THE TRUTH.

And ye shall know the Truth, and the Truth shall make you free. John, 8: 32.

IN human thought Truth has many sides; with God, but one. To mortals it is cloud-enveloped and tempestuous; with God it is eternal sunshine and calm. Truth is divine, and human conjecture is neither part nor interpreter of it. With eyes to earth, mankind have been groping for that Truth which is to light the way to heaven and immortality; and have found it not. They have looked within matter for that which is without matter, for that which is forever above all material things. Men have been deluded long enough by their own imaginations, and are weary of supplicating their deaf and dumb oracles. They have been led a sorry dance down the centuries, lured hither and thither by the changing hues of their own misconceptions. Truth is the white light of God, without a mortal tint.

The vagaries and inventions of the human intellect, formulated in creeds, doctrines, and dogmas, have been set up as beacon-lights to guide benighted mortals out of the darkness of error; but they have reflected no rays of light upon the world, they have demonstrated no Truth for mankind, and they abide still in the obscurity of speculation. They have never warmed the human heart into love for God or man. They have given the heavenly-hungry no crumb of comfort, nor refreshed the fainting soul (sense) with a cup of water in Christ's name. They have brought to the sick and imprisoned no hope of deliverance. They have left the stranger naked and to shiver, homeless and uncomforted, in the cold shades of materialism. Upon these foundationless dogmas must rest the eternal condemnation of Truth: "Depart from me, I never knew you."

Now mortals, unsatisfied, are still famishing with a hunger that nothing but the bread of heaven can satisfy; they are parching with a thirst that nothing but the water of life can quench. What the world wants is God Good as He is, and not as erring belief has pictured Him. Is that bread which came down from heaven, never to be found by earth's millions? Is that light which "shineth in darkness" never to dawn on the world's consciousness? Is mankind never to be saved, when Jesus said we should not only know the truth but that it should make us free? Was Jesus a false prophet, that more than nineteen hundred years have passed, and the world he came to save is still looking on every side for the truth that is to save it? and that those who name his name as the son of God, the saviour of men, are still in bondage to material sense? Must we go on forever seeking and never finding?

Jesus said to the Samaritan woman: "I that speak unto thee am he;" and thus he announced himself as the Messiah. And in the unparalleled demonstrations of his life, resurrection, and ascension, he became "the way, the truth, and the life" for all mortals, and none can come to the Father but by him. The world can have but one Messiah, and but one Gospel of the Christ (Truth). But human thought has misunderstood and misinterpreted Jesus' words and works, and his mission to mankind, and because of this it has continued to wander in the darkness of error. He said, "I am the resurrection, and the life: . . . He that liveth and believeth in me shall never die;" and yet though generation after generation, century after century, have come and gone, the darkness is still undispelled, sin and suffering are still rampant, death is still triumphant! Was the crucifixion a mere tragedy, and the atonement a farce, that humanity is still unredeemed? Were his promises a delusion? Were his teachings impracticable philosophy? Were his commandments mere figures of speech? Jesus' miracles were not for his own glorification; he did not talk for effect. He labored and taught to show humanity the way of salvation, and it has been blinded too long with the belief that it can find unmerited holiness and heaven without following him in demonstration, and without keeping all his commandments. The conditions of Truth are not adjusted to human inclination or convenience. It is evident, therefore, that if humanity is ever to be redeemed and the mission of Jesus fulfilled, that light he brought must reappear, and the Christ-Principle of his words and works he discovered and demonstrated for mankind.

And this has been done in Christian Science. The notes of joy in thousands of hearts to-day are echoing the angels' song. The spiritual idea that Jesus demonstrated has been buried-in the sepulchre of material sense; but the stone has been rolled away, and the grave has given up its dead (to sense), and the glory of the risen Christ, the spiritual idea of God, is sending its beams of freedom over a fettered world. Many a weary wanderer in the dark desert of belief has caught a glimpse of these morning beams and rejoices in the certainty of the perfect freedom and full-orbed glory of the coming day. Through the illuminated spiritual understanding of our beloved Leader, Mrs. Eddy, and in the unerring order of divine Wisdom, the Light has again come to human consciousness, and by her it has been demonstrated and given to the world under the name of Christian Science. As of old, the white-robed angels of the Resurrection are pointing earth-bound mortals away from the sepulchre of material sense, saying: "Why seek ye the living among the dead? He is not here, but is risen."

