DIVINE HEALING.
There are today many cults professing to have healing powers; but whether they are named "Christian," or "Mental," or "Spiritual," or "Divine Science," or whether the place of healing be in some shrine sacred to an accredited saint, or only in the presence of the patient receiving the benediction; they all operate under the same law; there is no other.
Jesus was the great transmitter to humanity of a knowledge of the power of divine healing; he never specialized. He never said: "I have cured your liver complaint, or your lungs are healed," etc., according to the ailment of the person seeking his aid. He only told them: "Thy [own]
faith hath made thee whole." It was spoken of God long ago: "He healeth all our infirmities." The quality and the amount of personal magnetism possessed by the healer--the transmitter of the divine healing--does make a vast difference in the results of such efforts.
The "Nazarene" was devoid of egotism, and selfishness, and his desire to heal and bless humanity was with him an overwhelming passion.
That Jesus knew the value of right physical habits is evidenced by the way he had of admonishing his patients to "go and sin no more," that is, stop breaking nature's hygienic laws. He had all along told them that right thinking was necessary to right doing.
The transcendentalism of one age, shorn of the peculiar shading given to it by the individuality of the mind through which it first manifests itself, becomes the hard "common sense" of the next.
What is Truth? Truth is God. God is Truth. Nothing in the universe could exist for one instant unless it had in it some faint intuition of truth, and it is this that we are here to discover.
SURPLUS.
Human beings slaughtered on battle fields, or carried off by pestilence and famine by thousands, or perishing by accidents by sea or by land by hundreds, are individually dear and useful, and are mourned; but in the great aggregate of moving life on this planet, they count as surplus.
ANALYSIS OF THE "LORD'S PRAYER."
How shall we pray? To whom shall we pray? Shall we pray at all?
These are unsettled questions in the minds of many good persons who are striving to perceive the highest truth and to be guided thereby. The tests that have been applied to the usefulness of prayer by a large class of religious people have been, for ages, purely materialistic.
The Lord has been importuned for the bestowal of personal favors, from the manufacturing of the right kind of weather to the slaying of enemies, and from the righteous putting down of infidels, to the spending of dollars with which to build high steeples. Then, too, God has had the benefit of the very best advice concerning the way He ought to deal with the heathen, how He should treat sinners of every sort, so as to show himself equal to managing his fractious subjects, and, finally, how to carry things along generally after such a fashion as should win and hold the respect of his earthly advisers.
This utter misunderstanding of the true function of prayer has caused many earnest souls to sorrow over lost faith in what should have been to them a source of strength and uplifting. Jesus said: "Ask, and ye shall receive," and as all his teachings referred to things of the spirit, he must have meant to indicate to his followers that whatever was sought for in the line of true spiritual enlightenment would surely be given. No one prays for houses and lands, for gold and other forms of material wealth, "for Jesus Christ's sake. Amen."
All through the teachings of Jesus run the mention of his and our Heavenly Parent, "Our Father," and since much of our knowledge of spiritual things comes through our perception of the law of correspondences, we naturally feel and believe that we have not only a Father but also a Mother in heaven. The recognition of the mother element--the Divine Mother--has always been a most potent factor in the power of the Roman Catholic Church to retain the unchanging devotion of its faithful adherents.
The reaction from a bigoted belief in, and a blind reliance upon a jealous and tyrannical Overseer sitting in state to judge and condemn to everlasting torment all but a few of earth's children--a terror-inspiring God--has naturally turned the minds of many from recognition of any sort of relationship between humanity and a superior, divine and beneficent Power. The atheist glories in his disbelief, and calls exultingly upon those whose faith has become the stepping-stone to knowledge for proofs that he is not right in assuming to occupy the superior attitude of mind. Suppose for a moment, that all the world were brought to coincide with him. How would it benefit the race to prove it to be wholly orphaned--utterly left out of all consideration for its future care and happiness?
"Like as an earthly father pitieth his children," Jesus affirmed, is the love of our Father, God, for the human-race. "I and my Father are one." "My Father worketh hitherto, and I work." These are some of the references made by Jesus to the relationship that he constantly asserted was established between his own soul and that of his Father, in the supernal world, and thus he taught his followers to pray:
"Our Father which art in Heaven." This is the first recorded utterance of the modern shibboleth: "The Fatherhood of God and the Brotherhood of Man." In this now universally employed invocation, Jesus claimed for himself no other mention than that in which he instructed all of earth's children to join.
"Hallowed be thy name." In a sacred name there is power to hold the wavering thought; so may thy name be hallowed! _i. e._, held sacred.
