valley seemed to rise up before me I grew faint and sank to the ground. When I opened my eyes again I was lying on the grass some distance back of the ledge, my head supported in the man's arms, and his handker- chief pressed to my lips. As my thought cleared, my first feeling was one of anger that I was Still living ; my next was one of wonder, as I saw him smile at me again. But men who find pleasure in shooting harmless quail may be expected to smile in the presence of death. Yet as I think back today and try to recall the circumstances was he hunting? for I am sure he did not carry a gun. But I was too weak to talk ; and when he asked me if I thought I could be taken home, I only nodded and sank back again in his arms, as he lifted me and started down the pathway to the house. How easily he carried me, and how gentle he was! The rancher's wife was distracted when she saw my condition, and sent her boy off post- hasle for the village doctor. All was hurry and confusion, and I did not see the stranger again after he laid me on the couch in the dingy little parlor. And now as I think of him, some vague mem- ory seems to stir my thought, some inward instinct tells me that he is not a stranger, that I know him 18 JEAN EVARTS perhaps well as well as one knows the glitter of the sunbeams or the flush of the sky at dawn yet where have I seen him before? But while my thought puzzles with these ques- tions, there flows over my soul a wave of despair, a chilling sense of utter desolation, and I see once more the battlefield of life stretched out before me, where good and evil are grappling in eternal warfare for the souls of men. Why should I care to live 1 What sane reason have I for clinging to a life that must end in extinction ! It is ordained that there shall be perpetual combat between man and Nature that all living forms, from the tini- est insect to man himself, shall forever slay one another ! The spirit of strife is in our souls the lust of blood poisons the sources of life it per- meates the deeds of men it manifests in the germs that contend for the mastery of their bodies ! The universe has been created to be de- stroyed, and darkness awaits mankind! I have been warned and now I am striving to keep my thoughts from the dread anticipation of the next attack thoughts that weigh like a mill- stone upon my soul. But I shall try to come out to this ledge every day, for when the final sum- mons comes I hope to meet it here, with my face turned toward the Golden Gate that opens into the ocean of mystery, and my thought fixed upon the wonders of the scene before me, the hills and the valley, the distant peaks, and the glow of the sunset sky. And I am ready let it come quickly. 19 MAY 11TH MAY 11TH HIS morning the Stranger came again. I was sitting on the ledge, watching the mists melt away over the valley in the morning sun. The day was a-glitter, and a thousand voices filled the air with sounds of gladness. I heard him coming along the path be- hind me, but before I could rise and tell him how grateful I was for his kindness to me when I was so much in need of help, he was at my side and, with his hand on my shoulder, was telling me to remain seated. Then he sat down beside me and began to talk about the glorious view from the ledge. He spoke of the wealth of beauty that was spread out so lavishly upon the landscape before us, and won- dered what must be the real beauty, of which this was but an imperfect manifestation. I asked him if this was not real beauty that we were enjoying, and he replied that it was only our concept, and not the reality. When I asked him what he meant by the reality, he said, God. I laughed at this, and asked hkn if he knew anything about God, for if he did he might be of great service to us poor mortals who were hunger- ing for such information. To my surprise he took this remark seriously, and replied that he did know something about Him, and that he was daily adding to this knowledge. Then, I know not why, I asked him if his God could cure me of tuberculosis. With a perfe6tly serious face he replied that He could. For some 23 THE DIAEY OF moments I sat looking at him, wondering if he really meant it. Then a smile lighted up his face, and putting his hand on my arm he said gently, "The eternal God is thy refuge and underneath are the everlasting arms, and He shall thrusl out, the enemy from before thee; and shall say, De- stroy them." A sharp reply sprang to my lips, for in my hopeless condition trite scriptural quotations irri- tate me beyond endurance. But he was looking out over the valley, lost in thought and apparently unmindful of me. And on his face there was an expression of such peace, such strength and sin- cerity, that the angry thought died within me, and with streaming eyes, scarce knowing what I did, I held out my arms to him in agonized appeal and cried, "0 help me, for I am dying!" The day is darkening into night, and the round white moon that peers into my open window is dropping its silvery beams in mystic dance upon the glistening hills. In the western sky a few long bare of glowing red still linger as memories of the departed sun, and symbolize the feeble rays of hope that yet glow within my somber thought Whether I live or whether, as I now believe, the lengthening shadows that trail the setting sun of life will soon enfold me, I shall carry with me to the end the memory of his compassionate look a look of such tenderness, such love and pity, as I have never before seen impressed upon the face of any human being. I cannot recall his words, though he talked to me long 8nd earnestly, for the 24 JEAN EVARTS emotion that shook my soul had seemed to dull my hearing. But as he led me back to the house I felt in his presence the deep sympathy, the sincere desire to help me, that my hungry heart had yearned for, and I knew that I had found a friend. 25 MAY 12TH MAY 12TH RENEWED hope and an unfam- iliar sense of expectancy filled my thought as I sat on the ledge this morning, drinking in the glories of the unfolding day, while hour by hour the mounting sun revealed new charms and fresh beauty. Yesterday, in the stress of my deep emotion, I had asked a stranger to help me ; today my thought of him was that of a friend. And I could not curb a longing that he would come again, and coming, would bring me a message of cheer. Surely, I thought, such serenity and assurance as his, even in the presence of death, must rest on conviction, not mere opinion; and the lively hope that he has aroused within me must be the harbinger of something better that is close at hand. Then he came and it seemed that the sun grew brighter and the birds sang more joyously as he sat down beside me. "Be of good cheer," he said, "I bring you tidings of great joy." How often I had heard these same words, and they had been as sounding brass to my ears ! But when they came from his lips, and I saw again that tender smile lighting up his face, my heart leaped w T ith a happiness I have not known since childhood, and the sense of hopelessness that op- pressed my soul seemed about to lift and reveal hidden joys that I had not dared to dream were ever meant for me. Then I told him of my need ; of my struggle as a poor stenographer in the business world ; of my 29 THE DIAKY OF parents' death; and of my unhappy Strife with poverty and sickness, until I had sunk beneath the burden of ills and had been sent here, through the loving efforts of an older sister, in the vain hope that the sunshine and pure mountain air might restore me. It was only the old, old story of God 's mistake in the plan of creation the same miserable recital of lost faith, lost hope, utter helplessness, and, finally, drifting, drifting no one knows whither without chart, without com- pass tossing upon the angry waves of misfor- tune that were mounting higher and higher, until they seemed to break against the lowering clouds above ! ' ' You say there is a God ! " I cried. ' ' But did He create mankind? And if so, why does He pun- ish us for being as He made us? There is some terrible mistake or there is no God!" Patiently he heard me through. Then, in a voice whose low intensity seemed to bid the winds and waves be calm, he told me that he had a mes- sage for me that he knew would meet my need. He told me that, if I were willing, he would come and unfold this message to me day by day, and that he would work with me and for me to overcome the unhappy condition into which I had fallen. I know I did not catch the meaning of his words ; but while he spoke my waiting heart thrilled with joy, and when he had finished I held out my hand to him in gratitude. And tonight, as I sit in the quiet of my little upper room, with only the friendly chirp of the crickets or the occa- 30 JEAN EVAETS sional hoarse call of a curious owl for company when all Nature is so quiet, so still, that it seems as if a gentle hand had been laid upon her, hush- ing her into silence I am pondering his words, thankful that my training in the busy office in my little home town has enabled me to take down clearly and in sequence all that he shall tell me, that I may read and re-read it when I am alone. Tomorrow night I shall begin to write his message in this diary this diary that I began only a few short days ago, thinking that to write it would help me bear the suspense of waiting for the dreaded call, and keep my thought occupied until it should come. I have felt so strong since yesterday, and death has not seemed so near. Tonight my spirit seems to float on wings. Is it, I wonder, only the stimulus of renewed hope I Or do I dare to think that the darkness is passing? Can it be can it be that my cry has been heard that God lives, and that He has come in the presence of this new friend! Can it be that I shall see Thy salvation, and shall yet live to praise Thy name ! 31 MAY 13TH MAY 13TH WAS waiting for him when he came this morning, my heart beat- ing high in anticipation of the "glad tidings" he had said he would bring me. A new day seemed to have dawned, and the dark clouds behind which I had believed the gateway of death awaited me appeared to my stimulated vision to be rolling away and revealing a bright- ness beyond that filled me with gladness and gratitude. " Shall I be cured!" I urged, when we were seated. ' ' Tell me quickly, what have you brought me?" His answer was given in a single word, ' ' God. ' ' Instantly a sense of disappointment blotted out the bright picture before me, as my thought rose in rebellion against what I feared was to be only a restatement of the old theology that I had cast aside years ago. ' ' I think I know what you would say, ' ' he went on hurriedly, as if he wished to prevent me from replying. "I know that you have sought Him, and apparently in vain; I know that you have prayed, and your prayers have seemed to return to you unanswered. You have striven to do your part, and He has seemed to be unable or unwilling to help you. But your experience is the common lot of humanity. I, too, have passed through it, and passing, have been led into the knowledge of God as not only existing and real, but as the only reality, and as the 'very present help' which can 35 THE DIARY OF lift you out of despair, up into a realization of those things which 'eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man.' If you will put aside prejudice and human opinion, and will patiently follow me, striving for that receptivity of mind which a little child holds toward its teacher, the message will be unfolded to you, and I know your needs will be met." Humbly I turned to him. "Tell me of your God," I said; "I am waiting." Then, with his thought apparently far away from either himself or me, he began. The message begins and ends with God. We do not know what untold ages have passed since man, looking off into the depths of the starlit heavens, first formulated within his thought the question, "Who made this?" But we do know that no more momentous question has ever been asked, for once propounded, that agonizing search for a Creator was begun that has shaped the men- tal development of humanity. As have been man's beliefs in the existence or non-existence of God, as have been his concepts of God's nature and attributes, so have been his manifestations of hap- piness or sorrow, peace or strife, progress or retrogression. As far back as the dawn of history there were great souls who had caught the truth of the vast- ness of the universe, and who sang praises to the 36 JEAN EVARTS One who had conceived a Creation that was in- finite in extent. Today the infinitude of the uni- verse is acknowledged by all thinking men. Send our thought in whatever direction we will, it re- turns to us again and reports no limits. The human mind staggers at its own concept of the profound depths of space. To comprehend the distances that separate our planet from the re- motest stars visible through the strongest lenses is a task wholly beyond the capacity of men's minds. Limits to the universe are unthinkable; and that which is unlimited must be infinite in extent. Reasoning from effect to cause, as the human mind invariably does in its attempts to establish, through logical processes, the existence of a sole creative power behind material phenomena, it may be said that a thing created implies a creator. An effect is unthinkable without a cause, for these are correlated terms, and do not admit of dis- association. An infinite effect implies an infinite cause, and, therefore, that which called the uni- verse into being must have been infinite. More- over, the maintenance of an infinite universe calls for the continued existence of its infinite cause. Another fact that is apparent in a contempla- tion of the universe is that it exists in accordance with laws, certain of which seem to be more or less understood by men. But the laws by which an infinite universe is maintained must themselves be infinite; and the power that is able to frame infinite laws, and that can maintain the universe 37 THE DIARY OF through those laws, cannot be less than infinite itself. A power which can create an infinite universe, governed by infinite laws, must be omnipotent; and that which has ever at any time been omnipo- tent can never cease to be so. It can never con- tain any elements of discord or decay, for to the extent that it did it would ceas'e to be omnipotent. It can not admit the existence of any other power, for the same reason. The power, therefore, that framed the universe and that continues to main- tain it, must be infinite, omnipotent, and perfect, and there can be only one such power. Whether we admit that the universe shows de- sign or not, the existence of intelligence must be conceded, for it is manifested on the human plane, and is demanded by the admission that the uni- verse is maintained by law. No unintelligent power could have created a universe, even an im- perfect universe; and if we admit that an om- nipotent creator is intelligent at all, we are forced to the conclusion that the creator's intelligence is likewise infinite, that is, without limits, embracing all knowledge. But intelligence is a mental quality, and in- finite intelligence requires an infinite mentality as its habitat. Moreover, laws are mental things, and are framed in mind. If, therefore, the creator of this infinite universe possesses infinite intelli- gence, we are driven to the conclusion that the creator must be an infinite mentality in other words, an infinite mind. 38 JEAN EVARTS Following out these implications, and knowing that on the human plane the activities of mind are manifested in thoughts and ideas, it is impossible logically to deduce any other conclusion than that the universe is the product of an infinite mental- ity, the result of infinite mental activity, and as such must itself be wholly mental. Logically, then, on the assumption of an in- finite universe, the creator must be an infinite mind, and must be omnipotent, unlimited in ex- tent, infinitely intelligent, and wholly perfect, that is, good. The creator must be mental, and we our- selves and all with which we have to do must be on a mental plane. "We further conclude that this creator must be sexless and incorporeal. Being mind, the creator is immaterial. Since it is infinite in extent, it must be omnipresent, and must include all that exists. It must, therefore, include its own crea- tion ; and this creation, being the product of men- tal activity, and being included in infinite mind, must consist of that which mind produces, namely, ideas. Since omnipotent mind can never be less than omnipotent, it is eternal; and that which it includes, its ide-as, must likewise be eternal, coex- istent with it. On this basis the act of creation cannot be what men have so generally supposed, the calling into existence of a material universe from chaos, or nothingness, but must be the unfolding of existent ideas within this unlimited mind. On the human plane mind is expressed in and by ideas. So on 39 the infinite plane, the infinite mind manifests itself in and by its ideas, and the unfolding of these ideas constitutes the act of creation. An infinite mind, however, must needs unfold an infinite num- ber of ideas in order to completely manifest and express itself, and must needs require an infinite extent of time in which to do this. Therefore, creation still continues, and must forever con- tinue, as the infinite mind forever unfolds within itself the numberless ideas that are required to express it. Infinite mind must be infinite in variety. So the ideas that express it must vary from the least to the greatest, from the infinitesimal to the in- finite, in magnitude and complexity that is, there must be an infinite number and variety of ideas in infinite mind. But the greatest idea that can exist within this mind is the idea of the mind itself, the idea of the mind's own greatness and grandeur. This idea must of necessity include all other ideas, since it is the idea of the complete mind. In other words, this greatest idea of infinite mind must be the exact image and likeness of that mind. Ex- pressing infinite mind in its completeness, its qualities and attributes, and its infinite activities, this greatest idea may be called the reflection of infinite mind. The infinite creative mind bears the relation- ship, not merely of father, but of "father- mother," to its creation. There is no term in our language which will adequately express this re- lationship, and we therefore continue the use of 40 masculine terms when referring to the creator. The term God, a derivative of the Saxon Gut, more nearly expresses the thought of the infinite father-mother as being Good, a thing wholly men- tal. A synonym of mind which occurs in one of the old languages is the term Man. This we will use to express the infinite idea of the infinite creator, the image and likeness, the reflection of God. We have now begun to answer the question, What is God? And in doing so we have partly developed the thought of God's greatest idea, which we have called Man. If our reasoning is correct, even though it has been from effect to cause, we are ready to say that God is Mind, in- corporeal, omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient, and omnibeneficent, and that He is sexless, not solely Father, nor Mother, but combining all the qualities that both of these terms imply. He is the only Cause, the only Creator, the only Sus- tainer, and the only Power. Continuing the development of our subject, and capitalizing all terms that are synonymous with the terms God and His idea, Man, to distin- guish them from those which refer to attributes only, we may say that, since God is ' ' that by which all else is," He is the infinite Principle of every- thing that exists. In a sense, He is law, and His laws ar'e the only laws. He is eternal, self-existent, unchanging He is infinite Life. 41 THE DIARY OF He is perfect and harmonious He is infinite Truth. He is omnibeneficent He is infinite Love. He is the substance, the heart and core of all that is. He is the inmost and only true nature of the Creation He is infinite Soul. He is unlimited in extent, hence, omnipresent He is infinite Spirit. He includes all intelligence and all power He is infinite Mind. He is and includes all that is real, permanent, and true He is infinite Good. He is Mind, and He is infinite, and He mani- fests and expresses Himself in an infinite number and variety of ways. Therefore, all that exists, all that is or can be, must be included in God and His manifestation. Since God is Spirit, the Creation, which is the unfolding of His ideas, must be like Himself in quality, spiritual, perfect, and eternal. His whole Creation, including Man, must be the expression of His perfect; Being. His ideas may be called His "children," and these are countless. His Creation, including Man, is embraced in His thought ; and the nature of this thought is wholly good "For I know the thoughts that I think towards you, saith the Lord, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end." Since Man is the idea of God's own self, he must be a "compound idea," for he must embrace all other ideas of infinite Mind. He must be God's image and likeness, standing for all that mani- 42 JEAN EVARTS fests and reflects Him. He must be Mind's high- est and greatest idea, the offspring of God. He may, therefore, be called the Son of God, for he manifests sonship in the highest sense of the term. As God is, so must Man be as His reflection, hav- ing no power or mind of his own, but reflecting through manifestation all that God is and con- tains. All of the ideas constituting the Creation, from the lowest to the highest, are embraced in Mind, and are included in Mind's thought. By and through these ideas Mind expresses and mani- fests itself. Therefore, there can be nothing apart from or outside of God and the numberless ideas through which He is manifested. "These thoughts I now leave with you," said my friend, as he rose and prepared to go. "I do not give them to you as my own, for they did not originate with me, but have come from one to whom I owe an endless debt of gratitude. The thoughts of God as the infinite Father-Mother, and of the Creation as the unfolding of ideas within infinite Mind ; the development of the thought of God as infinite Principle, Truth, Soul, have all come from one whose name I shall give you, when in our talks we have led up to it and to the revelation with which it is associated. Today we have used many of the ideas that are included in this revelation. I want you to know that the credit for their discovery is not mine, and that, when in the unfolding of this message we have 43 THE DIARY OF JEAN EVARTS reached the revelation to which these ideas be- long, we shall turn back and properly place the credit for them. The truths that have been given to you today doubtless seem strange, and difficult to understand. But be patient; the light of understanding will come; your questions will be answered, and your doubts cleared away." Then he left me; and with his going the sun- light seemed to fade, and the birds grew quiet, and as I wandered back to the house a great long- ing filled me. 44 MAY 14TH MAY 14TH S I sat at his feet this morning, ab- sorbed in his words, I thought of the Disciples, sitting at the feet of Jesus and listening so eagerly to the strange things he taught them, things as new to them as this is to me. And I wondered if the message that is now being unfolded could be like that which the patient Jesus gave to his wondering followers, and, if so, why his name had not been mentioned in connec- tion with it. But I can wait. And meantime, I have much to think of tonight. It is needless to say that the assumption that there can be nothing apart from or outside of God and the numberless ideas through which He is manifested is diametrically opposed to popular belief. That the universe is material, and man a union of mind and matter ; that God is Spirit, but that He created man out of the dust of the ground and breathed the spirit of life into him ; that man subsequently fell from some high estate, and was long afterward redeemed by a mighty sacrifice of God; that sickness and misery are trials imposed upon us by a beneficent Father to prepare us for eternal happiness ; and that death is the gateway to everlasting life, are the beliefs commonly held, in the world today and preached from our pulpits and platforms. That such opinions break every law of sane and logical reasoning, and make a God of infinite 47 THE DIARY OF goodness responsible for the creation and main- tenance of evil, seems not to have caused much difficulty in the reasoning processes of men. Nor do men seem to realize that the effort to mingle mind and matter, Good and evil, is as futile as the attempt to dilute light with darkness, and that the confusion of thought resulting from the effort to reconcile such opposites is responsible for the woes of humanity. In our ages of research we have found nothing in the material view of the universe that in the slightest degree indicates its origin. Reasoning from suns to formless mist simply pushes the question farther away from us, without even re- motely answering it. The Nebular Hypothesis- given sufficient data may catalogue a series of material phenomena, but it explains nothing. Mists may form into suns and worlds, through countless periods of time these may become the abodes of sentient beings and again may return to formless mil. The human mind can say that "the hour-hand of Eternity has then made an- other revolution;" but why it has revolved, whence the planetary mist whose cycles it records, and what the awful Power that is thus expressed no man dares to say. As an effect, the universe demands a cause ; and we may assume that it was created by an ex- ternal agency, or that it is self-created, or that it has always existed. But, as Spencer says, this third assumption does not carry us beyond the cognition of its present existence, and amounts to 48 JEAN EVARTS nothing more than a restatement of the problem. If matter and mind exist side by side, and if men's minds are cognizant of matter, we must conclude that in some way matter gets into mind. On the other hand, there seems to be abundant evidence that mind likewise inhabits matter, at least what is known as sentient matter. But if mind is in matter, and matter in mind, they must be one and the same thing, without dis- tinction as to quality. And popular opinion seems to be shaping itself to accord with this view. It was formerly thought that the atom was the fun- damental basis of the structure of matter, the atom being described as a particle of matter so minute as to admit of no further division. But this theory led directly to the implication that anything that did not admit of further division could not consist of matter, and therefore must be theoretical, existing in thought only. A material object was conceived of as consisting of atoms, held together by the law of gravitation. If this were true, it would remove so-called material ob- jects at once from the domain of matter, for an object consisting of mental atoms bound together by a mental adhesive, the law of gravitation, could itself be only mental, or a thing of thought. Since the human mind felt itself under the necessity of explaining all phenomena on a physi- cal basis, a basis of matter, rather than admit the mental basis of all force and activity, it was obliged to infer the existence of a medium, the motions or vibrations of which would constitute 49 THE DIARY OF all motion, force, action, and energy. It would have been much more natural and simple to have called it mind at once; but the human mentality has been loath to develop its thought along any but strictly material lines, and so it called this postulated medium the "ether," and assumed for it properties that are in the highest degree re- markable, as showing to what lengths the human mind will go in its efforts to avoid any but ma- terial conclusions. The ether must fill all space, and must constitute the basis of all activity, of all material phenomena, of all vibratory action, as light, heat, and radio-activity, as well as electric- ity. But it can have neither weight, shape, taste, smell, nor visibility. It can have none of the prop- erties common to matter. It cannot be perceived by any of the five physical senses. It must be ex- ceedingly tenuo-us, enormously elastic, and much more rigid than anything that we can conceive of. Although filling all space, it must be more rigid than steel, and some millions of times lighter than air. To such straits is the human mind driven when it attempts to formulate a material basis for that which is wholly mental! In the opinion of the leading philosophers to- day, matter is nothing more than a form of ether activity. The atom, instead of being an ultimate, non-resolvable particle, is now regarded as the re- sultant of a number of corpuscles, or "electrons," the electrons being mere centers of activity in the ether. Matter, then, becomes energy, or the result of some sort of activity. Activity of what? 50 JEAN EVARTS Simply a6tivity itself, or that which Stands for activity in the ether, the ether still being regarded as an invisible, intangible, impalpable, unexplain- able thing, so subtle that it penetrates everything, and so "peculiar" that it is subject to no known laws of dynamics. The electron, in the words of the discoverer of radio-activity, "turns out to be nothing more than superimposed layers of posi- tive and negative electricity. ' ' So, then, the basis of matter is "superimposed layers of positive and negative electricity." And all that we know of the essential nature of electricity is that it seems to be a manifestation of energy- and energy is in- tangible, immaterial, and perceived only by its effects, or manifestations. Of one thing, however, we are very sure that the activities of the so-called ether are enormously greater than those which we are accustomed to attribute to what is commonly called "matter," and the greater part, the far greater part, of this activity is wholly unperceived by the physical senses, and therefore remains unknown to us. This fact should have been a leading light to those fair- minded workers who were seeking the true basis of all phenomena, especially to men of such clear thought as Tyndall, who said, "The roots of phe- nomena are imbedded in a region beyond the reach of the senses." But it may be urged that a thing is no less ma- terial because it cannot be perceived by the five physical senses. The greater part of such vibra- tions as constitute the phenomenon called light are 51 THE DIARY OF unperceived by the eye. To this it may be replied that the character of light waves, or vibrations, has never been established as in the slightest de- gree material. But, even on the assumption that they were as material as the waves of air that are supposed to produce the sensations called sound, how can such waves be supposed to get into the mind, even granting that they do penetrate the eye or the material ear? Whatever the basis of matter, we must admit that it is comprehensible to us only through the five so-called physical senses. We may go even farther and say that, at least as far as we are con- cerned, it ewes its existence to the testimony of these senses. Through no other medium than one or more of these physical senses can we form any concept whatever of what we call material sub- stance. And yet, certain as we are that we can see ma- terial objects with the eye, when we attempt to explain the process of cognizing them we are com- pletely baffled. Our concept of a physical universe surround- ing us is due more largely to the sense of sight than to any one of the other senses. When we look at a material object, light coming from that object is supposed to enter the eye and cast an image of the object upon the retina, much as a picture is thrown upon the ground glass of a cam- era. The little rods and cones, the branching tips of the optic nerve which project from the retina, are set in motion by the light waves, which in JEAN EVARTS some way communicate their vibration to them. This vibration is transmitted along the optic nerve to a center in the brain, and in some un- known way the mind becomes cognizant of the ma- terial object without. Many questions are pertinent here. Is the mind within the brain, waiting for vibrations that will give it information concerning the external world? Or does the mind, from some focal point outside the brain, look at these vibrations and then translate them into terms of things without ? Does the mind see first the vibrating nerve points, and then form its own opinion regarding material ob- jects? Or do these vibrations in some way, whether by length of amplitude or rapidity of motion, sug- gest a definite basis from which the mind can build up its pictures of what the eye is supposed to seel Does anything material enter the eye? No, unless vibrations, pure and simple, may be called ma- terial. Then why does the mind not rather look at the image on the retina, even though it be in- verted, and see a definite picture of the object, in- stead of looking at vibrations and then forming its concept from them? Or, better still, instead of this clumsy and roundabout way of looking at things, why does not the mind look directly at the material object, and thus avoid this complex process and the uncertain dependence upon such a frail medium as the material eye? In other words, does our awareness of objects depend upon the vibrations of pieces of nerve tissue, so small as to be almost invisible to the unaided vision? Is 53 THE DIARY OF the mind, of which we boast such wonderful pow- ers, prostituted to such a degree that its knowl- edge of the outside world must be brought to it through the waving of pieces of flesh? Yet that, and just that, is what unthinking humanity be- lieves today! The same reasoning applies with equal force to the other physical senses, for it is certain that all we can be sure of from them is a series of vi- brations. The physical sense-testimony, from which we think we get our idea of an external world, can consist' of nothing more than a lot of disconnected vibrations; and anything that the mind may infer from these vibrations is inferred without any outside authority whatsoever. If the five physical senses give us anything at all, they give us vibrations, nothing more. Without some power of reasoning, it is impos- sible to conceive how the mind could build up con- cepts of material objects from the mass of dis- connected vibrations it is supposed to receive through the physical senses. If we admit that the mind does receive its knowledge of an external universe through these senses, we must likewise admit that it possesses the power of reasoning, whether true or false, and that understanding, which is in no way dependent upon vibrations or sensuous experience, first has to sort over this mass of vibration-sensations and arrange them, in the light of the mind's past experience or educa- tion, into the various mental concepts which it is pleased to call the external universe. 54 JEAN EVAETS And so it comes about that, in the last analysis, the mind knows these sensations only as mental facts, and its sum total of experience, its conscious existence, becomes a series of mental states. The mind may think that it is perceiving external ob- jects, and it may attribute to them the qualities of color, extension, solidity, taste, and substance, but when it begins to look for the origin of these things it is driven back to its own self. The mind is forced to admit that it knows the contents of its own consciousness, and nothing more. But the contents of consciousness are thoughts and ideas. Solid material objects do not enter the mind, but only thoughts and ideas regarding them. We are therefore obliged to conclude that, instead of seeing, hearing, and feeling real material ob- jects outside of ourselves, we are in reality seeing, hearing, and feeling our mental concepts of ob- jects in other words, our own thoughts, ideas, and beliefs. This stupendous fact, accepted and applied by mankind, will prove to be the Archi- median lever by which the whole world will be moved. ''Enough for today," said my friend, with a little laugh. 1 1 The frown on your forehead shows me that your thought is already more than full. We must aim to avoid confusion. We concluded from our reasoning yesterday that there could be nothing apart from or outside of God and the numberless ideas through and by which He is 55 THE DIAEY OF JEAN EVARTS manifested. If this is true, there can be no such thing as matter. I have only been reaching this same conclusion by a somewhat different line of reasoning." And with that he left me. 56 MAY 15TH MAY 15TH Y brain was almost bursting with questions and protects when he came this morning. But the look of sincerity on his face, and the calm assurance in his quiet man- ner and gentle greeting seemed a sufficient answer to them all and left me contented only to sit and listen, gratefully breathing the air of peace and serenity which all Nature seemed to radiate. My prayer tonight is that I may under- stand what he has told me, and know that it is true. In the light of what was said yesterday we are now prepared to accept the great fa6t that, to us, consciousness is existence. Consciousness may be defined as "mental activity." And mental activ- ity is the activity of thought. Consciousness then becomes a mental activity which results in the ex- ternalization, or mental picturing, of thoughts, these thoughts being grouped into thought- objects, or concepts. Our consciousness of things is supposed to come through the physical senses, and to be the direct result of sense -testimony. We see an ob- ject, a tree, a house, and we say we at once become conscious of it. And so through all our conscious experience we interpret consciousness in terms of the outside world. It seems never to have occurred to us to interpret the outside world in terms of consciousness. 59 THE D1AEY OF But we have seen that all we can hope to get from the physical senses is a series of vibrations in the brain. We must either believe that these count for nothing, or else insult intelligence by trying to believe that the mind makes up its con- cepts, its mental pictures of form, color, etc., from the vibrations of pieces of nerve tissue. In casting about for another and higher ex- planation of mental activity, or consciousness, we have discovered the tremendous fact that we do not perceive absolute truth through the five so- called physical senses. Truth comes only through the understanding. The understanding is wholly independent of sense-testimony, and does not judge according to appearances. If it did, the earth would still be flat, the sun would revolve about it and sink each night into the sea, the moon would be a disc a few inches in diameter, and ma- terial objects would diminish in size as they were removed from the organ of vision. As we know from experience, sense-testimony is most unre- liable. Were it not for reason and understanding, by which the sense impressions are sorted and arranged and then interpreted, we would be led into all sorts of unpleasant experiences, like the difficulties a baby undergoes while developing its reason, and which, while doing so, is almost wholly at the mercy of sense-impression. The greatest things with which we have to do, love, truth, good- ness, are wholly immaterial, and entirely inde- pendent of the physical senses. The truth of the multiplication table, for example, is in no way de- GO JEAN EVARTS pendent upon the testimony of these so-called senses. Further, since consciousness is believed to be dependent upon the testimony of the physical senses, and since these senses do not testify of truth, that is, of absolute truth, the resulting con- sciousness must be made up of errors, untruths, and therefore must be a false consciousness, and no more a real consciousness than a counterfeit dollar is a real dollar. Matter, as conceived by human beings, cannot get into mind. The material tree that we look at never enters the mind. Instead, we are conscious of a mental impression. We see our thoughts of the tree our thoughts regarding the idea "tree" and these thoughts combine to make up within the mind the mental concept which we call tree. It follows, therefore, that we do not see ex- ternal things, or things outside of ourselves, but only the thoughts and ideas that are within our mentalities. The form we give an object is deter- mined by our own mental condition, that is, by the thoughts within our own mentalities that we, as perceiving minds, are looking at. Hence, the exist- ence of a world outside of ourselves, an objective world composed of matter, is ivholly inferred and must be unreal. To believe in the real existence of matter is but to place undue emphasis upon our own mental concepts. It is the unwarranted attempt to make an objective something of what is but a mental picture. Material objects are only objectified 61 THE DIARY OF sense-impressions; and since sense-impression is erroneous and unreal, matter becomes a counter- feit of reality, that is, a counterfeit of real sub- stance. Of what it is the counterfeit, our physical senses cannot tell us, for they do not testify of truth. Only a sense that can perceive and testify of absolute truth can declare this to us. To repeat, our consciousness, which is our existence, is a mental activity, the activity of thought. We are alive to that of which we are conscious, to that with which our thought is active. We receive no testimony whatever from the five so-called physical senses. The testimony which they are supposed to afford us is but the thought that is present in our mentalities. We do not see, hear, and feel real tilings, but only our thoughts or concepts of things. And the forms and char- acteristics which these concepts ivill assume de- pend upon the quality of thought out of which they are constructed. Matter, then, is the mind's interpretation of substance. In other words, matter is the way substance looks to the human mentality. Its qual- ities and attributes are the qualities and attri- butes with which the mind dowers its own con- cepts. The mind forms its thoughts into mental concepts or such thoughts form of themselves into concepts which are then furnished with var- ious qualities, as form, extension, color, etc., and become posited or projected within the mind with regard to one another, and are then called ma- terial objects seen in space. But the space is 62 JEAN EVARTS wholly within the perceiving mind, and is as much a mental concept as the objects themselves. There is no more reason for assuming the existence of external space, like the commonly accepted idea of space, than there is for assuming a real space in which to dream. In our dreams we seem to see objects distributed in space, and the objects and space appear very real to us. We shall find that our waking concept of material objects and a space in which they are perceived are no more real than are our dreams. Everything thus reduces to a mental plane, and man himself becomes wholly mental. His body, just as material as the tree which he be- lieves he sees, is, like the tree, within his thought, and is no more his real self than is the tree. The body that men think they see is their concept of body, and is wholly mental. As all objects within the human mind are made up of thought, so the body is a thing of thought. It has been said that the body is "an embodiment of conscious and un- conscious mentality, the developed mortal thought of selfhood, the externalization of a personal sense of physical being." That it is mental is further shown by its responsiveness to thought that is directed to it. Even materialists admit this to a degree when they concede that the body is affected to a very great extent by the mind. How can the mind affect anything that does not come within its thought? And where is its thought but within itself"? 63 THE DIARY OF The Ego, the "I," is not material, nor a union of matter and mind, but is wholly a mental thing, a consciousness. Our conscious existence is our life, and we live in consciousness. To say that a man may lose consciousness and still live, does not alter this as a statement of truth, as will ap- pear as we develop the thought of man as mental. We are conscious only of what is within conscious- ness, that is, within ourselves. But only thought can enter consciousness. Therefore, we are not conscious of things, but of thoughts of things. When these thoughts enter the consciousness they build up thought-concepts, or so-called ideas, and hence it is that, in the last analysis, we are con- scious only of mental images, mental concepts, and not real things. Again, therefore, we cannot resist the conclusion that ''the human mind sees, hears, feels, tastes, and smells only its own thoughts." Our supposed "outer world" is but our collection of thought-concepts that we hold within us, within our own consciousness, or mind. Objects exist for us, therefore, only as the mind builds up concepts, or as these concepts form or are formed, within the mentality itself. Our thoughts are not things, but they represent our interpretation of things. The world of things can be defined only on the basis that it is a thought-world, that is, that it exists in our thought only. A thought-world thus becomes the only world that is knowable to us at all. Instead of knowing a real universe, we know only our thoughts of a universe. 64 JEAN EVABTS The same conclusion is reached even on the assumption that consciousness does depend upon the evidence derived from the physical senses, for we are forced to admit that absolutely the only knowledge that the five physical senses can afford us of the nature or existence of a physical or ma- terial universe is by means of certain sensations, or nervous disturbances, which the material ob- jects that we think exist without us are supposed to excite in the brain. The mind is then left to do the rest itself, for the material process of cogni- tion stops at this point, and the mind, with nothing but these nervous disturbances to guide it, with nothing else to indicate color, form, or any other quality or characteristic of a material object, pro- jects, unaided and alone, the entire physical universe. Of what does knowledge of a tree consist! Do not the thoughts that one is able to receive or hold regarding a tree constitute the sum total of what- ever knowledge or consciousness one can have of the tree? We know a tree by a process of thought. We think the tree, that is, we first reduce it to terms of thought. We have the thought of touch- ing the tree. Then follow thoughts of hardness, of roughness, of impenetrability, and all the others that combine to make up a mental concept of "tree." Every single quality that the tree is supposed to have is suggested by the perceiving mind, and is the result of experience or so-called education. The thought-tree is the only tree that the mind can know or become conscious of. From 65 THE DIARY OF its consciousness of tree it infers that a material tree exists, outside of itself, as the exciting cause of its consciousness or mental slate regarding the tree. Thus it is that causation comes to be thought of as something outside. And this belief is sup- ported by the apparent fact that the mental pic- tures with which we have to do seem to be thrust upon us whether we wish it or not, and through no choice of our own. We seem to see constantly the same objects, the same bodies, the same peo- ple, etc., although we must admit that they are all in a state of constant, though slow, change. These changes we attribute to waste, decay, senility, etc. Every-day objects are so familiar to us that they come to be regarded by us as more or less fixed, subject, as we say, only to natural changes as time goes on. We are not supposed to be able to accelerate or retard these changes to any marked or permanent degree. And yet, the human mind is awaking to the great fact that the evidence before the physical senses can be changed in response to a perma- nently changed thought regarding it, and often changed very rapidly. The law that we seem to be slowly grasping is, first, a permanently altered thought, and, second, a changed material object. If this holds true in a single instance, it will hold true for the entire objective w r orld. When we understand that our consciousness is our sense of existence, our sense of being alive; and that objects and things are projected mental 66 JEAN EVAETS images, mental concepts projected within the con- sciousness itself, and formed and made up only of thought ; and when we realize that a permanently changed thought invariably results in a changed mental concept, and therefore in a change in the form or character of the supposed material ob- ject, we have begun to grasp the significance of the greatest discovery of our age. As stated yesterday, philosophers are begin- ning to regard matter as a phenomenon of force. But all the knowledge we can have of the phenom- ena of the activities of force is mental. What we call the interplay of forces is but a mental picture, for if this force which is being regarded as the objective world is not thought-force, we cannot know it. On the other hand, if it is thought -force, we can understand it and control it. This hypoth- esis is likewise being found to stand the test, and we are learning that we can control the manifesta- tions of material thought, erroneously called ma- terial objects and material environment. The entire course of suppositional activity of material sense, the sense of matter as substance, is erroneous. In its first step it projects its own mental concepts and calls the picture an objective world of matter. Then it attempts to endow this externalized picture with life and intelligence, be- stowing upon it its own perverted sense of life and intelligence, and calling it "matter perceived by the mind" in total ignorance of the fact that in all this process it has been viewing only its own image, its own energy, motion, or force, its own 67 THE DIARY OF thoughts and concepts, even while believing these things to be external to itself. Again, matter being mental, the prevailing belief that life is in matter, or that life is within a material or fleshly body, is erroneous. The body, like all other so-called material objects, is con- tained in consciousness, and we no more exist in our fleshly bodies than we do in the material ob- jects that we think we see about us. Instead of being in our bodies, our bodies are in us, that is, in consciousness. When we grasp this fact we begin to have an enlarged view of mankind, a grander concept of the real, spiritual Man. Now that we have seen that the mental con- cepts which are erroneously supposed to consti- tute an external universe of -matter are made up of thought, and that the activity of thought con- stitutes consciousness, we are prepared to grasp the tremendous importance of right thinking. Since consciousness is mental activity, our exist- ence depends upon thought. True thought results in true consciousness, and in the formation of mental concepts that are real and perfect. Erron- eous thought results in a false consciousness, whose mental concepts are unreal, and whose pro- jected universe will therefore reflect the quality of the thought producing it. " It is of vital importance that we should learn to know what real thought is," he concluded, "and to distinguish clearly between that which is real 68 JEAN EVAETS and that which only simulates reality, for upon the quality of our thinking depends the quality of consciousness, and it lies with us whether we will be conscious of health, abundance, and immortal- ity, or of sickness, poverty, and death." For a long time after he had gone I sat think- ing of these things ; and as I pondered the mean- ing of his words the light seemed to break upon my clouded vision. Then I rose and walked slowly back to the house, like one in a dream. 