Sermon

The material world is to-day experiencing the greatest revolution in thought that has ever been witnessed by mortals. The traditional religion of our ancestors, with its time honored creeds and rituals, before which all have bowed, as unquestionable in vital conception and strength to lead man to the Divine Source of Eternal Life, is publicly questioned, and privately denounced as wanting in spiritual power, to meet and destroy the seeming force of evil, which appears to control mortals, and from which they are struggling to free themselves; and to-day the spiritually inspired have turned from a dead faith and an undemonstrable creed, to a living Christ, and are asking, are we awakening from sleep, and have we been so deep in the Adam dream that we are only now able to hear the whisper of ever present Truth? “Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip?”

As the potency of the Christ-Mind reaches human consciousness, illuminating the world with its radiance, mortals discern the spirit of Truth,—“the Comforter,” the Impersonal Saviour, the “Son of Righteousness,” who comes with healing in his wings, heralding the promised millennial day; and as they awake from the mesmeric sleep of the Adam dream (the belief of Life, Substance, and Intelligence in matter in which all die) to the consciousness of the allness of the Christ-Mind, in which all are made alive;—as they realize the allness of God, the supremacy of the Divine Mind the Omnipotence of Love, Life and Truth, they come forth from the dead, and send to the dreamers who are deceived by the supposed pleasures and pains of matter, the divine message, “Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ.” They have seen the “Star in the East” which ushers in the Christ-Mind, and are coming from the East and from the West, from the North and from the South, chanting again the angelic salutation: “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.” “The government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, the mighty God, the everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace.”

The reign of terror, sin, sickness, and death shall cease to govern mortals, for the government shall be His. The mighty God, the Omnipotent Creator, the Infinite, Supreme Intelligence, Eternal Life, Love and Truth shall be recognized as the great first Cause, the only Power, and the reality of Being. Since mortals first acknowledged a Supreme Being, whom they called God, ever since the first chant of the creedist and ritualist ascended in praise to the Omnipotent, Omniscient and Omnipresent Father, whom they admit is the source of all Life and Intelligence, have they proclaimed a theory, and practiced an entirely different one. Moses sang: “Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God is one Lord.” The Hebrew bard swept his lyre to the same melody; and on through ages the God inspired voiced this Truth, till Jesus, the Christ, appeared demonstrating the words of Moses: “The Lord he is God; there is none else beside Him.” At his first appearing, in the flesh, he found the world worshipping other gods, and bowing down to idols. They were calling upon God with their lips, while they believed in another power, the power of evil, which testifies of life in matter. To-day, at his second coming, Christ, Truth, finds mortals bowing down to another power, or god, standing as he confronts them, as one stood before him at the well, who said, “Our fathers worshipped in this mountain; and ye say, that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship. Jesus saith unto her, Woman, believe me, the hour cometh, when ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet in Jerusalem, worship the Father. Ye worship ye know not what.... God is a Spirit: and they that worship Him must worship Him in Spirit and in Truth.” Christ, Truth, meets many to-day sitting at the material well, drinking of its material waters, as their fathers have done before them; and he speaks to them as audibly as he spoke to her: “Ye worship ye know not what,” for not in the mountain, or elevation of mortal thought, the belief of life in matter, but in the Spirit, or understanding of Divine Mind, do ye find the Father.

For generations mortals have lived in the material senses; they have accepted the testimony of mortal error, believing all its illusions of sin, sickness, and death, which represent man as a bubble of the ocean, that rises for a moment, and then is gone forever, lost in the immensity of the great unknown; existing in the dream, while the war of the senses goes on; suffering from constant care and incessant watch lest life be destroyed; harrassed with fears, and doubts, and uncertainties, that fill mortals with dismay from the moment they enter upon the stage of human existence, to the hour they make their exit, with nothing to satisfy the yearning for something which shall endure, which shall not elude them, and vanish at the touch.

This has been the condition of mortality since the serpent, Satan, the lie, first deceived, with the illusion that matter was sentient substance, possessing Life and Intelligence. This theory has been preached by the professing disciples of Christ for ages, who have themselves been deceived by the syren voice of the subtle lie, the carnal mind, till they lulled all into the deep sleep of Adam, and this error in premise has resulted in error in conclusion.

Instead of the real being recognized, the spiritual man who was made in “God’s own image and likeness,” which is Spirit, Eternal Life, Divine Love, Immutable Truth, Mind “unchangeable,” “The same yesterday, to-day and forever,” the only creative power, mortals have been governed by the opposite of God, or Truth, the lie, or carnal mind, which testifies that Adam was the real man.

In this Adam thought, all die. Thought is force. Mind is Causation, the creative Power. “Like produces like.” “In Truth, or Christ-Mind all are made alive.”