It is affirmed that every created thing has a real appellation, a name given to it by its Creator. We pass through this rudimentary state of existence known as John or Mary, or by some other of the thousand or more titles in vogue that are indicative of different personalities; but it was long ago shown to an inspired teacher that, at a given point of development, each soul should be given its true name, a new one that should be "written in the forehead." Our Puritan progenitors had a dim perception of a higher and inner meaning to names. By calling their children Grace, Mercy, Patience, Charity, etc., they sought to embody spiritual principles.
"Thy kingdom come." No heavenly kingdom can ever be "let down" to the earth. The earthly must become developed and interpenetrated by the spiritual, and thus be lifted up into an harmonious co-relationship with the Divine.
"Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven." There is but one will; so make it known to us that we may realize out [Transcriber's note: our?] at-one-ment with the Divine, even as do the "angels in heaven."
"Give us this day our daily bread." "The earth is the Lord's and the fulness thereof." (Make us partakers of thy bounty, that our bodies may have needed nourishment. Illuminate our spiritual understanding that we may take to ourselves each day such spiritual food as we are best fitted to appropriate and use.)
"And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors." Up to this point there is simply suggested the personal relationship between the petitioner and the Being to whom he prays; but into this phrase quite another element is introduced--a new factor; forgive us, as we in turn forgive our enemies. This puts upon one who utters these words the responsibility of answering his own prayer, or of making the conditions whereby he shall be forgiven and accepted, that thus may be established the eternal vibrations that bind the very lowest to the Highest.
"And lead us not into temptation;" _i. e._, graciously protect us from following the devices of our own ignorance; but if we willfully go our own way, and are overcome with grief and disappointment because of our misdoing, "deliver us from [the] evil" consequences thereof, by inspiring our minds with courage to bear our pains and penalties with true heroism, and teach us through our experiences wherein lie our highest growth and wisdom for all our future lives. "For thine is the kingdom, and the power" to create and destroy, "and the glory." (All things begin and end in God.) "Forever and ever. Amen."
Jesus had undoubtedly learned the pure ethics of this all-embracing appeal. Principles are unchanging; but, as the law of evolution carries each succeeding representation of the underlying facts of spiritual science ever higher in the ascending series, on the spiral pathway that leads to the kingdom of God, so in each is embodied a more advanced phase or externalization of such facts. The revelations vouchsafed to the world through the teachings of Confucius, Buddha, and other saviors of men appealed only to the intellect. Jesus was the first to announce to the heart-hungry that "God so loved the world"
that he sent one of his best beloved sons to bear witness to his own eternal love, and to show how all may become participators in its boundlessness.
The potency of prayer corresponds to the power of the thought or to the exalted aspiration of the soul projecting it. There are some who, seeking divine aid, are too weak in this respect to realize any special results, while the prayers of others ascend as on the wings of eagles.
This attitude of the soul is not to be confounded with the "communion of saints." Communion indicates the existence of a degree of equality which, in the relation of finite man with his Maker, cannot be.
An occult wave has swept round the world. The seals are being broken, and the sphinxes are speaking wherever they find ears to hear and minds to comprehend. The heart of the mystery is this; there is no new thing to be proclaimed. "Spiritual things are spiritually discerned," and, with the divine illumination vouchsafed to all, "a wayfaring man, though a fool," may see and know the deep things of God. But no door will be opened, no angel or "minister of grace" or "spirit friend" will descend the ladder of light that leads to the realms supernal, no inspiration of God will ever come to any soul on earth without prayer--in response to either conscious supplication or unconscious aspiration toward the Giver of every good and perfect gift. The ultimate function and use of prayer is simply to establish our relationship with the divine and ever-lasting forces that rule and guide our lives. These are ever operating to help us to live above the purely personal relationships that limit our growth and advancement along the lines of spiritual unfoldment, and to open to our souls vistas of perfectness on the higher planes of wisdom and understanding of the mysteries of immortal life.
ABSURD BELIEFS.
The supreme egotism of man has been largely corrected through the influence of education and experience which have made him conscious of the ridiculousness of his demands for recognition of his supremacy.
Each one of those high, old eastern Emperors had to have his pedestal, and his title of god, without reference to his real character. Modern men do not expect to be real head-up gods. They know too much to be so ridiculous. But there are those who seem to feel that they are at least "little tin gods on wheels."
When the Nazarene appeared among men possessing godlike qualities, it was entirely in line with the custom of the time to call him a god.