69 MAY 16TH MAY 16TH HEN we were again seated on the ledge this morning, the soft winds with their first light burden of per- fume from the waking buds play- ing about us, the deep blue sky cloudless above, and the sunlight so intense, so brilliant, that the colors of the hills and valley melted and fused into a glowing white, it seemed to my waiting thought that God must have drawn very close to me in these last few days. "It is but the beginning of an acquaintance with Truth," said my friend, "which is fulfilling the promise of that peace which passeth under- standing. ' ' And as I looked up into his calm face with a smile of happy response to his, I knew it must be so. In our first talk we sought to deduce from the premise of an infinite universe the conclusion that its creator could not be less than infinite, omnipo- tent, omnipresent, omniscient Mind, eternal and perfect, and that Man must be the Creator's great- est and grandest idea, His perfect image and like- ness, reflecting Him in every attribute and char- acteristic. Although we tried to reason logically from effect back to cause, we did so because only in this way have men sought to establish the ex- istence of God and to determine His attributes. We know that in our every-day life we deal almost 73 exclusively with phenomena, appearances, rather than reality ; and men have thought it only natural to take what data they seemed to have at hand and reason from it back to its origin. But you will soon see that this very method of reasoning has been responsible for much of the confusion of thought today regarding God and His Creation. The message that is being unfolded to you re- verses this order, and starting with God as Causa- tion in the widest sense, it reasons from this major premise to a perfect effect, perfect Creation, in- cluding perfect Man. Attempting to reason from appearances back to reality is much like viewing a motion picture and, with no knowledge of what the picture stands for, trying to deduce from it the natures and characteristics of the men and women whose shadows move before us on the screen. And yet, even with the imperfect method that we have employed, it is difficult to see how mankind could have escaped the conclusion that the creator must be Mind, and His Creation wholly mental. Yesterday we discussed to some extent the popular belief in the existence of matter and ma- terial man, and drew the conclusion that the so- called physical senses afford no testimony what- ever, and that the human mind sees, feels, hears, smells and tastes only its own thoughts, from which thoughts it builds up mental images, or concepts, which it projects or posits within itself with reference to one another, calling them ma- terial objects perceived by the mind and consti- tuting an external universe, from which it, in turn, 74 JEAN EVARTS believes it receives information through, the medium of the five physical senses. We saw, firs!:, that Man, being the perf eel; idea of God, must be harmonious and eternal, never manifesting anything but what he receives from his Principle, God. If we accept this as true, how are we going to account for the material person- ality, called man, which we seem to see all about us, sinning, suffering, and dying ? We have already seen that the human man, in- stead of being a compound of mind and matter, is really a sort of mentality, in other words, a con- sciousness. Since he is mortal, if man is a mind at all, he is a mortal mind. The opposite of that which is real must be un- real, and its existence can only be suppositional. In this way, every real thing has its suppositional opposite. Truth is real; its suppositional oppo- site is falsity, which is unreal. The genuine is real ; its suppositional opposite is the counterfeit, which is unreal. Everything with which we have to do in our experience may be classified as either real or unreal. If life is real, its opposite, death, is unreal. If joy is real, its opposite, sorrow, is unreal. If good is real, its opposite, evil, must be unreal. The truth of a mathematical principle is un- questioned. When intelligently applied to a prob- lem the correct solution will be obtained. Incor- rectly applied, errors result. Can we say that the errors we make in solving mathematical problems are real? Spencer says that the test of reality is 75 THE DIARY OF permanence. What becomes of the errors when we correctly apply the mathematical principle! There is no question of the permanence of the principle; it is eternal, immortal. The truth of the Multiplication Table is everlasting. Nothing can change it or affect it in any way. But can we say that the errors we make in adding a column of figures are permanent? And if not, are they in any sense real! The musician knows that as long as he cor- rectly applies the principles of harmony he will make no discords. But he likewise knows that the slightest deviation from these principles will re- sult in that which is the opposite of music. The principles are immortal; the discords last only until they are corrected by a right application of the principles of music. The same holds for every art, and, indeed, for everything with which we have to do. There are principles which must be applied, and applied in- telligently, if we would bring out harmony and correct solutions in our work. No engineer with- out correctly applying certain principles could build a bridge. No sculptor in defiance of prin- ciples could produce a work of art. In every case, the principles are permanent and eternal, and the errors are transitory, disappearing when the prin- ciples are known and correctly applied. A counterfeit dollar, however much it may simulate the shape and appearance of the reality, is never a dollar. Ignorance regarding its com- position may cause mistakes and trouble, but the 76 JEAN EVARTS counterfeit will remain such until it is actually made over according to the principles by which real dollars are constructed. Moreover, truth and error never combine. Opposites never unite. Light and darkness never mingle. Furthermore, it is absolutely impossible to really know error. We can know that 2-J-2 4, but we cannot know that the same sum makes 5 or 9. Nothing can be known definitely except as it is explained by the principle which governs it. Nothing could be known about music, art, mathe- matics, engineering, or anything else, were there no fixed principles on which these things are based. Now on what principle is an error based, whether that error be in the solution of a mathe- matical or a life problem? We have deduced, at least as a working hypoth- esis, the conclusion that the Creator is infinite, that He is Mind, and that there can be nothing apart from Him. This Mind we have called God. Accepting this as a statement of Principle by which to work out the problem of life, we shall have to assume this Mind to be real, and its oppo- site to be unreal, suppositional, transitory, and therefore mortal. We will call this opposite of Mind ''mortal mind," and will include under that head all that is opposed to and unlike infinite Mind, or God. The term "mortal mind" is one used in the statement of that revelation on which these talks are all based, and to which we are ap- proaching. If Mind includes Life, Harmony, and 77 THE DIARY OF all Good, then death, discord, and all evil must come under the head of "mortal mind." Some very interesting conclusions can now be deduced, if we logically follow out the implications of our Principle. If Mind is the cause and creator of all that exists, its counterfeit, mortal mind, must likewise simulate a creation, for this coun- terfeit must by its very nature pose as a creative principle. It must also simulate all the powers and attributes of real Mind. The counterfeit must present its man, the image and likeness of itself, and must assume to create a universe which will be the direct opposite of the spiritual Universe created by Mind. It is this sort of man and this sort of universe that we seem to see all about us, and that ive refer to as human beings, or mortals, and the physical universe. The material person- ality, called man, which suffers and dies, is Man's counterfeit, a creation of Mind's opposite, mortal mind. Yet, though we seem to see this sort of man and a physical universe all about us, we are in reality looking only at our own thoughts of this kind of man and universe. Whatever we may think we see, if we analyze our own mental activ- ity we shall be forced to admit that, after all, we are viewing, not Man, not the Universe, but ma- terial thoughts regarding them. We are conscious of these thoughts as externalized mental pictures or concepts. We have seen that man is a consciousness, and that consciousness is mental activity, the activity JEAN EVARTS of thought. Thought, moreover, is the activity of intelligence. Intelligence is based on knowledge, and both knowledge and intelligence are purely mental qualities. If, therefore, that thought whose activity constitutes a consciousness is based on real knowledge, the thought is real, and conse- quently the consciousness is real. If, however, the thought is based on supposition or specula- tion, and not on real knowledge, the consciousness must be a speculative, supposititious, erroneous consciousness. The human consciousness builds up its mental concepts out of thoughts of matter, and then falls into the error of regarding these mental objects as real substance existing in a world outside of itself. Its first error is the acceptance of the thought of a power opposed to Good and as real as Good. Once started with this erroneous prem- ise, every conclusion based thereon will be false. It attempts to accept the thought that Spirit is infinite, while at the same time trying to reconcile it to the diametrically opposite thought of matter as real substance. It accepts the thought that it is itself a man, and that as such it consists of a mind in a material body, and it attempts to prove this by exhibiting the lifeless body of a man who has passed through the experience called death. It accepts the thought of sentient matter, of mat- ter possessing both life and sensation, and to prove this it will ask you to take up heated iron, or plunge the hand into boiling water. It believes that the continuance of life depends upon success- 79 THE DIAEY OF fully combating the evil powers about it that are continually working its destruction. It believes that germs and microbes seize it, and if not ex- pelled by drugs or natural processes, will deprive it of life. It is filled with thoughts of fear, of suf- fering, of strife, mixed with thoughts of animal pleasures, mingled good and evil, longing for the real, complicated with distrust, doubt, some gleams of truth withal, a truly remarkable combination, so complex that its various parts soon cease to coordinate, and its activity stops in what it calls death. Yet it believes that its thought will be stirred into new activity after death, and that its being will then be perpetuated. What this con- sciousness holds as knowledge is but little more than belief and speculation. It brings out the fruits of such beliefs in discord, decay, and final dissolution. We may define as the "communal mortal mind" that suppositional opposite and counter- feit of real Mind. The children of this communal mortal mind are what the world knows as men, mankind, a kind of man. The children of Mind, God, are the images and likenesses of Himself. The sort of ideas by which the communal mor- tal mind expresses itself compose the material universe and all that it is supposed to include. The ideas by which the divine Mind expresses itself compose the real spiritual Universe and Man, the reality which lies back of what we seem to see. 80 JEAN EVARTS The communal mortal mind is false, discord- ant, and mortal, and will pass away. Its children, men, reflect its discord and mortality, and must likewise pass away. The divine Mind is eternal and harmonious. Its children, like itself, are perfect and eternal. A mortal is the product of mortal thought or belief. Being mortal, it is but a temporary asso- ciation of erroneous views. Mortal minds, the minds called men, are material concepts of men. They are the results of the human mind's inter- pretation of the idea "Man. " Mortal mind, human consciousness, is the consciousness of mixed good and evil, of mingled light and darkness. It is the result of the effort to combine opposites which cannot mingle. The material universe and ma- terial man are formed in this consciousness out of the erroneous thought therein, and are projected and placed in this consciousness with reference to all the other mental concepts that constitute its universe. Individual mortal minds, the likenesses of the communal mortal mind, which itself is the opposite of infinite, divine Mind, form their own Mortal, fleshly bodies out of the false material thought held within themselves. The mortal minds nake the laws that govern these bodies, and cause the bodies to obey such laws. The laws framed by these mortal minds are called "laws of matter," "laws of hygiene," "health laws," etc. The supposititious human, mortal mind is by nature self-centered. Its nature is finite, inas- much as it is the opposite of the infinite nature of 81 THE DIARY OF divine Mind. It holds the belief that its existence depends upon its fleshly body, the body which it has itself formed out of its own thought. It be- lieves that it is in constant peril lest disaster over- take this body ; and this fear becomes manifested on the body in sickness, decay, accidents, old age, and death. It holds the belief that there are minds many, other human minds like itself, each having a separate existence, and each likewise dependent upon a fleshly body for life and happiness. More- over, it believes that these minds can do one an- other mortal injury, and that it can itself be de- prived by its fellow-minds of all that it needs for its maintenance. It holds the correlated belief that it can improve its own status at the expense of these other minds, and its short career is largely devoted to devising schemes for doing this. It declares that its life depends upon the body, upon a mental concept that is itself wholly erron- eous, and that cannot maintain even its own sup- positional existence. It makes this body, this mere thing of thought, its dependence in normal living, and the cause of most of its pleasures and ills. It reflects its fears to this body, and they become manifested there in disease. The body finally sinks under the unwarranted burden thus put upon it, and ultimately goes out in what mortals call death. The mind, finding that it cannot sus- tain its mental concept of body, believes that it dies when the body gives out, and its simulated activity then ceases and consciousness comes to an end. The thoughts forming the body disperse, 82 JEAN EVARTS and the body decays, disintegrates, and is no more. Since consciousness is the activity of thought, and mortals ara conscious of the mental images which thought builds up within them, we must conclude that upon the quality of thought entering the human consciousness depend all the phenom- ena of life and environment which the mortal ex- periences. True thought, based on real knowledge, builds up true mental concepts, that is, concepts of Truth, and therefore true concepts of the real Universe and Man. False thought does exactly the opposite. The human consciousness is a self- centered mass of erroneous thought, actively en- gaged in building up mental images and forming and maintaining an environment in which the mortal supposes himself to exist. This false thought in the human consciousness forms into a false concept of man, and this is the soul-and-body man, the mind-and-matter man, which is called a human being, or a mortal. True knowledge is based on Truth. Belief is based on supposition. The mortal consciousness holds beliefs of the existence of both good and evil, and it believes thoroughly in the power of evil. Indeed, its belief in the power of evil is as great, if not greater than its belief in the power of good. It seems to argue : "I see evil all about me, as well as good. Why should I not believe in the real existence of both?" And this it does in total ignorance of the stupendous fact that all that it thinks it sees about it is nothing more than the externalization of its own thought within itself. 83 THE DIARY OF JEAN EVARTS We are beginning to grasp the great fact that no thought ever enters the mind without at once tending to become manifested in some form, either as action or as material object. This is already so familiar to us that instances need not be enumer- ated. Thoughts of sickness constantly held will at length show themselves on the body in some form of disease. Our thought resting on some other person tends to become manifested in that per- son's experience. Our thoughts become external- ized in our environment, in our business, and in every one of the varied phenomena which go to make up what we call human life. We live, move, and have our being wholly on a mental plane. Our environment, our universe, no less than ourselves, are things of thought, and are absolutely subject to the thought that is directed toward them. *#**### "And, finally," he said, as he rose and stood for a moment in the clear sunlight, his whole being shining, as it seemed to me, with the light of Truth, "remember that the thoughts you hold are seeds that you are planting within your mentality, and that they will bring forth fruit after their own kind, according to a law as invariable as the law \vhich says that the corn which the farmer sows shall return again to him as corn. As is the qual- ity of your thought, so will be your health, your environment, your entire conscious experience." 84 MAY 17TH MAY 17TH Y mind was clouded and disturbed this morning, for if what he has already told me is true, only mor- tals experience sickness and sor- row. Therefore, I am mortal, and not a child of God. But if God did not create me, how did I come into being? This question had surged back and forth through my thought ever since he left me yesterday > and I knew that it must be answered before I could hear the rest of his message. While the trees stirred lazily in the morning breeze, and great purpling shadows drifted slowly across the peaceful valley below, he led me, as I think the tender Jesus must have led his anxious followers, out of the darkness and confusion of doubt into the warm sunlight of reality. How I know that his message is true, I cannot tell. But something within me responds to it leaps out to meet it and I am satisfied. That which is counterfeit cannot exist, even as such, unless the genuine first exists. There must be something to counterfeit. If a real dollar did not exist, there could be no counterfeit dollar. If the real Man did not exist, there could be no counterfeit or "sort of man," called mortal man. If there were no such thing as real music, there could be no discord. The genuine must always precede the counterfeit. 87 The genuine is based on Principle. The coun- terfeit is always without Principle. There are no rules for making a counterfeit dollar. The ap- parent power of such a dollar depends upon its being made as nearly like the genuine as possible. In the degree that it simulates the form, appear- ance, and characteristics of the genuine, does its power increase. But no rules, and no principle, can be formulated for making counterfeit dollars. They must seem to conform to the standard upon which real dollars rest, and they depend entirely on deception for their power. If we know a thing at all, it is because we know the principle by which it exists, and by which alone it can be explained. If we know Good, it is because we know the Principle which ex- plains it. If we can know evil, we must likewise know its rules, its principle, its laws. If we closely analyze our motives and result- ing conduct we shall find that we base everything on our concept of principle. What is this prin- ciple on which we try to establish our existence and conscious experience? It is what we under- stand to be the Principle of Good. Our progress and happiness depend upon so ordering our con- duct that it will conform to our conception of the Principle of Good, not of evil. We know that evil has no principle. It results when we are ignorant of Good, or when we voluntarily act in defiance of the Principle of Good. As darkness is not a thing of itself, but is only the supposed absence of light, so evil is not a thing of itself, 88 JEAN EVARTS but is only the suppositional absence of Good from the human consciousness. Who or what says that Good is absent from the human con- sciousness? The five physical senses. And what testimony do these afford! None whatever. The human mind sees, feels, tastes, smells, and hears nothing but its own mental concepts and thoughts. In other words, it holds thoughts of seeing, feel- ing, tasting, smelling, and hearing things, and this it calls obtaining evidence from the five ma- terial senses. The vibrations of pieces of nerve tissue would hardly be accepted as reliable testi- mony of anything in even a human court. Try as we may, we cannot understand errors of any kind. All we know of them is that they result from the incorrect application of definite rules, or so-called principles. We know that Prin- ciple is eternal, and that any rules based upon it must likewise be eternal and unaffected by the mistakes we may make in trying to apply them. We know, further, that the Principle of Good is universal, everywhere present. The Binomial Theorem in mathematics exists as truly in the wilds of Africa as in the classroom. We become conscious of such a thing as the Binomial The- orem when our thought becomes active with re- gard to it, or when thought of it becomes active in our mentalities, and that condition of con- sciousness may obtain as well in Africa as any- where else. We knoiv only what enters our minds and becomes active there. But only thought can enter our minds. And the result of thought's 89 THE DIARY OF activity is consciousness. First and last, how- ever, we are conscious only of thought, and the thought-images, or concepts, into which it forms. Evil seems to have real existence, and yet it eludes our grasp when once we try to define it. It may appear as discord in music, errors in mathematics or as inharmony in life. But dis- cordant music ceases to be music, erroneous math- ematics ceases to be mathematics, and inharmon- ious life ceases to be life. A false sense of a thing is not the thing itself. A false sense of anything is without a principle or real creator. The false sense of life which results in the material concept of man and the universe is without Principle, and there is, therefore, no basis upon which to explain it, either as to origin or its seeming existence. The activity of the human consciousness is the activity of the opposite of real thought. It is the counterfeit of thought, for it simulates it in every respect. The human consciousness, or mortal mind, becomes, therefore, a false consciousness, or mind, and is consequently neither real con- sciousness nor real mind, nor the real likeness of these. Nor do mortals have minds of their own, as they think they have. Each mortal or human consciousness holds firmly the thought that it is an independent thinker, and that it can control its thought processes and think as it pleases. This is wholly false, notwithstanding that the human mind through its sense of will-power does appear to possess the ability to admit or exclude, to ac- 90 JEAN EVARTS cept or reject, the thoughts that come to it in other words, to believe them to be either real or unreal. In any case, it is a belief of mental activ- ity, a simulation merely of the divine thought- modus, and not real thinking nor real mental activity, wherein there is no speculation, no belief, but Truth only, expressed in true thought. The thoughts of the individual human mind come to it, and through no initiative of its own, even though we concede to it the faculty of placing itself in a receptive attitude toward those things in regard to which it wishes to think, for this faculty is a supposition, and the initiative to think along any certain line comes into the mind as a thought of thinking along that line, without the exertion of any real initiative or will-power inher- ent in the mind itself. The mind is supposed to say, "I think about this," when it is doing no thinking whatever. The true statement would be, "There is the thought about this," and that thought may be classified as real or unreal, de- pending upon its origin. For false thought comes into the human mind from the mass of false thought constituting the communal mortal mind; and this thought, and the mind containing it, are the antitheses of real thought and the divine Mind. There is no real material tree outside of the human mind that acts as a stimulus to thought. The process of cognizing a tree is wholly mental, and follows immediately upon the entry into the human mind of thoughts regarding "tree." This 91 THE DIAEY OF train of thought is Stimulated by a sense-impres- sion of a real Idea, which is interpreted by the human mentality as a material tree. But the stimulus is an idea; and the resulting process, ending with the externalization within the human consciousness of its concept of this idea, and its positing of this externalized concept as a material object, is, from first to last, wholly mental. We have no process whereby we can deliberately make thoughts. Neither philosopher, scientist, nor physician has ever discovered a formula which will produce them. They are not ' ' secreted by the brain," nor manufactured in the human mentality. There is but one source of true thought, infinite Mind and but one source of material thought, the communal mortal mind, unreal and transitory, the supposititious simulation of the Infinite. Only in recent years have men been awaking to the great fact that real thoughts are things, even though invisible and intangible to the five physical senses, and that we exist in a vast ocean of thought, which surges in and through our men- talities, and which, in some mysterious way, is seized upon by the human mind and built up into concepts. The fact is, that in reality it is not seized upon by the human mind at all, but that the very activity of this thought itself constitutes the human mentality. A self-centered mass of material thought, actively working and building np mental images, constitutes the human mind. Material thoughts, the thoughts of the human so- 92 JEAN EVAETS called mind, are not things, but are symbols or interpretations of realities to this mind. All so- called "outer experience" is the fruit of thought; and the seed always bears fruit after its own kind. The way the universe will look to a human being- depends upon what kind of thought is building its images. As is the sense-perception or awareness of substance, mind, and life, so will be the inter- pretation of these things in the thought that is active in the human consciousness. The human mentality receives a sense-impression to the ef- fect that such things as substance, mind, and life exist. It then interprets its awareness of this sense-impression, the interpretation being guided very largely by education and past experience, human opinions, and speculation. The result is its universe, a projection of the concept of exist- ence which it believes it gets through the five physical senses. If the mentality holds thoughts of evil, presently it will see evil manifested in its own experience or environment, or perhaps in some other person. In any case, however, it is seeing only the externalization of the thought within itself. Men believe only what they see; and yet their lives depend wholly upon things that they do not see. Are mortals fallen men! Was man originally created perfect, and did he afterwards sin and fall from his high estate! No, there is no such thing as a fallen man. Man, the image and likeness of infinite Mind, is, in a sense, actually formed and made up of this 93 THE DIARY OF Mind's thought. He is the idea of divine Mind, and lie could no more fall than could divine Mind itself. Man being created perfect, could never be less than perfect while divine Mind retained its integrity. If Man has fallen, it must be that his Principle, God, first fell, for Man is but the image and likeness of his Creator. If God can fall, or can manifest evil, sin, sickness, or death, then Man not only can, but must do likewise, for we cannot attribute any characteristic or quality to Man that is not a characteristic or quality of his Principle, divine Mind. The counterfeit dollar cannot be called a fallen dollar. It never was a real dollar. Discords cannot be called fallen music, for they never were real music. That which is real and perfect must ever remain so. It is only the unreal and counterfeit that can change and its very lack of Principle requires that it should change con- stantly, in order to simulate as closely as possible the real. We have seen in a measure what the real Man is. The mortal man is the opposite. We have seen how he originates, how he is a counterfeit, a bur- lesque of the real Man. Mortal man did not fall, for he never was perfect. He was not created by infinite Mind, nor was the communal mortal mind in which he originates created by infinite Mind. This communal mortal mind is the suppositional opposite of real Mind, and is therefore without real existence. Whatever existence it may seem to have is a counterfeit, a simulation, of the real existence of divine Mind, 94 JEAN EVARTS Yet, the communal mortal mind could not have even the appearance of real existence were it not for the real Mind. To understand this we mut remember that whatever is real manifests its reality by comparison with that, the reality or un- reality of which we are attempting to establish. The process by which Truth establishes its claims is simply a "showing up" of the falsity of that which opposes it. The solution of even the sim- plest mathematical problem is the overcoming of suppositional error. Were it not for Truth, error could not be known, even as such. We may say that the suppositional, or unreal, is stirred up, or moved, by the real, and it is to this extent only that the real gives it whatever existence it may seem to have. It is in this way that the origin of evil may seem to be attributed to God, for without the existence of God there could be no evil, and therefore evil really owes its existence to Him. The shadow owes its existence to the real object; and yet the object cannot be held responsible for having created the shadow. The theory of i ' sup- positional opposites," as announced in the revela- tion up to which we are leading, demands that Good be supposed to have an opposite. It is this opposite that is called evil. It must be remembered that in this discussion we are dealing only with mental things, and that such things cannot be regarded in the same way that we regard so-called material objects. We may say that a block of wood has no opposite ; and yet, mentally, an opposite may be supposed or 95 THE DIARY OF predicated for every quality that the block is thought to have. If the human mind should change its beliefs regarding the block of wood, and should accept these predicated opposites as reali- ties, and should conform its action to this change of thought, its whole conscious existence would be altered. "The activity of real thought,' 7 he concluded, "constitutes the spiritual consciousness, which is Man. Real thought is based upon absolute know- ing. There is, therefore, nothing in the world so important, so vitally important to us as real knowledge. Real knowledge is founded on Truth, and is the knowledge of God as supreme Good. The test of knowledge is demonstration, actual proof. You can begin this demonstration at once, by taking the infinitude of God as your major premise, and bending every thought to it, gauging every mental action by it as the supreme standard." For a long time after he had gone I sat turn- ing this over in my mind. If I am not a child of God, Good, I must be a child of His opposite, evil there is no alternative. But evil has only a sup- positional existence, for it is but the externaliza- tion of evil thought held in the human conscious- ness. Then his words of yesterday came to me : "As you think, so will be your conscious exist- ence." And as the sun sank behind the distant hills and the day drew softly to a close, I made 96 JEAN EVAETS the resolve that henceforth the direction of my thought should be upward, and that no thought that did not bear the stamp of reality should find an entrance into my mind. 97 MAY 18TH OU nave asked why it is," he be- gan this morning, "that you seem to have two natures, one always voicing good, the other evil." This is the familiar question of the "dual nature" of man. We have said that the mortal man does not think independently. Nor does the real Man. For, if God is infinite Mind, Pie is the only Mind, and therefore the only real thinker. His mental activity forms the ideas which consti- tute the Creation and the real Man. It is the a6tivity of His thought that constitutes the spirit- ual consciousness, the consciousness of spiritual things only, a consciousness into which no mater- iality ever enters. Such a consciousness is real Man. So, in a very real sense, it is the thought that makes the man. This thought-man will ex- press varying degrees of existence, depending upon how greatly his constituent thought departs from the real. The human personality is never fixed. Being without Principle, it is without any standard to which it must conform, and it therefore manifests its constantly changing concept of the real Man. As its desires, hopes, fears, and beliefs change, so the personality of mortal man changes, bringing out the fruits of its varying mental activity. The human mind lives in a world of voices, and it is constantly hearing "mental suggestions," which it classifies as either good or bad. These it be- 101 THE DIARY OF lieves to come from its dual nature, its higher and lower selves, constituting the conscious and the sub-conscious portions of its mentality. It believes that the sub-conscious portion of the human mind is a storehouse of unlimited powers, of which it can avail itself through the exercise of the human will. By the exercise of this will it has succeeded in throwing off some of the trammels of dogma and religious superstition; but in its larger sense of freedom resulting therefrom it has fallen into the error of exalting the human sense of mind and the personal Ego, and is as far from the true sense of Power as inherent in divine Mind, God, as before it made the discovery of its own so- called dual nature. It has only repeated the famil- iar process of exchanging one set of human beliefs for another. There is no thinking but right thinking. Any mental process must be based upon reality if it is to rise to the standard of real thinking. The re- sults of such mental process, or thinking, must be demonstrable, for all truth is susceptible of rigid proof. The mental processes of a mortal may be very complicated, and there may be the thought within his mentality that he is doing very genuine thinking ; and yet these mental processes may not constitute real thought at all. Since matter is the opposite of Spirit, it follows that a series of pic- tures of material things passing before the mind does riot constitute thinking, but rather false thinking, or a belief of thinking. It is no more real thinking than looking at moving pictures on 102 a screen is a perception of reality. The human mind that speculates and guesses is not really thinking, however much it may believe it is, for speculation is not based upon real knowledge, but is the antipode of Truth. Real thought comes from the one thinker, God. Transitory, specula- tive thought comes from the suppositional oppo- site of God, the communal mortal mind. As real thought within real consciousness constitutes real Man, so false thought within false consciousness constitutes mortal man. It is therefore true that as a man thinketh, so is he. Am I mortal, or am I immortal? Am I a child of God? If not, what am I? The answer depends upon which " I " is asking the question. There is the true "I," the image and likeness of infinite Mind and there is its suppositional opposite, the unreal "I," the image and likeness of Mind's opposite, the communal mortal mind. The "I" that voices the thought that it is the son of God, His spiritual image > and likeness, the perfect reflection of infinite Mind, is the genuine, which lies back of and seems to be obscured by the ''I" that counterfeits it, and that voices the unreal thoughts of matter, disease, and evil. The real "I" is never for a moment obscured or clouded, and its seeming obscuring is to the mortal consciousness only, a consciousness so filled with its own false concepts that it cannot see the reality that they seem to counterfeit. At times the voice of the real "I" is heard. At ether times the voice of the unreal "I" seems to be heard. 103 THE DIARY OF The real ''I" expresses itself in goodness and love. The other ''I" expresses itself in evil and hatred. There is no real "dual nature" of man. There is only the true, spiritual nature of the real Man, sharply distinguished and separated from its suppositional opposite, the mortal nature of the human so-called man. The human mind is unable to distinguish clearly between the real and the unreal, and it concludes that it is itself a mixture of good and evil, of soul and body, of mind and matter, capable of the greatest good, and yet, at the same time, capable of the greatest evil. Truly, a fountain sending forth both sweet and bitter water! The mortal believes that he thinks. But if God is infinite Mind, He must be the only thinker. Therefore, the mortal man's belief that he thinks is but a belief. There is no independent thinker but God. The mortal consciousness, containing as it doos the elements of discord and decay, which are the beliefs of those things, is for that very reason self-destructive, as is all error, and sooner or later must pass away in death. At best, its span of ex- istence is short, and its activities during the few years of its existence are of little permanent value. It cannot save itself, despite its boasted progress along material lines, nor can it be saved as mortal mind. This would be an utter impossi- bility. There are no elements within mortality that can prevent its own destruction. By its very nature it is doomed. The testimony which the 104 JEAN EVAKTS so-called senses are supposed to afford the mind, and which constitutes the very existence of the mind, is never testimony of absolute Truth, and therefore is no testimony at all. Whatever it may believe its progress to be, the human mind, un- aided, is no nearer the absolute Truth of Being today than it was thousands of years ago. Men are apparently no nearer a knowledge of the Absolute which lies back of the relative, material phenomena of this human life than they were at the dawn of history. Of effect and phenomena, men know much in a seemingly practical way ; of absolute Cause, nothing. They forget that in their daily round of existence they are dealing almost wholly with phenomena, material appearances, shadows, relative truths, and that they are appar- ently no nearer eradicating sickness and death from existence, no nearer reaching immortality and the boundless bliss which they have always sought in materiality, than they were when the mythical Adam first attempted the dubious mix- ing of evil with good. Not only is the mortal mind self-destructive, but, contrary to popular belief, it does not supply one iota of even that which the material man seems to need for his comfort and happiness. Were Good, Truth, Principle, suddenly with- drawn, this seemingly solid, material world would instantly collapse and vanish into nothingness. Not a single particle of what men need and really desire is material, or comes from mortal mind, or through the five so-called physical senses. God is THE DIARY OF what all men are striving for, even though, they think of the end to be attained as satisfaction, substance, joy, comfort, riches, happiness, and love. They are seeking Good, even though their poncept of Good and that which gives real satis- faction may not be the true one. Yet God is Truth, He is Love, He is Substance, and He is the source of all comfort and satisfaction and abundance and joy and all of these things, yes, every one of them, is wholly mental, or a mental slate. There is not one iota of materiality in any one of the things that men long for and knoiv to be really worth while. Ideas of Right, and Justice, and Good permeate everywhere and everything, even though seemingly obscured by false beliefs and material thought, and without them even this world of matter would cease to be, for the coun- terfeit, the opposite of reality, depends absolutely upon the existence of the genuine. Every bit of the bounty of Nature, its beauty and grandeur, comes from God. He is the source of all the mor- tal man's supply; and this supply comes not from matter nor because of it, but in spite of it. If mortals were not at all influenced or controlled by the divine Mind, they would never manifest even the semblance of harmony, but would be continu- ally diseased, starved, and frozen, for uncon- trolled mortal mind by its very nature can pro- duce only evil. This it must do, for it is without Principle, without any basis of reality or Truth. In answer to the question, How did evil origi- nate? we may say that if God is infinite Good 106 JEAN EVAETS there can be no evil, and the question is answered by this simple statement of fact. But the human mind is not willing to sweep evil out of existence in such a peremptory manner. Yet the human mind does not recognize the implications in this question itself, for this question is one of the very means whereby evil continues to deceive mortals. It assumes the real existence of evil; and to un- dertake to answer it is, in a measure, to assert the reality of evil. If evil is not real, this question is an assumption of the "somethingness" of noth- ing, and is very much like asking "who made that which does not exist?" For evil exists nowhere but in the human con- sciousness. The human mentality is its origin and habitat. Evil is the sense of evil; it is the thought of evil; it is thought and belief of the existence of that which is opposed to Good. Being the opposite of Good, it is all that denies the goodness and allness of God. It is a sense of life, power, and intelligence in matter, or in something apart from God. It is an imperfect, false, dis- cordant, mortal, material, sinful sense of that which is in reality good, immortal, and perfect. It is a misinterpretation of divine Mind and the Ideas through and by which this Mind is mani- fested. It is a false sense of God, the Universe and Man. As manifested to mortals, evil is the direct result of holding certain so-called thoughts in the human mentality. Sin, sickness, accident, dis- aster, failure, decay, and death, as manifested in 107 THE DIAEY OF the physical universe, are as directly the result of such thoughts being held in the human mentality as 4 is the result of adding 2 and 2. While the false concepts of God and Man remain in the human mentality they will be externalized in hu- man experience in discord and disease and death. Evil can find no place in real Being, for it is the opposite of that which is real, or good. God, who is infinite Good, cannot know or behold evil. Neither can the real, spiritual consciousness, which is the true Man. It is just as impossible to really know evil as to really know that 2+2=7, for evil cannot be reduced to any principle, rule, or laiv, and there is nothing given or known by ivhich it can be explained or understood. The human mind holds the belief that there is a power opposed to Good, and the result of this belief held within the human mentality is the varied mani- festation within the human consciousness of that which is called evil. As every creation or idea of infinite Mind has its antipode, or counterfeit, or opposite, in some material belief, so evil is found assuming, or seeming to assume, all the powers and attributes of infinite Good, and posing in such a way that it may be accepted as Good by the human mind. Not that evil has any intelligence or power whatsoever, for it is without intelli- gence, without any power to manifest activity of any sort. What characteristics it may seem to have are given it by the human mind; and it owes its entire existence to the human mentality, and to nothing else. 108 JEAN EVABTS Since evil is undirected by any intelligent power, and therefore is never the manifestation of a definite purpose, it is that which "happens." And it is thus that it seems to be manifested to the human consciousness as accident, failure, loss, sickness, and death. The basis of the theory of the dual nature of man is the apparent conscious- ness of good and evil, of Spirit and matter. But such a consciousness does not result from true knowledge of an actual duality, but is a mere dream state of mind a state of not being awake to the Truth. As long as the human mind con- tinueg to hold thoughts of power apart from divine Mind, as long as the human mentality con- tinues to cling to thoughts of evil, of sin, sickness, and death, to thoughts of life in matter, and to all the brood of dark thought-antipodes which infest its consciousness, just so long will evil be mani- fested in this consciousness in all its ugly guises, despite the mortal's cries to God for help, despite Ms appeals to doctors and preachers, and despite his apparent success in ferreting out the microbes of disease and concocting antitoxins to destroy them. The prophet put his finger on the difficulty ages ago when he cried, t ' Thy way and thy doings have procured these things unto thee!" For the evil thoughts of men were manifested in such ter- rible ways that the prophet Isaiah voiced it in words which have rung down through the centur- ies : * ' The show of their countenance doth witness 109 THE DIAEY OF JEAN EVARTS against them; and they declare their sin as Sodom, they hide it not!" "Hear, earth," warned Jeremiah, "behold I will bring evil upon this people, even the fruit of their thoughts !" "How long shall thy vain thoughts lodge within thee? " How long, human consciousness, for just so long wilt thou continue to sicken and suffer and die ! MAY 19TH MAY 19TH AM going to anticipate a question this morning," said my friend, seating himself beside me; "a question which I am sure has been suggested by our talk of yester- day. We have said that God, be- ing infinite, must be all-inclusive. Nothing can exist apart from, outside of, or beyond Him. If a thing has existence at all, it exists within the Mind we call God. We have also said that mor- tals are the product of false beliefs. How, then, are we going to reconcile these statements! If God is all-inclusive, does it not follow that He in- cludes these beliefs? False though they may be, they are nevertheless seemingly mental things, and as such apparently must be included within an all-embracing Mind. In other words, if God is all, does it not follow that He includes mortals, and, therefore, evil?" God is all-inclusive, and He includes all that is real. If mortals are real, they are included within infinite Mind. The statement that 2-f-2=7 is not a statement of Truth. Yet, as a mere statement, even of fals- ity, it can seem to exist in my thought, and there- fore within my mentality. I may seem to receive this statement from some other person, and to that extent the statement may enter my mentality. But it does not follow that I see it as a statement of Truth. The statement is in my thought simply 113 THE DIARY OF as a Statement. I do not recognize it as fact, for I know the fact to be that 2+2=4. Therefore, this erroneous statement, the opposite of Truth, does not influence me. In other words, as regards this case, I do not see evil, but only the good. The evil is a supposition, a misstatement. Thousands might believe that 2+27, but that belief could not affect me, for I know the truth. The elements of this entire case are all present in my mentality, but I put them together according to the Principle of Addition, and so obtain the correct solution. Knowing the truth in this case, it is utterly im- possible for me to know the error, its opposite unreality. Extending this case indefinitely, I may say that if my mentality were filled with the truth re- garding all tilings, I could never recognize error of any sort. Now God is infinite Mind, and is the Truth re- garding all things. As the Creator of all that is, He not only knows the truth about all things, but He himself is the Truth regarding everything that is or can be, and so He cannot recognize error, the opposite of Truth, excepting to know that it is error, and, therefore, like mathematical errors in the light of Principle, simply nothing. The statement that "He is of eyes too pure to be- hold evil," means just this. Not that He is so pure that He looks away from evil with loathing ; but that, being infinite Truth himself, He knows that there can be no opposite to himself, and therefore no error. He does not see error, even 114 JEAN EVAETS as such, simply because error has no real exist- ence. God knows himself, Truth, and He knows that the only claim of exigence that evil can have is the suppositional existence of the exact opposite of Truth. He could not recognize evil as a real thing, as something having real existence, al- though apart from Him, for that would mean that He was not infinite, and that He must acknowl- edge the existence of another power than himself. The existence which evil has is exactly the same as the existence which the statement 2+2=7 has none whatever, a suppositional existence, de- pending upon ignorance or false belief for even its seeming reality. Mortals know this fact to a slight degree, for they have many proofs that evil has only the power that they are willing to give it. And as they come into a larger knowledge of God as infinite Truth, infinite Good, they see more and more the facts regarding things, and less and less the opposite errors. As they do this, the errors disappear. Evil must have support for its claims to exist- ence. It cannot stand alone. Unless supported by faith, it falls. The statement that 2+2=7 does not exist in true thought, and to that extent is really unthinkable, unknowable. It depends