Helen Van-Anderson

Love is the high consummation and fulfillment of all Law. It casts out fear, discord and imperfection. To minister is God-like, Christ-like. * * * * The law of love reaches down, rules, and overcomes adverse laws which are below itself.—Henry Wood.

Outside, deepening twilight of a midwinter's day: inside, a bright grate fire, soft curtains, beautiful rugs and simple but elegant adornings for mantel and wall in this lovely room of a lovely home.

The only occupant is a young woman—young because of the real life of which she so vividly and strongly expresses a consciousness, the only life after all to be expressed, and which, rightly appropriated will and must forever be clothed with the freshness and vigor of youth. The young woman is Grace Hall Carrington.

She sits before the glowing embers in an expectant attitude. She is evidently waiting for some one, and as she waits, her mind seems full of pleasant musing. The three years that have passed since we saw her have ripened her character. We can see that. The unrest and longing which pervaded her whole being in the old days are gone. A poise and calmness of spirit have taken their place. Even her attitude as she sits there with the shadows flickering over her, is full of a suggestive alertness that expresses an awakened life. The forces that had slumbered so long in her being are fully alive to their duty and their privilege. Yes, Grace Carrington is awake, and happy as a wife and woman should be. She is thinking even now of the richness of effort and opportunity that have been hers in these last years. She had been particularly fortunate in her marriage. Few women have as much to be thankful for as she has in this respect, but then, she waited to find her true womanhood before she found a husband. Perhaps that had something to do with it. At any rate she is satisfied that she waited.

The door bell rings. A moment later she is greeting two visitors. Who but the friends we knew in the old days—Kate Turner and Mrs. Hayden?

"I really expected you sooner, Mrs. Hayden; Kate is more uncertain. One never knows when to look for her; but never mind, we are together again, so come up to the fire and let us get settled for the evening." And Grace hastened to make her friends comfortable.

"Oh but it is nice to get home occasionally," cried Kate with a shrug of pleasure as she looked around the beautiful room and then at the smiling hostess.

"I only wish you would come oftener Kathie. It seems like the old days to have you here," replied Grace with a loving pat.

"I suspect Kate has a bit of news for us," remarked Mrs. Hayden, as she sat down near the fire.

"Indeed," exclaimed Grace, lifting her eyebrows, and tightening her hold of her friend's hand. "And is the momentous question decided, dearie?

"Yes, and I am to report for duty next week," was the reply.

"Good for you, Kathie. I always knew the Truth would make your music heard, and as Professor Beal's assistant it will be heard a long way and to good advantage."

"She is reaping the reward of her trust in the Law," said Mrs. Hayden. "That is the only thing that will make the working sure."

"Well Kate, you have trusted surely, and to think what a proof this is!"

"How you talk Grace! One might think you had never proven it at all, or that your work didn't bear witness to your own trust," reproved Mrs. Hayden, smiling.

"Oh well, girls, my work has been of the silent order altogether, or rather it has consisted more of silence than work. There's no telling how it will show up," was the blushing response.

It had been a standing joke with the three as to how Grace managed her "liege lord," inasmuch as he had never been quite won over to the Healing, protesting that he had no time for such things, persisting in a good-natured skepticism, although strangely enough he believed a great many things when they were presented without the name of "Healing" attached to them.

"Perhaps that very silence is the secret of its showing, for I assure you it shows," resumed the elder friend, who still seemed to the other two, the incarnation of all that was noble and wise.

"Do tell us the way you manage anyway, Grace," begged Kate, with special reasons for inquiring.

"Why my dear, there's nothing to tell unless it be that a bland silence is a good thing to cultivate. There's no use in making so much of a bugbear of these people who seem to oppose, and the best way to lead them into the green pastures is to let them nibble along the outside until they want to jump the fence and get over in spite of you. Now Leon is really quite hungry to know some things, especially about the practical application of thought to business, but he knows just where and how to find what he wants, so I let him take his own time and his own way."

"Which will end, of course, in his wanting to know all, providing you have the patience to wait", laughed Kate.

