Article August 17, 1912 Issue

"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."

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