for acceptance upon belief, and the only existence it can even seem to have is the existence that the human consciousness has that can hold this and similar falsities as concepts of truth. As long as the human consciousness believes a thing, it is in- fluenced by that belief. As long as mortals be- 115 THE DIARY OF lieve that things hurt them, they experience the effects of their beliefs. To fear a thing is to fall into its seeming power. As long as we fear a thing, it continues to hold us. As long as we fear disease, loss, failure, and death, these will come upon us. They are only the logical manifestations of the thoughts we hold. Even on the material plane of thought, it is the fearless who succeed. Success is proportionate to a lack of the sense of limitation. God recognizes no fear, no error, no limitation. He is unlimited. Where is the mortal who holds false beliefs? Or where are the beliefs that constitute a mortal consciousness? If they have any existence at all, they are in infinite Mind. But if they exist there they can do so only as realities, for God is Truth. A belief, in order to exist in infinite Mind, mut cease to be a belief, and must become a fact. God does not hold beliefs; He does not believe; He knows. That which is true is eternal. The real is that which endures forever. So, if mortal man is in infinite Mind, he is eternal, and will endure for- ever. But to exist in perfect Mind, mortal man would have to be perfect. He could never mani- fest anything that was not real and good, for whatever exists in infinite Good can only be good itself. But this contradicts the facts as we seem to see them. Mortal man is very far from perfect and eternal. We see him diseased and dying everywhere. He cannot exist in infinite Good. 116 JEAN EVARTS And as infinite Good is all, it logically follows that the mortal man does not exist. This seems to reason him right out of exist- ence, and on our working hypothesis of the infini- tude of God, it does. The existence of mortal man, and of all evil, and all that is opposed to Good, is a suppositional, unreal existence, the product of thought that is the opposite of real thought, and therefore that is but supposition. To what does the mortal man seem real? To himself only. In other words, mortal thought seems real only to the mortal thought that seems to say, "I am real." It is the false thought itself that expresses itself in this way. And it expresses itself to itself only. We must remember that we are dealing with everything now on a mental basis, and that thoughts are realities, real things, and that it is possible in our mental processes to suppose an opposite to everything that is real. Therefore, every real thought, whatever that thought may be, can be supposed to admit of an opposite. The thought being real, the opposite must be unreal. The opposite of real thought is the thought that seems to say, "I, too, am real; and there is both good and evil in the world, and God made them both. ' ' When you ask where such thoughts exist, I can only say that their existence is sup- positional. They seem real only to thought of like nature that is receptive to them. Unreal thought can influence only thought that is recep- 117 THE DIARY OF tive to it, and such thought must likewise be un- real, for Truth is never influenced by error. God does not recognize error, even as error. He could not recognize the ' * somethingness " of nothing. And when we say that God does not recognize evil, excepting to know that it is nothing, we must be sure we understand this in the right way. It means that God does not recog- nize error in any way, for Truth cannot take cog- nizance of anything but Truth. And as Truth is infinite, there can be nothing else to take cogniz- ance of. The mistake of the ages has been the attempt to bury mind in matter, and to make something of evil. The mortal man insists that evil has a real entity; and he has struggled with this man of straw since the beginning of things material, in a vain attempt to prove it to be some- thing, and then to overcome it on the basis of its proven reality. With equal success might we struggle with the shadow which a tree casts in the sunlight, in the vain effort to prove it to be some- thing real and to reduce it to definite rules of being, in order that later we might overcome it and put it out of existence. Evil will never be re- duced to nothingness on the basis of its being a reality. A real thing is forever real, and is in- cluded in infinite Mind. If we admit the reality of evil, whether it be in the form of sin, sickness, or death, we but waste our energies in attempts to overcome it, for we might just as well attempt the destruction of the truth of the Multiplication Table. Evil in the human consciousness will be 118 overcome only when the nothingness, the unreal- ity, of evil is recognized. The statement that 2+2=7 is utterly opposed to the truth that 2+2=4, and yet it may seem to have existence. These two statements, as mere statements, may be supposed to exist in the human mentality at the same time. But they cannot exist there as statements of Truth. Being opposites, one must be true and the other false. The human mind will accept one of these statements as true, and the other as false, and which one will be re- tained and which rejected may depend upon the human mind's previous training and education, or upon popular opinion, belief, etc. Yet, even if the human mind should accept as true the state- ment that 2+2=7, this statement would still be unreal and without existence, for its suppositional existence depends entirely upon the human men- tality that holds it ; and this mentality, by its very acceptance of such statements as statements of fact, thus shows that it is itself false, and there- fore that its existence is unreal. In reality, 2+2 =7 cannot exist at all. Nor can such a statement even be made. The best we can do is to say that the mere suppositional statement of 2+2=7 may be regarded as the antithesis of the fact that 2+2 =4, for the real Man could not reflect statements of error, and the mortal man is himself as false as the erroneous statement that we are trying to suppose him to hold. It is just so, only on a very much larger and more complex scale, with the facts of Being. Be- 119 THE DIARY OF cause the mental processes by which mortal man is formed seem so complicated, and the realm of thought is such an unknown and unexplored region, we find it difficult to accept these things. Mortal man must of necessity seem complicated, for he is the counterfeit of the real Man, and the real man is a reflection of infinite complexity, a complexity only in the sense of including every- thing, from the infinitesimal to the infinite, and not a complexity in the sense of being confused or discordant. A misstatement of the Truth of Being, regardless of what form that misstate- ment may assume, is just as much an error as to say that 2+2=7. The resulting complexity of error, however, seems greater; although we can- not conceive what a complex result the universal acceptance of the statement that 2+2=7 might have. But we do know that if this were accepted, the calculations of the whole world would have to be changed. The results following the world's acceptance of a single error are incalculable. In your dreams you are an unreal self in an unreal environment. You believe that things are very real while you are dreaming; but you recog- nize their unreality when you wake to what you believe to be real existence. What constitutes the difference between your dreams and your waking existence? Simply this, that your dreams are wholly unrelated to Principle, and are therefore chaotic and impossible. Your waking existence would be just as chaotic and impossible, were it not that to a degree it is related to Principle, God. 120 JEAN EVARTS For, as Slated some time ago, it is only the pres- ence of Principle in this universe of mortal man, despite its materiality and false beliefs, that pre- vents it from flying into nothingness, just as your dreams do when you wake. Everything in your making experience that is not related to Principle is chaotic and unreal, as unreal as are your dreams. What becomes of your dream when you wake? The same that happens to all that is unreal in our waking dream of existence when we learn the Truth it disappears. If it were based on Principle, and therefore real, it could not dis- appear. When you ask, Who is doing the supposing with regard to existence? since the mortal man's existence is suppositional, we must answer that the unreal thought itself forms into the question, "Who made me?" In other words, this thought- question comes into the human mentality from the source of material thought, the communal mortal mind and we know that the communal mortal mind is but a name under which we include all the suppositional thought-activity that seems to be the opposite of divine Mind, God. If there comes into the mentality the real thought, "God made all things," there will very likely come with it its suppositional opposite, unreal thought, namely, "Who made me?" Remember that we are dealing with thought, and the centers of thought-activity, or mentalities. Thoughts come into mentality from some source without, and they frame into all possible sorts of statements 121 and questions. This stream of mixed real and suppositional thought is flowing into and through our mentalities constantly, and gives rise to the "stream of consciousness" that psychologists dwell on at such lengths in their various text books. Every real thought has its suppositional opposite, and the human mind has to be educated to distinguish behveen the real and the unreal. Until it can do so, it experiences a manifestation of mixed good and evil, the degree of harmony in which depends upon the predominance of Truth or error in the mentality. Keep these facts before you : You are a men- tality, a consciousness. You are no more in a physical body than you are in any material object you may think you see in space about you. As a consciousness, your life is your conscious exist- ence. It is made up of the things and experiences you are conscious of. Consciousness is mental activity, the activity of thought. A false con- sciousness is the result of the activity of false thought. Thoughts form into mental concepts, and these concepts are arranged into forms and positions in consciousness and become to us our environment, our universe. Our bodies are as much mental concepts as the world we think we see about us. The body exists within the con- sciousness, just as do all the objects with which we think we have to do in our daily life. It would have no more sensation or life than a stone, were it not that we have come to believe that our life depends upon it and is centered in it. We are 122 JEAN EVARTS neither in nor of the body, any more than we are in or of material objects about us. The body is ivithin the consciousness, and its nature is en- tirely mental. Consciousness that is made up of real thought- activity is real consciousness. Consciousness that is made up of the suppositional activity of unreal thought is unreal consciousness. Each kind brings out the fruits of its own thinking. The mortal consciousness, or man, is the man referred to in the book of Isaiah, where we read, " Cease ye from man whose breath is in his nostrils, for whereof is he to be accounted?" He is not to be accounted for at all, for he is a myth. The mortal man and the physical universe are supposed to be governed by laws, which are called "laws of matter." There is much speculation re- garding these so-called laws, and the human mind has spent much time in their investigation. Natur- ally, it is of great importance to us that we should know whence they come; and yet, when we at- tempt to discover their origin we find ourselves lost in the mists of obscurity that cloud the cen- turies. Law has been well defined as "the ulti- mate and final authority, able to enforce its will. ' ' But whose authority do "laws of matter" en- force? If we press back along the line of material evolution, according to the "Darwinian," or De- velopment Theory, we finally arrive at the first human being, whom the world knows as Adam. 123 THE DIARY OF But here we Stop, for the historicity of the man Adam cannot be established. According to the Bible, he was the offspring of God, but his con- duct resulted in alienating him from his Creator- and we later find him no longer recognized as such. That infinite Mind could create anything as imperfect as the man, Adam, and then slate that ha had been made in His image and likeness, is unthinkable. Even more, from the nature of God as Good, it is simply impossible. We must conclude that the Adam story is a myth, an alle- gory, a fable. And here we end, for here human history is supposed to find its source, in the Adam story, Here material man and the laws that govern him start, in myth. A myth is an unreality, nothing- ness. It is unreality, nothingness, therefore, that demands the mortal's obedience to human laws of the body, or matter. But, disregarding this and accepting the conclusions of the leading physicists of our day, the so-called "laws of matter" can be nothing more than laws of "superimposed layers of positive and negative electricity." It is such laws that the human consciousness has bowed down to and accepted as the ' * final authority, able to enforce its will." Nor is all this "confusion worse confounded," for these things that we have been discussing are all developments from that revelation to whicli we are approaching, and which, as a revelation of Truth, is being found to stand the tet of rigid demonstration, in so far as it is understood and 124 JEAN EVARTS intelligently applied. Already it has been proved sufficiently to establish its truth as a whole, and is daily being proved in some degree by those who have reached at least a partial understanding of its infinite Principle, and who are loyally and honestly putting it to the proof. "It is as old as the foundations of the uni- verse. ' ' he said. ' ' The world has known it in part, and forgotten it again just as it has forgotten the spiritual import of Paul's wonderful state- ment of Truth : ' The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance : against such there is no law. ' As Truth, it has always been present, and in some degree it has always been recognized. But we have had to be reminded of it many times. Tomorrow we shall talk about the greatest of those who have put us in remembrance of these things the one who revealed God to us as in- finite Love." 125 MAY 20TH MAY 20TH HEN I awoke this morning my whole being sprang forth to meet the day. I knew that a change had come over me. The room was ablaze with sunlight, and the cur- tains were waving a greeting to me in the cool spring breeze that came through the open window. Such sleep, and such a feeling of strength and life, I had not known since child- hood! I could scarcely wait for breakfast, so eager was I to get out into the glorious morning, to join with the birds in their songs of happiness, and to revel in the wonderful life and gladness that was all about me. I almost flew to the ledge, for I wanted to be there to greet him when he came. I did not know I had such strength ! The old pain and weariness seemed to have lifted and left me young again. I felt as if for years I had been in a dream. Then something began to dawn upon my wakened thought. The cough I wondered that I had not missed it. But surely it was gone had been gone for days ! And my renewed strength, my new sense of life these had stolen in so quietly upon my absorbed thought, and the old discords had faded away so gradually, that I had only now become conscious of a change that must have been going on within me ever since my new friend began, as he said, to work with and for me, and to unfold his beautiful message of life and health! My soul seemed bursting with joy, with love, with an inexpressible song of gratitude ! 129 THE DIARY OF Then I saw him coming slowly along the path beneath me, slopping now and then to look at a flower, or to pick up a bright pebble, his hat off and his coat thrown over his arm, his whole being aglow with health and happiness and the joy of living. I could not wait for him. With an im- pulse that I did not try to restrain, I rushed down the pathway and almost threw myself into his arms. * ' Look at me ! " I cried, * ' I am well again you you!" I stopped for sheer want of breath. And then I felt my face grow hot with embarrassment, and I stammered out an apology for my impulsiveness. For a few moments he stood looking at me, his face alight with that same smile of tenderness and compassion that had seemed to draw me up from the depths of despair when I made my agon- ized appeal to him a few days ago. Then and his voice was like the whispering of the morning breeze among the flowers he murmured, "Said I not unto thee that if thou wouldst believe thou shouldst see the glory of God?" These words were spoken by the tender Jesus of Nazareth long, long ago, as a rebuke to the unbelief of a poor, grief-stricken woman. That her brother, who had been dead three days, should be restored to her, alive and well, was impossible too good to be true. 130 JEAN EVARTS And Jesus simply told her that nothing was too good to be true; that it was only the good that was true, and that his message to mankind was to tell them that if they would stop looking at evil, and would look only at Good, and believe only in the reality of Good, every tear should be wiped away, every wounded heart healed, and every mountain of sorrow removed and cast into the sea of oblivion. It was not the man Jesus, but the Christ Prin- ciple working through him, that healed the sick and raised the dead. That Principle is eternal, and is with us today just as much as it was when Jesus taught by the shores of Galilee. It is just as effective today as it was then, for, like the rules of mathematics or music, it suffers no diminution of power with age. And like these, it is abso- lutely unfailing when correctly applied. We have said that the real Man is the spiritual likeness, the image, of infinite Mind, and that mortal man is the image of the communal mortal mind, and therefore the opposite of real Man. We have said that Man has never fallen, and that mortal man is not to be saved cannot be saved as such. A mortal is not a Man. The physical concept of man is an insult to divine Intelligence. Yet, since ideas of Right and Justice and Good permeate even material modes of conduct to some extent, so the consciousness which we call mortal man is not wholly without some reflection of divine qualities. A spark of love is often seen in the lowest criminal; and the most- hardened sinner 131 THE DIARY OF sometimes shows that he is not wholly devoid of spiritual thought. God is seen in His reflection, and He is thus seen to some extent everywhere. Neither time nor space nor false thought of any kind can so wholly occupy a human consciousness as to keep out every divine attribute. When Jesus looked upon a man he saw, not the mortal man, not the unreal man, the opposite, the counterfeit, of true Man, but the reality that lay behind all this, and in that reality he saiv the image of God, divine Mind. What was the result? His knowledge of the reality of infinite Good and its image, Man, de- stroyed in the human consciousness of the sick mortal the mental concept of disease, and re- placed it with a concept of health. The body, itself a thing of thought, responded instantly to the radical change of thought regarding it. As in any problem the truth in regard to it affords the correct solution, so the truth with re- gard to Man solves the problem of the mortal. And this is the only "salvation" possible to man- kind. The only salvation for the counterfeit dollar is to make it over; and in this process it must disappear. So it is with mortals. The mental activity of false thought, which results in those mental concepts which constitute mortal man and his universe, must be replaced by the activity of true thought, which in turn will form mental con- cepts of the true Man and God's Creation. God is Mind. Mind originates ideas. Ideas form thought-images. These ideas are infinite in 132 JEAN EVARTS number and variety. The unfolding of these ideas in Mind is the Creation. The highest idea that Mind can have is the idea of Itself. This idea necessarily includes all other ideas. This idea exists in Mind, and is eternal with it. This idea is the exact image and likeness of Mind. It is a reflection of all of Mind's qualities and attributes. It is therefore the "conscious identity" of being like infinite Mind. That is, it manifests conscious- ness and individuality. It is "an individualized expression" of Mind. This idea is Man. This is the Man that Jesus always saw. Very far removed, indeed, from the common conception of man ! The true Man is not flesh and bones. He is not confined in a body. He is not limited. He is in no sense material. He is a spiritual being, an unlimited consciousness, whose mental activity is the activity of God's thought. This thought comes directly from God, infinite Mind, and forming the real consciousness, is re- flected there so as to express and manifest God. Ma-n, being God's idea, is, in a sense, actually formed and made up of God's thought. As Mind, God, has countless ideas of Himself, so there are countless individualized expressions of His conscious Being. These are Men. They are the sons and daughters of God. Each is a consciousness whose capacity is unlimited, and each is a channel through which God expresses Himself. At no time does He express Himself fully through any one of His ideas this is the work of eternity. But whatever expression there 133 THE DIARY OF may be at any time is always perfect, harmonious, beautiful, and good. The lesser ideas of Mind form the rest of the Creation; and these ideas are interpreted by mor- tal consciousness as flowers, hills, streams, ani- mals, etc., although the material concepts which bear these names may be, and probably are very different from the spiritual realities of which they are the crude interpretations, or represen- tations. And all was created to reflect and manifest the greatness, the glory and grandeur of limitless Mind. "For thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created." By the supposition of opposites, the communal mortal mind, the opposite of infinite Mind, simu- lates all the powers and attributes of Mind. Its consciousness is the activity of false thought, and is itself, therefore, false. Its activity is simulated activity. Its creation is a false creation, consist- ing of mental concepts built up out of false thought. Its image and likeness, mortal man, is also false and unreal; and men, the sons and daughters of mortal mind, are without Principle, and are therefore chaotic, diseased, and transi- tory, vanishing, like mortal dreams, into the noth- ingness called death. The modus of the human mind is one of coun- terfeiting. The human consciousness, which is concerned with the activity of thoughts of mixed good and evil, becomes aware of the existence of one of the realities of Mind, a real Idea. This 134 JEAN EVARTS awareness comes to the human consciousness through sense-perception, which has been defined as "an unintelligible sort of mental awareness." This sense-perception is then passed through the moulds of human thought, where the forces of past experience, training, education, or human opinion are brought to bear, and it then becomes mentally interpreted, after which it comes out an image of human thought, that is, a mental con- cept. Human belief classifies it and gives it a name, and it then takes its place in the human consciousness as an object of creation, a tree, a mountain, a man, or one of the myriad so-called material things that form the material universe that the mortal man thinks he sees without him- self. In this way are formed all of the objects of the material creation and of material experience and existence. These material objects of creation are all crude misrepresentations of spiritual real- ities, which themselves are parts of God's crea- tion. These so-called material objects exist only in the human mentality, and have only the reality, powers, and attributes which that mentality gives them. They are not formed by infinite Mind, nor has that Mind anything to do with them. All the evil that men think they can know clusters about these material creations of the human conscious- ness. What salvation is there for such a creation and such a man? None, absolutely none. This sort of man cannot be perpetuated. He is doomed by his very nature. Jesus knew that this sort of 135 THE DIARY OF man was not to be saved; and so his plan of re- demption was one of absolute reconstruction, a putting off of the old man, and a putting on of the new that is, a laying aside of the seeming, and an uncovering or revealing of the real existing Man. This "putting off" process is simple in Prin- ciple, as is all Truth. It consists of emptying the mentality of false thoughts, and replacing these with true. True thoughts, coming from divine Mind, enter the human consciousness and dissolve there the mental images and concepts which have been formed of false thought, replacing them with mental concepts formed of God's thought, which is wholly free from evil. The consciousness then gives way to the activ- ity of reality, of Truth, and true consciousness appears. God's thoughts fill this consciousness and form there true mental concepts. These be- come externalized in spirituality, immortality, and freedom from all limitations of evil. Sin, sorrow, sickness, loss, lack, decay, and death all the festering brood of false thoughts that inhabit the human consciousness are shown to be devoid of Principle and Life, and to be without any basis of reality. Denial of their reality, and opposition to their supposed presence, together ivith the un- derstanding of their nothingness, drives them out, and in driving them out consumes them, that is, shows them to be but falsities, illusions, however real they may have seemed to the mentality that harbored them. When the human consciousness 136 JEAN EVARTS is finally freed from the activity of false thought, it will cease its simulated existence. Then mater- iality and evil will likewise cease; and when the material concepts dissolve and give place to the spiritual, "the heavens will be rolled up as a scroll. ' ' Man is not annihilated by this process, nor does he lose his individuality. On the contrary, his apparently lost individuality, the real individ- uality, is regained, or is brought to light. It is not Man that is lost in this process, but the false sense of man. The material "I" certainly is lost, and there is no help for it. All sense of sin, of matter, of material pleasures and suffering, all sense of life in matter, and of decay and death, will pass away. It is all without Principle or Creator, and is wholly dependent upon falsity for its apparent existence. The material sense of selfhood will be destroyed. But as the false concepts disappear, the real appear. Nothing real can be lost. The material sense of man is that which sins and dies, and not God's Man. It is the sense of sin, and of all that such sinful sense entails, that is lost in this divine process. The conflict between Truth and error which, after all, is but a seeming conflict, for Truth has no strife with its suppositional oppo- site takes place only within the human con- sciousness. And this conflict can have but one result, namely, the extinction of the suppositional activity which constitutes the human conscious- ness. The counterfeit coin cannot be made gen- 137 THE DIARY OF nine. Neither can the mortal man be made gen- uine. Like the counterfeit dollar, he must cease to be, and must give place to the real. Mortal man reflects only in slight degree the realities of God. But as the mortal consciousness becomes filled with Truth, it gradually ceases to be, until finally it goes out altogether, and the real con- sciousness, God's Man, stands revealed. Paul said that this new man was " renewed in knowl- edge after the image of Him that created him." The renewed man is the mortal man going out, and, in the passing, becoming a better transpar- ency through which the real Man is discerned. As the mist dissolves and the rich landscape beyond becomes ever more and more distinct, so the human consciousness, the mortal man, becomes more and more tenuous under the powerful influ- ence of Truth, revealing ever more clearly the real Man, the likeness of divine Mind, which had seemed to be obscured by it. The real Man is not renewed, for he is ever perfect, forever reflecting the infinite perfection of the Mind that created him. It is thus that the pure in heart see God. As the false thinking gives place to better think- ing, and erroneous concepts yield to better ones, we begin to see through the renewed man as an ever clarifying transparency the real Man, and in this real Man the likeness of that Mind which is back of all that is. Finally, this ''putting off" process cannot re- sult in loss of consciousness. For consciousness is mental activity, and a mortal man has no true 138 JEAN EVARTS consciousness, since a mental activity of mixed good and evil thoughts is a self-contradictory mentality. The mortal loses his beliefs of evil and his sense of discord. This sort of mental activity ceases. But the mental activity that re- places this is the activity of real thought, consti- tuting a real consciousness. Therefore, instead of losing his consciousness, the man has gained a new one. If a criminal reforms and turns from his evil ways, if his consciousness of pleasure in crime is replaced by a consciousness of pleasure in good, can he be said to have lost his consciousness in the process of transformation? And if we, by the divine process, lose our consciousness of sin, dis- ease, matter, and all evil, can it be said that we have lost anything? Are not these the very things that humanity has struggled throughout the ages to get rid of I Jesus 's mission was to show man- kind how to do it. And he proved the truth of his teachings by doing it himself. "Do you mean to say that Jesus taught these things that you have been telling me 1 " I queried. "I have never read them in the Bible; and cer- tainly they are not preached in our churches." "No, these things are not preached from our pulpits," he answered. "But the theories, dogmas and man-made doctrines that are preached so generally in our churches are very far from being the pure Christianity that Jesus taught. As I 139 THE DIAEY OF JEAN EVARTS have said, and I but repeat liis words, 'by their fruits ye shall know them.' The test is actual demonstration, for Truth is always demonstrable ; and if by applying our understanding of his teachings we can obtain the results he said we would, we may be very sure we have understood him correctly, regardless of what theologians or wise men may say." "But I don't see that we get the results he said we would, " I argued, with some petulance. "People sicken and die now just as they did in his time." "And some," he replied quickly, "are saved from these things by those few who do under- stand his work, and who know how to apply, at least in part, the great Principle he taught." Then he left me. And when he had gone the realization of what he had done for me came upon me with such suddenness that I sat as one stunned. When I came to myself I hurriedly rose and started after him. But he had passed from my sight. And with his going the sun seemed to sink, and night began to cover the valley and the pathway with its som- ber robe. With eyes blinded with tears of re- pentance I groped my way back to the house ; and there, in the quiet of my little room, I knelt and offered the first prayer of gratitude that has come from my lips since childhood. 140 MAY 21ST MAY 21ST NEW sense of life has unfolded within me! A song of joy, an eagerness to praise God for this rich inflow of happiness, welled in my heart when I awoke this morn- ing and saw the sunlight pouring into the room in a shower of gold. So has Truth itself poured into my waiting mind these past few days and created there a better concept of being. Life freedom health ! My eyes fill with tears of gratitude when I try to realize that these have been restored to me. Who is this stranger? And why does he never speak of himself? It seemed so natural that he should come to me in my hour of greatest need, that I did not then question the motives that sent him. I seemed to know him I feel now as if I had always known him. And I have accepted him as he has chosen to come much, I think, as Jesus came to the waiting hearts of Galilee, saying little about himself, but wonderful things of the Father who had sent him. "Of myself I have done nothing," he said, when I tried this morning to express my over- whelming sense of gratitude. "It was the Christ Principle operating in your consciousness, which, like Jesus with his whip of cords, drove out the money changers and traffickers who had made the temple of the Most High a den of thieves. Your consciousness is God's temple; and when Jesus said to those whom he had healed, 'Go, and sin no more,' he bade them, as I do you, keep 143 THE DIAKY OF watch at the doorway of this temple, that the thieves might not enter again." To us as honest searchers after Truth, who turn to a study of the life and deeds of Jesus as recorded in the Bible, theological subtleties, man- made creeds, or involved points of doctrine are wholly without interest. It is of little importance when or where the man Jesus lived. His gene- alogy does not call for a second thought. How long he lived, what he looked like, and the thou- sand other points of human interest that satisfy the merely curious, have no concern for us. Nor are we vitally interested in the authorship of his history. Whether Matthew wrote the gospel generally attributed to him, and when or in what language it was written, are of no special moment. The question of the priority of the book of Mark, and the tangled disputes regarding the author- ship of the book of John, have no bearing what- soever on our search. The problem of the Synop- tic gospels, their disagreements in trivial points of narrative, are unworthy of our time and thought. However important they may be con- sidered from a theological point of view, the proof of the canon, and the proof that the gospels were written by the men whose names they bear, are in no way essential to the demonstration of Chris- tianity as a divine revelation. As to Paul, it has been said that he had a fit oil the way to Damascus. But we may dismiss 144 JEAN EVAKTS the incident with the casual observation that, if so, it was the most momentous fit a human being ever had. The question of authorship of the book of Hebrews may be left for those worldly wise to settle who find recreation and pleasure in this sort of research. Even the conflicting views re- garding the historicity of the man Jesus ; which have given rise to such heated debates, and are still left unsettled, have no immediate bearing on our problem. We accept the historical statement that he lived in the time of Augustus, even as we accept the historicity of Augustus himself. What, then, is our problem? This : Can that which Jesus is reported to have taught be formulated as the expression of a definite Principle, or Truth? If so, can it be grasped by mankind, and successfully applied to the so-called problem of human existence? For, if that which has been reported in the New Testament as his teaching is an exposition of Truth, and if we can grasp it, we can demon- strate it as rigidly as we can prove the truth of a mathematical principle. If it is not capable of proof, we but waste our time discussing it. Unfortunately for the world, many of its greatest minds have expended their energies on the historical record and letter of Christianity, rather than on any systematic attempts to prove the truth or falsity of the claims of what we know as the Christ Principle. If men could not agree on the authenticity of the works attributed to 145 THE DIAKY OF Jesus, why did they not follow the rules he gave for doing these same works, and thus prove whether or not he told the truth. There is but one test, demonstration. And Jesus insisted on this very point, and begged his hearers to follow his rules, his commands, and do the same works, and even greater works than he did. Those of us who are warmest in insisting that Jesus was a man of the highest integrity, are frequently the last to admit that he told the truth. His teachings must stand or fall by the test of actual demonstration, even as the principles of music, mathematics, or engineering. Faith in his goodness and integrity will not carry us far ; we are called upon to prove the quality of his teachings. One great obstacle in the minds of men has been disbelief in their ability to prove what Jesus taught. They have thought that his work was for a certain time only. He did these works, they say, to prove that he was the Messiah, and men would be presumptuous to try to imitate that which only a supernatural being could do. Another obstacle has been the inherent inertia of the human mind. It requires great mental effort to prove metaphysical principles. It was far easier to believe that Jesus did his work for all mankind, to the utter exemption of any re- sponsibility on their part, and that in some way, if men could muster up sufficient faith in him they would be carried through the gateway of death and finally saved. Yet, if what Jesus is reported to liave taught is true, and if what we have said 146 JEAN EVAETS in the past few days about the mortal man is like- wise true, every man, without a single exception, will have to take every lep he took, will have to prove all he proved, and do it for himself, even to the overcoming of death and matter, before im- mortality can be reached, with its freedom from the ills that affli6l the human race. If the theo- logians who have written volumes on the disputed question of the resurrection had expended their efforts in an attempt to prove, by following with- out deviation the rules laid down by Jesus, whether or not it was possible to resurrect those sunken in vice, disease, and misery, they would have lost interest in a bodily resurrection, and would have brought the millennium nearer by many centuries. If the preachers of the gospel, the doctors and the philanthropists had followed in the way Jesus walked, it would have led them out of the darkness of materialism and into a true resurrection from all belief in that which God and Man are not and never could have been. Jesus preached the gospel of a perfect Father, a God who is Spirit, a God who is Love. Yet the theo- logians still preach the utterly impossible doctrine of Spirit as the creator of a universe of matter and a sinful man of flesh logic that would not be tolerated for a moment in the world of science. Jesus healed all manner of disease, instantan- eously, and he taught his followers to do the same. Yet materia medica, the most uncertain of all sciences, is no nearer eradicating disease from human experience today than it was when Jesus 147 THE DIARY OF cleared the human consciousness of its foul brood of beliefs by his certain application of the Christ Principle, and without the use of drugs or bodily manipulation. The keynote of Jesus 's teaching was the Fatherhood of God. When he said, "And call no man your father upon the earth: for one is your Father, which is in heaven," he pointed men in the way of right thinking, and gave them the major premise from which every correct con- clusion might logically be deduced. His whole ministry was a development of the idea of the Fatherhood of God, and its application to the needs of the human consciousness. He stated God in terms of right rules of con- duct, as Principle, or " cause in the widest sense." As denned by our own Lexicographers, Principle is "that by which anything is in any way ulti- mately regulated or determined;" "the begin- ning;" "original cause;" "origin;" "source;" "a permanent and fundamental cause that natur- ally and necessarily produces certain results." God being Principle, He is that "with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning," for Truth never changes. Since He is that by which all is, His law is the only law, and the law of His being must be the law of all being. There- fore, man-made laws and human hypotheses and speculations have no warrant or authority, nor have any laws unless they are based upon divine Principle. 148 JEAN EVARTS In the light of what has been said during the past few days, can we assume that God is the Father of mortals? Mortals have no principle, no cause, no cre- ator, no father. Their simulated existence is wholly dependent upon God. Were it not for Him, they could offer no claim to life and being. What- ever life they seem to have and their life is but a seeming is a material interpretation of Him who is Life. All that in any sense mortals seem to be or to have is wholly dependent upon God, and is a simulation of what He is and has. He did not, by a deliberate act of creation, bring them into their simulated existence; yet if Prin- ciple, Life, Truth, Love, etc., which they simulate, were withdrawn from them they would vanish into their native nothingness. Their very exist- ence hangs upon Him. They can look to no other Father than God. He draws them, as Jesus said He drew all men and would continue to draw them, until every knee should bow to Him and every tongue confess His name. What does this mean? A mere confession of belief in the divinity of God? Much more, for mortal man w T ould never confess the name of God until he had been com- pletely transformed and had ceased to be mortal. It is not possible to the consciousness that is wholly material to confess that infinite Mind is supreme. That consciousness must first be drawn to infinite Mind, through Love, and must be sub- jected to the working of the Christ Principle, Truth, which enters the mortal consciousness and 149 THE DIAEY OF, dissolves the false material concepts there and replaces them with concepts of reality. In this way the mortal consciousness changes its beliefs and concepts, beliefs of sin and sickness giving way to better beliefs of goodness and health, and the consciousness continually becoming a clearer transparency for Truth, until, ever changing in response to the perfect model held before it, the mortal consciousness at last ceases to be, and the true spiritual consciousness, in which there is no materiality, and no mortality, stands permanently revealed. Thus is God the Father even of mor- tals, in that He sustains them while subjected to this divine process, even though they may pass through the experience called death, which is but another modus of mortal thought. As the divine Father who is Love, He draws them to Himself, to be changed and to give place to His own image and likeness. He did not create imperfect, mortal men. Yet even they cannot escape that all-per- vading, infinite Love that lifts them up out of darkness into the light that is Life. The first step in this process of transforming the mortal man is to implant within the mortal consciousness the great Truth of God's iniinitude. Hence the command which Jesus said embodied all the law and the prophets: "Hear, Israel; the Lord our God is one God : and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first and great command- ment." "Thou shalt have no other Gods before 150 JEAN EVARTS me," if thou wouldst see false consciousness dis- solve and give place to the real. To love God supremely is to love supremely that which alone is Good and Truth. It is to rid ourselves of falsi- ties, of lust, envy, hatred, avarice, selfishness, fear, and all the evils that combine under these names. It is to meet and put out of consciousness, and, therefore, out of experience, sin and disease, whether called mental, moral, or physical, and all discord of every name and nature. Jesus was a very wise man, generally regarded as the wisest man that ever lived. He knew that it was pos- sible for men to follow his commands, else he would not have urged them. But, more, he knew that men would have to follow them, or they would continue to sicken and suffer and die. He showed by his own life what might be expected as the re- sult of following these commands, and he proved the truth of every statement he made. He did not tell men that they must wait until they had died before they could see the proofs. Jesus taught that God is Love; and he told men that they must love one another, or they could not fulfil the law of their being. This was perfectly logical, for by loving his neighbor as himself, man reflected God; and he never could reflect God until he did so. This was why, after giving the first great commandment, Jesus added: 1(1 And the second is like unto it, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." Mortals have but a faint idea of what would be the result of loving God supremely and of lov- 151 THE DIARY OF ing one's neighbor as one's self, with an abso- lutely unselfish love. This alone would result in obliterating the mortal sense of self. The mortal man is a bargainer. He gives where he thinks he will get something of value in return. He is a trafficker, and he thinks his methods reflect great shrewdness. But even from the business stand- point, he never made a greater blunder than that of failing to love Good supremely, and his neigh- bor and business associates as himself. To a certain extent he knows this, but he is afraid to put it to the test, fearing that while he is trying it his fellow man will get some material advantage over him. Yet this would be absolutely impossible if he understood the Principle of Good, and how to use it for his own protection and those within the radius of his thought. If his faith were on the side of Good, instead of evil, he would cast out fear and rise above its mesmerizing influence. In our first talk we drew the conclusion that an infinite Creator must of very necessity be a God of Love. Jesus taught that the law of Man's being is divine Principle itself, and that Principle is Love. No man has ever loved as Jesus did; ani when he said to Philip, "He that hath seen me hath seen the Father," he stated plainly that the Father is Love. Not love in the human sense, not a love that could mingle with jealousy or self- seeking, not a love that is subject to fear, but a love that seeks the welfare of others, and that expresses itself in joy, happiness, health, abun- dance, and all good for all mankind, impartially 152 JEAN EVARTS and without limitation. When he bade men love one another he laid down a rule whereby harmony might be brought into their lives. Discord in human experience results from broken law. And the failure to fulfil this fundamental law of Love, which Jesus taught mankind, is responsible for the multitude of discords, woes, and sorrows that are externalized in the human consciousness and experience today. Jesus taught that the power of Love is infinite. Nothing can stand against it or oppose it. We have some proofs of this even on the human plane. The mighty works that Jesus performed were based on his understanding of God's infinite love for His whole Creation, including Man. God, as Love, could not afflict His children. He could not create children so imperfect that he must needs send afflictions upon them in order to discipline them. His very nature makes Him bestow all good upon them. And He has already done this. Jesus knew it, and the knowledge of this great fact enabled him to dissolve the false concepts held in the human consciousness and let in the light of Truth. To love is to be wholly unselfish. Jesus showed that the love that craves the gratification of human desires is not Love, but covetousness. His life was an unbroken exemplification of the great truth that true love for God is bound to manifest itself in unselfish love for one's fellow men. To those who thought they loved the God whom they had not seen, he gave a simple test: How much 153 THE DIARY OF of that God who is Love are you reflecting to your neighbor? What are you doing in your daily life that is not for your own material advancement, your own selfish ends! Are you willing to sell what you have and give to the poor? In other words, are you willing to part with selfishness, greed, avarice, covetousness, and all self-seeking, and include your neighbor's welfare and happi- ness in your thought with your own? This is to love. It is not passion, it is not romantic attach- ment, it is not mesmerism, it is not sensual or ma- terial it is the reflection of Him who was seen by men in the tenderness, the patience, the goodness of Christ Jesus, in the compassion that forgave the sinful woman, in the Omnipotence that stilled the raging tempest. How many of those in the world today who lament the evil and sin that surround them are willing to admit that Jesus, by precept and ex- ample, gave the only rule whereby such things might be removed from human experience? Or, admitting it, are willing to obey him and love their fellow men as themselves in every walk of life, business, social, or whatsoever it may be? And if they believe this to be impossible, where else will they look for salvation? What else is offered them? What is the: 3 in man-made creeds and human doctrines and opinions that will relieve a single one of their sufferings, or remove a single discord from their conscious experience? The world has nothing but dry bones to offer. The law of Love admits of rigid and exact demonstra- 154 JEAN EVAETS tion, and man is withottt excuse if he turns from it to the frail offerings of those on his own men- tal plane. Jesus developed the idea of God as Spirit, and of Man as the image and likeness of Spirit, and therefore spiritual. The religious creeds of men embody the letter of this great truth in one form or another ; but who holds to it in f act, or shapes his conduct to conform to it? How can a man of flesh, or a mixture of soul and body, a medley of good and evil, of mind and matter, of the real and the unreal, be the image and likeness of infinite, incorporeal Spirit? Paul said, "They that are in the flesh cannot please God. " Is it thinkable that He made something that He was not pleased with, He who is himself infinite Perfection, unlimited Wisdom? Can Spirit make matter, its direct anti- thesis? Can light produce darkness? Material- ity is the habitat of all that is known as evil. The false belief that matter possesses life, sensation, and intelligence, that it is the cause of comfort, pleasure, and well-being, is the basis of all lying, cheating, stealing, and murder. Men lie about material things; they steal material objects be- cause they believe they are the source of good; they murder because they believe that matter holds within itself the issues of life and death. Their pleasurable sensations, as well as their pains and afflictions, are based on matter. Yet this man of matter, unhappily attributed to God, is the man that Jesus and Paul insisted would have to be "put off." 155 THE DIARY OF Jesus, the man, manifested the Christ Prin- ciple, and he did this as perfectly and as consist- ently as human