  Men give counsel; but they give not the wisdom to profit by it. To ask wisdom of God, is the beginning of wisdom. [30] Meekness, moderating human desire, inspires wisdom [1] and procures divine power. Human lives are yet un- carved,—in the rough marble, encumbered with crude, rude fragments, and awaiting the hammering, chiselling, and transfiguration from His hand. [5] Great only as good, because fashioned divinely, were those unpretentious yet colossal characters, Paul and Jesus. Theirs were modes of mind cast in the moulds of Christian Science: Paul's, by the supremely natural transforming power of Truth; and the character of [10] Jesus, by his original scientific sonship with God. Phi- losophy never has produced, nor can it reproduce, these stars of the first magnitude—fixed stars in the heavens of Soul. When shall earth be crowned with the true knowledge of Christ? [15] When Christian Science has melted away the cloud of false witnesses; and the dews of divine grace, fall- ing upon the blighted flowers of fleeting joys, shall lift every thought-leaflet Spiritward; and “Israel after the flesh,” who partaketh of its own altars, shall be [20] no more,—then, “the Israel according to Spirit” shall fill earth with the divine energies, understanding, and ever-flowing tides of spiritual sensation and consciousness. When mortal mind is silenced by the “still, small voice” [25] of Truth that regenerates philosophy and logic; and Jesus, as the true idea of Him, is heard as of yore saying to sensitive ears and dark disciples, “I came from the Father,” “Before Abraham was, I am,” coexistent and coeternal with God,—and this idea is understood,— [30] then will the earth be filled with the true knowledge of Christ. No advancing modes of human mind made Jesus; rather was it their subjugation, and the pure [1] heart that sees God. When the belief in material origin, mortal mind, sen- sual conception, dissolves through self-imposed suffering, and its substances are found substanceless,—then its [5] miscalled life ends in death, and death itself is swallowed up in Life,—spiritual Life, whose myriad forms are neither material nor mortal. When every form and mode of evil disappear to hu- man thought, and mollusk and radiate are spiritual con- [10] cepts testifying to one creator,—then, earth is full of His glory, and Christian Science has overshadowed all human philosophy, and being is understood in startling contradiction of human hypotheses; and Socrates, Plato, Kant, Locke, Berkeley, Tyndall, Darwin, and Spencer [15] sit at the feet of Jesus. To this great end, Paul admonished, “Let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our [20] faith.” So shall mortals soar to final freedom, and rest from the subtlety of speculative wisdom and human woe. God is the only Mind, and His manifestation is the spiritual universe, including man and all eternal indi- [25] viduality. God, the only substance and divine Principle of creation, is by no means a creative partner in the firm of error, named matter, or mortal mind. He elucidates His own idea, wherein Principle and idea, God and man, are not one, but are inseparable as cause and effect. If [30] one, who could say which that “one” was? His ways are not as our ways. The divine modes and manifestations are not those of the material senses; [1] and in the light He sees light, and cannot see darkness. The opposite conclusion, that darkness dwelleth in light, [25] has neither precedent nor foundation in nature, in logic, or in the character of Christ. The senses would say that whatever saves from sin, must know sin. Truth replies that God is too pure to behold iniquity; and by virtue of His ignorance of [30] that which is not, He knoweth that which is, and abideth in Himself, the only Life, Truth, and Love, —and is reflected by a universe in His own image [1] and likeness. Even so, Father, let the light that shineth in dark- ness, and the darkness comprehendeth it not, dispel this illusion of the senses, open the eyes of the blind, and cause [5] the deaf to hear. “Truth forever on the scaffold, Wrong forever on the throne. Yet that scaffold sways the future, and, behind the dim unknown, Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above His own.” Lowell |
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