Editorial September 10, 1904 Issue

"Not by Might nor by Power"

The subtlest temptations often seem reserved for those who entertain the noblest ideals and who strive the most faithfully and disinterestedly for their attainment. For the defeat of such worthies, error must align itself closely with a recognized truth, and thus present an appeal so seductive as to deceive the very elect.

The denial of the reality of the material world is a necessary sequence of the assertion of the allness of Spirit; it is therefore a fundamental requirement of spiritual apprehension, and yet one may lose his hold on well-nigh every comfort and benefaction of faith, be cast into the very pit of discouragement and despair, and thus become a trial to himself and to all about him, by undertaking to realize a mistaken sense of the meaning of this denial.

Roused to the perception of the evil of materiality, one is naturally led to think that it should be promptly disposed of, and not having learned the scientific way of effecting this end, he may declare a war of his own for the extermination of the external world, including human personality, etc. Very heroically, perhaps, and with the most laudable purpose, he may undertake to free himself from his present material concepts, not by their transformation through progressive awakenings to the spiritual realities they counterfeit, but simply by throwing them over the fence. That such an effort to annihilate the bulk of human sense at a stroke, should be followed by disappointment and distrust of self, if not of Science, is inevitable. Error is not done away with by the hammering process, and for the reason that in such a procedure we are practically asserting the reality of the things at which we strike. A lie always maintains its claim and influence until the displacing truth is apprehended, and hence our false concepts can be parted with only as we become conscious of the right idea. Error is to be overcome in the order of Truth's unfoldment, not otherwise, and the effort to get rid of its wearisome, pain-inflicting phantasms in any other way than through the spiritual understanding of their unreality, will but add to the historic proofs of the unprofitableness of the ascetic idea.

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