CHAPTER XIII.
"One Holy Church of God appears Through every age and race, Unwasted by the lapse of years, Unchanged by changing place.
"From oldest time, on farthest shores, Beneath the pine or palm, One unseen Presence she adores, With silence or with psalm.
"Her priests are all God's faithful sons, To serve the world raised up, The pure in heart her baptized ones, Love, her communion cup.
"The Truth is her prophetic gift, The soul her sacred page; And feet on mercy's errand swift Do make her pilgrimage."
--_Longfellow._
The next day Mr. Hayden, with great interest, read the letter containingthe first lecture, which was given the day after the reception reportedin the last chapter. Pertaining to the lesson he read:
"How I wished you were with me yesterday, and could see the fifty eagerfaces as they gathered in the class room and waited for Mrs. Pearl.
"Some sorrowful and careworn, some filled with the marks of sufferingand pain, some hopeless and despairing, some careless and gay, somemerely curious, but all expectant and interested.
"It matters not with what varying motives a mass of people meettogether, there is a common chord of sympathy, which, if rightlytouched, will cause the many to think and feel as one, and herein liesthe secret of a teacher's power. Mrs. Pearl has this faculty ofgathering and holding the thoughts of her audience, and I could not helpnoting the calm and satisfied expression as they went out after thelecture.
"The first lesson is about The True Foundation, and while much of it iswhat we have known and believed, it is stated in a new and interestingway. I will give it, as nearly as possible, in her own words:
"It is necessary to have a common premise in order to sustain aharmonious argument, and the first thing is to find a base or foundationfrom which and upon which to build. Our doctrine is to be established bysound reasoning and scientific argument, and we must go back to thebeginning and learn something about the First Cause of all things.
"In ancient times students devoted themselves to the study of purereasoning, and they found that by putting themselves in harmony withFirst Cause, they attained a power, by certain lines of thought andthrough the speaking of words, to perform wondrous works, healing thesick, having dominion over all creation.
"They discovered the different results of speaking words of science,which are words of truth, and words of error or words contrary toreason. Right, true words brought forth right and true conditions toeveryone around them, but deviation from this line of reason, wouldbring discord and trouble and undesirable conditions. These wisethinkers declared Mind to be the First Cause of all creation, andannounced the study of Mind and the words and ways of Mind, to be theprofoundest theme that could engage the attention of man.
"We find this philosophy and these conclusions corroborated by theBible, which we shall consider and prove to contain revelations ofchangeless, eternal truth.
"Truth is universal, and whatever is true in one part of the universemust be true in all parts. That which has been understood and concededto be true in all ages and climes is what we call universal truth.
"Because the first chapter of Genesis, then, agrees in all essentialparticulars with the accounts of other nations and among other peopleswe consider it universal truth.
"Because it is so beautiful, logical and spiritual, we revere it;because our own inner consciousness of truth agrees with its statements,we concede it to be as accurate and reasonable an account of Creation aswe have, and we are therefore willing to use it as the basis of ourargument.
"We read: 'In the beginning God created,' but a more literal andspiritual rendering would make the pivotal statement, 'God creates.' Nowwe know there can be no beginning or end to Omnipotence, hence theremust be a continuous creating, and thus the term 'beginning' could onlyrefer to the manifestation of what had already been created. How was thecreation manifested? By the Word. 'God said, let there be light, and itwas so,' and by every 'God said,' was manifested the thing which He saidwas to be.
"The word God is an abbreviation of the Anglo-Saxon of Good, the twowords in that language being identical. To many this will be an aid torealizing the omnipresence God, and add to the reverential sense of thatpersonal nearness which makes the Deity a Father and an ever-lovingFriend.
"God is not person as to form or personal limitations, yet personal inthe sense of Presence and intelligent communication with intelligentbeings. Jesus said truly, 'No man hath seen God at any time, because theeye of the flesh cannot perceive spirit.' Through the quality orinfluence of Good, Intelligence, Love and all we may name as soulful, weperceive and feel God's presence.
"Thus in the spiritual sense, the 'pure in heart may see God.' We can,too, perceive the quality of God in Good, as we perceive the attributesof the sun in its light. As the light of the sun warms the dark earth,making it fruitful, so the divine Light (Intelligence), shining upon ourearth nature, makes it fruitful because of the presence of its Creator.
"Some there are who call this ever-present Intelligence or Good theliving Principle. As the Infinite, it wears all phases and adapts itselfto every conception of the Finite, so in the sense of omnipresence andunchangeableness it might from this point of view be called Principle.This is the cold, mathematical conception of God as Law, which withoutLove would be incomplete. We must, therefore, know the duality of God ifwe are to understand either Law or Love. Some things can only be knownby intuition, without the aid of the senses, and because of an inherentidea in our consciousness. For instance, every nation worships Deity insome way. Since we cannot know God through the senses, by which we gainknowledge of visible things, how can we know there _is_ a God?
"As Paul says: 'Likewise the spirit itself beareth witness with ourspirit that we are the children of God;' and what better answer could wehave?