There was neither logic nor common sense in the role Jesus was to play.
He was God of all gods. He was, at the same time, the Only Begotten Son of God, and, as the idea of sacrifice to the numerous gods was an important part of the religious orgies of the time, they could only bring that into their new scheme for entrapping souls by making the Son--who was really God--a sacrifice to himself, to propitiate himself, and keep himself from utterly destroying and damning the folks He himself had created. So they made it out that this good man should be a propitiation for the "sins of the race." Silly; improbable; unlawful; incredible; impossible. The more useless and undeveloped people were, the more they believed that the sacrifice of a very God--to their egotistical minds--was not too much for the salvation of their infinitesimal, pinhead souls.
THE RESURRECTION.
It has been believed that dead folks stayed boxed up under ground waiting--ages perhaps--for the last trumpet to sound to call up the sleeping billions to the surface of the earth to the final "day of judgment," when they should all swarm up out of their graves to be let to know by the great Judge of all to which class they belong, the "sheep" or the "goats"--there was to be only those two kinds--sheep to go straight to heaven, all the others to be cast into hell fire to burn forever. The air would be full of toes and fingers and legs and heads coming from all directions to join themselves to the bodies from which they had been detached in their physical life; it was understood that in every case there would be no mistakes made, no white person, minus a member of his body in life, would find himself persistently chased up by arms or legs--especially by heads--of a different color, and form, from what he would know were his own; but, by some unaccountable magic, some divine law of attraction each dissevered member would instantly recognize its true belonging and fly to its former familiar location.
Where this great final "round up" is to be held has not yet been made known to the "true believers." "Chautauqua" has been suggested, and also the lot back of the "White House" in Washington, D. C. There are objections, however, to these and some other places because of the limited area, but as "with God all things are possible" either spot might be made to answer. The great open-air university at Chautauqua is known everywhere on earth--and possibly beyond--and certainly would be a good point for the saints to hail from, in their upward journey, and the "White Lot" in Washington would shorten the journey for those who are booked for the trip in the other direction.
Out of this belief has grown quite a little sect which takes it upon itself to decide upon the fate of all the world outside of its very limited number. It is hard upon the Methodists and Presbyterians and all the other cults and sects scattered about over the whole earth that they should all be doomed to everlasting hell fires because of a little difference of opinion with these self-elected judges! The more insane of them have ignored all the claims of citizenship, have burned their fences and their barns, and given away all their earthly belongings, and refusing to be taught by the repeated failures of the many times set for the final ending of the planet, have donned their unbleached cotton "ascension robes," and have sat around on the hill-tops and waited long for the end of all things earthly, and the fun of seeing all the people who did not agree with them switched off into hell.
The real beginning of this came from two sayings purported to have been the words of Christ. While hanging upon the cross a man nailed to another cross, begged Jesus to save him. Jesus was an adept, highly clairvoyant. He saw that the man was good--probably better than the people who had hung him there to die--and that if he was a thief, as they said, he had stolen things for the benefit of his people for food and for sandals and things for the family. So he said: "This day you shall be with me in the spirit world." Some clever person caught on to this and said to himself: "That settles it, if one man can go straight through without being laid up in the ground after death, all can."
This view furnished an altogether different outlook and gave people a new idea of the law. Jesus assured his disciples that the kingdom of heaven would come on earth very soon, in fact, while they were yet alive. Well, he knew a lot about the soul, and immortality and all that, but nothing at all about evolution, or electricity, or what wonderful unfoldment of brain and magnificent works man should achieve.
The Nazarene, like all seers and prophets, was simply mistaken in point of time. He did not give the Creator time enough to bring all things to pass, and if the people who think this world is actually coming to an end pretty soon would just think once that the Creator does not set things agoing solely for the purpose of destroying his work, and let him have his own way and time, they would save themselves much trouble.
THE CREATOR.
God--the all-creative Spirit--is the most positive element, or force in nature, and nothing is or can have existence in the external world that is not conceived and formed first in the matrix of the spirit. So it is in the realm of the invisible that the law of progress, of unending evolution takes its rise and becomes operative. Still, however clearly defined may be a truth, a law in the mentality of the higher powers, it can only be externalized to the degree comprehended by the mind through which it is given to the world. All that saves this world from being in a state of utter darkness is the fact that from its very beginning there have been souls capable of being illuminated by the light from the higher life, spirits so grounded in a faith in its certainties that they have shone out upon the stern and awful path trod by the human race like beacon lights above a stormy sea, or beaming stars shedding a calm radiance upon a trackless waste.