Editorial April 30, 1904 Issue

After the Resurrection

Sacred literature does not contain a more inspiring appeal, nor give a more splendid ideal of the purity and privilege of the Christian life than that found in the third chapter of Paul's letter to the Colossians, which begins with the mandatory and suggestive words, "byline" The outline he gives of the character and habit which are consistently associated with the initial postulate of our resurrection with Christ, thrills and humbles every aspiring heart. Like every high ideal it brings to all who hunger and thirst after righteousness no less of assurance and courage than of humiliation, for they are confident that to all who recognize and lay hold upon an ideal, to them there is the possibility of its realization.

The Christian altruist rejoices most, however, in the promised sequence of this escape from materiality, this "resurrection unto life," which is set forth in Jesus' words: "And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me." It is in the authority and effectiveness of the ascended and ascending thought that dominion and usefulness inhere. Spiritual elevation means breadth of vision, a truer apprehension of the nature and relations of those things which are beneath, a clearer perception of the presence and power of "those things which are above." It frees us from the obscurations of mesmerism, the mists of conventionality, and enables us to buttress our declarations of Truth with an illumined consciousness of Truth.

Every human difficulty is to be overcome, every earthly ill removed, every sinful bondage escaped from through that spiritual exaltation which is the only "universal panacea." This is the teaching and demonstration of Christian Science, that adequacy for every demand and exigency of human experience is to be found and maintained in the acquirement of a clearer perception of the truth of being. Aspiration, intuition, consciousness, healing power,—all are "lifted up" as we cling to our ascending Lord. In tracing the formations of the divine Mind "we constantly ascend the scale of infinite being" and "may rise to the spiritual consciousness of being, even as the bird which has burst from the egg and preens its wings for a skyward flight" (Science and Health, pp. 189, 261).

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