"That is a foregone conclusion. I can wait, and I will," said Grace. "Besides," she continued more soberly, "I must consider Leon's rights. He should not be forced to a conclusion simply because I hold it. A hot-bed growth, produced by whatever means, will not bear the hardy, healthy bloom of a natural development. He may be slow but he must be true."

"There Grace, you have touched the keynote," exclaimed Mrs. Hayden warmly. "It is freedom people need, freedom to think and act the highest, for everybody has a highest."

"Yes, if they can only keep the channels open for the inspiration of the highest to come to them or work through them," remarked Kate with a gesture of doubt.

"What better way is there to give freedom or open the channel, than to destroy prejudice, put away antagonism and—"

"Either in yourself or others," interposed Grace, "for to hold prejudice or to believe in evil is always an obstruction."

"After all, it all hinges upon the non-resistance of evil," said Kate.

"Yes, one of the first laws of the beautiful Christlife, and yet one of the very last to be practiced in my experience. I tell you girls, it is the lesson of non-resistance we most need." Mrs. Hayden spoke earnestly as she always did, and her words carried weight.

"Go on, Mrs. Hayden. If I'm asleep anywhere, I wish you would wake me up," cried Kate, drawing the hassock upon which she sat, close up to the elder lady, and putting one hand in her friend's lap, as she waited expectantly for the answer.

"Well dear, I'm only talking on general principles, and what I have discovered in myself—"

"Please tell us what you have found Mrs. Hayden," said Grace. "We need all the light we can get, and no matter how it may cut, we won't shrink will we, Kathie?" with a loving glance at the latter.

"No, we'll only know and be glad that the hot blaze of truth is melting some more of the dark spots in our range of vision," returned Kate.

"It is only this," began Mrs. Hayden, modestly. "I have been looking my theory and practice squarely in the face lately, and I find them in many things quite widely separated. For instance, I have been saying for three years that there is no evil, while in many cases my actions have carried the very opposite idea, and—"

"Why, what do you mean, Mrs. Hayden?" cried Kate in astonishment, "who has been more faithful, who more loving, and who more successful in proving the unreality of sickness and evil?"

"For one thing then, I have never put away the tendency to pronounce judgments on people or things, and I must get beyond that before I prove that I mean what I say, when I say there is no reality in evil."

"But surely we can't help seeing the negative side of things," was Kate's remonstrance.

"No, but we can help making it positive, and we can avoid fighting against it if we only stick to our first statement that there is but one Law."

"I see what you mean," said Grace quietly. "You mean that we must hold so perfectly to the allness of Good, that no shadow of ignorance can ever darken our vision or our consciousness."

"Yes, indeed, we all see that that is the ultimate," interposed Kate with some warmth, "but when and how are we to reach it?"

"In the first place we must know that the ultimate is always in the Now, and that by holding to our highest statements with that thought, we can rest in the consciousness of the allness of Good as Grace has expressed it. With that consciousness there is no judgment and no resistance."

Kate still looked mystified, "Please make it a little plainer," she begged.

"Well, last summer when I was called to treat Mrs. Hart's child, as you know, the father knew little or nothing of the Science, and when he insisted on having a physician what did I do? Instead of calmly realizing that all the medicine in the world could not hurt Truth, and dealing with his ignorance as I would with his fear, I felt that it would be a terrible thing to countenance such disloyalty, and so withdrew from treating the case, forgetting that the father's ignorance could not be called disloyalty; forgetting that my faithfulness to principle would be the same regardless of any and all ignorance. In fact my action belied my words that there is no reality in evil."

"But—why, what else could you do?" asked Kate with a puzzled frown.

"I could, or at least I ought to be able to maintain my faith and my consciousness of Good just the same under those, as other circumstances, and so make no resistance."

"Oh yes, I see what you mean," exclaimed Grace suddenly. "You mean that we make something of what we declare as nothing?"