The Mind that was in Christ Jesus was the power of Life, Love, and Truth, which destroyed the seeming power of the lie, which is expressed in sin, sickness and death. To-day there are those who realize that Truth is working over and above this claim of evil, and that man is spiritual with the

Power, or Mind, which if understood will give him his promised “dominion over all things.” The Truth of Being, the understanding of the supremacy of Divine Mind is working through the human consciousness of this age, going forth on its pinions of mercy and light, fulfilling its mission of purifying and uplifting the great world of mortality, or destroying the illusions which cloud the reality of Being. This understanding is inspiring them with higher ideas; it is inciting them to loftier aspirations, to the reality of Being, Mind, Spirit, which bursts the bonds of finite sense and merges us into the Infinite Mind, the Supreme Intelligence, “Which is the place of the Most High,” where we “abide under the shadow of the Almighty,” “In whom we live and move and have our Being.” And to those whose life is “Hid with Christ in God,” verily “The Son of God is come,” for he gives understanding that this is Life Eternal. The question to-day is, by which are you governed, Truth or error? “For as a man thinketh in his heart so is he.” The humble Nazarene, whom all Christians to-day profess to follow, testified of the false thought, and declared he came to destroy the works of the devil. He further pronounced this devil a lie from the beginning. Jesus’ life mission was to arouse mortals from the influence of this lie, or Adam dream, to the Truth of Being, Mind or Spirit. He healed the sick, cast out evils, and raised the dead with the Word or Mind. Of the woman who was helpless he said, “Satan hath bound, lo, these eighteen years.”

Oh, if theologians had followed Christ’s example, and had “rendered to Cæsar the things that are Cæsar’s and to God the things that are God’s,” how we would have resisted the fetters that have bound us to sin and sickness. How much we might have escaped of personality, of idolatry, of self-love, of selfishness and suffering, which results from having other gods, the belief of life in blood, sensation in nerve, and intelligence in brain, to which we have all yielded, until at times “life seemed a blessing not worth possessing, and death a consummation greatly to be desired.”

In Jesus’ age mortals had other gods as now; then as to-day there were heathen. The words “Thou shalt have no other gods before me” meant the same then as they do to-day. Christian Scientists declare that “God is All, and there is none beside Him,” but they labor unceasingly to destroy the belief in another power.

A lie is a power, so long as one believes it; Mortals will continue to sin, to suffer, and to die, so long as matter is regarded as possessing Life, Substance and Intelligence. Mortal thought is the generalissimo, the supreme commander of evil, of hatred, envy, jealousy, pride, lust, self-love, selfishness, love of gold, ambition, personal aggrandizement and fear, and each carnal thought exercises its power over mortals, producing discord and disease, till Truth arouses them, and declares they are illusions, creations of the carnal mind, the lie, and bids mortals take possession of their birthright, Mind, Truth, Spirit, and dispel the mythical gods who preside over sin, sickness and death.

Jesus the Christ was the best exponent of Christian Mind Healing the world has ever known. He healed the sick; gave the hand of compassionate forgiveness to the sinner; opened the eyes of the blind; turned sorrow into joy; and taught his disciples to do the same; and for all his loving ministrations, and good works, he received the crown of thorns, the wormwood and vinegar, and the cruel crucifixion. Why had he none to defend him but a few poor disciples, who slumbered while he prayed, and who left him to tread the wine press alone? Why was this good man not more popular? Why did not crowds fill the temple and synagogue when he spoke, and fill his heart with the bliss of loving appreciation? Why was he left to be delivered up and scourged? Because he testified against the carnal mind, and overcame its illusions of sin, sickness, and death. He knew that the Scribes and Pharisees were worshippers of matter, and that they could not attain harmony, or the power of Mind, while they were governed by material sense.

Are you pained as you recall the cruelty of the Jews toward your Saviour, whom to-day you acknowledge showed the world the Way to Life Eternal? As you recount his good works in healing the sick and raising the dead, do you understand why the world rose in arms against him? As you witness his sweat of agony in Gethsemene to free mortals from sin and death, and as you follow him, as he toils up the hill of Calvary, and there is made to endure the tortures of the inquisition, can you believe the carnal mind holds within itself such bitter hatred of Truth, of God, and do you not feel if you had been there you would not have denied him?

Jesus said, “I go away, and come again unto you.” And in this 19th century, once more the Spirit of Truth, Christ, the Divine Mind, appears through Christian Science. “We know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding.” This is Christ’s second coming to human consciousness, and what is his reception? Do not mortals, as of old, refuse to believe? Do they not say, We will not have this Christ-Mind to rule over us? Again, do we not hear He “maketh himself equal with God,” “crucify him?” Is not the carnal mind rising against Truth to-day, and declaring for life in matter, and the reality of sin, sickness and death?