limitations of form and environ- ment permitted. Jesus the Christ reflected the divine nature, and this made him the image and likeness of God, the Son of God. It was his spirit- ual nature that was God's image and likeness. He taught things that were strange to his hearers, but he always followed his words with deeds that proved them words of Truth. His mission was to show all men how to overcome evil by overcoming the false beliefs, the false thinking, that produce it, and by understanding the Principle that is the sole Cause and Creator of all that exists. He began by urging men to repent not merely to show sorrow for their evil ways, but to cease the kind of thinking that results in wrong conduct. For, in the Greek text, the word metanoia, which we translate as " repentance, " means a complete change of thought. A change of thought, in turn, results in a change in external manifestation. Jesus lifted men up to claim no lesser parent- age than infinite Mind; and by healing the sick, raising the dead, and other works marvelous in the sight of his followers, he showed what it meant to be completely in accord with God, what it meant to love Him supremely, and one's neighbor as one's self. By overcoming death, error, and matter, he proved Life, Truth, and Spirit to be supreme. His radical teaching showed that he knew God in a way that others did not. And he knew that he would have to prove this way of 156 JEAN EVAETS knowing God to be the only correct way by doing the works we call miracles. Miracles, indeed, to the materialistic human mind, incapable of per- forming like wonders ; yet divinely natural to the Mind that was in Christ Jesus, unfettered by man- made laws, unhampered by any sense of limita- tion, and unhindered by any belief in the reality of matter. To change a material concept is no greater miracle to infinite Mind than the correc- tion of an error in addition is to the Principle of Mathematics. Jesus acknowledged no allegiance to any form of religious belief or doctrine. He was wholly unorthodox, and so radical in his teaching and practice that he astounded beyond measure the rabbis and wise men of his time. He refused to acknowledge any power but God, and on the basis of his understanding of the infinitude of God he showed evil to be but a false concept in the human consciousness, and matter to be the opposite of Spirit, and therefore one in nature with evil. He taught that to believe in the power of evil is to fight in evil's cause. He said, "Resist not evil." Why? Because resisting it as men do is a direct acknowledgment of its reality; and the human mind can never overcome anything that it believes and acknowledges to be real. A real thing is eternal. It is for all eternity; and can never be destroyed or overcome, any more than the truth that 2+2=4 can ever be successfully refuted. He overcame evil on the basis of its nothingness, and 157 THE DIARY OF he never acknowledged its assumed power and reality by struggling with it. Jesus proved the unlimited dominion of Man conformed to God, and this he did to the great astonishment of those who witnessed his deeds. Their concept of man did not differ from that held in the human consciousness today, a limited, sin- ful, discordant, fallen man, looking vainly for a promised deliverance. He tried to show them that their deliverance had really come, and his oft repeated question, "Whom say ye that I am?" witnessed to his yearning to be understood as the teacher of that which w r ould set men free from the bondage of false beliefs. He proved even death itself, the king of terrors, to be but the belief of death, the very logical result of all the false be- liefs which make up the human man. He knew that if men would stop believing in a power op- posed to God, and would put out of their thouglit all other sinful beliefs, death would disappear from consciousness. He overcame death on tiie basis of Life as infinite and eternal. When he bade men take no anxious thought for the morrow he was telling them plainly that it was God's business to supply their needs, and that God did not have to be reminded of His duty. All supply comes into the human consciousness as thought before it becomes externalized in con- sciousness as that which meets human needs. As God is the only Mind, and therefore the only thinker, the mental supply can come only from Him. Jesus did not tell men that God would meet 158 JEAN EVARTS their human desires, nor that by pleading with Him they could influence Him to satisfy their covetousness. But he did show them that God, as Love, must continually send all that is needed for the comfort and well-being of all mankind. But if the consciousness that constitutes the mortal man is already full of limitation thought, of anxious worry thought, and of disbelief in the power of Good, there can be but little room left for God's thought to operate, and men thus see their needs imperfectly met. He knew that taking anxious thought for the morrow was limiting one's thought of God, and that a thought of lim- itation held in the human consciousness would result in limitation being brought out in conscious experience. Did he say this, in so many words? Did he thus formulate his teaching to his hearers? There is no written record that he did. But his deeds and his life conduct showed that he knew this Truth showed that this Truth was oper- ating through the man Jesus. And a persistent and faithful application of this same rule is today bringing forth similar fruit. It has been truly said that Jesus 's keynote of harmony when facing discordant conditions was, "Be not afraid." How could one who was in complete accord with God be afraid? He knew that fear is at the bottom of nearly all discord. He knew that fear is sin, for it is disbelief in God. And disbelief in God is belief in His suppositional opposite, evil. It is sin that results in death. Therefore he urged his followers to be of good 159 THE DIARY OF cheer, to fear not. He met every condition as its master, and he gave mankind the rule for doing the same. Circumstances are simply the things that seem to the human sense to gather or form around us; and Jesus stated that there was no circumstance that could prove too strong for us if we had faith ' ' even as a grain of mustard seed, ' ' faith in the infinite goodness of God, and under- standing of the nothingness of whatever seems to oppose Him. It is true that, although he once said, "Resist not evil," on another occasion he did say, "Resist the devil and he will flee from you." His manner of resisting the devil, evil suggestions, evil thoughts, was exemplified in the wilderness, when he bade evil get behind him, for there is but one Power, one God, infinite Good. This is the method of resisting by knowing, just as we resist any problem by knowing the rule that will solve it. His method of resisting was knowing the Truth in all cases, just as our method of re- sisting the suggestion that 2+2=7 is kno wing- that 2-j-2=4, and not by taking up the error as a real thing and trying to overcome it on the as- sumption of its reality. He said, "Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." It is the Truth that makes us free to solve every problem. How are we to know the Truth! Even as he said, by continuing in his words. And we continue in his words when we put them to the test and live as he lived, in complete accord with God. 160 JEAN EVARTS In all of his mighty works he smarted with God as the major premise. When confronted with the impotent man he said, "Rise, take up thy bed, and walk." This was equivalent to saying, "God being the only Power, there is nothing that can hold Man, and nothing that can enforce a pre- tense of holding Man. The claim of a man being held by anything opposed to God is a claim of power apart from God, and is a lie. You are free, free-born, free to do and be what is right for you to do and be, and you have the God-given ability to see this and to manif est it. ' ' To the man with the withered hand he said, "Stretch forth thy hand." He did not say, "Re- ceive another hand," but, "Stretch forth THY hand,'" the one you already have, for there is no evil power that can deprive you of it. Such a power would give the lie to God, and is incon- ceivable. To the blind he said, "Receive THY sight," never for a moment admitting that Man could be blind. To Lazarus he said, ' ' Come forth. ' ' COME FORTH ! Man never dies, and that which claims to be a dead man is a lie, one with the father of lies, the belief that there can be anything apart from or opposed to God, who is infinite Life ! Jesus knew the Truth, and he knew that he knew it, for he said in his prayer at the tomb of Lazarus, "I knew that Thou hearest me always." What would be the result if we knew that God always heard us? Could any manifestation of a supposed power apart from Him find place in 161 THE DIARY OF our consciousness! He went straight to infinite Mind first, and he went with a faith that was un- shaken. And the results he obtained were accord- ing to his faith, even though the world calls them miracles, and looks upon a miracle as an abroga- tion of law for a special purpose, or, still more narrowly, for the cure of those few who were fortunate enough to elicit the sympathy of Jesus. He always sought first "the kingdom of God," and everything else that he needed was added unto him. And he told men to do the same. Why! Because when one has found the kingdom of heaven, the kingdom of harmony, he has found all things. And where did he say this Kingdom was to be found? Within. Within the body? Within the carnal nind? No, the living is never found among the dead. The kingdom of God is a state of spiritual consciousness, the activity of which is the activity of God's thought, nothing less. Is not that within, or at least, is not that where it should be found? Instead of arguing for a New Jerusalem somewhere in the skies, whose gates are pearl and whose streets are paved with gold, why do not men seek to spiritualize their thought, and thereby find the Kingdom of God to be within their own consciousness, within themselves? Who are to see this Kingdom? "The pure in heart shall see God." Those who accept this great Truth and apply it faithfully, to the utter extinction of every thought that denies the om- nipotence of God, shall ultimately attain unto that spiritual consciousness which is perfectly 162 JEAN EVARTS harmonious, and which is Heaven. It is right thinking that does it, and only the right thinker can become pure in heart. There is no other way given unto men. Jesus specified the great reward but he did not fail to specify, likewise, the con- ditions on which it is to be obtained. Jesus judged not according to appearances. The mortal man is a man of appearances. Jesus knew that that which was called man, that which the five physical senses were supposed to say was man, was really something wholly foreign to God's Man, and that this appearance would have to be put out of consciousness before the real Man could appear. Regardless of the so- called testimony of the physical senses, he knew that where mortal men were supposed to be, right there in reality were the real Men, the real chil- dren of God. He knew that the physical concep- tion of man was an association of wrong beliefs as a manifestation of Truth that knows all things, he must have known this and he knew that these beliefs formed the human man. When a sick man was brought to him for help, he wasted no time making a diagnosis of symptoms, but went right at the heart of the matter and cast out the demon of false belief that was being mani- fested as disease. He never hunted for life within the body. He knew that matter was a mental thing, and that it could never hold within itself the issues of life. He said, "Take no thought for the body," for he knew the effects of thought resting upon the human concept of body. He 163 THE DIAEY OF never gave drugs to heal disease, because he knew that drugs possessed only the power that mortal beliefs conceded to them. Moreover, faith in drugs is lack of faith in God as the only Power, and this is sin, and itself the cause of discord and disease. He used great common sense and suf- fered many things to be so for the time, but never once did he make any concession to error in any form, shape er manner when error seemed to make a claim to life and power. Finally, Jesus was in possession of a tremen- dous secret, namely, the understanding of the power of thought, He reduced everything to a mental plane. He said that to think evil was equivalent to doing it. He knew that thoughts tend to become manifested, arid that to hold an evil thought is, sooner or later, to see that thought externalized in some form of evil deed or discord- ant condition. He knew that thinking led to action, and that all thought brought forth fruit after its own kind. "Never since the beginning of recorded his- tory," said my friend, rising and standing where the sun made his face to shine, even as I thought the face of Moses must have shone when he wist not, "have the churches been called upon as they are today to defend their fundamental doctrines, whether as set forth in the Scriptures, or as form- ulated by theologians. The founders of Christian belief have been looked upon as impostors, or as 164 JEAN EVAETS honest but deluded fanatics; and the growth of Christianity is regarded by many as a gradual evolution through the ordinary forces that oper- ate in the world. And so we ask, did Jesus tell the truth? And was he correctly reported? Cer- tainly there is no written record that he taught these things in just the way they have been pre- sented to you. But no written record is necessary, for his mighty deeds were wrought upon a Prin- cipie that is beginning to be understood by us today, and we who do grasp it in part are able to bring forth fruit commensurate with our under- standing. Of this I think you have had some proof." Some proof! Father divine, my only prayer is that Thou wilt give me even such understanding as this man has, that my life may be consecrated to reflecting Thee as Love, infinite Harmony, infinite Good! 165 MAY 22ND MAY 22ND in shadow." S we look at those distant peaks across the valley," began my friend this morning, "we see that the highest have caught the first beams of the morning sun, while the valley below is still submerged So it is with the minds of men. Those that are highest in the scale of spirituality are the first to catch the unfolding of spiritual things. That mind is highest spiritually that has lost most in materiality. The minds that are most clearly attuned to the infinite Mind are the first to reflect Truth. Religious history reveals a gradual unfolding of the true idea of God and His Creation. The BibJe is a record of this unfoldment in the minds of men and its effects upon them. It culminates in the final development of this idea as Love, the divine Father, whom Jesus expressed, and taught his followers to know and reflect. If men had retained what they learned from Jesus, it would have saved retracing the long and weary road that leads back to Truth. If the spirit- ual interpretation of his sayings had not been perverted, the old pagan philosophy would not have asserted itself again, and its modern off- shoots would have found no soil in which to grow. But not many years after he had left the world we find darkness again creeping over the human 169 THE DIAEY OF mind. The Stern warning of James went un- heeded. Faith became separated from works, belief superseded demonstration, and the Chris- tianity of Jesus gradually became a theory, in many respects less attractive than oriental mysti- cism. In the third century it had begun to break against the metaphysical subtleties elaborated by the Greek and Latin Fathers out of the simple precepts of Jesus. By the middle of the fourth it had lost its power to heal the sick ; and a century later saw the full flower of scholastic philosophy, human speculation, and theological dogma. Out of this materialistic magma there began to crystallize a religious system, whose supreme head, arrogating to itself infallibility and the pre- tentious title of pontiff maximus, claimed to be the vicegerent of the gentle and spiritually minded Jesus. This church waxed strong in temporal power and authority over the minds of mortals, but its spirituality cast only a flickering gleam through the blackness of the Middle Ages. In the course of time generations of scholars arose, who pursued with great zeal the study of the Bible ; but always from either a purely liter- ary standpoint, or with the assumed limitations of Christianity guiding their efforts. Little was done by the thousands of theologians and expositors of the Bible to make its teachings practical in the sen^e that Jesus made practical his words when he unfolded the Truth of Being. The critical faculty in men's minds became acutely sensitive, and material theories were loudly demanded in 170 JEAN EVARTS support of spiritual truths. Dogma succeeded dogma, and dissensions waxed loud and bitter over trivial points of doctrine. Speculation over- leaped all bounds ; extravagant theological con- ceptions became the diversion of the human mind ; and pageantry, pomp, and dead ceremony suc- ceeded living faith and its demonstrations. Schisms followed, the Holy Church was torn asunder, and protesting denominations fell to persecuting one another because of differences in interpretation of the letter of Christianity. The elements of religion as they are presented to us today in the orthodox faith include the con- ception of God as the Creator of all things. Out of the dust of the ground He is supposed to have formed man in His own image and likeness. He constituted him Lord of the earth, and gave him the gift of free-will, the ability to choose between good and evil. But man soon abused this dubious gift, and thereby fell under the bondage of sin and death. God then covenants with him to par- don his sins, if he will fulfil certain conditions. A Messiah is promised, and in due time he comes as Jesus the Christ. The earlier idea of God as an angry Father, who demands the sacrifice of His Son in expiation of the world's sins, has largely been abandoned. Jesus makes his atonement vol- untarily, and as representative of the human race offers up to God expiation on behalf of all sinful men. God accepts this sacrifice, and establishes a material pledge of repentance, baptism with water. Sinners repent, are converted and bap- 171 THE DIAEY OF tised, and then, by observing the rite of Com- munion, renew their covenant with God. Death is the penalty incurred by man for his wilful dis- obedience, for having been given the power to choose either good or evil, he chose evil. Death is not only for the body, but for the soul which does not repent and turn from its sinful practices. The consummation, whether of life or death, lies beyond the grave ; and the eternal future of man- kind follows a Judgment which Christ will pass upon all men, for all must appear before his throne on the Day of Judgment. This awful day is preceded by the general resurrection of the dead at Christ's second coming. Those who die impenitent will enter into eternal punishment; the redeemed receive the gift of immortality and unending bliss. The problems of evil and suffer- ing, how they can exist and continue to oppose the Almighty, are allowed to remain unsolved for us, in order to stimulate faith. Afflictions come upon us that we may be tried and purified through their disciplinary effects. As to physical truths, God in His wisdom and goodness has left us to find these out by the use of the powers He has bestowed upon us, for by such research the human faculties are exercised and trained. Such, in brief, is the modern orthodox inter- pretation of the theology of Jesus. It is with the limitations imposed upon men by this orthodox theology that they have essayed to preach the gospel to the uttermost parts of the earth. Little wonder that the realm of the spiritual has re- 172 JEAN EVAETS mained a vast region, unexplored, all but un- known, awaiting a discoverer with sufficient faith to penetrate beyond its shore line. With the loss of spirituality in the early cen- turies of the Christian era came also the loss of healing power, for healing is the process of re- moving from the human consciousness the con- cepts that have been formed there by false thought, and substituting true concepts for them. A vast amount of thinking has been done about God, but it has been human thinking. In its at- tempts to define its concept of a personal God, the human mind has lost itself, as Spencer has said, in labyrinths of language and logic. Human thinking is not the activity of God's thought, and does not reflect Him. Speculation is not thinking, for it is not based upon real knowledge. From the third century down to our own, men's thinking has been almost entirely speculative and along material lines. A mortal may claim to think about God, but as long as he is ignorant of the spiritual nature, not only of God, but of Man himself and the entire Universe, he is not thinking God's thoughts, and the activity that constitutes his con- sciousness is not the activity of true thought, and therefore does not reflect spirituality. Since God is omnipotent, every thought of His has Omnipo- tence back of it. Where it is, God is ; and where it is, false thought cannot be. It was this great truth that was lost to men during the first three centuries after Christ. It was this great truth that was buried beneath the dust and rubbish of 173 THE DIARY OF materialism and human speculation, hidden by the religious systems of the ages, the pantheistic forms of worship, the adoration of virgin and saints, and all the ceremonial and show that was massed high to mystify and astonish the credulous mortal mind and conceal the barrenness, the emptiness and dearth of real power within. During the many centuries that have passed since Jesus walked with men, the Truth that he taught has been ever present. He said, "Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away." Again, he knew whereof he spoke. From time to time there have been minds that have struggled up through the debris of material thought sufficiently to catch some faint gleams of the Light of Truth, and to become convinced that it had never been extinguished, but that it was shining in all its fulness beyond the mist that has darkened the face of the earth. Finally, in our own day, there was found a mind so receptive of spiritual things that it caught the true import of Jesus 's teachings as no one since apostolic times has ever done. So at- tuned to the infinite Mind, so transparent and clear that the Light of Truth, impelled by the energy of the infinite Sun of Truth, was able to penetrate it, this consciousness became a reflector of divine reality to all the world about it. To mortal thought this mind was a woman. Like her fellow beings, she had early sought God. Like them, too, she had prayed to be delivered from the ills that had seemed to afflict her. The sublime 171 JEAN EVAETS faith that supported her in her search for Truth carried her even to the gateway of death; and there, with the darkness fast gathering around her, it lifted the veil of matter from before her eager vision and revealed the sublime Truth of the reality of God and the unreality and power- lessness of all that is unlike Him. All Truth comes from the Source of Truth to the human mind as a revelation. It does not come as testimony of the five physical senses ; nor can it find a permanent abiding place in the human consciousness until it has displaced its opposite falsity. The human mind, as we have said before, is inherently false, and could never by itself come to any knowledge of Truth. Jesus stated this when he said, l ' No man can come to me except the Father which hath sent me draw him. ' ' No man can come to Truth except God draw him. This does not imply any selective action on God's part, as was so falsely believed for centuries in the par- alyzing doctrine of foreordination, but means simply that it is God himself who sends a knowl- edge of Truth into the darkened human mind. Paul says, "God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ." And he adds, "But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us." We have seen that mortals are complex in nature, for they simulate the infinite variety of 175 THE DIARY OF infinite Mind. They simulate all the attributes of Mind, and pose as its image and reflexion. That their faculties are not all mortal is due to the great fact that Truth cannot be entirely obscured or prevented from penetrating even the density of mortal consciousness. Were God not at all present in the human znind, it would not have even a simulated existence. The human con- sciousness becomes aware through sense-percep- tion of the existence of Life, Truth, Mind, and in a feeble way it becomes capable of recognizing these things. This is the result of Truth at work in the human mind. Always it is Truth that enters the human mentality and begins its activity there, for the human mind has no power or ability of its own. The first gleams of Truth having entered the mind, the work of expansion and emptying the consciousness of false thought is begun. This we call "grasping the Truth." But it implies no ability whatsoever on the part of the false human mentality. It is the Truth itself that does the work. But for the presence of what little Truth it may contain within itself, the human mind would be wholly mortal. The term "mortal mind" is applied, strictly, to that part of the human con- sciousness that is false. But when human love, human reason, human desires, and human will come under the influence of divine Love, Under- standing, and Truth, the human elements dis- appear. It was such a mind as this, from which much of the merely human had disappeared, that recognized the spiritual significance of the teach- 176 JEAN EVARTS ings of Jesus, and that became the channel through which primitive Christianity was restored to mankind. If God is Spirit, omnipotent, omniscient, omni- present, and omnibeneficent, the only Cause and Creator, the Principle of all Being, Truth itself, it logically follows that He would create a Uni- verse that would reflect His own characteristics, and not their opposites. The Universe and Man are therefore spiritual and eternal, not material and temporal. This is Truth, and if mortals will realize it and apply it persistently, all sin, sick- ness, death, and matter will gradually be put out of consciousness, and the mortal consciousness itself will cease to be, for all will then have ' ' that Mind which was in Christ." Orthodox theology is a misinterpretation of Jesus 's teachings. God did create Man, and gave him absolute freedom, free-will in the truest sense of the term, the re- flection of God's own free will. But since God is infinite Good, Man could not possibly exercise the faculty of free-will to the extent of knowing that which is not and could not be. Man can know God, but he cannot know anything else, for God is in- finite. If Man could know evil, God, as infinite Creator, must have first created evil. But evil is error, the direct opposite of Truth. There is nothing in Truth out of which to make evil, for error cannot proceed from Truth. The world of human thought may believe that it can know evil, but ' ' The wisdom of the world is foolishness with God." 177 THE DIARY OF It was these truths that flowed into the clear, receptive mind that is known to mortals as Mary Baker Eddy; and it is the development of them, starting with the major premise of God's infini- tude, that she has given to mankind, in language that they can understand, in her book, Science and Health, With Key to the Scriptures. Again, we must remember that it is Truth with which we are vitally concerned, and not the chan- nel through which it may come to us. In reading a text book on mathematical subjects we are not concerned with the book itself, the channel through which its contents seem to be conveyed to us, but with the truth which we hope to find therein. It is not the historicity of the man Jesus that is vital to us, but what he taught. His per- sonal history would be interesting, and we would be glad to have it in detail, but the human con- cepts of his daily life are not essential, nor would they have the slightest bearing on the Truth which he was the means of bringing to the human con- sciousness. So, as she herself has frequently urged, Mrs. Eddy's personality and human his- tory, though of interest, have no bearing on the Truth which she has restored to us. It is the Truth with which we are concerned; and we are urged to test it in the way she has tested it, and prove its nature, even as Paul admonished his followers to " prove all things." In reading a text book on mathematics we accept nothing with- out rigidly demonstrating its truth. Even so with the Truth Jesus taught, and which has been pre- 178 JEAN EVARTS sented to us again by Mrs. Eddy, we are asked to accept nothing without demonstrating its essen- tial nature. We have said that Truth comes to the human consciousness only as a revelation from the Source of Truth. The mind of the mathematician becomes so attuned to things mathematical that they flow into his consciousness as revelations of Truth. They were not in his consciousness before, nor would the human consciousness ever contain them, did they not come in from without. That which flows into the human consciousness does so be- cause that consciousness is attuned to it. This is what has been slated in various modern philos- ophies as "the law of attraction, like attracting like." It is the law of receptivity, for Truth is revealed to that mind which is receptive to it, and the degree of the revelation depends upon the de- gree of receptivity of the mind. The mind, or consciousness, that we knoTV as Mrs. Eddy was receptive to things spiritual tc a much greater degree than any other mind has been since the first century after Christ. From childhood her mental activity had been such as to prepare her mind for the influx of Truth. The law operated, as it could not but operate, and the spiritual import of Jesus 's teachings came to her clearly. Like the impotent man whom Jesus healed, she rose from her bed restored to healti. Why this should seem astonishing to mankind is difficult to comprehend, when we are forced to admit that the mathematician, the musician, the 179 THE DIARY OF architect, the engineer, in fact, every conscientious searcher who succeeds in finding the Truth, arises from his work restored, the Truth having cleared away from his consciousness all false concepts and erroneous thought that seemed to prevent him from solving his problem. The restoration which Truth effects is manifested in the correct solution of the problem. Mrs. Eddy's problem was one of physical dis- ease ; but it was no less a problem for that reason. When she grasped the Principle of harmonious Being, slated in terms of God's allness, and the consequent nothingness of whatever seems to be unlike Him, there was swept from her conscious- ness the false concepts of a power opposed to God ; and when they were gone the manifestation, the outward accompaniment, called disease, had to disappear likewise, for there remained nothing for it to rest upon. An essential component of the human mind is the critical faculty. It never criticises what it understands, and therefore never criticises Truth. But it heaps criticism upon its concepts of things that do not accord with its own materialistic thought. It loudly denounces its own ideas of things that it does not understand. And when Mrs. Eddy joyfully announced to the world the great Truth that had come into her consciousness, the human mind stood aghast at what it called her audacity. Had she been the one to announce the discovery of a so-called law of matter, the world would have acclaimed her. But to refute modern JEAN EVARTS theological beliefs, to expose the hidden workings of the human consciousness, to assert the living presence of the Christ Principle in our own day, and, above all, to insist that disease and all the in- harmony of life could be eradicated by an intelli- gent application of that Principle, was a shock to the human mind that opened wide the portals of its wrath and called down upon the head of this good woman, whose heart was throbbing with love for poor, tired humanity, such vituperation and calumny as have fallen to the lot of no human being since the patient Jesus stood before his re- vilers and prayed, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. ' ' Again and again she claimed no power of her own. Again and again she said that of herself she could do nothing, but that it was the Christ Principle that healed the sick and raised the dying in other words, that what she gave to the world was what had come into her consciousness as a revelation of Truth, and that, as Truth, the world could demonstrate its actuality. Insistently she urged that this was not another addition to the many human philosophies that have left mankind stranded upon the sands of disappointed hopes. With the greatest clearness she pointed out the distinction between this and mesmerism, mental suggestion, hypnotism, man-made creeds, the mod- ern theological misinterpretations of Jesus 's the- ology, and all the mass of human beliefs that have infested the mortal consciousness and obscured the Light of Truth. Continually she directed the 181 THE DIAEY OF human thought away from herself to the teach- ings of Jesus, and urged that mankind follow her only as she followed him, and that every step of the way should be proven. She herself proved the truth of this revelation, and called it the science of Christianity, or Christian Science. For if science is "ascertained truth or facts," and if she had in her possession the ascertained truth or facts regarding Christianity, she rightly named her discovery Christian Science. Tirelessly she labored to prove the truth of her revelation, and having done so, to state its Principle in such lan- guage as could be grasped by the human mind. The mission of her book in which she has done this may be stated in Wyclif 's apt translation of Luke 1:77, "To zeue science and helthe to his puple: in remyssioun of hir synnes." What was her motive? Love. It was Love that filled her thought and inspired her deeds. It was Love that animated her words and made radiant her motives. It was Love that she re- flected to the weary world. It was Love that con- tituted her soul, her life, the essence of her being. It was God himself, as Love, that was revealed in her pure thought, and it was His thought that she crystallized in the writings which she has given to her fellow men. Does Love inspire hatred and malice? Does Truth give rise to misunderstand- ings? No, but Love and Truth stir up their oppo- sites in the human mentality, in order to cast them out. This, again, is the wonderful working of Love, that it rests not until it has set the im- 182 JEAN EVARTS prisoned thought free and recast it in the mould of Truth. It was inevitable that Love and Truth should stir up whatever of unreality lay hidden in the minds of mortals, to cast it out, that true con- cepts might be formed there and the "salvation of the Lord" appear. Her followers are those whom she has pointed away from herself to the living Christ. They are co-followers with her, co-workers in the great labor of reflecting infinite Mind. She bade men forget her, but remember Christ. She taught them to lean not upon her personality, but upon the infinite Truth that sustained her and all who cast their burdens upon it. Her work was universal and for all mankind. It was for all time, for it was a restoration in the minds of men of the Christianity of Jesus, who said, " but my words shall not pass away." She proved the truth of his words, and left the world infallible rules for doing likewise. Ignorant criticism and abuse and the hasty and narrow verdict of small minds are of as little avail now as in the time of Jesus. What applies to him applies with equal force to her : if she has told the truth, her teachings will stand the test of demonstration. If what she has given to the world is not true, then it must fall under such test, and the cry of "Great is Diana of the Ephes- ians" will not be necessary. "But, as Jesus told his followers that every man must do his own work," concluded my friend, 183 THE DIARY OF "so Mrs. Eddy has told mankind that salvation from the ills of humanity is individual, and mut come through individual effort. To this end she has given the world her writings, and especially her book, Science and Health, With Key to the Scriptures, that each may learn for himself how to apply the infinite Principle to his own human needs. I have brought you a copy of this book. It contains the statement of that revelation which we have been approaching in our talks, and to which we have finally come. I told you that all my talks were based upon it, and that when we had reached it we would turn back and place the credit where it belongs. All the understanding that I have of God as infinite Principle has been gained through a study of this book. All that has been done for you through me as a channel for the manifestation of infinite Mind has been made pos- sible by whatever understanding I have of the teachings of Jesus as spiritually interpreted in this work. The terms which we have used in our talks to express God, such as Principle, Life, Truth, Love, Soul, Spirit, Mind, are the terms Mrs. Eddy first used, and you will find them in this book. All of the ideas which I have given you and which have been developed in our talks, and which will be further discussed until this message has been fully unfolded to you, have come from Mrs. Eddy's teachings, from her writings, or from the writings of her followers. All that I have said in leading up to this revelation lias been to prepare you, in a measure, to receive it; for 184 JEAN EVARTS your thought was rebellious and resentful of things spiritual when I found you, and it seemed best to begin our talks with what you were willing to admit into your thought. And so we began to reason from effect back to cause, from the ma- terial phenomenon back to spiritual Cause, which, as we have seen, is much like reasoning from a moving picture back to the original. And yet, even on such a basis of reasoning, it seemed to us that we must admit the real Universe to be spirit- ual, mental, and its Creator to be infinite men- tality, divine Mind. Mrs. Eddy states her premise in what she has called the 'Scientific Statement of Being,' (Science and Health, page 468) as 'All is infinite Mind and its infinite Manifestation;' and with this as a starting point she reasons accurately from Cause to effect, from God to His perfect, spiritual Uni- verse and spiritual Man. Having stated the Principle and drawn her conclusions logically from it, she applied the supreme test, that of rigid demonstration, and proved the Truth of her major premise. You have learned enough of the Principle it interprets, and have seen enough of the working of this Principle, to enable you to read the book now without prejudice. The operation of the Principle has been revealed to you in restored health. From the day I found you here, hopeless and alone, I have used for you the understanding I have gained from this book, and the result has been that the former concept of disease which 185 THE DIARY OF seemed to be manifesting itself in your conscious experience has given way to a better concept of health and greater freedom, and you have emerged in a degree from the bondage of false beliefs. Tonight read the first chapter, Prayer. I could tell you of cases where those suffering from seem- ingly incurable disease have seen their afflictions disappear, vanish into their native nothingness, while reading this chapter alone. I have seen the chains of life-long slavery to evil habits, to rack- ing pain from contorted members, to unspeakable agony from consuming bodies, drop from their \ r ictims when the receptive thought had imbibed the spiritual import of this clear interpretation of true prayer. When you have read it I am sure you will understand why; when you have begun to sound its profound depths, I think you will begin to understand why it was that error of every name and nature fled before the mighty affirmations of God's allness which Jesus boldly voiced whenever confronted by manifestations of evil." The western sky had begun to spread an amber-crimson pathway for the sinking sun, and the guardian hills were drawing their purple mantles about them, as I still sat absorbed in my thought of the wonderful experiences that had come into my life in the past few days. I was glad to be alone with my heart's rapture, to rejoice in the peace and serenity that seemed to hover in the fragrant air. Marvel of marvels, that I should 186 JEAN EVARTS be brought here to die, only to find Life itself! Wonder of wonders, that the Father who had seemed so far off should have met me here and folded me in His arms of love! The soft light that streamed upward in the wake of the departed sun suffused the gathering dusk with a golden glow, and faded ; the tree tops nodded sleepily in the dying breeze; the hum of inse<5t life sank into a hush ; and the noises of the world became a memory. Yet I lingered in the serene solitude of my revery, as night deepened about me; and it was only when the searching moonbeams had found me out that I consented to turn homeward and leave the day sinking mto slumber on the dewy hills. 187 MAY 23KD MAY 23ED T is not my intention to quote from Mrs. Eddy's writings," said my friend, when we had seated our- selves on the ledge in the warm sunshine of the radiant spring morning, "with the thought of attempting any explanation or elaboration of her words. But it may be helpful to you as a beginner in the great task of working out your salvation if we can point out and emphasize some of the truths that she has developed in the work of proving the allness of God, infinite Good." From time immemorial, men have prayed to their concept of Deity. Jesus urged men to pray. In his remarkable discourse which we call the Sermon on the Mount, he had much to say on this subject But he also said a great deal before he came to the question of prayer. He first told his hearers that, except their righteousness exceeded that of the Scribes and Pharisees, they should in no case enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. Right- eousness is right conduct, based upon the cause of all conduct, thinking. Therefore, unless men think rignt, they can not bring harmony into conscious experience. The right kind of thought about God leads to right prayer; but such thought contains no element of materiality, and therefore no selfish- ness. It is the kind of thought that does not limit God, either as regards His ability or willingness to bless mankind. The thought, therefore, that 191 THE DIAEY OF enters into prayer must be thought of God as omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, and omni- beneficent. Such a God does not have to be pleaded with, nor instructed as to His duty toward mankind. He does not have to be told that His children need certain things, for He knows what they need, and, moreover, He has already sup- plied these needs. God could not be God if He had not already met every human need, every real need of man for that which will enable him to rise out of materiality, to "put off the old man, and put on the new. ' ' To beg God to grant human desires is to "ask amiss." The human mind may know what it wants, but it cannot know what it needs, for only Wisdom can know that. God operates according to Wisdom and true Knowl- edge, and not according to human opinions. And it is well for mankind that He does, for it is only a too common experience to find that if we had been given the things we prayed for in our ignor- ance and selfishness, we would have been made utterly miserable. Our conception of prayer has been changed by Mrs. Eddy from one of pleading to a prayer of affirmation, the affirmation that God is All-in-all, and that therefore our true wants are already supplied. Knowing that because of God's very nature our wants for that which is necessary are already supplied, results in this knowledge of supply becoming externalized in the human con- sciousness. It is the working of the same law that we spoke of many days ago. Every thought 192 JEAN EVARTS that enters the human consciousness tends to be- come externalized in experience. Therefore, thoughts of limitation, or of God's unwillingness to meet our real needs, only obscure the vision and leave us still looking at these falsities. Like the sun that is continually sending out its light in every direction, God is constantly pouring out supply of every sort upon all mankind. The sun cannot help shining ; and God cannot help pouring out blessings upon mankind, because He is infinite Good and must express Himself in the activity of infinite goodness. But when clouds are over the earth, the sun's light is dimmed, and we re- ceive only a portion of it. So, when the human consciousness is obscured by clouds of false be- lief, God's infinite goodness reaches mankind only in small part. To limit our thought of God is to limit ourselves, and to bring out limitation in our conscious experience. True prayer, then, as Mrs. Eddy has taught us, is prayer of affirmation; and such prayer is always answered by the working of the invariable law of externalization of thought. When Jesus said, "To him that hath shall be given," he stated this law: that within the consciousness that holds the true idea of God's allness shall be external- ized supply in abundance for every real need. But righteousness must always precede prayer, right thinking must precede the externalization, even as Jesus 's discourse on righteousness pre- ceded his talk on prayer in the Sermon on the Mount. 