"Exactly, Grace. We resist it by thinking it something antagonistic to Truth, whereas we should remember our first statement that there is but one Power. It is the One that heals in every instance. We know that. Why should we stop to combat what other people think or do not think?"

"There! Now I understand you," ejaculated Kate with a brightening face. "It is the One only which acts under all disguises, and—but what would you have us do?" suddenly falling into doubt again. As of old Kate was ever the questioner.

"Dear, I am not talking of persons or laying down rules of action for anybody, but I am giving you my idea of the non-resistance of evil. The question with me is, am I 'about my Father's business.' If I accuse someone of being unfaithful, or if I criticise any methods, means or persons, I still believe in something besides the Good. Even if I accuse myself in any way no matter how slight the fault, I am recognizing that which I have declared does not and never did exist. You see what I mean. There is no use to multiply examples."

"Oh yes, I see, but can I live up to it? That is the all important question," was the dreamily earnest reply.

"As for that I might say the same, but we are not to look at that side of the question. A safe and I think the very best guide to right living, is to measure every act by the standard of love. Would love prompt this or that thought, or decision or action? It is very easy to decide."

A thoughtful silence fell upon the group. The evening shadows grew deeper outside. The firelight cast long crimson shafts of light into the corners, and flickered fitfully over the faces and forms before the grate.

"I have been learning a lesson too." It was Kate who broke the silence. Her voice was reverential. Her eyes were bright with an inner light. "I have been holding strongly to the name—the name of Jesus Christ—and realizing what it means, and it has helped me more than anything."

"What does it mean, Kate? That is something which is still a little tainted with the old superstitious worship of a personality," said Grace.

"Beware, Grace; that is criticism. Put it away until you know," warned Mrs. Hayden.

"Thank you. Tell me every time," returned Grace humbly.

"Indeed, this contemplation of the name takes one farther from personality or the recognition of mere person than anything else," Kate went on earnestly. "Jesus Christ means God or Truth manifest. Holding the words with that thought, all sense of person, limitation, or time, disappears. Wisdom and power come to fill your consciousness, until the Christ life seems not only a possibility but a real demonstration." Kate paused. Perhaps she had said too much!

But there was no mistaking the vibration of a sympathetic thought, even if the pressure of friendly hands had not reassured her.

"It is wonderful how many ways there are of attaining the same end," mused Grace. "Now I can gain the same state of mind Kate speaks of, by holding to the idea of Law. To me everything is embodied in that, although of course, any great word understood as to its real meaning is an all-inclusive term. But we cannot always live in an ecstasy."

"We should not if we could," said Mrs. Hayden. "We must get beyond that if we ever attain the mental poise that will carry us through everything."

"But I am so weak," murmured Kate. "How shall I ever—"

"There, child, you are doing the very thing that will keep you from growing strong. What right have you to pass judgment on Katherine Turner anymore than on anyone else?" said Mrs. Hayden almost sternly; then suddenly softening her tone she added, "Dear heart, we must not let self judgment or self condemnation creep in upon us to leave their blight of discouragement or failure. No, the only way is to keep our eyes fixed on the mark of the high calling, resisting nothing, carrying on our lips, success, in our hearts love, in our lives truth. By the outer we judge nothing: by the inner we know all. Personally, that is, physically we are only a part of all external limitation. Individually, that is, spiritually, we are the potentiality of Infinity itself."

"And that means the possibility of true living, which is positively necessary to perfect demonstration," added Grace.

"Yes, perfect demonstration in oneself or in others," said Mrs. Hayden emphatically. "In fact the first, last, and only consideration is or should be true living, or the ability to be lived."

"That is what it amounts to, after all," accorded Grace, "for what is true living but the setting aside of self, so that the great, infinite Life may be established in our action, as a manifest reality?"

Kate rose softly, and went to the piano. Then spoke the mighty Voice through Music, and through that wondrous harmony a consciousness of the perfect Life, with all its power and presence, burst upon these three who were no longer three but One. For that moment they knew and lived only as the One, and in that moment the world received a baptism of blessed, healing tenderness.

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