MORTAL OR IMMORTAL?

CLARENCE W. CHADWICK.

Ask the average person whether he is mortal or immortal, and he will usually admit that he is mortal. His fathers and forefathers were mortal, consequently he must be. The only excuse offered for such an assumption is that his physical senses uphold him in it. This fact betrays the weakest point in the consciousness of humanity, an innate or inherited tendency to accept the dictum of the physical senses, to admit that man is material and in consequence mortal, a tendency which is only intensified by the educational systems of the present day.

Christian Science comes to "replace mortality with immortality" (Science and Health, p. 495), and in doing so it uncovers to humanity the great mistake of accepting sense testimony in place of the supersensible evidence of Spirit or Mind. It makes demonstrably clear the fact that physical sense never has seen and never will see God, and consequently that obedience to such sense means human bondage instead of "the glorious liberty of the children of God." From this bondage, regardless of what form it may assume, humanity must sooner or later be emancipated. Some are leaning on the thought of time and death to bring the desired haven of rest, while others are waiting patiently on the Lord to reveal to them here and now a fuller meaning of the deathless Christ, Truth, which comes to abolish death and to bring to light immortality. How shall belief in death be abolished?

The abolition of the arch enemy must necessarily take place in each individual consciousness. It will be accomplished only as humanity learn to think true scientific thoughts, thoughts of Life, Truth, and Love. This cannot be done from a material basis; hence the necessary first step of recognizing and admitting that man is spiritual. The individual who presumes to approach God with the thought that he is a poor helpless mortal, and who wants God to use him as an instrument for good, is doomed to disappointment, for God has no use for any belief in mortality, nor does He ever make Himself known through any such belief. God must be approached with the scientific recognition that man is immortal, and through this understanding God makes Himself known to His creation; and He will continue to do so. Christ Jesus declared that his mission was to bring life "more abundantly" to all who were willing to accept his teachings, and Christian Science shows us how we may avail ourselves today of all that he taught and demonstrated.

God is the preserver of man, but not of mortality. Mortals, however, when they begin to turn from matter or mortality to Mind, which is immortal; when, through the influence of the Holy Spirit, they begin to reverse sense testimony and to accept the truth of spiritual sense, like Joseph of old, they experience the protecting care of an all-wise, loving, and merciful creator, divine Love. But before the realization of God's power and presence there must be that "higher sense of Truth rebuking mortal belief, or error,and showing the immortality and supremacy of Truth" (Science and Health, p. 589). God's law of preservation must and does extend to His entire spiritual creation, man and the universe. This law recognizes no belief or admission of mortality. Being a law of exclusion to every belief pertaining to mortality, it demands the complete subjugation of every such belief, so that the so-called mortal, in turning away from self to the Christ, experiences the transforming and redeeming influence of Spirit. Through the conscious recognition and admission of man's immortality, the so-called mortal is denied and "put off," and the idea of immortality is more and more in evidence, the advancing steps being marked by health and holiness.

An intelligent recognition of man's immortality marks the advent of the Christ, Truth, in individual consciousness. He who can honestly say that the Christ has appeared to him, will no longer be found thinking that man is mortal. Only as the idea of immortality replaces the human concept does the individual acknowledge and understand that the coming of Christ means the destruction of sin, and therefore the healing of sickness. So long as the belief of mortality is allowed to remain a normal factor in the premises of human reasoning, every conclusion therefrom will crucify the healing Christ-idea demonstrated by Jesus and again made available to humanity through the teachings of Christian Science.

Humanity's progress heavenward will be measured by its willingness to exchange human conception for the divine creation. A spiritual God and a material or mortal man do not go together. Eternity itself will never unite them. "I and my Father are one" was a scientific declaration that transcended all human thinking. This acknowledgment of man's spiritual sonship with God enabled Jesus to prove to humanity man's God-given power over all mortal or material conditions. Had he admitted man to be mortal and God his Father, his earth career would have been devoid of healing works. His was an immortal foundation, and it must be ours before healing will become universally spontaneous and the earth "be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea;" a condition which was foretold in the Bible by more than one of the prophets of an earlier day.

The world of religious unbelief looks on and seems content to think that Christian Science healing is simply an attempt to make healthy and happy sinners, whereas it is the unmistakable call of the Christ, Truth: "Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts;" it is the clarion call of Spirit: "Awake thou that sleepest" in the belief of man's supposed mortality, and "put on new man"—the understanding of man's immortality—here and now, for "the children of the flesh, these are not the children of God." Those on the watch-towers of Zion are feeling the touch of the Christ-healing, are rapidly assimilating its immortal harmonious tones, and will eventually acknowledge that "Truth is revealed. It needs only to be practised" (Science and Health, p. 174). Christian Science shows us how this can be done.

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FAITHFULNESS REWARDED

February 1, 1913

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