Christian Science is not a mere system of mind-healing; it is the revelation of Truth to man. Healing, of necessity, accompanies its establishment, for Truth is the only remedy for error, and sickness is the first error mortals want to lose. True healing can only be demonstrated on the basis of Christian Science. The systems of materia medica, hypnotism, and such like, have been simply fighting the devil with fire, and have not brought lasting release to suffering mortals. Divine Mind alone can be the remedy for human ills, and this is the only Mind recognized by Christian Science. Its mission, first and last, is the salvation of mankind from sin through the destruction of sinful sense, the belief of life in matter, separate from God. When this is accomplished, sickness and death must go down with it, for they have no other support. Christian Science is the Way demonstrated by Jesus, out of the beliefs of the flesh, into the realization of Life as God, and man as His image and likeness, spiritual and perfect. This is the mission of Truth; and no greater Truth can come to man than that which the world rejected, and which again "knocks at the portal of humanity" (Preface Science and Health, p. vii.).

"Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," is "the voice of Truth to this age" (Science and Health; p. 456). It rests upon no human theory or hypothesis; it does not set forth a system of opinions. It teaches Christian Science; It is bringing the consciousness of health and happiness to thousands of homes, it is reforming the sinner and bringing deliverance to the captives of sense. And thus it has been demonstrated, and is being demonstrated to-day, that the true idea of Christ has been wrested from the grasp of materialism, and is again giving light and liberty to the world. The promise of Jesus has been fulfilled.

THE WHOLE TRUTH

But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away. 1 Corinthians, 13:10.

Christian Science is the revelation of the whole Truth, and therein is its satisfaction, for nothing less than the whole Truth will satisfy man. All other systems of religion have had elements of Truth, but in so far as their truth was fragmentary and incomplete, they have failed to meet human want.

"The whole is greater than its parts." The perfect revelation of Christian Science includes every partial gleam that has gone before it.

Christian Science reveals God as He eternally is, as infinite Good, not a corporeal personality. Its Trinity is Life, Truth, and Love, and these are not persons, but expressions used to designate the three-fold nature of the one infinite Principle, the Father and Mother of the universe and man.

Mankind must have the true conception of God before ultimate and lasting happiness can be attained. With a limited God as our ideal we could never reach that knowledge of Him which Jesus said was Life eternal. Human belief, unable to extend beyond its own finiteness, has tried in vain to describe the Infinite. The omnipotence of its deity is opposed at every turn by an enemy's power; its omnipresence is driven back on every side by a rival's presence; its omniscience is constantly shared with an evil intelligence. The God of Christian Science is omnipotent, omnipresent, unchanging Love, the only Life, Intelligence, Substance. Higher, deeper, broader we cannot go; less, God could not be.

Christian Science reveals man, even as the Scriptures declare him, as the image and likeness of God; spiritual, unfallen, perfect. As the divine reflection, man, must necessarily be as perfect and eternal as the infinite Principle he reflects; he must, necessarily, be inseparable from, and governed by, that unchanging Principle. More or less man, in Truth, could not be. In so far as human belief has taught less, in so far man has been inevitably confirmed in that state from which religious endeavor would save him. After all has been said by the opponents of this-teaching of Christian Science, the fact remains that man is the likeness of what he conceives God to be; and he is only unfolding and expanding the qualities he believes implanted in him by God. The fall of man is coincident with the conception of God referred to in the last paragraph. The records of crime that have disfigured all human history, are immediately related to man's belief about God; it is the infallible law of like producing like. For a perfect Principle to produce an imperfect idea is a scientific impossibility. Mortal man believes God to be like himself, finite, passionate, changeable. The teaching that God rewards His erring children with unspeakable punishment, is surely father to the horrors of human cruelty and revenge. While man believes himself to be father he will manifest the conditions of that belief; for as a man thinketh in his heart, so is he; but give him the true idea of God, as Christian Science is doing, and he will give up his false beliefs and become like Him. (2 Corinthians, 3: 18.)

