satisfied,"--even
the "house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens." With the
mind's eye glance at the direful scenes of the war between China and
Japan. Imagine yourselves in a poorly barricaded fort, fiercely besieged
by the enemy. Would you rush forth single-handed to combat the foe?
Nay, would you not rather strengthen your citadel by every means in
your power, and remain within the walls for its defense? Likewise
should we do as metaphysicians and Christian Scientists. The real
house in which "we live, and move, and have our being" is Spirit, God,
the eternal harmony of infinite Soul. The enemy we confront would
overthrow this sublime fortress, and it behooves us to defend our
heritage.
How can we do this Christianly scientific work? By intrenching
ourselves in the knowledge that our true temple is no human fabrication,
but the superstructure of Truth, reared on the foundation of Love, and
pinnacled in Life. Such being its nature, how can our godly temple
possibly be demolished, or even disturbed? Can eternity end? Can Life
die? Can Truth be uncertain? Can Love be less than boundless?
Referring to this temple, our Master said: "Destroy this temple, and in
three days I will raise it up." He also said: "The kingdom of God is
within you." Know, then, that you possess sovereign power to think and
act rightly, and that nothing can dispossess you of this heritage and
trespass on Love. If you maintain this position, who or what can cause
you to sin or suffer? Our surety is in our confidence that we are indeed
dwellers in Truth and Love, man's eternal mansion. Such a heavenly
assurance ends all warfare, and bids tumult cease, for the good fight we
have waged is over, and divine Love gives us the true sense of victory.
"They shall be abundantly satisfied with the fatness of Thy house; and
Thou shalt make them drink of the river of Thy pleasures." No longer
are we of the church militant, but of the church triumphant; and with
Job of old we exclaim, "Yet in my flesh shall I see God." The river of
His pleasures is a tributary of divine Love, whose living waters have
their source in God, and flow into everlasting Life. We drink of this
river when all human desires are quenched, satisfied with what is
pleasing to the divine Mind.
Perchance some one of you may say, "The evidence of spiritual verity
in me is so small that I am afraid. I feel so far from victory over the
flesh that to reach out for a present realization of my hope savors of
temerity. Because of my own unfitness for such a spiritual animus my
strength is naught and my faith fails." O thou "weak and infirm of
purpose." Jesus said, "Be not afraid"!
"What if the little rain should say, 'So small a drop as I Can ne'er
refresh a drooping earth, I'll tarry in the sky.'"
Is not a man metaphysically and mathematically number one, a unit,
and therefore whole number, governed and protected by his divine
Principle, God? You have simply to preserve a scientific, positive sense
of unity with your divine source, and daily demonstrate this. Then you
will find that one is as important a factor as duodecillions in being and
doing right, and thus demonstrating deific Principle. A dewdrop
reflects the sun. Each of Christ's little ones reflects the infinite One, and
therefore is the seer's declaration true, that "one on God's side is a
majority."
A single drop of water may help to hide the stars, or crown the tree
with blossoms.
Who lives in good, lives also in God,--lives in all Life, through all
space. His is an individual kingdom, his diadem a crown of crowns. His
existence is deathless, forever unfolding its eternal Principle. Wait
patiently on illimitable Love, the lord and giver of Life. Reflect this Life,
and with it cometh the full power of being. "They shall be abundantly
satisfied with the fatness of Thy house."
In 1893 the World's Parliament of Religions, held in Chicago, used, in
all its public sessions, my form of prayer since 1866; and one of the
very clergymen who had publicly proclaimed me "the prayerless Mrs.
Eddy," offered his audible adoration in the words I use, besides
listening to an address on Christian Science from my pen, read by
Judge S.J. Hanna, in that unique assembly.
When the light of one friendship after another passes from earth to
heaven, we kindle in place thereof the glow of some deathless reality.
Memory, faithful to goodness, holds in her secret chambers those
characters of holiest sort, bravest to endure, firmest to suffer, soonest to
renounce. Such was the founder of the Concord School of
Philosophy--the late A. Bronson Alcott.
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