193 Another great truth that is brought out here is the part that gratitude plays in making prayer effective. When Jesus stood at the tomb of Laz- arus he thanked God that his prayers were always heard. This was an expression of both under- standing and gratitude. Simple, childlike, heart- felt gratitude for the priceless knowledge of God's allness, and the consequent unreality and power- lessness of all that seems to oppose Him this of itself is enough to bring into conscious experience an answer to any prayer for the right supply to meet human needs. Paul said, ' ' And be ye thank- ful. ' ' Ingratitude is unbelief. If we believed our heavenly Father to be all-powerful, and willing to meet our every real need, could we ever be ungrateful, and could we ever plead with Him to grant our selfish desires? James said, "The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much." Such is the prayer of the right-thinking man. It is the affirmation of God's allness, the affirmation of Him as infinite Good, and is inspired by love and gratitude and absolute unselfishness. It is know- ing the Truth that Jesus said would result in man's freedom. He said as much when he made that remarkable statement about prayer, "There- fore I say unto you, What tilings soever ye desire whon ye pray believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them." In other words, when you pray, know tliat there is no power opposed to infinite Good; know' that the material obstruction which seems to stand in the way is in reality only 194 a thing of false thought, and therefore without power to injure or hold you. Such knowledge of God as the only reality will remove mountains of error. Paul admonished men to pray without ceasing. This means incessant affirmation of God's infini- tude, a seeing of God only, a knowledge of Man's spiritual nature, and a bringing out of the fruits of such knowledge within the human conscious- ness. Right thinking is prayer ; and regardless of what we may seem to be doing in our daily rou- tine, the undercurrent of right thinking can go on uninterruptedly in our minds. We have the ability to distinguish between the real and the unreal, for we have the Principle that we can apply to make the necessary test "By their fruits ye shall know them." Bight application of that Principle, based upon right thinking, is prayer in the truest sense of the word. It is on this basis that healing is accomplished through prayer. All the mighty works of Jesus were done through his perfect apprehension of true prayer. ' ' The prayer of faith shall save the sick," said the apostle. Faith is understanding, not mere belief. And understanding is based upon real knowledge, or Truth. Such faith, under- standing, is "the evidence of things not seen." Truth, entering the human consciousness, puts out false thought and belief, and these then cease to be externalized in the consciousness. The re- sult is a cure, for disease is the manifestation of discordant thought, whether that thought be seen, 195 THE DIARY OF held before "the mind's eye," on the plane of "conscious awareness," or whether it be lurking, unseen and unknown, in the darker recesses of the human mentality. This is the divine method of healing, the method of Jesus, the "prayer of the righteous." True prayer declares the ever-presence of God. It is the "word" of God declared to the human consciousness, the "two-edged sword" that is sent out into the human mind to hew down ' l every plant that my Father hath not planted." And, as the Word of God, it has God himself back of it. Therefore, it must be trusted, even as God himself is trusted. It must receive our absolute confidence, for we have the authority of Jesus for knowing that the material obstructions which we pray to have removed from our experience in reality do not exist. We therefore must expect all good from such prayer; and we are justified in having as much confidence in it as in the presence of God, for it is the presence of God declared. Nothing can hinder it or stay its action, for Omnipotence is back of it, and infinite Energy is urging it on to do the work expected of it. Jesus said, "And when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret : and thy Father which seeth in seciet shall reward thee openly." Mrs. Eddy has taught us that this means shutting the door of the human mentality against all material sense of lack, or separation from God, infinite Good. It is knowing that there is no real material condition to be met and overcome; that there is no real, 196 JEAN EVARTS mysterious power to cope with and overthrow. It is knowing that seeming material things and con- ditions have only the power that the human mind is according to them in its thought. It is knowing that we can do all things if we do not limit God, and it is knowing that it is not ourselves, but the Christ Principle within us, that does all things. The open reward of such righteousness comes in the externalization of good in our conscious ex- perience. The one who prays in this way will see his prayer demonstrated or manifested in con- scious experience just to the extent that he is meeting God's demand for right thinking, and, consequently, right living. In other words, he will receive from such prayer jut what he makes room for. His mental chamber must be emptied, at least to some extent, before right ideas and concepts can find room there. Prayer can never change God. But it does change the mortal man. It does change and de- stroy the false sense of man. A mortal's faith does not stimulate the Almighty, but it does break down within the mortal consciousness that which causes doubt of God's omnipotence. Honest prayer always changes the one who prays. The prayer of the righteous man brings the power of God, expressed in Truth, to bear upon his problems, and the difficulties are overcome and dissipated in proportion as he is conforming to God's spiritual laws. Such prayer opens his mentality to receive what God has already sent him, just as opening the shutters of a dark room allows the sunlight to 197 THE DIARY OF flow in. Opening the shutters has no effect what- ever upon the sunlight, but it does have a marked effect upon the room. The mortal man exists as a witness to the seeming power of error. So we who have gained some knowledge of the infinitude of God are called upon to witness to this same unreal power. But we know that declaring the Word of God, bidding error get behind us, and persistently resisting it with Truth, as Jesus did, and not wrestling with it as a reality, it will eventually flee from us. Not that error has any power or intelligence that enables it to call upon mortals to witness to its reality, for it has no power, either as persons, environment, or things; it is but a false mental concept. But Truth in its activity stirs up what- ever may seem to be opposed to it, or to deny its omnipotence, and in this way man is continually confronted with problems of every sort. But we know that the appearing of these problems is like- wise the appearing of splendid opportunities to demonstrate God's allness and Man's dominion. We know that every problem in itself implies the existence of that which will solve it, for back of every appearance there stands the reality, and for every error there is the Truth that will destroy it. By knowing the Truth, and persistently hold- ing to it, despite the so-called testimony of the five physical senses, despite human opinions and material beliefs, we know that human thinking will finally yield to the divine; and when that 198 JEAN EVARTS occurs the problem is solved and the correct answer becomes externalized in consciousness. Such, in brief, is the method given us for work- ing out our salvation. Again, it is but the " prayer of the righteous." It is knowing the reality and omnipotence of Truth, and the unreality and im- potence of error. To pray to God to save us from evil is to admit the actuality of evil, and to assume that God kncws it to be real. For God to know evil would be for evil to be eternal. Therefore, to straggle against it would be utterly vain. This great Truth is well illustrated by the continued presence of evil in the world. The human race has for untold centuries searched for the origin of e\ il. Fortunately for itself, it has never found it, for had it done so, it would have proved evil real, and hence immortal. Yet in the absence of such proof, men have believed it to be as real as Good, and have striven for ages to overcome it on that basis. They have found their efforts futile. The origin of that which does not exist cannot be found. No real thing can be overcome on any basis whatsoever. The statement that 2+2=4 is a very real thing, and there is no power in heaven or earth that can overcome it. The statement that 2-f-2=7 would seemingly have the same power if all men believed it. And believing it, men could never overcome it. They must first learn the Truth regarding it. For men to know evil is for them to become its servants, as Jesus said. To assume to know evil is to perpetuate its seeming existence, and to continue to see it manifested 199 THE DIARY OF in all sorts of ways in conscious experience. To know that evil is the suppositional opposite of Good; to use common, every-day logic when we say that God is infinitely good, and not to add in the next breath that He made evil or permits its existence ; to know, as we really must know, that if God is infinite Good, and yet per- mits the existence of evil, He must himself be evil to the extent of permitting it to exist, is to begin to see the "problem of evil" in its true light and to take the first steps toward solving it. The false thought of sin results in sinful mani- festations ; the false thought of disease results in manifestations of disease; the false thought of a real opposite to infinite Life results in the mani- festation called death ; and all this will go on and on, until mortals grasp the Truth of Being and clear their mentalities of the "thieves and money changers" that have made such disorder there. Our prayer, to be true and effective, must always begin with God. The Allness of infinite Good is the major premise to all right reasoning whon answering the false arguments of error. Instead of accepting theological statements and human opinions regarding heaven and hell, sin and salvation, we take as our w r orking premise the Truth of God's infinitude. Mrs. Eddy pointed out the w r ay by first accepting this, and then de- ducing a religion that contains all the elements that Jesus said constituted true religion the meeting of human needs, the healing of the sick, the binding up of broken hearts, and setting man- 200 JEAN EVARTS kind free to work out their complete salvation, even to the ultimate revealing of Man as God's image and likeness, without a single element of materiality. She has restored the lost element of healing to Christianity, and has pointed men a\vay from useless disputations concerning the mere letter of the Word, to a demonstration of its living Principle. She has correctly interpreted the greatest of the Commandments, ''Thou shalt have no ether Gods before me," and has shown the dire results that follow the breaking of this imperative command. She has shown how all the forces of the Universe join with the man who is conscien- tiously seeking to do God's will. She has shown that the mortal man's failure to rid himself of the ills of this life is due to having mentally limited himself, because he has first mentally limited God. She has shown that, regardless of the so-called testimony of the physical senses, we are right here and now the children of God, even as the Apostle insisted we were, and she has shown us how this spiritual fact can be brought into manifestation. But she has likewise insisted that working out one's salvation is no child's play, but demands constant work, ceaseless vigilance, and incessant prayer of the right kind. "Earth's preparatory school must be improved to the utmost," she has said, (Science and Health, page 486) and we are realizing the truth of this statement. And yet she adds, "The warfare with one's self is grand." (Miscellaneous Writings, Obedience). For the warfare is always with one's self, even with the 201 THE DIARY OF sense of a personal self of mixed good and evil, the mortal self that counterfeits the real Man. And the arena in which the conflict takes place is always the human consciousness. Jesus said, "If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me." However the expression "deny him- self" may be interpreted, there is no question that the mortal man must deny himself in the strictest sense of that word, if he would "put off the old man. ' ' He must deny the seeming reality of him- self as a man of flesh and blood, a material body in which a mind dwells. He must deny the reality of material man as the image and likeness of God, infinite Mind. He must deny reality to evil, and to all modes of mortal thinking. Mortals have always believed in the existence of a universe, including man, which is material, temporal, and imperfect, and that catastrophe, poverty, sin, sick- ness, and death are very real things. The whole body of mortal thought, which Mrs. Eddy calls ' l mortal mind, ' ' and which holds this belief in its various phases, is itself the supposed mind or intelligence opposed to God, that Jesus referred to as the "devil," or one evil. This "devil" is simply a mass of falsity. It is a liar, who abides not in the Truth, "because there is no truth in him." Mortal mind is the lie about everything that God is and has made. Therefore, it is "the prince of liars." Paul says our sicknesses and other troubles do not spring from flesh and blood, nor from our bodies, but come from "principali- 202 JEAN EVARTS ties and powers," from "the rulers of the dark- ness of this world, ' ' from ' l spiritual wickedness in high places. ' ' From these proceed the ' ' fiery darts of the wicked, ' ' and the ' ' wiles of the devil, ' ' evil thoughts, which become manifested in our con- cepts of body as disease, in our business affairs as perplexity and disaster, and in our environ- ment as discord, poverty, and untoward condi- tions. All this stuff which Paul referred to is simply false belief in mortal mind, or conscious- ness, and the world knows it as materialism, hypnotism, spiritualism, occultism, hatred, malice, envy, jealousy, revenge, doubt, discouragement, fear, and all evil. Jesus 's method of casting out these things was first to deny them any real existence. When the asserted authority of this so-called mind is denied, it often seems to turn and try to rend the one who is being deceived by it. Once when Jesus cast out the demon, or devil, of dumbness, it seemed to turn and rend the victim. But the seeming fury of evil is due only to its being stirred up by Truth, as preliminary to its removal from consciousness. There is no more important task in the world, no greater work, no more profitable business, than to acquire the true understanding of God's allness, and evil's unreality. "Give me understanding, and I shall live," cried the wise man. The one who has true understanding has also a knowledge of the nature and seeming methods of evil. This knowledge, Truth, is the complete armor of God. As Paul expressed it, it consists of the breastplate 203 THE DIARY OF of righteousness (right thinking) the girdle of Truth, the sandals of peace, the helmet of salva- tion, the shield of faith (understanding) and the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. With this armor on, no man need fear evil in any form. The true understanding of the supposititious nature of mortal man answers the question of the ages : i ' Whence do I come, and whither am I going?" Mortal man is shown to be the product of mortal thought. The perpetuation of mortals results from the union of two mortal minds. It is another modus of false belief. The supposed union of two mortal minds gives rise to a third, partaking of their nature and "inheriting" many of their characteristics. This is the starting point of a manifestation of another mortal mind. As this resulting mortal mind has a definite begin- ning, so will it also have an ending, for whatever begins must likewise end it cannot be perpetu- ated. This so-called new mind, supposedly result- ing from the union of two minds, had no previous existence. It is the result of the union of the two parent minds that formed it. Its so-called inher- ited characteristics, the supposed existence of which has given rise to the suppositional "law of heredity," are but the result of pre-natal mes- merism, and come from the supposititious parent minds themselves. This new mind, or man, de- velops as a consciousness, or thought-activity, and brings out in his conscious experience the fruit of his thinking. What he holds in thought becomes 204 externalized in his consciousness, within himself, and this he reflects to those within the radius of Ms thought. The nature of his thought is de- pendent upon education, association, pre-natal mesmerism, and the influx of the thought that sur- rounds him. Fear, disease, and limitation thoughts are early taught him, and he grows to look upon these as realities. Having been put into his men- tality, they produce manifestations after their own kind in his conscious experience. This ex- perience is varied, and is determined absolutely by the kind of beliefs he holds. Finally, the be- liefs of old age, senility, and decay become exter- nalized, and the belief of death, the opposite of Life, at last manifests itself as a cessation of men- tal activity, and the man is said to die. If he has died in the orthodox faith, his fellow mortals be- lieve that he will be awakened beyond the portal of death, and that he will be made immortal, and will be transferred to a place of eternal bliss. To stir his consciousness into renewed activity this side of the imaginary gateway of death is believed impossible, unthinkable, despite the fact that many of those who hold this belief admit that Jesus was able to do this very thing, and that he did do it, and told his followers that they would be able to do likewise, provided they kept his commandments. Such, in brief, is the life-history of mortal man. Many days ago we asked what possible sal- vation there could be for this sort of man. Chris- tian Science has answered this question, likewise, 205 THE DIARY OF and has brought to mortals in the religion of Jesus a knowledge of the only salvation possible to them. Prayers of limitation, pleading and begging, have long since been proved ineffectual. As Mrs. Eddy has said, such prayer is asking God to be God, and is "vain repetition." Drugging and hygiene have been found to give relief only in proportion to the mortal's faith in them. Faith in drugs is aptly termed "bottled faith." The drugging system is an attempt to eradicate error with error, and depends for its existence upon the belief of life and intelligence in matter. Its effects vary with the varying of faith in it; and this faith is confidence, or mere belief never under- standing. Matter, a thing of false thought, can have no life, nor can it be the expression of real Lifa, which knows no death. Even materialists now concede the ultimate basis of matter to be "superimposed layers of positive and negative electricity," thus making the fundamental con- stituents of matter wholly immaterial, and there- fore mental. Christian Science says to the mortal conscious- ness that is struggling with its false beliefs, "I will put my Spirit in you, saith the Lord, and ye shall live." It is the putting of the Spirit of Truth into the human consciousness that enables it to live, to cast off its unreal self, and to uncover the real Man, the image and likeness of God. It is giving men the true knowledge of God, and then teaching them to acknowledge Him in all their ways, that is, to act-their-knowledge of Him 206 JEAN EVARTS in every walk of life. It is showing them why it is that "to be spiritually minded is life." It is proving the wonderful Truth of the statement, "The Lord thy God in the midst of thee is mighty," by showing what correct thinking about God and Man will do for the human consciousness. It is daily proving that "there is nothing from without a man that can defile him," by showing that all the discord and unhappiness which men seem to experience is the logical result of their own false thinking. Finally, it is showing that the Kingdom of Heaven is within, when the con- sciousness has been cleared of its false thought- concepts, and God's thoughts have been permitted to enter and become active there. No, sin and death have not been eliminated from conscious experience by the religion of Jesus as yet, for men are just coming into a knowledge of the great Truth of God's allness, and the human mind can grasp it only by degrees, "line upon line, precept upon precept, here a little and there a little." The true knowledge is at conflict with the false sense of things, and men are so occupied with worldly affairs, with their false pleasures, and with that sort of labor which is not for meat, that they are only slowly giving atten- tion to this Truth which is destined to set them free. And even after the Light has begun to shine in the human consciousness, the false sense of things seems difficult to get rid of, because it is what has been believed and held to for so many centuries, and so many millions of men still believe 207 THE DIARY OF it, and will continue to do so for a long time to come. Even though the Truth has begun to work in mortal consciousness, the mortal mentality is still darkened by the mass of mortal thought that is seemingly everywhere, and men still find them- selves beset with evil suggestions and thoughts, even after they know the Truth in part. But the leaven is at work. Thousands upon thousands of mortals have seen the curative and uplifting effects of Christian Science; and, cheered by some faint glimpses of the glorious end to be attained, and knowing that ' ' in due time ye shall reap, if ye faint not," they are persistently holding to the Truth and bringing out in conscious experience the fruits of their knowledge. In the order of elimination of false thinking from the human mind, sin and sickness go first. Then will follow death, and, finally, matter itself. In the process of redemption the human mind changes its beliefs, and beliefs of sin and sickness gradu- ally give way to better beliefs of health and good- ness. Because of its counterfeit nature, the mor- tal mind is essentially imitative, and repeats whatever is persistently held before it as a model. Holding the Truth constantly before it, we can lead it to gradually relinquish its hold on that which is false. Belief giving way to understanding at last, that day ' ' which no man knoweth but the Father" will appear, and "we shall all be changed in the twinkling of an eye," "the heavens shall be rolled up as a scroll," the belief of matter as sub- stance will go out, and God and His spiritual 208 JEAN EVAETS Creation, including Man in His image and like- ness, will stand revealed in a glory and beauty that "eye hath not seen nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man." If we are honestly trying to walk in the way Jesus pointed out, we will obey him and take no anxious thought for the morrow. We will live for today, and know that we are living in the eternal present. We will know time for what it is, a human concept only, and unknown to God. Know- ing that evil in reality has no power, and knowing that God has all power over the false belief of evil, we will lay aside fear and anxious dread, to- gether with all apprehension of loss, poverty, sick- ness, and death. With every problem, we will do our work, and leave the result to God. To be anxious for the morrow is to discredit Him. To lack faith in Him is to limit Him in thought, and to limit our thought of w r hat He has already done for us. The invariable law of externalization will then cause this limiting thought to become exter- nalized in our conscious experience, and w^e will suffer from the very things that we are anxious about. Jesus indicated a great spiritual law when he bade men take no thought for the morrow. He also showed himself to be possessed of the great- est common sense. W T e know from daily experience that worry and apprehension never solve our problems, but, on the contrary, increase their dif- ficulty and do incalculable harm. Borrowing from the future is mere speculation. We never fear a reality. This is an utter impossibility. We never 209 THE DIAKY OF fear real things, but only our thoughts of things. We never fear a disaster, but only our apprehen- sion of a disaster. It is never reality that makes us afraid, but only fear itself. In other words, we simply fear fear. Fear is never based upon real knowledge, and therefore is never based upon God. It is sin, and it will manifest itself as sin always does, in some form of limitation or discord, if we hold it in thought. Jesus knew this, and he always began his work with the ad- monition, "Be not afraid." If God is Love, and if He is available to mankind, there is nothing to fear. To fear fear-thoughts is not even common sense. The great difficulty is that, while men profess to believe in the infinitude of God, in reality they do not expect Him to help them out of their troubles. They rely either upon themselves, or upon mortal aid. That failing, they feel them- selves lost indeed. If they turn to God at all, it is usually as a last resort, or else they turn to Him with their minds filled with thoughts of limitation, of the reality of sickness and discord, and of the certain reality of their particular trouble from which they ask to be lifted. They beg God to liberate them; they plead with Him and protest the awful injustice of material laws which have resulted in their sufferings; but they fail to understand that their very attitude is one of "limiting the Holy One of Israel," who has al- ready made them free and met their every need. 210 JEAN EVARTS Jesus has told its that unless we become as little children we shall in no wise enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. No more common sense statement of Truth was ever made. The attitude of the child who goes to his parent for that which will meet his needs is one of faith that amounts to understanding. He knows that his parent loves him, and that he is able to meet the need. More- over, he knows that his parent will meet it, if he has not already done so. The child is not anxious for the morrow, nor does he plan and scheme far ways of meeting the problems that shall arise in the future. In his way he knows that there will be problems, but he likewise knows that they will be solved for him, and that he has only to stand and see the solution made. He does not burden himself with responsibilities, nor limit himself by outlining and planning events and means, from w^hich he will find that he must struggle to free himself later. He does not regard himself as im- portant, in the sense of being necessary to the accomplishment of any purpose or work, and so does not entangle himself in the chains of person- ality, or personal sense. He knows that right now he is the son of one who is able and willing to give him all that he needs, and he rests happy in this beautiful understanding. Everything that is pure and lovely pleases him. Wealth, as the world regards it, is unknown to his thought. A flower, a book, the sunlight, freedom such things constitute his wealth. He knows nothing of the lust of gold, nor the greed and avarice of material 211 THE DIARY OF accumulation. He knows nothing of selfish ambi- tion for place and power. He sees no evil. He knows that he lives in an atmosphere of love, and that his only task is to reflect that love in his daily life. Men of the world, materialists and hard busi- ness men, would openly scoff at such a picture. But deep in their hearts, when the toil and strife of the day is over, and their weary bodies rest for a brief hour before the struggle begins anew, they turn yes, every one of them turns back to those dream-days of youth, to linger over such scenes of simple happiness as they have never known since they attained to that dubious state called manhood. With an unutterable longing they turn to those care-free days; and with greater honesty than they manifest in their daily business dealings they confess that they would lay their earthly all, gold, lands, possessions of every sort, on the altar for a return to the inno- cence and bliss of childhood. When Jesus said that we must become as little children, he meant that we must return to a state of mental innocence and purity. Not that there must be any return to ignorance or helplessness, nor to childish and immature views, but that as regards our understanding of God as our infinite Father, and our absolute trust and confidence in Him, we must emulate the child's attitude toward its earthly parent. Freeing the mind from thoughts of limitation prevents limitation from becoming a part of our conscious experience. And 212 JEAN EVAETS so it is with every thought of evil, of discord, sick- ness, and even of death itself, for it will be found that death is but the thought or belief of death externalized in the human consciousness. Why should we permit thoughts of limitation to enter our minds, when Jesus showed that his tremendous power was based upon freedom from such thoughts ? Why should we doubt the Father, when Jesus showed us so plainly what the Father is? He said, "I and my Father are one," and, "Having seen me ye have seen the Father." Why do we not take him at his word and know that, having seen Jesus, we have indeed seen the Father? Jesus was the manifestation of love, tenderness, goodness, and irresistible power. He proved that he possessed these things by showing what he could do with them. Then he added that the Father was even greater than he, for it was the Father that was manifested through him. And finally he said that if we would follow his sayings, and do as he bade us do, we should prove the Truth of all he taught. What could be more direct and simple! And can anything more be done for us ? If a teacher gives his pupil the rule for solving a problem, is not the pupil provided with all that he needs for obtaining the correct result? God's work is done; and if we will stop grumbling and complaining about unrealities, and will see in Jesus a reflection of the Father him- self, and will take Jesus at his word and begin to follow him, we can do our own work and bring out 213 THE DIAEY OF harmony and perfection in our conscious experi- ence here in this world. Yes, it does mean being ' * made over. ' ' It does mean losing most of our present cherished con- cepts, most of our present opinions, all of our mere hypotheses, our speculations and guesses; it does mean the loss of material pleasures, as well as material pains. But is not this just what the world is really striving for? Is not the end to be attained worth the sacrifice? Paul thought so, when he said, "For I reckon that the suffer- ings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. ' ' But he knew that that glory never could be revealed in a mind filled with thoughts of evil and power opposed to God. And so he set about emptying his mind of such thought, putting off the old man and putting on the new. And so we must start with a change in the manner of our thinlftng. God must be all to us, or nothing there is no half-way position. The so- called ironies of fate, sickness, loss, disaster, and chance, must be recognized as the products of false thinking, or thinking on a basis of ignor- ance. Either all is Spirit, or else all is matter. All is Good, or else all is evil the two cannot exist as realities side by side. If we assume that God, Good, and evil coexist, but that Good is greater than evil, we make God responsible for the existence of evil, in that He permits it to exist, although being greater than evil, He could destroy it. Hence, under this assumption, God, by allow- 214 JEAN EVABTS' ing evil to exist, ceases to be Good, and we no longer have two powers, Good and evil, but one only, and that evil. If we assume that Good and evil exist as two equal but opposite powers, we assume an utterly impossible state of things, just as impossible as to make light and darkness exist together. Under this assumption we would never see Good over- coming evil, nor evil overcoming Good, since these two powers would be equal and opposite. The human mind is unable to comprehend such a thing, just as unable to comprehend it as to indicate the effect of an irresistible force meeting an abso- lutely immovable body. If we assume that Good and evil coexist, but that evil is greater than Good, we make evil re- sponsible for the continued existence of Good, and to that extent evil ceases to be evil and becomes Good. Hence the result is not two powers, one evil and the other Good, but one only, and that Good. If we assume that evil is all, and that Good does not exist, we fail to account for known facts, unless we assume that what appears to be Good is but a seeming reality. The conclusion from this sort of reasoning is that there cannot be two powers, Good and evil. One of them must be an assumption, just as we are forced to assume that either light is real and darkness is but the absence of light, and there- fore unreal, or vice versa. 215 THE DIARY OF A real thing is a reality forever, and can never cease to exist, nor can it ever be controverted or overcome. The principles, as they are called, of any real science, such as mathematics, can never be overthrown; they remain the same throughout eternity. We may not understand them, and in our ignorance we may reach wrong conclusions. But the principles remain unaffected. Errors in mathematics are unreal, for they have no basis of principle upon which to ret. They are simply misstatements of fact. If a single evil condition can be overcome, it shows that the condition could not have been real, but must have been a supposition, or seeming reality. If a single condition of real Good is overcome by evil, it shows that the Good was like- wise but a seeming. But if we assume that all is evil, and then attempt to work out our salvation on that basis, or even attempt to live harmonious lives on that as a working hypothesis, we make a sorry business of it, for the results that we obtain are sin, sickness, discord, and finally death and oblivion. But Jesus assumed that all was Good, and on that basis, the working hypothesis of the allness of God, he overcame every form of evil. What must be the conclusion f Simply the same conclusion we always reach in solving a mathe- matical problem, namely, that the errors of exist- ence are unreal, and the Principle and correct solution are real and eternal. This is the con- clusion that Mrs. Eddy reached and proved to be correct. And those who are following in the way 216 JEAN EVAETS she has led are now proving it. The results they have already obtained show that the assumption that God, Good, is all, and that evil is nothing real, is being proved correct, and to the extent that it is so proved it ceases to be an assumption and becomes a fact. Either all is Spirit, or all is matter. But we know that all is not matter, for Truth, Mind, Power, Thought, Love, are not material. And as we enumerate these things which, after all, are the greatest things with which we have to do, matter dwindles in importance, until at last we find that about the only claim left for it is that of being substance. But matter cannot be substance, sub-Slare, that which underlies all things, for in every experience, such, for example, as building a house or writing an essay, that which always precedes the material manifestation is a mental action. So about all we can say for matter is that it seems to be an expression of mentality. But, as matter expresses discord and error, it must be the expression of an erroneous mentality and an erroneous mentality is no mentality at all, but a claim of mentality, which is false, unreal, and therefore without power. Matter owes its very existence to sense-testi- mony ; and this so-called testimony we have found to be but the thoughts existing already within the human mentality. Matter never supplies, and never did supply, a single human need. Men are supposed to be surrounded by matter everywhere, and yet, with all this abundance of material things 217 THE DIARY OF about them, they Still continue to sicken, suffer, and die. The atomic structure is never substance. The substance of a silver dollar to the man who is cold and hungry is not the chemical composition of the material dollar, but its purchasing power, a mental thing. Nor is the food or coal that he may purchase with this dollar real substance, for these things alone have no power. He is seeking a mental state, a state of what he calls comfort and warmth and satisfaction, but none the less a mental state, a state of consciousness. And ma- terial ways of thinking have made the man believe that this mental state depends upon matter. But the real substance that he seeks is never for a moment material, but wholly mental. It is a state of thought-activity, or consciousness. The material concept, with all its varied phe- nomena, represents only what appears to mortals to exist in the absence of the spiritual, or divine concept. The material concept is a cheat, a fraud, a counterfeit, depending wholly upon human cred- ulity for its existence and power. The real Man is immaterial and eternal, not subject to space limitation or time changes. Space and time are neither cause nor effect, but merely limitation. Time has rightly been called "the greatest cheat in human experience." Almost every limitation circumscribing the efforts of mortals can be stated in terms of time. But God's children are living and working in an infinite present, a present that is God-governed, and without beginning or ending, always with us. "Now is the accepted 218 JEAN EVARTS time," for the only real time there is is "Now," the present. The human concept of time has no place in infinite Mind, nor in the consciousness that reflects it. Old age, senility, decay, death, all follow as logical conclusions from the limiting premise of time as a reality. But we who are gaining the true understanding of God's infinitude are beginning to undo the evils that come from this false concept. We know that no time can be lost, and that so-called age counts for nothing. For, if we start right and persist, we know that God will make up to us all so-called lost time, even as the prophet said, "I will restore to you the years that the locust hath eaten." Human salvation is brought about by a change of thought, and not by a change of matter. The material sense of life, this sense of personality which we call the body, is the seat of all our evil propensities. All evil finds its origin in one or more of the five so-called physical senses; and these, as we have seen, are but the outer accom- paniment of mortal thinking. The human body is a human or mortal mind belief. It is a thing of thought, existing within the human thought- activity which we call consciousness. There is no more reason for believing that life depends upon the body than there is for believing that it depends upon any of the other thought-objects that are posited within consciousness. That the body is formed and made up of thought is shown by its changing under a changed thought regarding it. The state of consciousness in which the fleshly 219 THE DIARY OF, body has its existence as a material object may be ''transformed by the renewing of your mind," and is being so transformed daily by those who have gained sufficient understanding of these things to effect such a change. It is because the human body is a thing of thought that Jesus was able to control it at will, working those deeds which the world so ignorantly calls miracles, but which we are now learning were, as a contempor- ary writer clearly phrases it, ''expressions of God's law made conceivable to the human senses." It is just because matter is a thing of thought, a mental concept, that Jesus was able to walk on the water and pass through closed doors. The so-called law that the human body shall sink in water, or shall not pass through another material object, is not of God's making, but is an enactment of mortal belief, a supposititious law that Jesus could and did annul by knowing the Truth. If God had created this fleshly man, we could not put him off. But having projected him out of our own thinking, and existing as he does only in con- sciousness, thought-activity, we can put him off by attaining a spiritual consciousness. This is the way pointed out by Jesus. This is being born again. Mortal life is a false sense of life. It is the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil. Jesus said that to be spiritually minded is life. He knew that life is not a breathing and eating process, but a process of knowing in other words, he knew that conscious exigence is what men call life, and that the quality of consciousness 220 JEAN EVARTS depends upon the quality of thought that is active in forming it. To know to understand is to live. To have perfect health, abundance, and har- mony, we must live spiritually, not materially, and we must give up our cherished beliefs in matter and evil. We must know and have but the one God, "to know whom is life eternal." To assume that knowledge depends upon the vibrations of a few pieces of flesh within certain brain centers, is utter folly, pitiable ignorance. The mortal man sees, hears, smells, taSles, and feels only his own thoughts, and as he thinks so is he. If he thinks he can succeed in an under- taking, he builds success out of his thoughts. If he limits his success in any direction, he brings out the fruit of such limitation in conscious exper- ience. The laws of limitation which hedge man- kind about and which prevent them from reaching their ideals are of human origin, and have only the sanction of human belief. It is the things that the mortal man affirms about himself and his world around him that show what he is holding in his thought, and these he is constantly bring- ing out in his conscious experience. Jesus once said, "But I say unto you, that every idle word that men speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment. For by thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be con- demned." If we think and voice failure, disease, loss and lack, these will become manifested in our conscious experience. We give account of them in the "day of judgment," the day and hour when 221 THE DIARY OP JEAN EVARTS these things, according to the law of externaliza- tion of thought, manifest themselves as claims of evil, having the reality that we have given them. #**##*:* "You will find," he added, "that the day of judgment is every day, until the last claim of power apart from God has been overcome and put out. Truth stirs up all that seems to be opposed to it, and so you may consider that every experi- ence is given you for the purpose of demonstrating God's allness and Man's dominion. But remem- ber that you are Love's idea, and as such you never can be touched by error, for error is not of God, and has no power." MAY 24TH MAY 24TH OU have asked why the Christian churches do not at once accept the Truth that Mrs. Eddy has given to the world," said my friend, as I was preparing for today's part of his message. "In reply I think we may again cite the Law of Receptivity, which we have discussed to some extent in reference to the human mind. Truth enters that mentality which is receptive to it. Error does likewise. The human mind becomes receptive to Truth only as it empties itself to some extent of prejudice and erroneous beliefs. On this point Mrs. Eddy has said, "Must Christian Science come through the Christian churches as some persons insist? This Science has come already, after the manner of God's appointing, but the churches seem not ready to receive it, according to the Scriptural saying, 'He came unto his own, and his own re- ceived him not.' Jesus once said: 'I thank Thee, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that Thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes : even so, Father, for so it seemed good in Thy sight.' As aforetime, the spirit of the Christ, which taketh away the ceremonies and doctrines of men, is not accepted until the hearts of men are made ready for it." (Science and Health, page 131.) If the Church had held to the spirit of the teachings of Jesus, and had been satisfied to re- 225 THE DIAB? OF, main as unorthodox as he, it would not have fallen into its present state of confusion. If Jesus, by precept and example, taught the non-existence of matter as real substance, what warrant has the Christian church ever had for preaching its anthropomorphic doctrine of a spiritual Creator and a material creation! If this is an age of re- ligious skepticism and confusion, it is because the expanding human thought is becoming weary of the diet of husks that has been fed to it in the name of Christianity for a thousand years. Hungering for Truth, yet in a state of unpre- paredness for its reception, the human mind has "sought out many inventions," and it finds itself today gorged with its own hypotheses and inter- pretations. These failing to stand the test of genuineness, it has plunged into an excess of ma- terialism, to such an extent that our present cen- tury witnesses an almost unprecedented develop- ment of the lust of pleasure and worldly gain. Mortals are driven with the business of material accumulation ; they work with desperation be- neath the lash of their own self-imposed laws. With the religious demand unsatisfied by the con- fusion of books and voices, the myriad advices and opinions, warnings and spurs, conflicting and tormenting, that have been offered to it in the name of Christ, the human mind is turning against the beliefs of its fathers, and now seems about to throw aside everything that does not bear the stamp of crass materialism, or that does 226 JEAN EVAETS not promise to satisfy, in part at least, its craving for material pleasures and power. The Christian church, clinging tenaciously to ancient systems of dogma and ceremonialism, is powerless to check the stir within the human mind. Human thought is expanding under the stimulus of a divinely inspired desire for Truth; but the Christian church, holding to its effete traditions, jealous of its systems of faith, and shaken with dread lest it lose its monopoly of religious truth, regards this desire with suspicion, and opposes itself to it with the inevitable result that it must either throw off its own limitations, or be swept aside. The Bible has been said to be a record of the development of the concept of God in the human mind. It records both the progress and the errors that attended this unfoldment. Early in the his- tory of the Jewish religion it ceased to be re- garded as a collection of records, and became a unit, whose sole author was declared to be God. The Helvetic Confession of Faith went to the extreme of announcing that the words, letters, and even the marks of punctuation which formed the book were all directly inspired by Him. The Bible, under this limiting thought, became infallible upon every subject, from the creation of man out of the dust of the ground, to the unveiling of the New Jerusalem, as recorded in the book of Reve- lation. The dogma of infallibility has given rise to the most extravagant beliefs and conceptions of the 227 THE DIARY OF human mind ; and these, as has been tersely said, ''grew up under every kind of influence except that of genuine evidence." The letter of Chris- tianity, grafted upon the decaying stock of Rome's former paganism, blossomed anew as a religious system, and flourished for centuries, until its merciless tyranny and awful corruption finally rent it asunder, and gave rise to what promised to be a better conception of the mission and teachings of Jesus. But the Christian church that today assumes to evangelize the world through preaching the message of Jesus, has deadened her influence by her own self-imposed limitations. She preaches a faith that is largely without vitality, and her creeds lack the demonstrative force of living Truth. She is blind to the fact that true religion is not expressed in denominationalism and sectar- ianism, and that in drawing the sharp line that she does between the religious and the secular, she has placed herself in an attitude of prejudice and suspicion toward new revelations that is fatal to her own claims. Mankind hunger for God. The human mind is aware of that within it "which makes for right- eousness" a something that is drawing the whole world upward. Its heart-hunger is expressed in a restless search for the means of satisfying its desires for the permanent and true. It rightly regards these desires as prophetic of that which will meet them. It turns to the Christian church, and asks for a living, ever-present God, a Father 228 JEAN EVAETS who is immanent, and who will love mankind, care for them, and heal their diseases. The Church holds out promises of a life beyond the grave, con- tingent upon certain conditions to be met here; but it offers little surcease from sorrow, sickness or misery this side of the gateway of death. Mor- tals are left to infer that God himself made a mistake at the beginning of things, and was forced to invent a scheme to redeem His own failure. But if God mistakes, what hope is there for man? What does the Westminster Confession avail the honest mind that is seeking to know and manifest Truth in this life? What does the majesty of the Infinite mean to the man who be- holds the tawdry earth-trappings, the smoke of incense, and the painted images that are employed in His worship? What love for the Creator do the thought-fossils of foreordination, original sin, and the fall of man inspire in the human breast? Is it strange that, in the absence of higher ideals, mortal man turns to the love of gold and the fleet- ing material pleasures that give him at least a moment's forgetfulness of his doom? With God there is no respect of persons. The restoration of the spiritual import of the teach- ings of Jesus has not come through the Christian church for the obvious reason that she was not prepared for such a revelation. Her feeble faith, her lack of spiritual understanding, her fixed be- lief in sentient matter and the power of evil, her materializing theology and speculations, her stub- bornness and prejudice in the face of new revela- 229 THE DIAEY OF tions and the discovery of scientific truths, her coldness toward the poor in spirit and her syco- phantic amiability toward the wealthy and re- spectable these are but a few of the obstacles that have barred her door against the inflow of Truth. The human mind into which the desire for Truth has penetrated wearies of being told that the children of God are miserable sinners, worms of the earth, outcasts through the fall of a myth- ical Adam. It wearies of centuries of vain wan- dering amid the fogs of error. It strives to shake off the drag of hereditary beliefs and false educa- tion, and rise, here and now, into a larger freedom of thought and action. The Psalmist has said, ' ' The Lord is nigh unto all them that call upon him, to all that call upon him in truth." It seems as if it were almost by an afterthought that he added the vital statement that the calling upon the Lord must be made in truth. But the Christian church has shut her eyes to any but her own interpretations of Truth. Be- cause she has substituted materiality for spirit- uality, she has lost the power to heal the sick. Be- cause she can not comprehend the non-existence of matter, she denies the fact. Yet Jesus, whose teachings she assumes to interpret, plainly showed that the material senses do not testify of Truth; and scientific methods today demand that one's conclusions be founded on something more sub- stantial than the evidence of the physical senses. The unreality of the material concept was hinted 230 JEAN EVARTS at centuries ago by Plato, who propounded the theory that ideas, or abstract forms, are the only realities, and that the things which are abstracted from these forms are mere shams. In speaking of this earthly life he calls it the dream of a soul walking among images. But Plato is a pagan; and the hungry soul that turns from the chaff of theological dogma is a heretic! The confusion of life that is so apparent today results from the human mind's ceaseless endeavor to reach a correct concept of that which consti- tutes Reality. It must have some sort of ideal it must imitate something for its nature is a sim- ulation of the divine nature of God himself. It will follow that which is held before it until it either rises higher, and in a degree out of itself or falis into the ditch. In the seeming absence of the true understanding of God, men dissipate their energies in a selfish scramble for material possessions even though they know that these will not yield lasting satisfaction. Leaving the spiritual nature to atrophy beneath the debris of materialism, they wear themselves out in life's drudgery, monotony, and utter purposelessness. Religion has been sadly misinterpreted to the human mind. It is more than feeble sentiment, more than restraint of inclination or instinct it is vastly more than resignation and subordination to material concepts. It is that which binds men to Life itself ; it is the core, the heart, the soul, the very essence of man it is the Principle of the Universe Love. It cannot be compressed into 231 THE DIAEY OF creed or dogma, nor narrowed into selfish systems of faith it cannot be monopolized by sect or cult nor can all the barriers of human prejudice and false belief that fill the material concept of the universe keep it from entering the human mind and driving out the thieves and money changers that have made it their abode. It is true religion Love that is at work in the human conscious- ness, stirring ancient errors to their very founda- tions, that it may cast them out and give their places to true concepts of God and His infinite manifestation. It is Love that "something not ourselves ' ' within us that is drawing the human mind upward up, up, until its shackles fall, its fetters loosen, and its errors melt up, out of itself, out of every thought of power opposed to God, out of every belief of God as the creator of an imperfect universe and a man that could fall up into a realization of those things which God has prepared for us, which have been from the beginning, where the light of Truth reveals Man as the immortal image and likeness of Spirit, the Father himself. Mankind's problems are spiritual, not ma- terial; and so the world turns to the Christian church for guidance. But this church, as its supreme spiritual leader, has stubbornly refused to share in the expansion of the human mind an expansion, under the stimulus of Truth, which is destined to dematerialize the world's thought. Ecclesiastical vision has been sadly awry. God does not work through fear and ignorance to 232 JEAN EVAETS frighten His children into the Kingdom He is not cajoled or wheedled by flattery He is not de- ceived byTiypocrisy nor is He coaxed into open- ing the gates of Purgatory by the chanting of masses. The evangelization of the world is a noble ideal ; but how shall men make true progress if they must eventually unlearn such wild ex- travagances as these, that are still taught in the name of religion? The Christian church has per- sisted through nineteen centuries because, in its slow progression and unpreparedness for the rapid reception of Truth, the human mind has de- manded a spiritual leader has demanded a sys- tem of religious thought that would minister to its hopes and fears has demanded an outlet through which to express its religious instinct and because, greater than these, it constituted the Christian church custodian of the letter of the Word, believing that it would itself some day rise into a greater spiritual understanding of its im- port believing, too, that through the ministra- tions of the Church it would be prepared for the fulfilment of the promised second coming of the Christ. A system that depends upon human credulity for its existence must fall when that credulity yields to understanding. The desire for true growth which is active within the human con- sciousness can be satisfied only by fulfilling God's law of progress. We ayjproach that which we worship. If our model be infinite Mind, we move toward it, leaving behind us shrine and temple, 233 THE DIARY OF smoking incense and carven image, droning priest and