Had the world accepted the teachings and atonement of Christ, and followed the example of Jesus in his demonstrations of Mind over matter, Truth over error, and Life over death, they would realize to-day that the Creator of man, the Divine Mind, could not be the author of this chaotic and turbulent universe, which has no governor or controller, but tosses mortals at the mercy of its own erratic, ungovernable forces, leaving us trembling with fear and suffering, sorrow and darkness, and mocking us when we endeavor to maintain our dominion over them. In that surpassing human life of Jesus of Nazareth, mortals have seen the supreme power of Love, a revelation of “Our Father who art in Heaven.” The relation of man to his Maker, as taught by the Christ, has exerted a deeper influence over mankind, and has done more to teach the power of Mind, and its healing efficacy, than all the disquisitions of philosophers, or exhortations of moralists the world has ever known.

In this 19th century Christian Science has come to us to interpret this transcendent spiritual ideal, which was expressed in the life of Jesus, our way-shower to Eternal Life, the understanding of the supremacy of the Christ Mind.

To-day men and women, who have been for years endeavoring to fathom the hidden mysteries of God, who have long hungered and thirsted for something that would give them the “Dominion over all things,” which was their declared heritage; who have long spurned the empty forms and dead faith of the time-honored creeds and dogmas; who have been vainly trying to fathom the depths of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God, which Jesus and his disciples utilized to overcome sin, sickness and death,—these human longings for the Divine,—are resisting theological assumptions and ecclesiastical pretentions; the tyranny of doctors and the law of physics; and they hear the voice of the Eternal sounding down through humanity’s darkness, and are emancipating themselves from the power of the lie, which has deceived the whole world.

As the paralysis of mortal illusion is gradually overcome, as the power of Mind is understood, how man will rise to oneness with the Father, and become master over every condition and circumstance. He will touch the Infinite Thought and be thrilled with power, the power of God, which shall overcome evil; the power of Truth, which shall destroy the lie; the power of Love, which shall cast out fear.

In this era of consciousness, the Christian world believe God once spoke through mortals, and they denounce those who oppose them. God spoke through Abraham, and directed him to lead the people; but the majority in Abraham’s day refused to follow. God spoke through Moses, but the hosts of Pharaoh refused to obey the voice of God through the human consciousness of Moses. Samuel, Joshua, Daniel, and all the prophets voiced Truth; and cannot God voice Himself through the human consciousness of the 19th century?

If God is ever present Truth and Light, cannot the light shine through the darkness of human thought? Cannot mortal man or woman voice Truth if they are sufficiently spiritual to discern spirit?

This is an age of unparalleled developments of Mind and its possibilities. In the history of man there has never been such a day. The full glare of the light, which is shining in darkness, dazzles mortals whose eyes have so long gazed into darkness. By degrees we are turning our faces to the sun, and the light mirrors the reflection of the smile of God. The carnal mind is lurid with shadows cast by sin, sickness and death. One is as the mountain wind to invigorate and make alive; the other is as the scorching simoon to blast and wither.

To-day the wise will not use the word impossible, and we beg to remind the Scribes and Pharisees of this hour, of Aristotle’s words: “That is a part of probabilities that many improbable things will happen.” Every new discovery, every embryo conception, every advance in art or science, every attempt to utilize forces, has been rejected by the incredulous, or by those too obtuse to discern progress.

In this epoch of the world’s history, everything in art and science is being tested; and, thank God, religion, or old theology, is to be weighed in the balance, for it has been found wanting in demonstration of Spirit and of Power. It is not the Truth that Jesus taught, for that sets mortals free from the bondage of sickness or death.

We are like children just learning to spell the word Spirit. We are only able to discern the A. B. C. of our alphabet; but this understanding enables us to overcome sin and sickness, and we shall go on, and on, till, like our Master, we have overcome our last enemy. Not somewhere in the dim unknown, but here and now we can attain to a faint realization of our real existence. Day by day we are lifted to a spiritual altitude, where we demonstrate the power of our Christ-Mind, and however environed by human companionship, we hear the constant assurance, “Fear thou not; for I am with thee.” This power of Mind is the mighty tidal wave of Truth, and is an endless, ascending force, which will sweep on through human consciousness, till sin and death are destroyed, and man finds himself perfect and immortal, with dominion over all things.

Let us grow into the realization of the Omnipotence of God, and our oneness with Him, till we see only shadow in the phenomena called matter, and behold, through the spiritual concept our reality in “God’s image and likeness.” “Love is the golden chain that binds us to the Infinite.” The harp of Mind touched by angel thoughts, is wafted to us in the hush and silence of spiritual communion, and the great anthem of immortality, o’ersweeps all time, all tears, all pain, all fears, and peals, like the eternal thunders of the deep, this Truth into our souls. “Eternal Life and Love are God and man. Mortality is nought. Love melts the clay of sense and leaves man in image of his Lord.”