Article September 7, 1899 Issue

When True Religion is Gained

George H. Hepworth

New York Herald

I say , therefore, that when we attain to the true religion, when God is literally in a man's heart, we shall have the cheerfulness and even the buoyancy of eternal youth. There may be sorrows, but never a hopeless sorrow; pains, but never a pain that can overcome us. Christ had a Gethsemane, but he was still the Christ beneath its shadows.

And, again, I believe the time is coming when all diseases will vanish as they did at the touch of the Master. I can't conceive of God in the soul in conjunction with an infirmity. God's presence is remedial: it means health, and it cannot mean anything else. Jesus could not have given sight to blind eyes unless he possessed a power which would have made it impossible for him to suffer from a like affliction. He could not have restored the dead man to life unless there was something within himself which kept death at a distance until he saw that it was time to go to heaven. The heart in which God dwells must always beat in accordance with the gracious laws of health, for God and health are equivalent terms. The highest philosophy does not include disease as a necessity. When we are in the wrong, so long as we remain misinformed and grope in the darkness, we shall stumble and hurt ourselves, but when there is a light within we shall see our way clearly, and then we need not stumble.

Our comprehension of the philosophy of religion is rudimentary as yet. What we know is beautiful. We have seen the seven colors separately, but we have not seen them fashioned into a rainbow. We have worshiped the Christ, but we have not understood him. When the hour arrives in which we shall open the soul gladly and humbly, and when Father, Son, and Spirit shall enter, then—but no pen can draw that picture.

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