chanting prelate ; we turn from the mystery of evil to the simplicity of Good ; we accept the com- prehensive account of the Creation as given by the Pentateuchal writer, who records that "God saw everything that he had made, and, behold, it was very good;" we reject the statement of the material concept of creation, wherein the Jewish tribal sense of Deity formed man out of the dust of the ground and prepared him for an inevitable fall ; we realize the two-fold character of the book of Genesis, the account of the spiritual creation, and the succeeding statement of its counterfeit, the human misapprehension of what God had done; we know that the materialistic account is the ' ' Adain-dream, " the "mist" which has be- fogged the centuries, and which still clouds the human sense as "the same veil untaken away;" we know that the carnal mind is created out of the dust, and therefore cleaves to materialism ; we know that Jesus 's teachings set forth this view, and that he indicated the solution of the problem of life in a substitution of Truth for fiction Good for the false sense of evil. He voiced the real, in the face of opposing human opinion; and he proved his words by his deeds. He knew that his works were in violation of so-called physical laws ; but he showed them to rest squarely upon the im- manence of God as infinite Good. To overcome evil, the human mind must know that it is unreal. But to accept the truth of the unreality of evil does not imply any license to in- 234 JEAN EVARTS dulge the sense of evil on the basis of its nothing- ness; for indulgence of evil is an assertion of its reality. Nor does the acceptance of the truth of the unreal nature of evil justify mankind in ignor- ing it. Evil, though possessing no reality or power of its own, is nevertheless accorded these qualities by the human mind; and to get rid of the sense of evil calls for vigorous work, based upon true knowledge, and sustained by a faith that amounts to understanding. Centuries of be- lief in the vicarious atonement of Jesus have not eradicated sin and discord from human experi- ence; and hundreds of sects and denominations, with their myriad creeds and ceremonies, their antagonisms and foolish jealousies, have left man- kind far removed from the spiritual sense of their Creator, with the veil still untaken away. Life on the human plane is what we are alive to the things that we are conscious of make up our conscious existence. The shaping of con- sciousness is a function of our receptivity, and it becomes a thing of beauty and rational progres- sion, or a thing of shame and retrogression, as we are open to the influence of Truth or error. To be alive to the things of the carnal mind is to be spiritually dead and that is death indeed! To cling to the Jehovistic concept of God is to lose the concept of Him as Love. To believe in matter as substance is to deny the reality of Spirit. There is no obstruction in the upward pathway of man- kind except the universal pantheism of the belief in a power opposed to God. This belief has given 235 THE DIARY OF power and life to matter in human thought, and has created an environment of malign influences that beset the mortal on every side. The human mind, thus self-infected, drags out a weary exist- ence of death in life, turning hopelessly to creed and doctrine, to physician and soothsayer, know- ing that it bears its doom stamped plainly across it, which no human means can avert. But again through the darkness of human be- lief is heard the clarion call: Awake! ye that slumber, and Christ shall give you light! For why will ye die! The pure Christianity of the Christ is again revealed to the world, and all who will may understand and live ! The statement of the Christ Principle which has been given us by Mrs. Eddy has not come through the Christian churches but the world is responding to its gentle influence. The Christ has not appeared in the skies, with a blare of trumpets and a display of earthly pomp-^-but it has been revealed as ever-present Good, the Love that has penetrated the density of human thought and rekindled the flame of spiritual understand- ing. It comes as a disturber of comfortable con- ventions and listless conformity but only that the tares within the human mind may be rooted up and consumed. Neither prelate nor doctor has ever discovered any logical reason why human beings should die they kill themselves with their false beliefs. Death is not a cessation of Life, but a stoppage of the simulated activity of false thought which con- 236 JEAN EVAETS stitutes the human consciousness. Mortals yield to their self-imposed laws of life in matter and then receive the wages of their sin, death. Life is infinite, and cannot be reduced to the finite. The human sense of life is a series of slates of consciousness, and its pains and pleasures are but links in the chain. The emptiness of the Nir- vana of the Buddhistic despiser of the world is no greater than the emptiness of the mortal sense of life. The finite human mind believes that all things have had a beginning, and that God created a universe of matter out of nothingness. It is true, the material universe has been created out of nothingness, and it manifests the evanescent nature of its component. But its creator is mor- tal mind itself a perverted sense of things that misinterprets Spirit as matter, and counterfeits the law of spiritual gravitation in the human law of heredity, the drag of the ages, embodying the sins of all our ancestors, and making the helpless babe of today partaker of the doom of the legend- ary Adam! The true plan of Redemption is actual con- version of the human mind a re-making of the human consciousness that results in its yielding in every particular to the Divine. The mortal and his environment are not to be moulded and re- shaped, but actually transformed by the renewing of the mind. To master one's environment is, as has been frequently said, to have the world nay, the universe in one's grasp. But we may be sure that the grasp of the spiritual universe will 237 THE DIARY OF JEAN EVAETS remain impossible to that consciousness in which there is the slightest taint of materiality; while to grasp the material concept of the universe is but to see it turn to ashes and vanish into its native nothingness. "The human race is progressing," he sair ^s he concluded his talk for the day ; "its moral tem- perature is rising it has got to rise, for there is that at work in the human mentality which is destined to effect its complete transformation, by lifting it out of itself. The revelation of the spiritual import of the teachings of Jesus has already come, and nothing can be gained by re- sisting it on the ground that it did not come through the human mind's established Church. It came as God himself willed that it should ; and it is teaching men that the Lord is available to all them that call upon Him in Truth. As in the first- century of our era, so today, honesty, loyalty, and unswerving adherence to the demonstrable Chris- tianity of Jesus reveal the Father as that ever- present Love which meets all real needs of the human mind to effect the transformation which awaits it." MAY 25TH MAY 25TH E have had much to say about the human mind, so-called," said my friend, after he had greeted me this morning and seated himself at my side; "and we have sought to show how in Ms every-day life moiial man does not see real things, but only his thoughts of things. To this is due his resistance to all that lies beyond the range of his limited vision. Today we shall consider some of the criticisms which the world has directed against the truths we have been discussing, and shall try to .show that denial of spiritual reality has arisen solely from the finite human mind's lack of com- prehension," The resistance which the human mind seems to offer to the spiritual import of the teachings of Jesus as given to the world by Mrs. Eddy varies with the density of this so-called mind's ignorance regarding itself and the nature of the divine Mind and the spiritual Creation, including Man as God's reflection. No man has ever been criticised as Jesus was, and if the spirit of the present age seems more tolerant it is because mankind in the intervening centuries have advanced at least a de- gree out of the dense materialism of the Augustan era. But in a consideration of some of the criti- cisms that have been directed against the Science of Christianity we must keep clearly in thought the fact that whatever is real is always above 241 THE DIARY OF criticism, and that the human mind does not criti- cise real things, but only its concepts of things. Its criticisms are directed solely against its own mental pictures, or interpretations, of realities. These interpretations are made within its spur- ious mental activity under the influences of her- edity, education, human opinion, and the supposed testimony of the five physical senses. Criticisms against the " transcendentalism" or "ultra-idealism" of the Science of Christianity, as formulated by Mrs. Eddy, arise from the human mind's resistance to the premise that all things are mental. To this mind the mental nature of a supposedly solid material object is gross absurdity. But when called upon to explain the true nature of matter it confesses its utter help- lessness and the realm of the mental is to it a no less unexplored and unmapped region. Mankind accept what to them is obvious, what they think they see about them, and approve the method of the illustrious Dr. Samuel Johnson, who settled the disputed question of the reality of matter by stamping upon the ground. It is because of the acceptance by mankind of such superficial and in- adequate proofs as this that the reality of the spiritual is limited and all but denied. It is be- cause the study of mind has been restricted by predicating a physical and material basis for mental phenomena that the so-called mental sciences have been so barren of real results. Such sciences treat only of the human mind and its simulated activities. Knowledge derived from JEAN EVARTS such study is wholly relative, dealing only with phenomena and effects, never with absolute Cause. True, the cataloguing of mental phenom- ena may be interesting, and the tabulating of effects has led to much that is seemingly practical to the human mind. But the question of real progress as indicated by the development of such knowledge is a debatable one, for the undoubted progress of the human race through the ages is not to be traced to the discovery and amplification of material modes. Its cause is much deeper seated, even in Mind itself, whose unfolding ideas are dimly reflected in the human consciousness. It is not too much to say that mankind are dupes of their own physical senses. Blind accept- ance of the so-called testimony of these senses, even when tempered by human reasoning, prev- ious training, and education, has led to the sort of existence which is called human life, wherein through a few short years belief and speculation are externalized in a medley of physical pains and pleasures, joys and sorrows, phenomena, effects and relative knowledge, and then go out. It is vain for mankind to insist that such a life is normal and the plan of an omnibeneficent Creator, and that they are satisfied with such an existence. Their heart-yearnings, even in the midst of the greatest material pleasures, even where the en- vironment is all that wealth and human ingenuity can purchase or devise, give such statements the lie. The average life history of mankind is one 243 THE DIARY OF of blasted hopes and futile drivings for things that cannot satisfy. Physical science explains nothing in the causal sense. Therefore, as an ontological fact, it may be said that matter does not exist. Nor is there such a thing as a material fact, for facts are men- tal and exist in Mind only. The human mind's knowledge of itself and its environment is based upon the testimony which it believes it receives from the five physical senses. Owing to its essen- tially counterfeit nature, its first tendency is to ascribe reality to that which is unreal. This it must do, in the supposed absence of Truth. It is quite true that the eye cannot tell how nor .why it sees material objects; the ear cannot say how it hears ; nor can the hands inform the human mind how it is that they seem to be able to awaken within it a cognition of objects without. Nor can these senses say why it is that they render such erroneous reports, reports so far from even rela- tive truth that, could we not by reason and under- standing correct our sense-impressions, we would be obliged to discredit them entirely. Neither can these senses tell why they are unable to testify of the existence of God, of Spirit, of Mind. But the stupendous fact remains that were mankind left to the testimony of the physical senses alone they never could know Him at all, for not only do these senses not testify of Him, but they abso- lutely deny His existence and the existence of the spiritual Universe. Yet the sum total of human 244 JEAN EVAETS knowledge is based upon faith in testimony which denies existence to the Creator! As we sit here and look out upon the landscape that stretches across our field of vision, so rich in color, so diverse in form and expression, the thought that all that we see is wholly within our- selves comes to us as a rude shock. Surely the hill that glistens yonder in the morning sun is a very real hill, solid and earthy, and the trees that crow T n it with beauty are genuine matter-sub- stance! The sense of sight tells me that the ''I" sees the hill without and is aware of its external and separate existence. And yet I must confess that the question, "What is this 'I,' and what is yonder 'hill,' and how does the 'I' become aware of the hill's independent existence?" awakens no response within the chambers of my mentality. In looking at the hill I become aware of a sense of its actuality. Cognition takes the form of con- sciousness, for I become conscious of those objects at which I look, provided there is sufficient light to make them visible. Physical sight, therefore, is wholly dependent upon light. In the absence of light I must acquire a consciousness of external objects through the medium of one or more of the other physical senses. "Light," to quote Pro- fessor C. S. Minot, of Harvard, in the Encyclo- pedia Americana, "is a series of undulations, but we do not perceive the undulations as such, but as red, yellow, and green. Objectively, red, yellow, and green do not exist. Similarly with the vibrations of the air, certain of which cause 245 THE DIARY OF the sensation of sound, which is purely subjective. But the sound gives us information concerning our surroundings, although in nature external to us there is no sound at all. Similarly all our other senses report to us circumstances and con- ditions, but always the report is unlike the ex- ternal reality. Our sensations are symbols merely, not images." Again we come back to the apparent fact that physical .sense-testimony is due to undulations, or vibrations, and that our awareness of the exist- ence of a material object is a slate of conscious- ness. Consciousness is a mental condition. Can we say that it is due to vibrations, or even stimu- lated by them? Vibrations or undulations, whether of the air or of the suppositional ether, do not enter the mental chambers of mortals, for between the realms of the mental and the material there is a great gulf fixed. Yet in reducing the process of cognition down to dependency upon vibrations, our physical scientists have carried it almost to the portal of mind, for vibrations, even of air particles or gases, are much less material than other forms of supposed material activity, and to regard as causal undulations in the sup- positional realm of the ether, upon which scien- tists acknowledge that the phenomenon of light depends, or to which it is due, all but bridges the gulf. It is much more difficult to support the theory of matter-substance than of Mind as substance. Physicists could not even attempt an explanation 246 JEAN EVARTS of material phenomena without predicating the exigence of that marvelous medium known as the ether, in which all phenomena must occur. But again, the properties which must be ascribed to the ether in order to account for material phe- nomena make it far more mental than material, even though it were possible to reconcile our thought to its being much more rigid than steel, while at the same time some six hundred billion times lighter than air. At most, the ether is a theory, necessary to the explanation on a material basis of the phenomena of force. We have said that the formerly accepted "atomic theory" of matter is now rapidly being superseded by the "electron theory," matter being regarded as built up of electrons, these being l ' superimposed layers of positive and nega- tive electricity." But electricity is manifested as force, not as matter. It cannot be regarded as having any of the properties commonly attributed to matter, such as weight, extension, etc. Ma- terial objects are said to be "extended bodies." Now by what process of mental reasoning can extended bodies be built up out of non-extended units f How can an aggregation of things that do not admit of extension be formed into an ex- tended object? The trend of physical science today is toward a single indestructible force, or substance, under- lying all force and infinitely varied in its expres- sion. But Jesus said this same thing centuries ago, and he proved it by what the human mind 247 THE DIAEY OF ignorantly calls miracles. If the basis of matter is electricity, and electricity is a phenomenon of the omnipresent ether, and the ether is far more mental than material, what must be the logical assumption, even from the standpoint of physical science? Jesus called this underlying substance Spirit. Paul wrote, l ' God quickeneth all things. ' ' Why then predicate a material medium as the basis of energy? For if God exists at all, He must be infinite, and He can be infinite only by being Mind, not matter, nor a union of mind and matter. And infinite Mind must include all things and must express itself in an infinite variety of ways, this infinite expression all being included within Mind. Physicists tell us that much more takes place in the ether than is caught by the five physical senses. Psychologists say that the realm of mind is all but unexplored territory. Cannot the one who makes even a pretense to logical thinking see that the world is approaching the acceptance of a mental basis for all that exists? Did not Mrs. Eddy state a spiritual fact when she wrote, "There is no life, truth, intelligence, nor substance in matter. All is infinite Mind and its infinite manifestation, for God is All-in-all"? (Science and Health, page 468.) Mankind are educated to regard the human body as the seat of life. Yet physiologists tell us that this animal body, this pampered and petted thing of flesh and bones, which mortals fear and love, despise and yet cling to with a despairing sense of an awful power of both good and evil 248 JEAN EVARTS which it wields over them, is composed of 85 per cent water and 15 per cent various salts! And the brain, mighty engine of thought, the marvel- ous dynamo supplying the vital current that glows in intelligence, wisdom, love, and power, is but a compound of water and a few commonplace ma- terial elements! Are body and brain causes or effects? Can a chemical union of oxygen, hydro- gen, chlorine, carbon and phosphorus think? Or is the power to think which the brain is supposed to possess dependent upon just the proper com- bination of these various elements, the key to which has not yet been discovered by man? What is it that touches inert matter with a magic wand and bestows upon it the ability to originate thought and action? And if, as the discovery of the element radium indicates, the few primary elements to which all matter is supposed to be reducible are in reality but states of one single element, the one unit out of which all matter is formed; and if this single unit- substance is the electron, itself composed of electricity; and if electricity is but a manifestation of force or en- ergy; and energy is immaterial, intangible, in- visible, without extension, without weight, without density, without mass what becomes of matter? Does it not reduce to mental activity, the activity of thought, energized thought-concepts and men- tal pictures, held within that sort of thought- activity called the "human mind?" Professor Ostwald has said, "The world re- gards energy as only something imagined, some- 249 THE DIARY OF thing abstract, whilst matter is an actual fact. I answer, it is the other way about ! Matter is only a thing imagined, which we have constructed for ourselves, very imperfectly, to represent the con- stant element in the changing series of phenom- ena. Now begin to understand that the actual, i. e., that which acts upon us, is only energy, we have to ascertain by tests in what relation the two conceptions stand, and the result is without a doubt that of energy alone can reality be predi- cated." And what is the constant element in the chang- ing series of phenomena! Even as we have said, Spirit, for matter is the way Spirit, or Soul, or Substance looks to the human mind that is, it is the way real Substance is interpreted in human thought. As far back as the third century Plotinus wrote to a friend, "External objects present us only with appearances, concerning them, there- fore, we possess opinions rather than knowledge. Ideal reality exists behind appearances. The ob- ject perceived is different from the mind perceiv- ing it, we therefore have only a picture of it. Ideal truth is not so perceived. . .The wise man recognizes the idea of good within him. . .Seek not to realize beauty frem without, but from within." If matter is not real substance the mind cannot become aware of its existence. We repeat what we deduced some days ago : the human mind does not see things, but only its thoughts, its own men- tal concepts, its own mental pictures of things as it supposes them to exist. Nor is this refuted by 250 JEAN EVAETS saying that the eye cannot see in the absence of light, in the absence of those undulations which are supposed to evoke the sensation of sight within the brain, and thence within consciousness. True, no human being may be able as yet to prove that real sight does not depend upon the material eye, nor can he as yet prove that life is independ- ent of the physical senses. But it is likewise true that no human being ever supposed that he could do so. Such a tiling has not even been dreamed of as possible, so thoroughly has the mortal mind been enslaved to its oivn false beliefs. Looking steadily at such a belief of limitation, holding firmly in thought the impossibility of such a thing, the mortal sees this belief externalized in a sense of the utter impossibility of the thing, and he yields to what to him is only too obvious. More, he becomes jealous of this belief, and bitterly re- sents any attempts to refute it. Were mankind advanced to a higher degree of spirituality they would restore lost sight even as Jesus did. Matter consists of mental pictures held within the human mind. But what, then, is this human mind? It is, even as we have said, an aggrega- tion of thoughts, actively engaged in forming into mental pictures. The human mind is a mass of thought, self-centered, writhing, twisting, ebbing, flowing thought, the activity of which constitutes consciousness and forms the mental concepts which make up the so-called universe or environ- ment of the mind. These pictures are formed under the thought-influences of education, belief, 251 THE DIAEY OF speculation, etc., and they Stand to this mind as interpretations of real things. The mental imag- ery of material forms represents Substance to this mind, although it is not Substance in any sense of the word. Other material concepts, of law, of love, of energy, etc., represent to this mind its interpretations of Principle, Love, and Spirit. Eelative material truths stand for Truth, and the mortal sense of life is this mind's interpretation of Life itself. Through this mass that constitutes the human mind thoughts are constantly passing, and the mind's personality is therefore ever shifting and changing. Some of these changes are made very rapidly; others require years to effect. But the entire course of its suppositional activity on this plane of existence seldom exceeds a century in time as reckoned by mankind, and the average is very much less. When we say that this mind believes or thinks, we mean that within this mass of thought there are the certain thoughts or beliefs to which we are referring. It is the thought itself which thinks it is the thought itself which is active it is the thought itself which seems to say, "I am," or "I think," or "There is." Where do these thoughts come from that are ever flowing through any in- dividual human mind? From the mass of thought that we have, for the sake of convenience, called the " communal mortal mind." And what is this? It is the direct opposite, the antithesis, of infinite divine Mind. But if divine Mind is infinite, how can it have an opposite? And if it has one, the 252 JEAN EVARTS opposite must be included within divine Mind itself. If the opposite of infinite Mind is real, it is forever included within that Mind. We have said that facts are mental things. Since Mind and Spirit are synonymous terms, facts are spiritual and rest upon Principle, the "that by which all else is," or Truth itself. In any individual case there can be but one state- ment of the fact, or truth, regarding it. With regard to the sum of 2 and 2, the fact is that 2+2 =4, and that ends it, for this is based upon Prin- ciple and therefore admits of no further state- ment or change. It can never be affected or altered in any way. Every fact admits of an endless number and variety of suppositional opposites. With regard to the sum of 2 and 2, we may say that 2+2=7, or 25, or 50, ad infinitum, each such statement being a suppositional opposite of the fact in the case, each being without Principle upon which to rest, and each being wholly without power, except as we voluntarily concede power to it. Any one of these suppositional opposites may enter my mentality and seem to assert itself as a fact, but unless I believe it to be true it cannot affect me in any way. The moment I accept any one of these suppositional opposites as true, however, that moment it begins to influence me and every- thing with which I have to do. My whole outlook, my entire mental experience, every mental state or state of consciousness that I may have in the future will be colored by it as long as I retain it 253 THE DIAEY OF as fact. Should I discover the truth, and recog- nize the erroneous nature of the belief that I have been holding, my whole mental outlook will undergo a corresponding change. Or, if I do not discover the truth, but change from one supposi- tional opposite to another, from one belief to an- other, my mental slate must likewise experience a corresponding change, and there will follow a corresponding change in the externalization of this mental slate, which will be manifested as a change in my environment or my body or in one or more of the objects or affairs with which my thought is a6tive. And, since none of these sup- positional opposites rests upon Principle, or Truth, I am forced to change my belief constantly, for none will meet all conditions or stand all tests. The mental realm embraces all facts. The opposites of these fa6ls are not realities, but sup- positions. They may be classed as speculations, beliefs, theories, or hypotheses. They are often referred to as "claims" when they seem to assert themselves as Truth. Being without a basis of Truth, they change continually by nature they are evanescent and fleeting, resembling thin mists that seem to obscure for a while, but melt with the mounting sun. In other words, they are unreal. Much confusion has arisen with regard to the terms "real" and "unreal." But, as Spencer says, the test of reality is permanence, and what- ever passes away or disappears is unreal. The real endures forever. Therefore only the eternal is real. By this test matter, material man, the 254 JEAN EVAETS material universe, the whole material concept, is unreal. A few days ago we spoke of the Nebular Hypothesis of the origin of the Solar System, and of its failure to explain causation. If we mentally resolve the material universe back to its primitive state, we will pass from this solid, rigid earth, with its surrounding atmosphere, its mountains and streams and its varied life, back to a vast volume of star-dust, or nebular mist, supposed to be the gaseous state of matter-substance. Having done this we have exhausted the Nebular Hypoth- esis and have arrived nowhere ! For this nebula is supposed to hang in space, or drift, or move, all according to fixed laws. But the laws by which it exists and acts are mental things, and must exist, if at all, in a mentality, and in the mentality in which they originated. Laws are not matter- substance ; they are not tangible nor visible. They become known to a mentality by their phenomena, or effects. Moreover, the star-dust, or gaseous vapor of which the nebula is composed, cannot become known until there is a mind to know it and until there is such a mind it cannot be said to have existence at all. Mind must have existed before the nebula was formed; and the formation of the nebula must have followed the framing of the laws by which it exists and acts. But to resolve the universe into star-dust or gases does not begin to explain its origin or com- position. If matter is "superimposed layers of positive and negative electricity," our nebula is 255 THE DIAEY OF an electrical phenomenon, moving and acting in accordance with laws, which themselves are men- tal things. Further, the universe is known to mankind only through the so-called physical senses, hence through undulations and vibrations, from which the human mind is supposed to make up the pictures that constitute its concept of a universe. Again we are forced to conclude that the universe as known to mortals is wholly men- tal and consists of material thought-interpreta- tions of the spiritual Universe which lies back of it. In other words, that the material universe is a misstatement of the spiritual Universe, and exists only in the false thought that constitutes the communal mortal mind, and which is reflected by individual mortal minds, called mankind. Spirit, and therefore Substance, is eternal. Matter is its interpretation in suppositional thought. Hence the origin of the material "law of the conservation of matter." Simulating real Substance, matter has been thought to be inde- structible. But the discovery of radio-activity in our own day has put this theory to rout. The ele- ments, the fundamental constituents of matter, are shown to "run down." True, the process is a very slow one but it is nevertheless a very sure one, and presages the ultimate destruction of the whole material concept. Even to materialists, matter is not the stable thing it was once thought to be; and to those who can look further and dis- cern the mental nature of the material concept, its ultimate destruction is inevitable. 256 The greatest things with which we are con- cerned even on this plane of existence are wholly immaterial. Moreover, as a thing becomes less and less visibly material it increases in power. Heat, steam, the expansion of gases, etc., afford examples of this truth. And finally, the greatest acknowledged power of all is the power of mind, absolutely invisible to the physical senses nay, even denied by them. The power of love is incalculable, far greater than the suppositional power of hatred, far ex- ceeding the so-called power of lust. The power of truth is incomparable the power of error is always measurable, limited, quantitative. And error is always subject to truth is always chang- ing always shifting always passing into new forms never permanent, and never real, but van- ishing from conscious experience when truth is applied to it. The moi-t terrible evils of our civilization, drunkenness, debauchery, enslaving habits, lut, murder, theft what are these when Truth and Love are applied? What became of the slave traffic in our country when Truth and Love were asserted? It is natural that evil should flourish as long as it is held to be truth that error should follow as long as 2-f 2 is supposed to be 7 that men should suffer and die as long as matter is held to be sentient and to be capable of both pain and pleasure that this sense of exist- ence should continue to be transient and fleeting as long as the human mind passes from one belief to another, without finding or accepting the truth. 257 THE DIARY OF Finite mind is not equal to the task of saying what are the workings of the infinite Mind which is God, but we do know that infinite Good cannot create nor cause evil, nor can such Mind know evil as real. Nor can evil be known at all, for a thing is known only when it is known to be real, that is, eternal. All other knowing is but relative. It is not for us to say that infinite Mind holds various statements, or that it ever looks upon supposi- tions. But w r e know enough to put into practice the infinite fact that no creator can be less than good, and for that reason cannot create evil, and therefore that evil is known as such only to the sense of evil, which sense is the suppositional opposite of the spiritual sense of Good. Being transitory, such sense of evil is not real, and there is no need of asking where it exists, for such a question only assumes its reality. It does not exiSt in infinite Mind, and therefore has no exist- ence at all. The finite human mind may argue that it cannot understand such logic. But what can it understand! It may object to accepting things on faith; but it needs to be reminded that nearly everything in its experience is accepted absolutely on faith. Can the wisest savant tell how or why a blade of grass grows? Can the learned academician who refuses to take things on faith explain how the tree springs from the acorn? Or can he define Life and Love? Can he say what holds his material world in space? Has he ever laid a hand upon the great cables that bind the stars together? What can the human mind 258 JEAN EVARTS explain? What does it know, beyond its own little conceits and flimsy beliefs? Is it competent to draw a dividing line between the mental and the material? Then why belittle Mind and assume to set limits to the Infinite? Truth is known only to Truth error only to error. What can the human mind know of reality until Knowledge, based upon absolute Truth, dispels its shadows? The human mind's seeming resistance to the spiritual import of the teachings of Jesus is but another phase of the conflict between the spiritual and the carnal, which shall last until the latter has been overcome. The human mind is forced to change continually in order to simulate as nearly as possible true Being, although seeming to resist any change not due to its own incentive. Appar- ently it is willing to change only in conformity to its own interpretation of facts. Yet it persit- ently follows any model held before it, so be it that it can believe in its actuality. It is for this reason that holding Truth constantly before it causes it to change to conform to it and since the mortal is but error of statement, or belief, a change to conform to Truth must mean the dis- appearance of the error, and therefore of the mortal. When the error that 2 -{-2=7 changes to conform to the truth that 2+2=4, the error en- tirely disappears. The mortal mind, so-called, having no life or power of its own, is wholly inert as far as real activity is concerned. To this mental inertia is due much of the criticism directed against Chris- 259 THE DIARY OF tianity. Mental inertia, or mental laziness, causes resistance to any stimulus to grasp metaphysical facts. Great mental effort is generally required for the proofs of spiritual things to the human consciousness, even as similar effort is necessary in the demonstration of mathematical principles. Persistency and understanding alone can succeed in either case. Throughout the ages there has been nothing so potent to stir the human mind into raging hatred as the Bible, for it is the carrier of the Word of Truth to mankind, and teaches the noth- ingness of the human concept. Utterly opposed by nature to things spiritual, the human mind mu^t of necessity seem to resist all that is unlike itself. Its dense ignorance is a barrier to the entrance of real Knowledge. Believing in the reality of the material concept, it believes in the actuality of evil as a power. Ignorant of the fact that whatever has a beginning must also have an end, it records in its materialistic account of the Creation the statement that the Creator formed the universe out of chaos, nothingness, and made man out of the dust of the ground. Weaving its materialistic theology into a form that it can accept, it makes death the gateway through which material man enters the realm of the spiritual and becomes immortal. Its labors have resulted in a web of fantastic design, but flimsy in texture, con- taining few strands that will hold when the test is applied. 26-0 JEAN EVARTS If the human mind should reason correctly even from its own premises, it would fall afoul of its processes and bring out a reduftio ad ab- surdum. For, as it is willing to admit, the exist- ence of things demands a creator, and the exist- ence of an infinite universe calls for an infinite creative power. In the words of Lord Kelvin, ' ' Scientific thought is compelled to accept the idea of Creative Power." But, from the premise of evil in the \vorld, evil that is tremendous in power and extent, logic demands a creator who is both good and evil. Yet, as matter is superimposed layers of different kinds of electricity, and elec- tricity is a form of force, or energy, and energy is not material, and whatever is not material must be mental or spiritual, it follows that matter as substance does not exist. Therefore, human logic demands a creator who is rnind, and demands that this mind express itself in both good and evil. Hence the imperfections manifested by this uni- verse call for a creator who, though infinite, is imperfect. And since the creator expresses him- self in both good and evil, there can be no possi- bility of ever overcoming evil, for by the premise assumed it is ordained by infinite mind as a part of its manifestation. There is one way that mortal-s have sought to get out of this confusion of reasoning, and that is to consider that the universe is but an imperfect representation or manifestation of a perfect creator, and that it is in a state of evolution, the ultimate goal being perfection, and the method of 261 THE DIAKY OP reaching this goal being justified by the end, for "all's well that ends well." But a mind that is infinite could not by any possibility be imperfect, for imperfection implies limitation, and to be in- finite, a thing must necessarily be whole, sound, good, without flaw or element of decay. And in- finite Good could not possibly create anything that could ever be less than perfect, nor could infinite Good create anything that must pass through various stages of imperfection before becoming complete, for Mind's method of creating is an instantaneous one "God spoke, and it was done." In other words, God's creatures are His ideas, coexistent with Him and dwelling forever perfect in infinite Mi :d, and the "act of creation" is but the unfolding of these ideas. The human mind is forever falling into the pit of erroneous reasoning. For, if the creative mind is infinite, it must include everything, even to in- cluding this imperfect manifestation, called the physical universe and mortal man. And thus in- cluding imperfection, the creative mind must itself be imperfect. Critics of the "idealism" of true Christianity admit that Mind is the Creator, and that it expresses itself through ideas, but insist that these ideas are represented by matter. Relatively true, in a sense, for matter is the way Spirit looks to material thought in other words, it is the way Spirit is materially interpreted as substance in the human consciousness. But the mistake of the ages has been in regarding this 262 JEAN EVARTS interpretation as real, and matter as the abode of life and intelligence. Departing from these false beliefs, as the true import of Jesus 's teachings must, it has been ex- posed to the criticism of not being "evangelical." But the terms "evangelical" and "orthodox" have been sadly confused in the human mind, and man-made theology and human systems of religion have cast their heavy shadows upon the religion of the Master. His teachings aroused the human mind to such terrible fury that streams ran red with the blood of martyrs. But when his pure spiritual religion had been warped into a system of theology and humanized by the Emperor Con- stantine, when it had been stripped of its healing power and denuded of its essential spirituality, the human mind accepted it and wove it into its political systems and worldly schemes for the development of temporal power and material wealth. True religion is not founded upon traditions, but upon demonstrable Science. Science rests upon absolute knowledge, which in turn is founded upon Truth God, the infinite Principle which stands back of all things and is spiritually dis- cerned. The sad failure of mankind to reach God through human processes of reasoning shows the absolute impossibility of reaching a spiritual end through material beginnings. Finite sense never can reach God, for as it approaches infinite Truth it meets with problems which, in its ignorance of the data involved, in its utter misapprehension of 263 THE DIAKY OF the Principle which alone can solve them, it can- not handle. Its concept of God has undergone a radical change since the beginning of recorded history, and as this has little by little been puri- fied of the material and human, real progress has been made. The human mind cannot grasp the awful significance of the word "infinite," nor the tremendous implications which such an expres- sion as "infinite Mind" must carry. Such a mind must of very necessity be changeless, the same yesterday, today and forever. It cannot be moved by tears nor entreaties, it cannot be importuned nor wheedled, threatened nor coaxed into yield- ing to anything less than the infinite Principle by which it exists and acts. Can we even begin to picture to ourselves this stupendous power which we call G@d? this majestic, infinitely ponderous Omnipotence which moves irresistibly, incessantly onward, conforming absolutely to unvarying Principle, never deviating one iota from eternal Law this Omnipotence which by very necessity must move in conformity with the Principle of Eight this all-pervading Spirit which mankind interpret to themselves as the "ether," as "force," as "energy," as "power"- this all- inclusive Intelligence, knowing all things, yet knowing only Good this infinite Love which has created all things for its own pleasure, that through and by them it may be manifested and expressed. Mankind cannot possibly bend God to conform to human desires the ignorance of the darkened human mind cannot instruct infinite 264 JEAN EVARTS Intelligence. The human mind will have to emu- late Mohammed by going to the mountain, for, since it cannot change God, who is immutably right, changeless, eternal, it will have to change itself if it would work up out of the mesmerism of false beliefs into the freedom of Truth. The ages have answered the question, "Canst thoii by searching find out God?" with an eternal NO nor can He be gained by a leap, as Browning would have it. He is Spirit, and He must be dis- cerned and worshipped spiritually; and this can be done only as the material is exchanged at every point for the spiritual, as the false material concept yields to the spiritual fact, and God, Man, and the Universe are seen to be wholly mental, spiritual, and perfect. Jesus taught this long ago, but his teachings were sadly materialized and misinterpreted by the human mind. He did not look down from Heaven and in pity for man- kind, whom the Father had created capable of sinning and falling, ask the privilege of making the necessary sacrifice to redeem them. The dis- torted picture w r hich Milton framed in such won- drously beautiful language cast a black shadow across the pathway of the human mind and but deepened the ignorance with which it was strug- gling. The coming of Jesus had no such human and material basis. It was but the working of the eternal law of Love, that Love which cannot be excluded even from the densest human mentality. The spiritual sense dawned upon the conscious- ness of Jesus, and he saw, as no man had ever 265 seen before, the infinitude of God and the spirit- ual nature of all things. He grew into a con- sciousness of the Omnipotence, the Omnibenefi- cence, the Omnipresence and Omniscience of God, and as this knowledge increased, so did its mani- festations appear ever more and more marvelous, until through complete spiritualization of his thought Jesus rose above this plane of existence and was able to say, ' ' I have overcome the world. ' ' What had he overcome? Something real? No, he had overcome the human sense of life and had shown it to be utterly unreal. He found mankind dismayed by the seeming tangles and perplexities of existence ; but instead of yielding to the appar- ently hopeless confusion of harmony and discord that seemed to be all about him, he turned to the Principle which he knew to be back of all this phenomenal existence, and bidding the testimony of the physical senses depart from him, together with the sense of evil which is born of them, he threw off the limitations of material sense and rose into a consciousness of the allness of Good. And he told mankind that they should do likewise ; but only through approaching their problem in the right way not by leaning upon him and ex- pecting that he would do their work for them, but by obeying his commands not by holding the thought that salvation from sin and disease is something to be experienced in a distant future heaven, but that it is the certain result of mental work, and that such work must be individual and must be taken up right here and now, even in the 266 JEAN EVARTS very midst of the fears and terrors with which this mortal life is filled. Jesus showed that in the degree that mankind approach God do they assume His power. This power being without limit, he proved that the only limitations a man has are those which he sets himself by not know- ing God, and Man as God's image and likeness, reflecting every characteristic and attribute of infinite Mind. He showed that the hell which mankind experience is only limitation, and that Heaven is harmony. The English translation of these words has admirably kept the spirit of his teachings, for the word heaven is often used syn- onymously with harmony, and the term hell is traceable directly to the old English verb: to be ''helled" about, separated from, shut off from, or limited. The mythologic concept of heaven as a locality must yield to the scientific concept of heaven as a state of mind, the attainment of which depends entirely upon the mental processes of mankind. It is not attained by rigid conform- ity to the hard, aggressive morality of Puritan or cell-bound ascetic, but by right thinking, which takes outward manifestation in right conduct. It is reached through prayer and fasting affirma- tion of God's allness, and refraining from the material sense of things. Confucius long ago said, ''Heaven means principle." Jesus showed that it meant a state of consciousness mental activity in absolute harmony with infinite Prin- ciple, the Father who is Love. 267 THE DIAEY OF The mission of Jesus to mankind was to show them how to overcome sin and its consequences by overcoming the thoughts that produce them. Men have not failed through lack of thought, but from misdirected thought. They have failed be- cause their energies have been directed toward holding thoughts that do not proceed from God, and that are, therefore, unreal and transitory, taking the form of speculation, belief and mere hypothesis. He formulated the great law of the externalization of thought, and showed that as a man thinketh, so is he. He reduced all action to the thought which it externalized, and judged conduct wholly by the motive that induced it. For every thought that is held within the men- tality tends to become externalized in some form, and like always produces like. The seeds that are planted in the human mind invariably reproduce their own kind as invariably as the corn which the farmer plants results in a reproduction of corn. As this tremendous fact dawns upon the human consciousness, mankind will begin to trace every condition of mind or environment back to the thoughts from which it springs. No farmer would deliberately sow weeds where he expected a crop of wheat no man would be considered sane who filled his fields with thistles in the expecta- tion of reaping a crop of grain. Yet the man wiio holds thoughts of a power opposed to God, who deliberately or ignorantly holds thoughts of sin, disease, disaster and discord, is mentally sowing a crop of noxious weeds, even while he is hoping 268 JEAN EVARTS and praying to reap grain. No man will sow thoughts of self-pity if he can be made to realize that he will reap a harvest of untoward condi- tions, for God cannot be pitied, nor can His chil- dren and mortal man is but a false mental con- cept, wholly subject to the kind of thought that is directed to him, not to be pitied, but to be dis- solved through the solvent power of infinite Love, that the real Man that is behind the false concept may appear. Thought is not a mere undefined, vague abstraction, but is a vital force, the most subtle, irresistible force with which we have to do. No sane man would sow lust-thoughts if he could look into the future and behold the crop of poison- ous weeds that he must eventually reap in bitter- ness and woe; no right-minded man would delib- erately sow disease-thoughts if he could see them outlined later in hideous forms upon his own body ; no man would ever think of sowing thoughts of a power opposed to God if he could be made to realize that every bit of the discord, the sorrow, misery, failure, lack, and utter hopelessness of this life, is but the result of such sowing. As surely as the farmer reaps what he sows, just so surely do mankind reap their own thoughts ; today is but the result of yesterday's thinking; tomor- row will reflect today ; time will always show what thoughts we have held, and there is no escape from it. The one who harbors thoughts of selfish- ness, envy, jealousy, or greed is pouring into his mentality a poison more subtle, more insidious in its workings, than the awful drug that trans- 269 THE DIAEY OF formed the humane and cultured Dr. Jekyll into the fiendish Hyde. The teachings of Jesus have been formulated as an exact science, and as such they are available to all mankind. But they become applied science only as his commands are obeyed