"THE DAY OF GOD."

CLARENCE W. CHADWICK.

The apostle Peter speaks of "the coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat." Viewed from a material standpoint, one might not be inclined to wish for any immediate appearance of this day. Metaphysically interpreted, the suggestion of fear does not present itself, for the mental picture portrayed involves only the destruction of a false material sense and the restoration of a true or spiritual sense, called in Scripture "a new heaven and a new earth."

The old-time belief in a God of wrath and vengeance has suggested a judgment-day almost too dreadful to contemplate, but it is made apparent in Christian Science that the Christ never will make himself manifest in this way. The coming of Christ is a spiritual awakening; it is the appearing of the divine idea in human consciousness. Slowly but surely it is coming to the apprehension of mortals that there is only one way of getting out of the world here or hereafter, and that is by overcoming or destroying a mistaken or false sense of being. The Master said, "Be of good cheer; I have overcome the world." This could mean nothing else than that he had conquered or subjugated a matter sense of the world, having demonstrated the supremacy of spiritual causation. This conquest must have taken place in consciousness rather than in external environment, and it must take place in the same manner with every human being. The putting off of the old man is purely a mental process, and when it is completed, form, outline, and symmetry will be recognized as wholly mental and not physical.

Nature already appears a thousand times more beautiful to the Christian Scientist, because he has begun to look at the universe through the lens of Spirit. As he learns to do this, the law of destruction, dissolution, and decay is relegated to a dead past, and he thinks of all the glories of creation as spiritual, real, and undying. In this way only can he learn to love nature and nature's God. The materialist may think that his love of nature is most profound, but the fact remains that so long as he is looking through a material lens he can entertain only a perverted sense of that which he calls beautiful. If one's material concept of a flower or a tree is called symmetrical and beautiful, how much more beautiful the spiritual concept or idea of them! When nature is more metaphysically regarded, there will be less fear of loss and destruction, for one who is rich in ideas cannot lose what he possesses. His concept of possession will be mental, not physical or material. He will know that an absolutely right idea of anything constitutes true possession,—"an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away."

"The coming of the day of God" is the dawning of divine truth in individual consciousness, the right concept which always displaces the wrong. To illustrate: when one gains the true idea of health, he will lose the mistaken assumption that he is sick or in distress, and this is called Christian healing. A disease-laden consciousness assenting to the sense suggestion of the power and reality of disease, needs a savior; in other words, a mistaken mental concept needs correction. Since God alone is the author of right ideas, God must be appealed to for that right remedy, which is suggested in the words of the Master: "For he [the devil, or evil] is a liar, and the father of it." With the understanding that disease is an error of sense, which a coming to the knowledge of Truth dispels, the discord disappears, thus affording practical proof of the availability of metaphysics in the handling of so-called physical ills.

Precisely the same rule applies to the treatment of sin, and happy indeed "is the man whom God correcteth." Happy is he who welcomes the joyous advent of "the day of God," who is willing and glad to have his wrong thinking laid bare, to have right ideas come into consciousness. Mrs. Eddy has truly said that "no final judgment awaits mortals, for the judgment-day of wisdom comes hourly and continually, even the judgment by which mortal man is divested of all material error" (Science and Health, p. 291). This one scientific declaration of truth has already done wonders for mortals in destroying the merciless demon of fear concerning an imaginary judgment-day that would mean utter annihilation to the sinner. No more consoling thought could possibly come to a mortal than that divine Love is a law of annihilation to sin only, and that God shows His love and mercy through the destruction of sin. This punishment of sin is the corrective process through which individual consciousness must pass, before the day of God can fully come.

If the thought of Christian Science pertaining to the day of judgment could be accepted by the world at large, disease and sin would diminish, crime would lessen, and the fear of destruction and death would soon be a thing of the past. May professing Christians welcome the coming of the judgment-day of understanding; may they find in Christian Science the open door to a higher order of Christian thinking that will rid them of their illusive sufferings, which they have been educated to think are real and unavoidable; may they find within the inspired pages of Science and Health that Christ, Truth, the promised Comforter, wipes away all tears and reveals the eternality of the Life that knows no death. When they have thus opened their minds and hearts to the truths of Christian Science, they too will be led to say with their whole hearts, "Thanks be unto God for his unspeakable gift,"—"the coming of the day of God."

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