In this whole Truth about God and man, the illusion of human belief, with-all its phenomena of sin, disease, and death, disappears, and its demonstration is the perfect fulfilment of Jesus' atonement. The beauty of Christian Science is in its completeness, and hence its adaptability to every phase of existence, and its sufficiency to meet every human want and woe. This whole Truth must be taught and demonstrated before mankind will wholly relinquish its belief in error. When Jesus said, "Go ye into all the world, and preach the Gospel to every creature," he knew that his Gospel was the whole truth, and equal to the overthrow and destruction of every form of error. It was the unhallowed ordinances of unspiritual ecclesiasticism that divided his Gospel, and has shorn from it its practical value for the race. Christian Science is no new Gospel; is the restoration of the whole old Gospel of Jesus Christ.

NOTHING BUT THE TRUTH.

And there shall in no wise enter into it anything that defileth, neither whatsoever worketh abomination, or maketh a lie. Revelation, 21: 27.

The completeness of Christian Science excludes all error. The wholeness of Truth admits of no adulteration, for Truth adulterated ceases to be Truth. Impregnate Christian Science with human opinions and it ceases to be Christian Science and becomes a mere human system, among thousands of others, with mortal mind as its basis. Systems partly true and partly false are devoid of Principle, and can demonstrate no permanent good. Human sense, or human intellect, cannot rise above itself, and could not be the basis of Truth, which is divine.

Christian Science teaches nothing but the Truth, and it is here that it meets the opposition and persecution of the systems of religion and therapeutics which are founded upon erroneous theories and the testimony of material sense. It is here that it draws the line of demarcation between the real and unreal, between that which is, and that which seems to be but is not. And it is here that Christian Science sticks to its text. The world would be undisturbed by Christian Science, and bestow little attention upon it, if Christian Scientists were satisfied with simply preaching this whole truth about God and man; but when they carry the logic of this truth to its inevitable conclusion the denial and destruction of all error and begin a war of aggression upon the strongholds of material belief, mortal mind becomes alarmed lest it be despoiled of its goods sin, disease, and death. But the issue has been taken, and the eternal justice of Truth will be done, though the heavens of error fall.

In the revelation of Christian Science of one Creator Spirit, and one Creation spiritual; one Cause and one effect, it is unfolding to mortals the whole Truth of God and His works, which excludes the commonly accepted belief of material universe and man. It is certain that man can never escape from material environments while he believes they exist in consonance with, and as the result of, the Word-of God. But, mortal mind says, there is matter; it is real and substantial. Christian Science says, no. The ever-presence of Spirit God rebukes every pretence of any other existence or substance. Both spirit and matter are impossible if one is infinite. But, mortal mind says, I can feel it, taste it, see it; it must be real. Of course; to its own so-called sense it is the only reality, for it has no sense of spirit, and this alone designates it an impostor; for God is known of His ideas. The religious world has been teaching the infinitude of Spirit and accepting the actuality of matter at the same time; but the stubborn truth remains that it cannot have both; and the fact that it must leave material sense to worship God, proves the position of Christian Science. We cannot have God as Spirit and God as matter both; for if God is ever-present how could there be another presence? These are the contradictions which the ages have been trying to reconcile by believing both. This is absurd in logic, and has proven wofully sad in practice. Has the Infinite a rival? Can corruptible matter proceed from, or be contained in, incorruptible Spirit? These are pertinent questions, though the answer is plain.

What is matter? Apply the simplest bit of logic, and in less than five minutes the problem will be solved. It will be found to be a belief in something besides God, when God is all; and the material objects we see are the phenomena of that belief. What is that belief? Illusion, since it is not Truth. What is illusion? Nothing. Simple; some will say absurd; yet no other conclusion is possible from that premise. Christian Scientists stand upon it, and find it to be the Rock that can never be moved, heedless of the storms of material belief that beat against it.

The rejection by Christian Science of the common belief that man is a being of flesh and blood, necessarily follows its denial of matter; and this alarms "carnal mind," for in the truthfulness of the denial it reads its doom. But has not man a material body, made of "dust"? Christian Science says, no. A dust-man could not be God's reflection. The Scriptures declare that "the flesh lusteth against the Spirit," and both cannot be true and good. When Paul said that in his flesh dwelt no good thing, he knew that God's man is wholly spiritual. Man cannot be spiritual and material, perfect and imperfect, God's likeness and unlikeness at the same time. What man is, in Truth, to-day, he always was; for neither the Infinite nor His ideas are changeable. When God made man in the image of His own perfection, did He include the ability to sin, suffer, and die? Was material man an attempted improvement on the spiritual, or is there a material element in Spirit? The sensual and sinful, not being emanations from God, could not be found in His likeness. The story in Genesis of man's creation from dust, temptation, and fall, with his subsequent history, is illustrative of error's claim to have counterfeited Truth's creation with a universe of matter; and it serves to teach the mistake, and the penalties that follow, of believing this illusion.