and life is lived as he directed it should be. The rules of right thinking, pure motives, unselfishness, and love for all mankind must be accepted and demon- strated, even as we accept and demonstrate the principles of mathematics, if we would solve mathematical problems. Personal opinions and personal leadership do not count in this work. Great truths have been discovered only as erron- eous opinions have been laid aside when the false belief that the earth was flat was discarded, Columbus discovered a new world. Christianity is discovered to be scientific, as scientific as math- ematics, and just as available to the one who yields to its demands. We find no difficulty in yielding to those demands which result in the dis- covery of laws of chemistry, of astronomy, or numbers. Yet these are far less important than the science of right living a science which in- cludes all these and vastly more. Life that is free from sin, disease and discord is possible to man- kind not only possible, but is demanded by that Father whom Jesus revealed as infinite Love. Jesus did not teach that such a state of mind could be attained in a day, for the coming out of a confused and tangled mental state into spiritual consciousness is a transformation which needs 270 JEAN EVAETS time to effect. But the humblest beginnings re- sult in increased happiness and freedom, if an honest effort is made to obey the rules laid down, to purify thought and to have but the one God, Good. One does not have to wait until he can raise the dead before he can become helpful, for the least bit of knowledge gained advances one a step higher and increases one's power and free- dom at least a degree. One does not have to wait until he has attained perfection before the true Science of Christianity becomes available, for, as in the science of mathematics, the least particle of knowledge can be used at once. As in the study of mathematics only the one who is studious and consistently obedient to the demands of that science makes progress, so in the Science of Christianity, industry and right application alone result in solving the life problem. Sin and sick- ness will yield just as rapidly as the human belief of their necessity and unavoidability yields. The complete readjustment of life habits that is re- quired may take time; but as faith grows into understanding, and patience sustains right mo- tives, the errors that seemed so tenacious will gradually go out from consciousness, and man- kind will begin to experience that freedom which is the rightful heritage of the Sons of God. The evils which beset mankind are sin, sick- ness and death. The churches endeavor to handle but one of these, leaving sickness and death to the care of physicians. It is admitted that the mind has some influence upon the body, but that disease 271 THE DIAEY OF can be successfully combated only by the use of material remedies. Yet no man dares draw the line that shall limit the powers of mind. Why is it that a man's face is an index of his character ? How is it that we can so readily read what it is that looks out from his eyes, or lurks at the cor- ners of his mouth? What causes the hair to blanch or the blood to congeal? If it is fear, is it not a condition of mind? We need not multiply instances : every particle of the body and of the so-called material environment is the work of mind, and every particle of it is absolutely sub- ject to mind. What keeps the heart beating and the lungs performing their functions? What digests food, all unknown to us, and changes it into the current that is believed to sustain life? It is the human mind, simulating the divine activ- ity and counterfeiting the Life that is God. Jesus once asked his hearers if by taking thought they could make one hair either white or black, well knowing that they could not because of their own self-imposed limitations. But the mind does do this very thing, and even greater works, when once the sense of limitation has been lifted. The human mind sees its beliefs, and brings out the fruits of its own thinking. It sees disease thoughts, manifested as disease in the body, and again it sees these beliefs change into beliefs of health, with a corresponding change in the bodily condition a belief of disease giving place to a better belief of health, with a corresponding im- provement in the testimony which the physical 272 JEAN EVAETS senses are supposed to furnish. Yet it is all men- tal, all the simulated activity of the human so- called mind, a&ling and reaching to fit itself and its environment to one set of beliefs or another. If heaven is the place of bliss that orthodox theology teaches it is, why do mankind resist death tooth and nail, employing every means available for warding off its approach? If an omnipotent and omniscient Creator gave man- kind drugs to be used as medicine for the healing of disease, why is it that in His infinite wisdom He did not give remedies that would never fail? Or why did He establish death, or permit it to be established, and then give man drugs to ward it off? Is it conceivable that if God wanted to cure mankind He would give them remedies that could possibly fail of their purpose? Did God create the earth as medicine for mankind, after deciding that mankind should be sick? If the herbs that are growing all around us were created by God for medicine, He must have expected that man- kind would be sick but if that is the case, why did He not create medicines that would eradicate sickness and death? It is often said that without pain we should not appreciate joy, and suffering makes us value health. But does God have to suffer that He may enjoy the eternal harmony in which He dwells? Can we even imagine the boundless bliss of immortality? Can we form any conception whatsoever of the joy of beings who are immortal and who manifest Good only, and who are controlled by infinite Love? Mortal man 273 THE DIAEY OF reflects a mixture of good and evil, and at times he believes himself happy. But when is he most happy? Is it not when his reflection of Good ex- ceeds that of evil? And if this is so, would not the exclusive reflection of Good result in supreme happiness? It is freely admitted that happiness is directly proportionate to mankind's reflection of Good. What then would be the state of those who reflected Good only? Is it cc-nceivable that God would appreciate harmony to a greater de- gree if He knew discord? And if He really knew it, could He ever work out of it? Jesus did not pray to a lifeless principle to heal the sick, for, though he knew God to be Prin- ciple, the "that by which all is," he also knew Him to be infinite Intelligence and boundless Love. Further, he knew that healing did not de- pend upon getting God's ear and convincing Him of the justice of the petitioner's cause, but was a function of knowing the infinitude of Good and the consequent unreality and powerlessness of evil. As has been beautifully said, "Prayer is not overcoming God's reluctance; it is laying hold of His highest willingness." Such prayer is the only God-ordained medicine ever given to man- kind, and it is absolutely certain in its effects. If the religion of Jesus could not be formu- lated as an exact science it would be powerless to heal and save mankind. He rested his teachings squarely upon the immanence of God. If there is a God at all, He is Spirit, Mind. If matter has real existence it mut be included in Mind, and 274 JEAN EVARTS therefore must constitute a part of Mind's infinite manifestation. In this case it would be eternal. But matter has been shown to be but a mental concept held within the mass of false thought whose activity constitutes the human conscious- ness. This mind, the communal mortal mind, itself the counterfeit of divine Mind, is but its supposititious opposite, and has no real existence, no permanence. God as infinite Mind includes all real mental things, all facts. But He does not in- clude suppositions. Then do suppositions exist? No, for by Spencer's definition of reality they are unreal, and their existence is supposititious, a supposition merely. The opposite of real exist- ence is supposititious existence. Who holds the supposition of human existence! Does God? No, the supposition exists only as a supposition, apart from all reality; and it is this supposition, with all that it entails and includes as consequences and implications, that constitutes the human, ma- terial concept of existence, including the false concept of God, the universe and man. The per- fect Mind that is God holds only spiritual facts, as manifested in real Knowledge, the knowledge of Truth only. The human concept of material existence has just as much reality as the supposi- tion that "I am what I am not" has namely, none whatever. But as mortals are not wholly devoid of good, and as this concept of existence seems to be on such a huge scale, and as, more- over, God as Love, Life, Mind, Truth, has pene- trated this supposititious existence to such an 275 THE DIAEY OF extent and is everywhere seen to an even greater degree than mortals are willing to admit, this supposititious existence seems to partake of the nature of reality. But its true nature becomes at once apparent when we extract from it those things that are really the basis of thought and endeavor, and that constitute the things that even mortals admit to be alone worth while, for delve and search as we may, we at lal come face to face with the great spiritual fact that only the Good is worth while, and it alone is permanent and true. Jesus healed the sick instantaneously because he was above material consciousness. He traced evil directly to its origin, the human mind, when he said, "For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies : these are the things wiiich defile a man." In other words, evil is not due to malign influences from without, to chance, to germs, to the things we eat or to the forces of Nature, but to one's own thoughts. The mater- ialist admits that the physical senses constitute the only source of evil. But physical sense-testi- mony reduces to thought. Hence evil reduces to the thought of evil nothing more. Sin is but evil thought ; and that may take a form so subtle as to deceive mortals into accepting it as Good. Fear is the belief in evil, and as such is lack of faith in God the chief of sins. To fear is to have other Gods than the one God, and is an infraction of the first commandment. Paul said, "Whatever is not of faith is sin." Fear comes only through 276 JEAN EVAETS the material senses, and these fear because they can not know God. Mankind's progress has been proportionate to their freedom from the limita- tions of fear, ignorance and false belief. Such freedom has been the invariable accompaniment of the changing concept of God, from the anthro- pomorphism and pantheism of the savage, from the malign powers of Nature and the evil spirits that peopled the darkened imagination of prim- eval man, down to the concept which Jesus held of God as Love. The healing work of Truth was not a tempor- ary necessity, it was not the manifestation of a changing impulse of divine Love, it was not for a certain period only and employed to awe a few simple peasant folk into a belief in the Omnipo- tence of God. Such false ideas have caused count- less thousands to drift into agnosticism and infi- delity, without hope or expectation of light. The Christ-healing, dormant for sixteen hundred years, has been rediscovered and given to the world as an exact Science, as infallible in its oper- ation and results as the science of mathematics. It has been stated as a Science whose fundamental principles are so simple, so easy of comprehen- sion, that they may be proved by every one who is willing to give the effort and consecration that are requisite to the successful accomplishment of any important task. The world need no longer lament with Tennyson: "We have but faith, we cannot know, for knowledge is of things we see," for the knowledge which is based upon the things 277 THE DIARY OF we think we see is but relative human knowledge, speculation and hypothesis, based upon the men- tal pictures which we hold within our own men- talities, and is unworthy of even serious thought. The faith that pretends to believe that it can pray men's souls out of purgatory is but a flimsy coun- terfeit of that faith in the Omnipotence of God that understands the mission of Jesus, and knows that his teachings have been formulated into a demonstrable Science that will enable its posses- sor to heal the sick and raise the dead in this life, even as the Master and his early followers did. "He that believeth on me," said the Master, "the works that I do shall he do also . " In the He- brew tongue the word "belief" means "under- standing. " It is not mere faith in the atonement of Jesus, but a demonstrable understanding of infinite Principle, God, that enables mankind to work out their salvation. But one's faith must be in Good, not evil, for only "according to your faith" shall you receive in other words, you will receive good only in proportion to your willing- ness to make room for it, and to your mental capacity to spiritually receive and assimilate it. If you are still talking evil in your daily conver- sation, if you are still writing evil, fearing evil, anticipating evil, your abundant faith in evil, which such conduct proves, will become mani- fested in sin, sickness and death. "And to him that ordereth his conversation aright will I show the salvation of God" to him who voices no evil, whether in word or deed, there shall no evil befall. 278 What we think, is for us our most important consideration in this life. Whether we are con- scious of it or not, we are every moment accepting or rejecting some belief, whether of life in matter and power apart from God, or of the allness of infinite Mind; we are every instant aligning ourselves on the side of either good or evil. Watchfulness in guarding one 's mentality against the entrance of false thought, therefore, becomes mankind's imperative duty, the duty of self -pres- ervation. "Watch ye and pray," warned the Master, "lest ye enter into temptation." And what is it that leads into temptation but one's thoughts, which take outward expression in deeds? "God spoke, and it was done." Thought al- ways precedes action. The human mind holds a thought, whether of good or evil, and this thought eventually takes form in conduct, simulating the divine law of externalization of God's thought in the framing of worlds. The divine process of creating is mental "God spoke" "God said, let there be light" and the human process of creating conduct, environment, and character, patterns after the divine, in that ivhat men think becomes externalized to them in conscious experi- ences, the experiences which make up what they call life. Whatsoever men think and do in secret is eventually proclaimed from the housetops every thought that the human mind harbors is sooner or later made manifest on the body or in the environment sooner or later every thought 279 THE DIARY OF that we think is either found out by those about us, or actually confessed by ourselves. The drunkard cannot hide his thoughts, the thief can- not check the proclamation that constantly issues from his face and bearing, the adulterer cannot control the lewd conversation that publishes to the world the kind of man he is "the show of their countenance doth witness against them ; and they declare their sin as Sodom, they hide it not." The law of mental sowing is as exact and unfail- ing as the law of reproduction of the seed which we sow in the soil. Every thought-seed will re- turn to us in a plant exactly like itself. Indulging cruel, jealous, envious thoughts toward our fellow men is the pouring of venom into their mentali- ties, a poison which will return to us with in- creased potency, bringing sickness, failure, and misery. Every unkind word that we voice against another is a thought-seed that we sow, and time only is needed to return to us its like in a four- fold crop of hideous weeds the laiv is absolutely unfailing. The religion of Jesus, as spiritually inter- preted and formulated into the Science of Chris- tianity by Mrs. Eddy, must of necessity refute the inconsistencies of orthodox theology, especially the fallacious teaching that from the one Cause, Spirit, there has been evolved in some inexplic- able manner both the mental and the material, the spiritual and the carnal. Jesus did not teach that in order to experience eternal life one mut die nor can it be said that orthodox Christians really 280 JEAN EVAKTS believe this, when they employ every possible means to avoid dying. Jesus knew that men would continue to suffer and die until they had ovei'come the sinful thinking that results in these things, and that when the false sense of life in matter, including its concomitants, sin, disease and death, had been exposed and resisted in the way he taught that these things must be, mankind would gain that freedom which is the rightful heritage of the children of God. It is only as men grasp the spiritual fact of the Allness of God that they begin to realize the nothingness, the unreal- ity, of matter and the material concept. Freedom from error and its consequences is not to be gained at a bound. As in teaching a child the science of mathematics we begin with the multi- plication table, even though we may look ahead to the day when that child shall solve problems in- volving the most abstruse mathematical princi- ples, so in teaching and practicing the Science of Christianity, it is not expected that the beginner, nor the one who has applied himself to the study and practice of its rules for a few years, will be able to raise the dead or attain unto that state of spiritual consciousness where one no longer needs food and shelter as these things are interpreted in the human consciousness. But to overcome errors of any sort without the use of material means, to heal the sick without employing drugs, to begin to love one's neighbor as one's self, to bar the doorway of mind against what we know to be wrong thoughts, is starting at the numeration 281 THE DIARY OF table of Scientific Christianity and willingness to do this, and to lovingly and patiently take each step and prove the Principle, will ultimately re- sult in the acquiring of ''that Mind which was in Christ Jesus," to which sin, sorrow, and death are unknown. To heal as Jesus did, without the use of drugs, is to recognize the empirical nature of the practice of drugging, and to start at the beginning of the demonstration of God as All-in- all; to live without food would mean that we had reached that stage of our mental journey where we had proved that life is not in matter ; to raise the dead would be proof of our triumph over "the last enemy that shall be destroyed," and would mark all but the final milestone, where we shall stand at the threshold of spiritual consciousness, ready for the ascension out of material sense, the sense of matter as substance, into the spiritual consciousness of Spirit as substance and God as Life, eternal and harmonious. Step by step will those who trust God and who seek ' ' first the king- dom" find that He will guide them, even in the use of material things, while they are working out their salvation; and as they advance, through patient, loving effort to prove Him, will they see such temporary means fall away, giving place to higher spiritual modes and ways, until heaven, harmony, at last shall have been attained. Jesus 's confidence in the power of infinite Mind to over- come every discord was complete. His wonderful demonstrations showed that he fully understood all so-called "outer conditions" to be the mani- 282 JEAN EVAETS feslation of inner thoughts, and to be wholly sub- ject to thought. His ministry was a beautifully consistent example of unswerving faith in the ever-presence of divine Love, and its ability to meet humanity's needs. And he left the world the promise that, by following in the way he pointed out, the reproach of mankind should be removed forever. "Cast not away, therefore, your confidence, which hath great recompense of reward." "And the Lord shall guide thee continually, and satisfy thy soul in drouth, and make fat thy bones; and thou shalt be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water, whose waters fail not. " MAY 26TH MAY 26TH WAITED for him at the ledge this morning, and as the birds poured forth their songs of joy my full heart responded. The tem- pest that raged within my mind when I was brought here has passed away forever, and the angry waves of human emotion, of human desire and fear, have been calmed. Over all my thought, as with a feel- ing of indescribable exhilaration I awaited his coming, there was a sense of wonderful peace and great thankfulness. I knew that the past was gone forever, and that I was standing at the threshold of a new life experience. But I felt no anxiety to read the future. Like the past, it is in God's charge, and I have no wish to borrow from it. Out of a state of seeming hopelessness, of atheism, and blackest despair, I have been drawn, so gently, so lovingly, to my Father, and He has "restored my soul," and revealed to my yearning thought a knowledge of Him that I had believed never could be mine. How wonderful, and yet how beautifully natural it has been! No miracle has been wrought only a problem solved. And the solution has come because the error which had seemed to hold me, to bind me, as Jesus said that Satan had bound the afflicted woman, has been dis- placed from my consciousness by the incoming Truth. God's methods surely are simple like Truth itself, for it is only error that is complex and inexplicable. 287 THE DIARY OF Then I saw my friend coming along the path below me, just as he did that bright morning when he came into my life, bringing the ' l glad tidings. ' ' Looking up, he saw me and waved his hand. Then, leaning far over the ledge, I picked a wild rose from a vine that was clinging to the sharp rocks beneath, and threw it down to him. ' l We have come back again to the very serious question of what is the most important thing for you to do as a beginner in the task of working out your salvation according to the understanding you have now gained," he said, when he had taken his place beside me. We have seen how it is that one 's thinking de- termines his ability to receive good. Therefore, the most important thing for the beginner is to think God's thoughts, and so gain spiritual under- standing and spiritual consciousness. Mrs. Eddy has said, "Suppose one accident happens to the eye, another to the ear, and so on, until every cor- poreal sense is quenched. What is man's remedy f To die, that he may regain these senses'? Even then he must gain spiritual understanding and spiritual sense in order to possess immortal con- sciousness. Earth's preparatory school must be improved to the utmost." (Science and Health, page 486.) The point for you, then, is to improve earth's preparatory school to the fullest extent. Let go your grasp of the material. Do not waste any 2SS JEAN EVARTS further time thinking of past error, nor worry about any possible present or future effects from past sin or wrong thinking. Remember, "For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more." Certainly if He does not see them, you can afford to forget them. Do not rehearse error in thought or conversation, for this is a ghoulish action, dragging forth the dead to prolong its false sense of life. Say with God, "Behold, I make all things new." Thinking God's thoughts, you can say with Paul, "Henceforth know we no man after the flesh;" for you have seen that the real man is spiritual, the image of infinite Mind; and the material, mortal man is a thing of false thought, a pseudo-consciousness of good and evil. Know- ing these facts, and thinking God's thoughts, you can "commit thy works unto the Lord, and thy thoughts shall be established." What are God's thoughts? "Thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end" the Kingdom of Harmony. The most important command for us all is, ' ' Know therefore this day, and consider it in thine heart, that the Lord, he is God in heaven above, and upon the earth beneath: there is none else." Mrs. Eddy has pointed out that the spiritual fact and the material belief of things are opposites, and that the first idolatry was matter. We have seen how, by following out the implications con- tained in these great facts, the material man and the material universe are but things of false 289 THE DIABY OF thought, proje<5led within a consciousness whose activity is the suppositional activity of unreal thought. Mrs. Eddy has not said that there are no mountains, no streams, or clouds, or flowers, or men. But she has said that the human concepts of these things are not the realities of God, and are not permanent. Jesus knew that dominion is Man's birthright. But he also knew that the human sense of his fol- lowers was clouded with worries and fears. His first step was to expose these errors, and then cast them out by his limitless reflection of Love. His statement, in substance, to his anxious disciples was : If you will stop worrying about your mater- ial bodies, and will understand that Spirit is the only source of supply, you will then find your- selves in the right mental attitude to reflect the love of your heavenly Father. He said, ' i The poor ye have always with you. ' ' This might well mean that they were clinging so tenaciously to thoughts of poverty and limitation that they could not see that in reality they were rich, crowned with the unnumbered blessings that the infinite Father is constantly pouring out upon his children. He strove to make them understand that the body, including all environment, was to be transformed by a renewing of the mind. As the understanding unfolds that God is all, even the life of Man, this life will be manifested in a man who is constantly ascending in the scale of health, harmony, and im- mortality. When mortals know nothing but Good, they will know nothing materially. The final stage 290 JEAN EVAETS will then have been reached, and the mortal will go out, will cease to be. When the mortal ceases to think materially, the mortal self will have been overcome. The human concept will then have disappeared, and the real Man, the Man that has always existed, will be seen. The law of God gives to Man, as God's reflec- tion, dominion over the entire Universe. Acci- dents, and all that "happens," the casual and the merely fortuitous, would be unknown if men were willing to acknowledge but one law, and that the law of God, in which there is no such thing as chance or coincidence, but only a mathematically exact sequence of cause and effect. The tempera- ture of the atmosphere would have no effect upon the body, fevers could not ravish, and electricity, physics, anatomy, astrology, hypnotism, and all the other imaginary limitations in the long list of human-sense beliefs, which claim to be laws and to govern man and the universe, would be annulled and rendered impotent, if men would stop believ- ing in a power opposed to God. Our thought muM be spiritualized, and the spiritualization must continue, regardless of the human concept of time, until the material uni- verse becomes dematerialized. When Jesus "ascended into heaven," his body was completely dematerialized by spiritualization of his thought. Real progress can never be made as long as matter is held to be substance. We must not only believe that the universe and mortal man are things of thought, material thought-concepts, but 291 THE DIAEY OF we mut al our knowledge of this fat. To admit that matter does not exist as a reality, and yet to proceed upon a daily course of existence which shows that matter is the one thing that we are striving for, and upon which we think our very existence depends, is to prove very clearly that we have little or no understanding of the spiritual import of Jesus 's words. Some of the ancient philosophers did as much as this. And many earnest thinkers today have reached the con- clusion that matter is a mental phenomenon. But they yield to its mesmeric influence, they fear to put their knowledge to the test; and while they know that thought is supreme, and that to think rightly is to create, they fear to attempt to shape their lives accordingly. If we would make progress in working out our salvation, we will have to act our knowledge of the unreality of matter, making only those concessions which suffer certain things to be so for the present, which permit certain modes of conduct to continue temporarily, only because of our incomplete understanding, or be- cause by so doing we are progressing according to the dictates of Wisdom. To make progress, you will have to give up the idea of a material personality called by your name and known as "you." You will have to cease regarding yourself as an independent thinker, however much this may seem to be op- posed to current opinion. The only thinker is God; and His thoughts come to mankind. It is the activity of this thought that constitutes the 292 JEAN EVARTS real consciousness that we call Man. Mrs. Eddy has given us the keynote to success: "Mental activity which establishes systematic and persist- ent right thinking, never questioning, never doubt- ing, never losing time worrying about results, never delaying error's destruction by its tempor- ary indulgence." Working out one's salvation is an individual problem, and while one can receive help and en- couragement from others, the solution of the problem depends upon his own persistent efforts to rid his mentality of the false thought that is active therein, and to replace it with God's thoughts. But we must keep always in mind that it is God, Truth, that is doing the work. Of our- selves we can do nothing. But Truth working in the human consciousness can do all things. We can see why it is that Mrs. Eddy insisted that the corner-stone of all spiritual building is purity. And before we have made much progress we shall see that next to purity comes persistency. And it means work, tireless, loving, incessant work. The false concepts do not always dissolve easily ; weariness and self-justification put in their pleas early ; and many a one who has made a fair start has yielded to the argument of discourage- ment, and abandoned his work. But there can be no relief in this course, for no man's work will be done for him. The death of Jesus on the cross does not mean that we will be given a transport to unending bliss. The awful truth still rings in our thought that every knee must bow to Him, and 293 THE DIAEY OF every tongue confess His name, before that state of consciousness which we call Heaven shall be attained. "Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling," not postponing the work until you get through with the fear and the trembling, "for it is God which worketh in you, both to will and to do of His good pleasure." Half-hearted- ness will not bring forth the fruits you seek. Dis- honesty with God brings swift and sure retribu- tion. "All things are yours," and you must act as possessing all power and good from your heavenly Father. You must go about your daily course knowing that all is Good, and preparing with great expectancy for its manifestation in your conscious experience. To be expectant of good is to be receptive, and to put one's self in the right attitude for the working of the law of externalization. The cares and riches of this life, its pleasures and material sensations, are the thorns which would choke the good seed. But all these depend absolutely upon the sense of matter for their existence. The arguments of lack of preparation, of lack of mental discipline, as imparted by college train- ing and educational processes, often seem to stand in the way. But the education which the world offers does not solve the problem of life it only deepens the mystery and drives mortals into agnosticism. True education is spiritual it is "the fear of the Lord," which, in turn, is the be- ginning of wisdom. Remember that Solomon, a very wise man, once said: "I applied mine heart 294 JEAN EVAETS to know, and to search, and to seek out wisdom, and the reason of things, and to know the wicked- ness of folly, even of foolishness and madness: Lo, this only have I found, that God hath made man upright; but they have sought out many in- ventions." Many inventions, indeed ! The inven- tions of the human mind are almost unthinkable in their conceit, their extravagance, their vanity and utter worthlessness ! No wonder "the wis- dom of the world is foolishness with God!" Despite seeming failure, despite the seeming per- sistence of material conditions, be not weary in well doing, for you shall reap, as the Master said, if you faint not. No man, having put his hand to the plow and looking back, is fit for the Kingdom, and he may be very sure he will not enter into it until he has made himself worthy. "And that servant which knew his Lord's will, and prepared not himself, neither did according to his will, shall be beaten with many stripes." Having received the Truth, having seen what it can do for man- kind, but refusing to accept it and to conform thought to it, can only result in a continuance of discord, sickness, sorrow, and death, until, beaten by the many "stripes" of suffering, all turn at last to Him "who healeth all thy diseases." Mrs. Eddy has laid great stress upon the im- portance of "standing guard at the portal of thought."' The secret of salvation might almost be compressed into that one statement. For, sin^e the mortal's life is his conscious existence, and consciousness is mental activity, the activity of 295 THE DIARY OF thought, whatever the mortal experiences will de- pend upon the quality of the thought he enter- tains. Thought is the activity of intelligence. True thought can proceed only from actual knowl- edge, or Truth. Therefore, speculation as to what is or is not, wondering what is going to happen tomorrow, fear for the future, dread and worry thoughts, do not proceed from actual knowing, and are not true thoughts. They have, therefore, only the power that mortals give them. They can be put out of consciousness, and the con- cepts which they have built up can be dissolved. This is the Christ method of salvation. If we speculate regarding the possibility of not having enough to meet tomorrow's needs, we are presum- ing on God's business, for it is His business to care for us, and it is our business to know that He will do so. To speculate regarding Him is sin, breaking the very first and greatest of all the Commandments. We have no right to allow such speculative thought to enter consciousness; we have no right to harbor such thought, for by doing so we are prolonging the apparent existence of evil and witnessing to its power, thus bearing false witness. We have no right even to listen to such thought, for it is an insult to God, to infinite Intelligence. We can reason rightly only when our reasoning is based upon fact; therefore, un- less we reason from actual knowledge, our results will be chaotic. It is speculation and guesswork that results in the farce called human life. Would anyone attempt to add a column of figures on the 296 basis that 2+2=7, and 5+4=either 6 or 8? Cer- tainly not, for the results of such work would be chaotic. It is such results that we get when we attempt to reason from false or speculative knowledge. Unless our premises are based upon fact, our conclusions will be worthless, and if we accept such conclusions we will suffer for it. Hence the importance of standing guard at the portal of thought, and admitting only thoughts of Good. For the thoughts that we admit will form mental images. These images are our concepts, and they tend to become externalized in conscious experience, called life. We can make life what we will : it is all a question of the thoughts we allow to enter consciousness and build there. For build they will, and we profit or suffer from their con- structive work. The only possible existence evil can have is the existence we are willing it should have within our mentalities. It has been said of Jesus that his true and conscious being never left Heaven for earth. It abode forever above, even while mortals believed it was here. He once spoke of himself as "the Son of Man who is in Heaven." Remarkable words, these, for they show that the Christ was unconscious of matter, sin, disease, and death. Matter owes its existence to the so-called phy- sical senses. Some Bible scholars believe that a careful study of the fourth chapter of Matthew's Gospel reveals the fact that the devil whidh tempted the Master was the testimony of the 297 physical senses. To their arguments Jesus had but one reply: ''Get thee behind me, Satan. ' y As we have repeatedly said, the physical senses do not testify of anything. They do not testify of disease, nor do they testify of cures. When Truth enters the human consciousness and dissolves the false concepts of disease, these are replaced by better concepts of health. The mortal believes that his physical senses testify of re- stored health, but the fact is that he is simply viewing a better concept, better thoughts, within his own mentality. Man is spiritual, despite the apparent fact that he seems to his own thought to be attached to a material body, from which he is unable to get away, But Mrs. Eddy has shown us that mortal mind and body are one, the body being the sub- stratum, or grosser portion of mortal mind. It is for this reason that the mortal man is not distinct from the concept of body to the extent of complete separation, but always has it with him in con- sciousness. Yet, the so-called senses of this con- cept of body give the mind no information what- soever regarding an outside world of matter. In all cognition or sense-perception, the mind must be directed to the object that is supposedly being- perceived. We do not hear the ticking of a clock that is close at hand, unless the thought be directed to it. If a weight is placed upon the hand, a mental state is supposed to be produced through the sense of touch. But let the thought be directed away from the weight to something 298 JEAN EVARTS else, and we lose consciousness of its presence. We may remain for hours in the presence of a loud noise without being conscious of it unless the thought is directed to it. These are all com- mon psychological facts, and show that the so- called physical senses are never operative unless the mind is directed to that which is supposed to be the cause of the sense-impression. Sensation and feeling do not depend upon external phenom- ena. Ages ago the philosopher Epictetus wrote : "It is the peculiar quality and character of an undisciplined man and a man of the world, to ex- pect no advantage and to apprehend no mischief from himself, but all from objects without him. Whereas the philosopher, quite the contrary, looks only inward, and apprehends no good or evil can happen to him but from himself alone." So forcibly did this tendency of mankind to impute feelings to external phenomena impress Ruskin, that he called it the Pathetic Fallacy. Conscious- ness is not to be stated in terms of an outer w r orld, but the supposed outer world must be interpreted Toy consciousness. There is no external power to cope with and overthrow. The mortal concept of Self is the only power any man, woman, or child ever has had, or ever will have to contend with, and this is not a real power. The senses seem to testify of the universe as formed of matter, and of man as developing from a beast-like primal ancestor, millions of years be- fore the dawn of history. Evolution, or the De- velopment Theory, contains much that is illum- 299 THE DIARY OF inating as regards the history of mortal thought, although poets and philosophers have fought in vain against acceptance of the animal origin of man. Science seems to afford indubitable evi- dence of such origin ; nor need we disagree with it wholly as regards the origin of mortal man. It is utterly illogical that infinite Mind could produce anything imperfect, or work through imperfect agencies, even though the end to be attained were perfection. The infinite creative Mind expresses itself in ideas, according to the law of mental action. The unfolding of these ideas is the Creation. The greatest of these ideas is Man, the image and likeness of Mind, a spiritual consciousness, the activity of which is the activity of Mind's thoughts. Man was unfolded as an idea of Mind, not imperfect, not unfinished, not devel- oping slowly through chance or error, or through terrible throes of suffering. Man did not develop as the plaything of chance. He did not spring from slime or protoplasm, nor from a germ of sentient matter. He did not evolve through long series of disgusting animal forms and shapes hideous to behold. Man has been perfect from the beginning, and yet without beginning, for he is co-eternal with God, as His image and likeness. If God had an animal origin, if He developed from protoplasm into infinite Spirit, through animal forms, then Man has done so likewise. But this is not to be thought of. We have spoken frequently of the so-called law of suppositional opposites, and we have seen 300 JEAN EVARTS how every reality might be supposed to have a corresponding opposite unreality. We have also seen that everything, even matter itself, rests upon a mental basis. If Man is something, the antipode of Man is nothing. And it is exactly at this point that the animal, or mortal, man begins. Scientists have already traced him back to the primal ovum, or germ. But there they halt, and either submit to the lethargic influence of Spencer's limiting phil- osophy, or break forth into insincere raptures over the wisdom and goodness of a God who has planned the development of His offspring the offspring of Spirit! through a process that is repugnant even to the materialistic mortal sense. At this point, however, logic steps in and finishes the work by reducing the primal germ to its origi- nal nothingness. The real Man is a spiritual con- sciousness. Its suppositional opposite, the mor- tal man, is a simulated consciousness. The devel- opment of the mortal consciousness has taken place through countless eons of time, as time is reckoned by mankind. Within the mortal con- sciousness there have been simulated all of the activities and functions, all of the attributes and qualities of the real Man. Beginning as nothing, the mortal man has developed through possibly all the stages of the mortal concept of the animal kingdom, since it simulates the idea, Man, which includes all of Mind's ideas. As the true Man has been revealed and developed within infinite Mind, so the mortal man has been developed 301 THE DIARY OP within the communal mortal mind, always rising from the lowest toward the highest, for its devel- opment has been the antithesis of the unfolding of the real Man. At an unknown time, but eons ago, there filtered into this mortal mind the ''something not ourselves that makes for right- eousness;" and it never left, but has continued to build and add to itself. Whence did it come? From divine Mind. And what will it accomplish ? The transformation of the mortal mind. As count- less ages have passed, more and more Truth has found its way into this suppositional error, called mortal mind; and because of it, mortal man has seemed to ascend ever higher and higher, until he stands upon his comparatively lofty plane to- day. His present mental state is but a single stage in his development. There is little question that the Development Theory is quite correct as applied to the mortal consciousness. That consciousness would be today where it was millions of years ago, but for the infiltration of Truth. And as Truth enters, it clears away some of the falsity within, to make room for the entrance of more Truth. All of mortal man's progress throughout the ages has been due to his so-called discoveries of Truth. In every case, it has been Truth that has lifted him a degree higher. The Development Theory, or the theory of Evolution, is a simulation within mortal thought of the unfolding of Mind's ideas, which constitutes the real Creation. As Mind's ideas are all subordinate to the greatest idea, 302 JEAN EVARTS Man, so in the simulated idea of the earth, there seems to have been actual design in providing for mortal man's needs in the storing of coal, oil, and other natural resources which the mortal is using today. The law of gravitation binds mortal man and his world together holds him to his material concept of earth in simulation of the law of Love that holds together the ideas of infinite Mind that constitute the spiritual Creation, including Man, and that binds Man to all Good. The simulated Creation, by the very law of opposites, had to begin at the lowest, the point farthest removed from Truth. It began, therefore, at nothing it was called up out of chaos, nothingness, and its man was formed out of the dust of the ground. Its development has been upward, as Truth has entered the human consciousness and revealed the reality of things to an increasingly higher degree. Yet, though we have said that the mortal mind is constantly ascending, we do not mean that that sort of mind is improving, but that it is in reality dissolving, thus becoming a better transparency through which the real Man can be seen. Mortal mind does not improve; it gives way, dissolves, becomes ever more and more tenuous and trans- parent, until it finally passes away altogether. This is the only sort of evolution that it can ex- perience. And Evolution will continue, until the mortal consciousness has been evolved out of itself, until it has been emptied of all false thought and become filled with Truth. Then that consciousness will cease its simulated existence, 303 THE DIAEY OF and the mortal will have been " swallowed up in immortality. ' ' "And now," he said, rising, "I think you are able to see something of 'the grandeur of your outlook, the sublimity of your hope,' as Mrs. Eddy has phrased it. Truth is at work within your consciousness, and there will come the inevitable stirring up of all that seems to be opposed to it. You will be tried and tempted. Then will come the demand for prayer and fasting, the affirma- tion of God's allness, and the turning from the material sense of things. But remember that a wrong thought is always the father of a wrong action, and it can be made to vanish into nothing- ness if you will but put a right thought in its place. You can prove that Good will destroy evil just as quickly and just as surely as light destroys dark- ness. A world full of darkness cannot extinguish the flame of the tiniest candle. A world full of error cannot overcome the slightest statement of Truth. At the time when error's arguments seem to be most insistent, you may be on the threshold of your desired demonstration of their nothing- ness. Then remember, ' Thus saith the Lord, Keep ye judgment, and do righteousness : for my salva- tion is near to come, and my righteousness to be revealed.' It is His righteousness, His right thoughts within your consciousness, that are to be revealed; and their externalization would be im- peded if you yielded to the arguing error or the 304 JEAN EVARTS insidious suggestions of discouragement. The Psalmist tells us that he 'waited patiently' for God, and that he was lifted out of an horrible pit and his feet set upon a rock. In the hour of trial cling to your understanding, and keep before you the memory of Job, who said, 'But He knoweth the way that I take: when He hath tried me, I shall come forth as gold." 305 MAY 27TH MAY 27TH OU have asked me," he began this morning, "if you could not look forward to a life devoted to the service of mankind, in bringing to them this message that has been unfolded to you, and in laboring to uplift them, and restore health and harmony through the app]ication of the Christ Principle." The task of devoting your life to the applica- tion of Truth to the needs of humanity is not to be entered upon arbitrarily. It can only be grown into, as the understanding of God expands within the human consciousness; and every step of the way must be clearly proven. The harvest is white all about us, and the laborers are few, indeed, even as Jesus said in his time. But those who labor in this field must be wise, and must have reached their place by working up from small beginnings. Nearly every one who has felt the curative effects of this great Principle, and who gains as clear an understanding of Truth as you have, looks for- ward to giving his life to his fellow men. And yet, though your heart is filled with gratitude, and you are eager to express it, there is but one thing for you to do now go, take up your former occu- pation where you left it, and then rise, through constant proofs of God's power and presence, up out of the "mortal-mind claim of business," and into "my Father's business," the infinite task of knowing Him and reflecting Him only. Wherever 309 THE DIAEY OF you go, whatever your hands may find to do, your light can always shine, and your life can always attest the ever-presence of Good. Were it not for the Christ-reflection seen in his followers, many who have learned to love God would never have gained the true knowledge of Him which has made such love possible. Turned aside and rejected by the world's cruelty and indifference, it would not have been possible for them to believe that God, whom they had not seen, loved them, had they not beheld this love reflected by the brother whom they knew and could see here in this world. Every deed of goodness, however small, increases the good and lessens the evil in human experience. Kindness, love, obedience, and trust in the infinite goodness of God are the little things over which we must first be faithful, before we shall be made rulers over many things. Those who have gained the true understanding of Jesus 's mission do not proselyte, but their lives witness to their faith, and their faith develops into understanding through actual proof. Their lamps are always trimmed and burning, and the light of their coun- tenance is seen afar off. Do not fear to go out into the world and seek work. There is much to be done, and you are needed. Moreover, the business world offers you a wonderful opportunity to stand as a witness to God. And if you will keep constantly before you the fact that the so-called "outer world" is but the externalization within your consciousness of your own thought, you will not fear any inability 310 JEAN EVARTS to externalize the right kind of work and the re- sources you need. In reality, there is no such thing as ' ' out-of-work. ' ' God has an infinite work, and He works through His ideas, of which you are one. I know that men cry hard times, and there seems to be much discord and confusion in so-called business. Right in the very presence of God's infinite business, mortals manifest a woeful sense of lack of work, and even of the necessities of existence. But we must remember that the only source of evil is corporeal sense, the supposed testimony of the physical senses. The only legitimate law oper- ating in the case of the one seeking work is the law of supply. God is infinite supply not in- tangible, not afar off, but right at hand and you are called upon to witness to this fact and to prove it. For this very reason you likewise seem to be called upon to witness to its direct antithesis, according to the so-called law of suppositional opposites. You are in reality God's idea of Himself, and it is this reality that you are striving to bring out in conscious experience. As you appeared in the line of Creation you were given your place and your work. That work is the reflection of infinite Mind, regardless of how it may become external- ized in your conscious experience. Your work is to know God, Good, and to know nothing else. You are to reflect Him and His work at all times and in all places. As He is Mind, and is infinitely active, you must reflect this mental activity. For 311 THE DIAEY OF us who are working out our salvation, there is no possibility of ever being out of work. We never before realized that we had so much work, and such glorious opportunities for the right kind of activity. In the great task of working out our salvation we early need to be warned against outlining for the future. It is not for us to choose and fix our own lot. We cannot flee from the work that God has appointed us, in the vain hope of finding greater blessings in some other occupation. We must wait to be guided, and while waiting, we must do what our hands find to do. Only divine Wis- dom can choose for us that which will meet our needs for growth and progress. If you take up again the line of work you were following when you were brought here, you will be doing what your hands find to do, while waiting for that guid- ance which never fails, and which never conies too late. Your environment, whatever it may seem to be, will change to correspond to the renewing of your mind. God has given to each of His children a proper sphere of usefulness, and we may be sure He is not God unless He has done this. It is our task to go forward with what we see we have, laying every desire upon the altar of Righteousness, and knowing that God is leading us. Mrs. Eddy has said, and proved, that when we work with true motives, God will open the way for us. She has told us that God has infinite resources wherewitli to bless us, and that we already have these re- 312 JEAN EVARTS sources. If we know that we have them, and act our knowledge of this spiritual fact, the resources simply mu$t become externalized in our conscious experience, according to the great law of external- ization of thought, which we have been discussing these past few days. To illustrate further: If you merely read a statement of a mathematical principle, without really understanding it, you have got nothing from the reading. The principle has not become yours, and you cannot apply it. But, if you have read it understandingly, it does become yours, and you acquire the ability to use it and obtain desired results therefrom. If you merely repeat such statements as, God is Good, God is infinite Mind, etc., but do not understand them, and do not act as if you knew them to be true, they can do noth- ing for you, for your conduct then shows that you lack faith in the power of Truth. This lack of faith is lack of understanding of Principle, and all efforts to solve life's problems on such a basis will be just as futile as attempts to solve mathematical problems on a basis of absolute distrust of and disbelief in the principles on which the science rests. Truth constitutes God's resources, the re- sources wherewith He blesses mankind. The very fact that the truths of Being are in our thought at all, that we can read them or hear them spoken, shows that they are within our mentalities. It remains for us, then, to grasp them and hold them within consciousness, and conform our lives to 313 THE DIARY OF them. Doing this, they will f orin into mental con- cepts and become externalized within conscious- ness as supply, work, business, environment, etc. It is thus that holding understandingly to the truth that God has given us abundant supplies of all needful things, will result in these being exter- nalized as the supply that meets our needs. It is simply the working of our much-discussed, invari- able law. And so in all our work. Mere repetition of truthful statements will accomplish nothing. A baby can be taught to repeat statements of fact, and yet be utterly unable to profit from them. To say we are not sick when we do riot really believe the statement to be true, is vain repetition, and dishonesty. We must know this statement to be true, because God's children cannot be sick, and the children of mortals are the products of false thought. Conforming our daily living to this knowledge, and clinging tenaciously to Truth, despite the apparent testimony of the physical senses, we will find that evil will flee from us, and will disappear as a conscious experience, a mani- festation of that which is opposed to Good. All work, all business, is mental, and mental work must first be done before the externalization can take place. Truth must be sent out before us into consciousness to clear the way. It will then re- turn and take us unto itself, even as Jesus said he went before to prepare a place for us, and would return and take us unto himself, that where he 314 JEAN EVARTS was we might be also, even in perfect harmony, heaven. Again let us emphasize the great facts that there can be no "out-of-work," no "out-of-place," and no "out-of-business." Such manifestations as these are but mortal thoughts externalized to consciousness, and as false concepts they can be dissolved by Truth and replaced by true concepts, which in turn will become externalized as abun- dant supply for every need. But in working out of such false beliefs, there must be absolute hon- eMy in thought and motive, and perfect conformity to Principle, as this has been revealed to us. If we are logical in our reasoning, honest with God and with ourselves, and free from bias and the prejudice of human opinion, we will take for our major premise the Statement of Truth that "God is infinite Mind," and from it deduce con- clusions somewhat as follows : God is infinite Mind. Even on the mortal plane, mind expresses itself in ideas, and all of a mind's ideas are required to fully express it. God, as Mind, expresses Himself in ideas. Being Himself infinite, an infinite number of ideas will be required to fully express Him. If even one of God's ideas were out of place, or discordant, or lacking in anything need- ful, God would not be properly or fully expressed. 