THE AWAKENING

WILLIAM HART SPENCER

From out the vagaries of the human mind there seem to come visions of reality, like objects looming up through a drift of fog. Our text-book teaches that "mortal existence is a dream" (Science and Health, p. 250), and our dream of life is expressed in thought-pictures, which panorama-like continually pass before us. Often assuming fantastic shapes, and lacking the guidance and control of understanding, these sense-images, like weeds in a garden, grow rank betimes and thus stifle the desire for love and purity.

Every one is conscious, however, in some degree, of the desirability of overcoming sin, even if only to avoid the intuitive human sense of loss or punishment, and the only remedy is to change absolutely the conditions; hence the vital importance of expurgating all that defiles, and of allowing our thought to dwell only on that which is good and pure. This habit will lead us to seek aid from a source outside and higher than our human selves, perceiving as we do that the mortal sense which is the medium of inharmony, cannot in any wise be the means of its removal.

In its inception, when we have been somewhat awakened by Spirit to the need of changing our lives for the better, the initial effort is generally in the line of an endeavor to govern our conduct. With the best of men there will come at times a condition of thought which is erratic, chaotic, riotous, evil, and the seeming reality of the flood which sweeps over us is apt to bring a sense of weakness; but if we hold strenuously to the letter of right action, that of itself is a victory, and we shall ultimately overcome the evil in our thought.

The chief incentive to pure and good thought and action is an enlightened conscience, that sense of right which is implanted in every aspiring nature. There may be a measure of the perception of good in each of us, but such perception is inoperative except there be spiritual aspiration. Every one has some idea of right and wrong, even if his concept is vague, but to act effectively this must have merged into spiritual understanding, the highest phase of consciousness. Often we do not discern our lack of spiritual growth, but the consciousness of an unfolding and uplifting of our spiritual nature always shows us that we are making advance. It is not enough that we live a life whose only virtue is that it does no wrong. We cannot remain negative. Evil must be overcome through positive activity for good.

Inharmony of any kind witnesses to our consent, in some degree, to the belief of life in matter. On the other hand, in proportion as we know and realize that God is All-in-all, in that measure may we control materiality, which control is preliminary to our mastery of evil. Evil cannot make a law for us, and the attack of evil, in itself, is not sin. It is only when we allow our minds to dwell on a falsity, and become discouraged or bitter, or responsive to it, that we unconsciously and erroneously admit that evil has power. It is thus that we give error a standing in our consciousness, allow it to exert its influence over us until temptations graduate into sin.

Made in God's own image, man is neither negative nor incompetent, and it is our privilege to recognize his divine rights and assert his prerogatives, which means neither more nor less than victory over every sense of inharmony. It is ours to realize that God has one all-comprehensive, law, the law of harmony, to which alone man is subject; and that the harmony of God is far removed from the "compensating balance" of things, wherein good is offset by a like amount of evil. God does not require the contrast of darkness to enhance His glory, for "in him is no darkness at all." He who is all good has no need of evil to adjust His scales of justice.

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THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE PARENTS' PROBLEMS

September 11, 1909

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