Many of the creeds of the world have accepted this (seeming) duplicate creation of error for the creation of Truth, and have taught men so, and the attempt to serve two masters, Spirit and matter, has left humanity in the grasp of matter. When Christian Science accepts the teaching of Scripture that man is God's likeness, it refuses all testimony of His possible unlikeness, for the simple reason before stated, that the terms are contradictory. The fact of physical manhood, if it were a fact, would impeach the perfectibility of the Creator. God's image could not become corrupt, nor could His likeness fall. The ideas of Perfection could not spring from, or relapse into, dust. These are eternal impossibilities.

When Christian Science reveals God as infinite Good, omnipotent and ever-present, it again teaches nothing but the truth, for it rejects the claim of an opposite evil, personal or abstract. Opponents of Christian Science would not object so much if its logic were applied to matter only, and left them the devil; but the command, "Thou shalt have no other gods before me," leads to the unavoidable conclusion, that, to acknowledge the reality and power of evil is to make a god of it. Mankind has been very zealous in the service of this god. It has feasted in its temples. and drunk the dregs of its unholy wine. It has labored faithfully in its behalf, as history too sadly testifies, and received its wages, pain, disease, death. Must its dominion forever continue?

This age is groaning under its weight of sin and suffering. It is haunted at every turn by the spectre of disease and crime. The king of terrors has the ceaseless homage of its tears and broken hearts. It has built large hospitals, and filled them. It has built colleges of medicine, which have sent out their graduates, host upon host; but the invader of health and life stalks on, since they have taken to the sick no divine deliverance. Must this forever continue? Is there no escape?

Nation after nation has striven through seas of blood for deliverance from unjust oppression. In the little island to the south, men have been struggling for years, willing to lay down their sense of life, for what? Liberty. And yet, age after age has meekly submitted to the foreign yoke of that arch-tyrant, called evil. Have we no Declaration of Independence? no Bill of Emancipation? shall this age be condemned in coming history, because in it Christian Science has declared man's independence, and this false god a usurper and impostor, and sounded the bugle call in the struggle for liberty? Shall we hesitate to fight under its standard from fear of disloyalty to that serpent-king, whom Jesus called a liar?

We cannot have God as All-in-all, and still give evil a place and power. It cannot exist within or without God. There is no extension of space beyond Infinitude; nor can there be any addition to Omnipotence. Error is not comprised in the truth of being, nor has God any relation to, or acquaintance with His unlikeness; and these facts forever declare their non-existence. If every man should rise up in his understanding of the power of Good, and put out of his consciousness every thought or suggestion of evil, and should refuse to recognize it, or allow himself to be the channel for its manifestation, where would evil stand? Where would be the witness of its existence? Would there he any evil to exist? The Scriptures teach that men are capable of the denouncement of error, capable of dominion through Good, then is not the logical conclusion that evil is a negative quality, whose only power or reality is that given to it by mortal man in the mesmerism of his deception? And we will find the same divine logic that has consigned matter to its native oblivion, waiting at the door of our understanding to annihilate this deceiver also.

But while Christian Science reveals the whole Truth, and with it the unreality of all error, and though we accept that revelation, it does not follow that we can, at once, step out from the bondage of false belief. When the United States declared their independence, they had to demonstrate it by force of arms before it could be realized. And the merchant, when he found the pearl of pearls, had to give up all he had, before he could possess it. And so with us; when we have found the truth that declares man's independence and emancipation from all error, we must demonstrate it before we can fully realize the liberty it brings; and this must be done by the destruction in our consciousness of every sense of, or belief in, that which God is not, and by living the life of Christ. Until "the world, the flesh, and the devil" are overcome, they will claim a place in consciousness; but Jesus said, "Be of good cheer; I have overcome the world."

If all sincere seekers for Truth will take "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," will set aside the prejudices of education, and study impartially the science it teaches, will test its Principle and rules in their own experience, they will find that Christian Science is indeed the revelation of Truth, the whole Truth, and nothing but the Truth.

Back