315 THE DIARY OF Every idea of God must have its proper supply and equipment, in order to perform its part in the work of expressing God as infinite Mind. If even a single idea of God's infinite number of ideas, regardless of its magnitude or relative importance, were not fully supplied with all that it needs, and did not have its rightful work and place and business, then there would be error in the expression of infinite Mind, and Mind would not be fully nor properly expressed. For Mind to be infinite, it must necessarily be perfect, else it could not manifest its infini- tude. To be perfect in every respect means to be Good, free from error or any elements of destruction or decay. But if there is any error in the expression of infinite Mind, owing to failure on the part of that Mind to properly equip and supply its ideas which express it, that Mind must itself be erroneous, and therefore cannot be Good. Ceasing to be Good, it likewise ceases to be infinite, for its infinitude is based upon its perfection. Since God is infinite Mind, fie is the only Cause and Creator. It follows, therefore, that nothing can exist without His creative mandate. We, therefore, must be the children of God, despite the apparent testimony of the phy- 316 JEAN EVARTS sical senses. Since God is Mind, we, as His children, must be His ideas. It logically follows, therefore, that we must have all we need at all times to express God. We have our proper place, our busi- ness, and our supply. And as God is in- finite, and therefore infinite power, there can be nothing anywhere that can in any way or by any means deprive us of that which we need to express Him. We cannot be separated in any way from over-present Good. Since God is Mind, His supply comes to us as His thoughts and ideas. These He is con- stantly sending into our mentalities. By holding them and knowing whence they come, they become externalized in conscious experience as the things we need to prop- erly express God. That is, as all that we need to perform our part in the infinite ex- pression of Mind. But if consciousness is already full of wrong thoughts and ideas, the thoughts and ideas which God sends us cannot find entrance until these are displaced. When this is done, the thoughts of infinite Mind will flow into consciousness, and ultimately become externalized there as abundance, peace, joy, freedom, dominion, and all good. This is the "secret" of Jesus. It is likewise the secret of Christian Science. It is seeking first the Kingdom of God, the Kingdom of Righteous- 317 THE DIARY OF ness, right thinking based upon Truth. Barren- ness of experience is thus shown to be only meagerness of receptivity, for all things are already ours, and we have only to avail ourselves of this great fact, and conform our ways of think- ing to the commands of Jesus, in order ultimately to empty the consciousness of all false thoughts and arguments of error, and all claims of any- thing unlike or opposed to God. We are in no way dependent upon man-made laws or man-made methods. God of very necessity must have met already every one of our needs. It is for us to stand and know it. Men do not achieve more because their faith does not permit them to attempt more. They limit themselves, and still worship at the shrine of the Roman God Terminus. They do not really lack faith, but their faith in evil is generally far greater than in Good. They will have to get their faith on the right side, the side with God, if they would improve their status. Faith must become understanding, and confidence must develop re- ceptivity. We always receive as much of the Christ Principle as we are ready for. If, although we know something of infinite Truth, our faith is still in evil, our problems will not be solved, nor our diseases healed. To continue speaking evil, to continue voicing and reiterating falsities, to maintain an attitude of anticipating evil, and gen- erally expecting it, rather than good, will result in such expectations being realized. Mrs. Eddy has said, "When we come to have more faith in 318 JEA^f EVARTS the truth of being than we have in error, more faith in Spirit than in matter, more faith in living than in dying, more faith in God than in man, then no material suppositions can prevent us from healing the sick and destroying error." (Science and Health, page 368.) And she has shown us how to attain this faith. Men must learn to be about their Father's business, the business of reflecting Him, rather than the business of gratifying material desires and personal ambitions. They must learn that all the wealth there is that has real and permanent value is within. Such wealth is not swept away by panics, by accidents, fire, or flood, nor can it be stolen from those possessing it. Such wealth constitutes a real investment, the most profitable investment that was ever offered to mankind, for it is an investment in Truth itself. All business is in Mind, and we shall have to learn to reflect it. There is nothing that can keep a man tied hand and foot, helpless, fearing, poor, and sickly, but his own false, material thinking. The mesmeric thought that holds him is his own. "While looking at it he can see nothing else. He is then as help- less and as limited as the deer, whose liberty may be restrained by enclosing it in a corral of but a single wire. The deer sees the wire, and is as effectually imprisoned as if shut up within stone walls. It might leap over the wire, or crawl be- neath it; but it yields to the sense of limitation which the single wire engenders, and remains a helpless prisoner. This illustrates the psycholog- 319 ical fact that the mind sees but one thought at a time, regardless of the thoughts that may be sup- posed to be held within the mentality. If it looks constantly at the thought of limitation, it fails to see the thoughts of abundance that are ever- present, and that may be held before the mental gaze as readily as their opposites. A tiny object held close to the eye will blot out the beauty and glory of the entire world. So an insignificant and powerless thought of limitation, held close to the mental vision, will hide the infinite bounty of God from our impoverished minds. Poverty is a false sense of separation from God, infinite Good. Financial limitation is the externalization of a lie. And a lie is always of human origin. God's chil- dren are His ideas, and are embraced in His thought and held within Himself, infinite Mind. Plow, then, can there be any separation from Good? The separation is only in the false thought itself. If we seek the externalization of Good within consciousness, we must first know that Good is infinite, and that there is no reality whatever in that which is called evil. A knowledge of this great fact cannot but make us deeply grateful, and thus gratitude becomes one of the first requi- sites to success in overcoming the false sense of poverty, for it indicates our slate of mind. Pov- erty is a part of the so-called testimony of the physical senses, and such testimony is only the various beliefs that obtain in the human mental- ity. God, infinite Mind, alone can give true testi- 320 JEAN EVARTS mony regarding us. We know what that testimony is, for we know that He slates us in terms of per- fection, as children of infinite Love, supplied with all that is needful. Men believe that business is a warfare, and such they make it. They consider it a necessary strife for even the very means of sustaining existence. They say that only the fittest survive this terrible struggle, and that the fittest are those who manifest the greatest will- power, combined with business shrewdness, sagac- ity, and cunning. Honesty and strength of char- acter do not figure as assets in this warfare. The philosophy of the business world is the philosophy of greed, and to be successful, as recently stated by an eminent financier, one must have more brains than heart. But, if God is Love, and if He has already given to all men all that they need, why should there be any struggle, or why should there be any lack? Again, it is the result of mortal greed, self- ishness, fear, avarice, hatred, and meagerness of receptivity. Poverty is a blight upon our civiliza- tion. As indicators of progress, the workhouse and bureau of charity stand on the same plane as the hospital. Even according to mortal ways of thinking, this earth is big enough and rich enough to supply, not only the necessities of life to every mortal attached to it, but even the luxuries. There is more than enough to go round, much more, for the earth symbolizes, in a way, God's infinite sup- ply. The needless blight of poverty could be wiped out so easily, if men only cared, really 321 THE DIARY OF cared, to make the attempt in the right way. But, actuated by mortal thought, they accumulate, hoard, Strive, and slay in the world's business, only to find at the end of it all that they have made terrible mistakes and have labored for that which is not meat only to realize that they have paid an awful price for the dubious privilege of serving Mammon. Why not set about correcting these mistakes? Why not begin to set in action those forces that will bring in an era of harmony and prosperity for all mankind, instead of vainly trying to be- lieve that such a state of bliss is attainable only after death? Love has supplied a sure way of meeting all of life's difficulties, and of blessing all mankind far beyond their m-oSl extravagant dreams of happiness. Men must, sooner or later, be awakened out of their mesmeric beliefs. Their petty worldly ambitions, their lust and greed, their selfishness, and their fierce strife for those things which, once obtained, do not satisfy, must be abandoned and put out of consciousness, if the things that are really worth while are to appear. True love is never satisfied with earthly things. True wealth is spiritual consciousness, and can be obtained by everybody, but only through following the method which Jesus gave to the world so many centuries ago. When facing the lie of poverty we must "be not afraid." We must pay no heed to arguments of self-limitation, for these are but limitation of belief in God's ability and willingness to help us. 322 JEAN EVARTS We must know that the lie of poverty originated in the human consciousness, in human thought, and that we can destroy its pernicious activity by knowing the Truth and resisting it on that basis. Once destroyed in thought, a correspondingly changed manifestation will result. But the spirit- ual must first be looked after. The material will then follow of itself, for the essentially counter- feit nature of mortal mind forces it to copy the pattern constantly held before it.. It is God's business to care for you, to feed, clothe, and shelter you. He does not have to be reminded of His duty. Do not interfere in His work, and do not allow any sense of Self and Self's assumed needs to get in the way. Be ex- pe<5tant of Good, for God is that "which was, and which is to come." If He is that which is to come, why should we anticipate the coming of evil, His opposite? Mrs. Eddy, from a wisdom proven by experience, has stated a rule for conduct which should be graven deep on the thought of every loyal seeker after God: "Be wholly absorbed in the work of gaining daily more understanding of God. Then personal ambition, envy, desire to be in this or that place, cannot use you. Personal ambition has no place in a Christian's thought or life. He is wholly occupied in the loving, humble purpose to do good, to be good, and to prove that good is all that can govern thought, action, con- dition, or being." Keep your thought focused upon the continual coming of Good, on the beauties and wonders of God's infinite goodness that are 323 THE DIARY OF flowing incessantly into your mentality ; hold con- stantly before your mental gaze the reality of Man as God's greatest and grandest idea; then, as time glides on, you will find yourself becoming trans- formed into that on which your thought is fixed. In all his many difficulties, Moses was able to say, ''But our eyes are upon Thee." And so "he en- dured as seeing Him who is invisible." Take up your cross and go willingly, not with the morbid, material thought that mortals reflect to one an- other, but with your mind illumined by the Light of Truth. Jesus said of the Christ Principle, "Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world." Love is with you all the way and in all ways. You are never dependent upon any sense of human aid. Your Father says, "My grace shall be sufficient for you." And so you will prove it to be. Thus am I to be launched upon life's high sea once more. But I have thought it all out tonight, and I know that my friend has advised me wisely. With joy and thanksgiving I have already begun my work, the task of proving God's omnipotence, and reflecting it to my fellow beings. It is of little moment what my hands may find to do, for I am sure that this dear friend who has been unfolding the message of Jesus to me during these past few days, will walk with me, as guide arid counsellor, until my rightful place has been externalized. And 224 JEAN EVARTS that place I have tried so hard not to outline and yet, if it could be by his side. But such thoughts have no place here, for I know they are human, and he has told me so often that speculation is not based on Truth. And tonight, following in the way he has pointed out, I am striving to lay every desire upon the altar of Righteousness, asking only that infinite Wisdom may guide me. 325 MAY 28TH MAY 28TH S I write these words tonight I am trying to collect my scattered thoughts and make myself believe that the past few days have not been a dream, from which I shall awake to see myself still in the hopeless condition in which he found me. Today came as a sudden climax to the whole wonderful experience ; and tonight there is such a conflict of emotions within me, such a mingling of happiness and fear, of glad surprise and, withal, chagrin that I should have been so weak, that my wits appear to be scattered beyond hope of recovery, and I know I am writing as disconnectedly as I am thinking. From the first day I have felt as if I had always known him. There was something in his expression, in his manner, and even in his voice, that seemed familiar. I felt as if there was a bond between us that reached far back to some experience that we had shared together in the for- gotten past. Many times I had been on the point of asking him to tell me about himself; but he was always so absorbed in his message, and in his thought of helping me, that there appeared no opportunity to gratify what I felt he would regard as idle curiosity. It came about so unexpectedly that my recol- lection of the details is much confused. After he had sat down beside me this morning, he remained quiet for a long time, looking out over the valley, while I waited for him to continue the message 329 THE DIARY OF that be has been unfolding. I wanted to tell him how much I had read in my new book the night before, and how wonderful it all seemed to me; but something held my words back, something un- defined, like a vague apprehension of unpleasant tidings. Then he spoke. He told me that his work for me was finished, that the message had been given, and that I was now able to do my own work in- dependently. He said that I had some under- standing of the great Principle of Being, and that I had seen some proof of its power to cast out error from the human consciousness. The book he had given me would be my guide henceforth, and my progress would depend upon my fidelity to its teachings. "You have all that you need to enable you to work out your salvation," he said, "and, as I told you some time ago, such work must be individual. Jesus has shown us the way, but he has not done our work for us. Believing him to be the Son of God, faith in his goodness and power, and out- ward conformity to the letter of his teachings, will do no more for you than it has done for human- ity since he left the world. Faith without works is dead. It is work that proves the Principle and demonstrates a correct understanding of it. Real progress results from actually doing the works he did, casting out sin, healing the sick, and raising the dead. Ceremonial, ritualism, creeds, and human opinions delivered in flowery rhetoric from the pulpits of costly churches, will never heal the 330 JEAN EVAETS world's sickness, nor wipe away its tears. Men have preached and expounded for centuries, but their faith understanding has been dead. Chris- tian Science has come to rekindle the flame of understanding, that it may shine into the human mentality and light the way for the entrance of Truth." While he spoke, his eyes shone with the light of perfect confidence in that which he was voicing. But when he had finished, and turned to look at me, the light seemed to fade, and I thought a shadow clouded the brightness of his face. Then he added in a low voice, * * I have planned to go this afternoon. ' ' I know not why the thought of separation from him had never impressed itself upon me before. It seemed so natural that I should be with him, and I seemed to have known him so long, that I had insensibly grown to feel that he had always occupied a place in my life, that he was a part of it, and that it was his very presence in it that made my life complete. For a moment I was dazed. Then there swept over me a flood of emotions that drowned my sen- sibilities, and in an instant paralyzed all rational thought. An overwhelming realization of what he had done for me, of my dependence upon him, and, above all, of that growing affection an affection that I had hardly dared to own, that I had thought to check, and yet had secretly clung to as my heart's dearest possession, and which now, stimu- lated by fear of separation, had suddenly assumed 331 THE DIARY OF gigantic proportions took complete possession of me, and found expression in a confusion of pro- test and remonstrance that welled to my lips. I cannot recall now what I said to him in the des- peration of weakness. But I am sure I must have revealed much of my thought of him that I had tried so hard before to keep hidden I must have told him of my utter loneliness, and of my feeling of dependence upon him as my only friend I must, have poured out my stricken soul before him until at last the tears mercifully came and topped my wild words. Then, through the storm that raged within, I heard his voice, and he was speaking my name, "Jean." It was not the word itself, but the authority of some knowledge hidden from me and implied in it, that stilled the tempest and brought again the calm. I looked up at him through my tears, vaguely wondering. Then he laid his hand gently on mine. "You are asking why I called you by your name," he said, and his face was bright with that same won- derful smile of tenderness, as if he read my thought and felt compassion for such weakness. ' ' Surely I still have the right to call you Jean, ' ' he continued, l i for I see in you the same impulsive girl who used to run away from school with me to gather flowers on the green hillsides of our New England home the same quick, responsive girl, who never would let me be her champion, but whose friendship I treasured as one of my dearest 332 JEAN EVAETS possessions in those distant, happy days, when we took no anxious thought for the morrow." Slowly the light dawned upon my clouded vision, and I began to see that vague something which had seemed to exist between us, leading back to the days of childhood. Then, suddenly, the truth came to me, and his name sprang to my lips the name I had seen in my sister's letters and upon the checks I had received from her. I turned and stared at him in amazement, for the magnitude of the revelation was such that my mind, already sorely tried, could scarcely grasp it. But as in the first days of our association here he had shown himself master of that mental con- dition which was hurrying me to the manifesta- tion of death, so now he brought order out of my confused thought, and revealed that wonderful naturalness of conduct which is the reflection of God's activity, the activity of infinite Principle, whose motive is love to all mankind. ' ' I am going to tell you just enough about my- self, " he added, after admitting his identity, "to explain why I came to you in your hour of need. To do so I must go back in thought almost to the days when I carried your books to school, or felt a sense of deep resentment when you would not permit me to whip some boy who teased you. Many years have passed since then, and they have brought me a varied experience ; yet I can see now that the experience has all been such as to bend my thought in but one direction, and to finally prepare me, through trials, disappointments, and 333 THE DIARY OF suffering, for the reception of that Truth which has become the motif of my life. After leaving our home town, I entered an eastern University. In the matter of education I might be considered very fortunate, for I spent many years in college and received diplomas from several institutions of learning. As for my relig- ious education, I had allowed myself to become a member of an orthodox church when a mere boy. But my heart was never fully enlisted, and as I grew older I found that I could not conscientiously hold to orthodox views. What sympathy I had left for the creed to which my name was sub- scribed entirely evaporated into the highly critical and worldly intellectual atmosphere of the Uni- versity; and when I finally left the "sacred pre- cincts" of learning, I did so as an agnostic, deeply versed in human philosophies, and much im- pressed with the purely literary value of the Bible. Then followed a business experience in which I willingly assumed my part in the tragedy of im- proving the status of a human mind at the ex- pense of its fellows. I was filled with ambition to succeed, and was quite ready to accept the world's established code for acquiring both fame and wealth. O the sadness of that experience ! The empti- ness of my labor for that which was not meat ! I awoke to see all about me the massing of material riches at the awful cost of manhood, and the sale of honor for a few pieces of silver, a pitiful bar- gain! Everywhere I saw the sacrifice of friend- 334 JEAN EVARTS ships for gold to consume on human lusts ; every- where the mad strife for preferment in mortal thought, the vain race for "who shall be greatest" in the kingdom of the dying ! In every walk of life I found the worship of Mammon, the cheapening of real worth, and the toadying of the sycophants of show and glitter. The air was filled with ma- terial thinking, crystallizing into coarse living. On all sides I met the pitiable pretensions to human power of the self-made and the newly rich ; the inflated boastings of the bloated human mind ; the blackness of ignorance; the lamentable weak- ness of worldly learning ; and the tragedy of mor- tals eking out their few sad, fleeting years of sin, disease, misery and worthlessness, even while vainly boasting that they were alive ! No wonder Jesus wept when he saw what kind of soil the world offered for the truth he came to plant ! Often I thought to flee from it all, as Thoreau did, and with a few acres and a humble cottage, live apart from the world's conflict and give the remaining years of my life to "plain living and high thinking." Many times I prayed that the great Being, which I felt must be behind all this material phenomena, would show me what was worth while, and I would promise to follow the leading, even though to the human mind I should become the lowliest menial. Mrs. Eddy has said that desire is prayer, and that all true prayer is answered. All the human desires that ever stirred my thought at last melted in the fire of trials and suffering into the one true 335 THE DIARY OF desire to know God, and Him only. That was my first real prayer and it was answered. As in your hour of need Truth came to you, so it found me, baffled, disappointed, discouraged, and hope- less. What it did for you, it likewise did for me. I arose restored, and from death I awoke to know that Life is infinite. Since then I have learned what is really worth while, and my life has been one of devotion to "my Father's business." Daily I have been about the business of acquiring a better understanding of Him, that I might become a channel through which that knowledge should be brought to my fellow men. With what understanding I had re- ceived from studying the book which I have given you, I entered the field that Jesus so long ago pointed out as white all about us, and now I am working as a practitioner in the great city of San Francisco. But in all these years I never forgot you ; and when, a few weeks ago, I learned from your sister that you were in need of help, I wrote her to send you at once to California. I had already arranged to spend a few days in these hills, and here I felt that you should be brought here where the beauty and glory of the infinite Father is mani- fested so clearly in the brilliant sunlight, the soft winds, and the profusion of flowers and birds, the murmur of streams, and the majesty of the snow- capped mountains. Here you have found Him, and finding Him, have entered upon a knowledge of Life eternal." 336 JEAN EVAETS Before he had finished I was pressing his hand to niy lips and covering it with my fast-f ailing tears. ' ' Forgive me, ' ' I faltered, * * forgive the weak- ness and ingratitude which my selfish desires have expressed. Your work for me is finished and you must go. But you take " Again I checked myself. Then, with a sudden wild impulse, I cried, "Leave me now! Leave me to work it all out alone ! Go, and may that Father, whom you reflect so clearly, crown your life and work with richest blessings!" I started to rise ; but he detained me. "First," he said, taking my hand, "I want to tell you of a problem, and ask you to help me solve it. You will learn in your new work never to re- fuse an appeal for help," he added, smiling, for he read my astonishment at the thought of asking me to help him. I l I would not refuse to do anything that lay in my power," I replied. "But I have so little faith in my ability "You are not asked to have faith in your own ability," he interrupted. "Remember, always, that the Master said of himself he could do noth- ing. It is the Truth, God, within the human con- sciousness that does the work. Your part is to know the Truth." "I do know, and I will remember," I replied, eagerly. "And I will try to help you. What is your problem?" "You," he answered quickly. 337 THE DIARY OF I looked up into his face, but the smile was gone. "But I do not understand," I murmured, wonderingly, trying to read the answer in his eyes. And then, while my heart beat rapidly with an excitation of mingled joy and fear, he told me what I had never dared to hope could be more than a day-dream of my own fancy. It was the old, familiar story, but told in a new way; and it seemed to me the most beautiful expression of un- selfish love that was ever sent forth to meet the needs of a yearning heart. "To explain is to repeat an oft-told story," he said, "and one that I had not thought to tell you, until I caught in your voice and words a few moments ago the answer to a perplexing question that has come into my mind so insistently during these few days. Jean, I have known you and fol- lowed you in thought from the time we were play- mates together until the day I again saw you, leaning over this ledge that day when I hurried to lift you up and realize for you that death is not the master of Life. Even as a boy, there was constantly with me the desire to claim you some day; but it was to be only after I had amassed a fortune, and written my name large upon the scroll of success. How I laugh now at those youthful ambitions ! But there was one ambition that endured. Per- haps it is only human, like the others but that constitutes my problem. Each of us has again come into the other's life. Shall we continue 338 JEAN EVARTS there? Is it right and best that our paths should join, and that we should walk through the re- mainder of this life together? I know that marriage is a serious problem, even though it is seldom taken up as such. And I fully agree with Mrs. Eddy, that unless it is a step in the line of progress it should not be en- tered into. But it is an institution that cannot be removed from human experience now and it is one that can be made an instrument of the great- est good. Jean, there has been with me since boyhood a sense of need, a need that you can meet, to fill out this experience called life, and to join with me in the great work of manifesting the infinite Father who is Love, and reflecting Him to our fellow men. Will you take up with me this problem : whether it is right and best for us, and for all within the radius of our thought, that our lives should unite, and that we should live and work together? Will you join me in laying all human desires upon the altar of Love, and ask that we may be led to see the way clearly? Mrs. Eddy has said, and proved, that 'working and praying with true motives, your Father will open the way.' This is my problem; will you share it with me ? " The sun stood high above us, and the valley was full of molten gold. The breath of violets and wild roses kissed my cheeks, and the love song of the meadow lark floated on the soft air. I clasped his hand in answer, for, though my heart was bursting, I could not speak. THE DIARY OF JEAN EVARTS "I understand," he said, softly. "And now I am going to leave you. Not to take the afternoon train, as I had planned," he added hastily, for he must have seen the look of appeal in my eyes. "I shall postpone that. But this has been a day of trying experience for you, and I know it is best that you should be alone." Then he pressed my hand to his lips and left me. 340 EPILOGUE HEN I closed this short diary, nearly five years ago, I had no thought of ever adding to its record of what seem to me the most wonderful days of my life. The history of Truth's appearing in my darkened consciousness has been to me, like the Scriptures themselves, too holy to be mingled with the records of a mortal existence, and I had intended always to keep it apart. The story of the coming of the one who brought me the "glad tidings" was too beautiful and sacred to be pro- faned by any further details of human experience. But today the spring house-cleaning again brought this little record to light. With a feeling akin to reverence I took it from the shelf, to turn once more its pages and call again to memory those radiant days when, in the matchless glory of that distant springtime, in such a setting as only Nature herself can frame in these magic hills, there was unfolded to me a vista of that which was to come. And as I read, I felt that there was a word of gratitude to be added before the little volume could be complete. Gratitude for Life, Truth, and Love! My life has become a song of deep thanksgiving, a pean of praise to that dear Father who stretched forth His hand and lifted me from the shadow of the grave ! As I write, sitting in the shade of a dense crimson rambler that seems almost humanly in- telligent in its efforts to completely hide our little 243 THE DIARY OF bungalow, my small son is climbing upon my chair and begging me to read to him from what he thinks must be a Story book. A story book, indeed, that he shall some day treasure as I do now ! Gratitude! Father, the innocent chatter of this little fellow, who has wrapped himself about my heart, is like a symphony from Heaven's choir ! Gratitude ! Every bird that heralds the rising sun echoes my song of thanksgiving ! that men could know, not what God will do for man, but what He has already done for him ! How quickly the deserts would bloom, and how the hills would clap their hands, and the stars sing together for joy! As I look up from my writing, the garden is aflame with color. The great trees that meet and twine their arms together far above our little home are gently swaying in the perfumed breeze that has crept down from the hill tops and is slowly drifting out to sea. Here and there I see it fill a white sail, or bend the mast of some fishing smack that floats lazily on the glassy surface of the bay far below. In the midst of this beauty and harmony, the thought comes to me, what if the Truth brought to me by that dear friend, who daily becomes nearer and dearer, should find entrance into every human consciousness? What if the whole world, instead of leaning on erring, human opinions and speculation, should come into a knowledge of the Truth? What would be the result if all those who 344 JEAN EVART8 today are struggling against sickness, vice, intem- perance, and misfortune, should turn understand- ingly to God for help, instead of to senseless drugs and frail human methods? And yet we know that the day is coming when ''every knee shall bow, and every tongue confess my name." God's work is done, and every man must sooner or later lay aside selfishness, vanity, pride, and all human ambitions and schemes, must put off the sense of materiality, and stand revealed as the image and likeness of Spirit, the infinite Mind that is All-in-all. When that day comes, there will be but one religion, the religion of Jesus, the Master. No mortal will assume to be his vicegerent, and no cult will claim a monopoly of the Truth; but all will be his followers, and his Father shall be theirs. Creed and dogma will have been forgotten, and pomp and dead ceremony will have passed into oblivion. The worship of saints and human personality will have followed the worship of wooden images and man-made idols into the outer darkness. In that day it will be understood that the mes- sage of Jesus was the good news that the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand, and that the attainment of this spiritual consciousness follows righteousness, based upon right thinking about God and Man. Our terrible and distorted concepts of a future life, of a material heaven and hell, will have faded into their native nothingness, together with the old mediaeval theology from which they were de- 345 THE DIARY OF rived. Paul defined the Kingdom as righteous- ness, peace, joy, holiness of life; and men shall know that wherever these are, there is the King- dom of Heaven and wherever these are not, there the Kingdom is yet to be attained. At that time, men will not set apart one day out of seven for a perfunctory and material wor- ship of the Father, who feeds and cares for them every hour, nor will they publicly profess a faith that their daily living denies. Preachers will no longer hold out the hope of another world, instead of demonstrating the ever-presence of infinite Harmony ; nor will droning priests continue to in- sult Intelligence with their nasal intonations and their tawdry ceremonialism. Jesus will be taken at his word, instead of approximated; and human thought will not attempt to improve upon the pure religion which he taught and lived. Instead, men will "preach that the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand ; heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, cast out devils, raise the dead." In that day, hatred and jealousy, and every evil thought and desire will have melted away, and every man will love God, Good, supremely, and his neighbor as himself. War, and the glory that is lavished upon those who make it their trade, will have yielded to peace, and the greater glory of mastering the carnal self. Poverty and social evils will have passed away forever, strikes and industrial revolutions will have ceased, for God will be universally recognized as infinite Love, the giver of all good and of all that men need to re- 346 JEAN EVARTS fleet Him. Men will dwell together in peace and abiding harmony, and business dissensions and strife, together with trusts and boycotts, and all the practices that are founded upon selfishness and lust, will have gone out forever from con- sciousness. Newspapers and magazines may con- tinue to be published, but they will no longer act as purveyors of revolting crimes and accidents, for in the atmosphere of right thinking that shall obtain in that day, such things could not exist. Men will cease trying to know evil, for they will see, as God does, that it is impossible to really know that which does not exist, At that time, too, there will be but one phy- sician, infinite Mind, for all will have learned that disease is but the externalization of disease- thought, and that, in the words of the French proverb, ''It is the sick man who makes the dis- ease." It will be found that, despite popular be- liefs of the present day, Mind has supreme influ- ence over the body, even to the casting out of the most dreaded and so-called incurable diseases, and that death itself will yield to the understanding of Life as infinite and eternal. Men will have put aside their beliefs in so-called laws of health, and will know only the law of Gfod, the law of right- eousness, right thinking. Materia medica, which today so ignorantly treats effects, in the hope of thereby destroying the cause, will have yielded to the knowledge that the cause of all disease is men- tal, and that treating the effects of error can never destroy the error itself. Men will know that men- 347 THE DIARY OF tal phenomena are not due to nerve-excitation, and that, as one of the greatest natural scientists has said, "It is utterly impossible to conceive of pain except as a state of consciousness." The false science of materia medica, with its experi- mentation and speculation, its human theories and limiting opinions, and its vain search for Life within the body, will have given place to the true Science of Christianity, where, in the knowledge of God as infinite Good, there can be no fear of sin or disease. Men will have ceased laying laws upon one another; and the command, "Thou shalt not bear false witness," will no longer be broken. Innocent children will no more be condemned to drag out years of misery, blindness, and suffering from distorted bodies, because of false health laws laid upon them in their early years by ignorant physicians, such physicians as are now turned loose upon a credulous public by thousands every year from our schools of medicine. Nor will adults continue to submit to man-made laws of age and decrepitude, of wasting tissues and degenerating organs, for all will know that matter does not, and never did, possess Life, and that Man, in the image arid likeness of God, is immortal. When that day comes, the tremendous effects of thought as the cause of all externalized phe- nomena w r ill be recognized, and men will think only those thoughts that they wish to see mani- fested in their conscious experience. The awful effects of mental suggestion, wilful or ignorant, the dire results of suggesting evil to other minds, 348 JEAN EVARTS whether it be sickness, sin, or failure, will be rec- ognized, and men will "stand guard" at the door- way of their mentalities and permit entrance only to those thoughts that they are willing to see ex- ternalized in their lives. All will know that, "as a man thinketh in his heart, so is he," whether of false thought, resulting in the mortal who mani- fests sin, sickness, and death, or of real thought, resulting in the revealing of the true Man, bring- ing into conscious experience harmony and im- mortality. Men pray for the millennium, not knowing that the second coming of Christ is already an accom- plished fact. Indeed, the Christ Principle never left the world. It is here today, and is as avail- able as when Jesus applied it with such certainty, over nineteen hundred years ago. But, though it is here and available, men must become pure in heart, in motive and thought, if they would see God. No man can successfully apply any prin- ciple until he is willing to empty his mind of prejudice and human opinion, and give himself wholly to the demands which that principle makes upon him. It is so with the infinite Principle of Being: it will transform men's lives as water transforms the desert into rich gardens. It is sometimes asked, Why does not God do this anyway, why does He not transform men's lives, regardless of their attitude? God's work is done. He has created all that is, and He saw that His Creation was good. He has given all good to mankind, and He can do no more 349 THE DIARY OF for us than He has already done. It is for us to see, to know, that He has done this. It is by know- ing that He has already bestowed all good upon us that we are enabled to put aside our false beliefs, and become receptive to what He has given us. The sunlight taps at the closed shutters : it is for us to open them. But the putting of false thoughts out of con- sciousness is the work of Truth, and so is God's work. Therefore, He does do for men just what this question implies that He does not. The work of redemption is always the work of Truth, and that is God. He sees no evil. It is for men to know this, and to avail themselves of the Principle which will bring into their conscious experience all that they need to express and manifest Good. All men are seeking Good. Since the begin- ning of history they have diligently sought it. But they have sought it ignorantly, and have woefully misinterpreted it to themselves. The growth of Christianity is not attested by the increase in hos- pitals and charitable organizations, but by remov- ing the necessity for these things, and by men's increasing ability to overcome sin and discord by applying the Christ Principle to human needs. The search for that which will gratify the physical senses is not seeking Good. These senses cannot testify of Good, nor are they in any sense the measure of that which is real. Asa recent scholar has said, ''There is not the slightest speculative warrant for making our senses the measure of reality, and he who does so is ignorant or stupid." 350 JEAN EVAKTS The mad rush for material wealth ; the cruel lust for gold which drives men to destroy human lives with opium and gin, even while those who traffic in human misery offer hypocritical prayers of thanksgiving in the established church that they are not as other men ; the insane desire for ma- terial sensations and so-called bodily pleasures; the lust of the eyes and the sensuous cravings of the carnal mind, do not lead to God. They lead to pleasures that turn to ashes, and to empty hearts that are left desolate when the strife is ended. But, though the human mind has wandered far astray, it can never get beyond the voice of in- finite Love, that bids it return and give up its false pleasures and false thinking that bids it lay aside those things that can never satisfy, and enter into that knowledge of real Good which is Life eternal. Jesus long ago pointed out the only way. None other has been found since. Mrs. Eddy again indicated it to mankind, and herself walked in it to show us whither it leads and how we ourselves can become followers of the great Master, and, laying down all the falsities of ma- terial thought that would impede us, enter the gateway that opens into immortality. Gratitude ! Father, I shall never cease to praise Thy name for revealing this Truth to me, for showing me its infinite power, and for making me a channel through which it is brought to those about me whose hearts are yearning for some- thing more than the vain offerings of the human mind! 351 THE DIARY OF JEAN EVARTS In the distance I see my husband approaching ; and my little son, catching sight of him, rushes down the garden walk with shouts of joy to greet him. The golden haze of this midsummer after- noon hangs like a veil over the distant hills and the quiet bay, and through it there floats to my ears a medley of indistinct sounds from the busy world of thought that surrounds our little home. Home ! That beautiful symbol of our home in infinite Love, wherein we dwell "under the shadow of the Almighty." And this is the solu- tion of our ' ' problem ' ' externalized. Here, in this garden of Nature, our paths joined and we began that comradeship w r hich has seemed to crown all the manifold blessings that infinite Love has showered upon me. Here, with lives consecrated to the service of our fellow men, we are watching and working, bringing every thought into captiv- ity to Him, and striving for that Mind which was in Christ Jesus. As I watch my dear ones coming up the path- way, the father always the same manifestation of sympathy and tenderness that turned my sorrow into joy so long ago, and the child a symbol of innocence and purity, my heart seems bursting with the fulness of God's love, and there come to my lips the words of the Apostle, "Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be : but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him ; for we shall see him as he is." 362 1158010685278 University of Ca! Southern Regi Library Faci