Article March 6, 1909 Issue

"THE POWER OF AN ENDLESS LIFE"

BLANCHE HERSEY HOGUE.

In the epistle to the Hebrews attention is called to the priesthood of Melchisedec, who is "by interpretation King of righteousness," and who is said to be "without father, without mother, without descent, having neither beginning of days, nor end of life." The writer further declares, that "after the similitude of Melchisedec there ariseth another priest, who is made, not after the law of a carnal commandment, but after the power of an endless life." Whatever difference of opinion theologians may have had concerning these references to Melchisedec, Christendom has very generally united in believing that they refer to the Christ-mind, as exemplified fully in the life of Jesus of Nazareth.

Where the formerly accepted theology leaves this question, Christian Science finds it, and carries it on to the understanding and demonstration of the Christ-mind in the life of the individual disciple in every age. If the Mind of Christ manifests that true priesthood which is made "after the power of an endless life," it follows that the disciple who reflects even but faintly this Mind which Paul bade all to have, must be in that small measure holding on high the real priesthood and embodying "the power of an endless life." Since the advent of the perfect priesthood set forth in the life and work of Christ Jesus, Christian followers have been largely concerned with the question of who shall be their priest, and accordingly persons have been ordained to priesthood, when the vital question concerning what qualities of thought make for priesthood, and how greatly these can sanctify every human heart, should absorb Christian attention. Not a group of priests and a group of laymen in a community, but the ever-multiplying group of Christlike thoughts which can dwell in the hearts of men, makes the sum of the church of Christ on earth; and to the individual who is building in his own consciousness true priesthood, true service, there is unfolded here and now some understanding of the power of an endless life.

Only the infinite can be endless. Whatever holds within itself the taint of the finite, harbors that which must some time fail. Only the immortal can be eternal, for mortality, as the very word implies, is continually hastening on to its own doom. Whatever a man knows of Truth is eternal, and this alone outlives, endlessly, the finite and the mortal. It is apparent that matter, apart from thought, is not animated, and in and of itself is not doing any living. It is then a natural conclusion that thought is conscious of living and matter is not conscious of living, that the experience of living, therefore, is a question of consciousness, and that the consciousness of existence, the thinking itself, is life. Furthermore, there is logically, and upon Scriptural authority, but one kind of thinking which makes for life, for reason reveals, and Paul declares, that "the wages of sin is death." Jesus himself made the declaration, "This is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent." John says, "He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life." Unquestionably mortal thinking, or as Paul terms it, the carnal mind, must go down in the mortality of its own making, while immortal thinking, the activity of the true idea of God, man. and the universe, manifest in the Mind of Christ, in him "that hath the Son," must lay hold of "the power of an endless life."

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