Editorial May 22, 1920 Issue

Circulation

Frederick Dixon

The only thing that can be circulated is truth. That, of course, is a statement entirely contrary to all human belief and experience. Yet it is a statement of absolute truth, and there is no truth which is not absolute. A lie is a mere negation, and so cannot pass into circulation, in as much as it never passes out of its native nothingness. What, then, is it that deceives the human mind into a belief in the reality of a lie, and the consequent possibility of circulating a lie? It is the fact that the human mind is itself a lie and a liar, endeavoring to circulate its belief of the reality of matter, and so of a world apart from divine Mind; "For if a man think himself to be something, when he is nothing, he deceiveth himself," Paul wrote to the Galatians, with penetrating directness. There is the simple truth about the whole matter. Men live in a world of sensuous impressions which they accept all the time for facts. Even Sophocles could write of "a necessary evil," even Shakespeare could be betrayed into the admission that "the evil that men do lives after them." Yet the latter, at any rate, must have read repeatedly in the letter to the Galatians the words already quoted, together with that tremendous following warning, "For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting."

There, with that ever recurring force of true ideas which circulate persistently through the Bible, is the warning to all those with eyes to see and ears to hear, of the utter unreality of the material and all its works. Now a lie is something which belongs entirely to the flesh, since it has obviously no part in things spiritual, that is, in Principle. Therefore a lie is merely, like a fever or any other disease, an unreality circulating in a false medium; in other words, it has no real circulation. It is quite true, as a statement of something relatively true, that nothing circulates so rapidly as a lie; every one opposed to truth is in a hurry to believe it, and to spread it. But this circulation is metaphysically fictitious, and just as an epidemic of fever can be stopped by an understanding of Truth, so can the circulation of anything outside Principle. Where the world, always working from a material cause to a material effect, makes its mistake, is in imagining that the circulation of truth can be stopped by what seems to be a successful attempt to suppress any manifestation of it in a form cognizable by the human consciousness. Every one knows the apparent success of the ecclesiastical tribunals of the medieval centuries and of much later days, in their efforts to prevent the circulation of the Bible in the vernacular, or to stifle freedom of thought through the Inquisition. But everybody knows also the abject failure of the attempt; how Bibles eventually increased in circulation, how heresy grew, and dissent flourished. The simple fact, of course, is that you cannot stop the circulation of anything that is true, and nothing that is untrue has a real circulation. That wise doctor of the law, Gamaliel, understood this perfectly when he said to the Sanhedrin, "Refrain from these men, and let them alone: for if this counsel or this work be of men, it will come to nought: but if it be of God, ye cannot overthrow it; lest haply ye be found even to fight against God."

It requires, however, a true metaphysical understanding of Principle to comprehend and to act upon advice such as that of Gamaliel. The Sanhedrin certainly had no such understanding. Under the influence of Gamaliel's realization of Truth, it bent for the moment, but for the moment only, to his advice. Almost immediately it responded to its own passions, and the result was the stoning of Stephen and the persecution of the Christian church. That persecution was, however, quite unable to prevent the spread of Christian teaching, and that for the reason so simply explained by Mrs. Eddy, on page 99 of "Miscellaneous Writings," when she says: "In no other one thing seemed Jesus of Nazareth more divine than in his faith in the immortality of his words. He said, 'Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away;' and they have not." And this for the simple and all-sufficient reason that neither time nor the efforts of men has, or can have, any effect upon the circulation of truth. It was Jesus' intense spirituality that enabled him to ignore material considerations; just as it was the overmastering materiality of the Sanhedrin which led it to ignore the wise counsel of Gamaliel. What was the result? The Sanhedrin appealed from Mind to matter, from wisdom to passion, and it found its reply in the swords and catapaults of Titus. The Roman plows passed over Jerusalem. The Jew was himself subjected by the Christian to the brutal persecution to which he had subjected the Christian. But the truth of the teaching of Christ Jesus remained, undestroyed and undestroyable, to be demonstrated in the ratio of any man's and woman's ability to make themselves free from the lie of evil through a knowledge of the truth. It was, indeed, exactly as Gamaliel had warned the Sanhedrin: If this counsel or this work be of God ye cannot overthrow it.

Send a comment to the editors

We'd love to hear from you!

Easily submit your testimonies, articles, and poems online.

Submit

Circulation

We'd love to hear from you!

Sign up for unlimited access