Article March 31, 1917 Issue

"Many mansions"

PETER E. MACKAY

In the fourteenth chapter of John's gospel is the assurance, "In my Father's house are many mansions." These words of comfort addressed by Jesus to his disciples have been the subject of much conjecture and controversy ever since they were uttered. Scholastic theology, with its contracted horizon, invariably interprets them from a physical rather than from a metaphysical standpoint. Bounded by material beliefs about man and his Maker, mankind has come to regard the Father's house of "many mansions" as a place of rest divided into compartments reserved and made ready for the people of God who should occupy them after death. Unbelievers are supposed to have a place prepared for them quite apart from the abodes of the blessed.

This narrow concept, as selfish as it is limited, is born of the belief that heaven is a local habitation where, beyond the grave, saints receive immortal rewards, but which sinners can never enter. The Saviour of mankind, who was the "friend of publicans and sinners" as well as the close companion of his chosen twelve, taught the multitudes from a mountain in Galilee the religion of Love,—a religion broad enough to embrace the whole of humanity. He said of our Father in heaven, "He maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust." This sublime conception, however, found little lodgment in the human mind until the discovery of Christian Science by Mrs. Eddy fifty years ago, when the divine idea was again definitely expressed in the following words: "Love is impartial and universal in its adaptation and bestowals" (Science and Health, p. 13).

Some years ago the writer visited the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. After procuring catalogues necessary to an intelligent survey of that immense storehouse of treasures, he proceeded to pasture among the pleasant fields of art. The first department visited was that of painting, in the galleries of which were hung world famous pictures of the old masters, as well as masterpieces by the best painters of modern times. On every hand were displayed, with a lavishness which exceeded expectation, works of genius, paintings that were poems without words, pictures that live in memory. The next department entered was that of sculpture. Here were presented the finest conceptions of celebrated sculptors exquisitely chiseled in stone and nobel expressions of ennobling thought skilfully carved in marble,—rare statuary depicting life, delineating character, and counterfeiting the fascinating forms of nature. These, together with a thousand cameos, served to delight the eye, refine the taste, and inform the mind.

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