"Spirit, according to Webster, is: 'Life or living substance consideredindependent of corporeal existence--vital essence, force, or energy asdistinct from matter.' God is the vital essence, God is spirit, and Godis substance--'the real or existing essence,' 'the divine essence orbeing.'
"God, therefore, is the Divine Power that creates and sustains allthings--the All-Power, the All-Intelligence, the All-Mind, the All-Love,the All-Substance, the All-Harmony, the All-Life, the All-Good,omnipresent, omniscient, omnipotent. This is the one Creator, 'one Godwho is Father of all, over all, and in all.'
"Though we cannot see this God or Good Principle, we can apprehend itthrough the signs or manifestations that we see. As we look about, weeverywhere see the signs of life--not Life itself, but the signs ofit--that tell of the presence of God or Good. Now Life is Good in andfor itself.
"We often see the divinest love manifested through every deed of love,every heroic act of higher living, every grand sacrifice ofself-comfort, pleasure, even life itself. Jesus says: 'Greater love canno man have than to lay down his life for his friend.' Such love is amanifestation of the one, only Love, which is God--Good omnipresent.
"Every glimpse of Truth which the whole world seeks to know and whereverfound, is a realization of the omnipresent Truth, which is God.
"Intelligence, in its highest or lowest form, is but a manifestation ofGod as Intelligence; for whence comes our intelligence if not from thegreat and only Intelligence, which is ever flowing to us and through us,which is ever being generated in us, whenever and wherever we arewilling to let it manifest itself.
"Emerson says: 'There is one mind common to all individual men. Everyman is an inlet to the same and to all of the same. He that is onceadmitted to the right of reason is made a free man of the whole estate.* * * * Who hath access to this universal mind is a party to all that isor can be done, for this is the only and sovereign agent.'
"So we reason about health and strength and justice, or any of thedivine qualities, which we may claim as a part of our inheritance,because they are inherent in the All, in which 'we live, are moved, andhave our being.'
"Having
something of an understanding as to the nature of this divineCreator, we can, to some extent, apprehend that the essence of allthings manifesting it, and manifested by it, must be good like itself,must be of the same quality as itself; as light emanating from light,must be of the same essence and quality as that from which it emanates.God, like light, is always the same, and cannot send forth or createanything opposite Himself.
"The nature of God embraces every good quality of masculine andfeminine character, as also the impersonal life Principle. It istherefore proper to use the masculine, feminine or neuter pronoun whenreferring to Deity. As different phases of the one Love, we seemanifested, the strong, all-protecting, intelligent father-love, thetender, restful, patient mother-love, the innocent, confiding, trustfulchild-love, each complete in the whole, which can be recognized by allor one of these attributes.
"The great Mind of which the ancient philosophers tell us and whichEmerson so plainly realized, is the the Origin and Force of allCreation, the Mind for which we have found so many synonyms and so manyoffices, the Great Invisible of which all visible things are but signsor symbols.
"There is but one great Mind, one great Thinker. All thoughts of thisMind, which is Infinite Goodness, must be infinitely good, and man isthe crown and apex of the wonderful creation--is made in the image andlikeness of God.
"If we concede the Creator, God, to be omnipresent, omniscient andomnipotent, the only Power there is, perfect, unchangeable and eternal,we must necessarily concede that all which He creates is good, and mustremain so because everything connected with, emanating from, or similarto Him is, and must be like Him in quality and essence.
"The true man is spiritual, perfect like his Father, and can only besubject to perfect conditions. If we continually and persistentlyrecognize the true creation which is invisible, we make manifest theperfect conditions in the sign of the true, which is the visible. Indoing this, we are, in the most essential sense, acknowledging God,worshiping the one Deity.
"Because we have so long recognized the other powers we have becomeidolators, and must now turn back to the only true God. 'If thou returnto the almighty, thou shalt be built up, thou shalt put away iniquityfar from thy tabernacles.... For thou shalt have thy delight in thealmighty and shalt lift up thy face unto God.'
"We have become filled with false beliefs, because we have judgedaccording to appearances, and hence drawn false conclusions. How can weknow spiritual truth without spiritual knowledge? How can we havespiritual knowledge without spiritual perception; how can we havespiritual perception without recognizing Spirit, Substance, God, as thesupreme Essence back of all visible forms?
"This is the fundamental principle of healing--this recognition ofspiritual being and spiritual law. Grasping only the surface meaning ofthis grand truth, we recognize and admire the mental power whichproduces cures, hence it is frequently called mind-cure, because,through the agency of mind, the cure is wrought, as we say, water-cureor sun-cure for the same reason; but as we proceed in the study, we willgo beyond an intellectual to a spiritual perception of what is meant by_met-a-physical_, which pertains not only to a science of mentalphenomena, but the science of real being, and has to do with thespiritual or real self of man.
"Now John, if you don't understand, just wait and study, for really wemust study these statements, without prejudice, too, for that is theonly way, and of course we cannot expect to understand at once. Thegreat essential is to keep uppermost the _desire_ for truth, but I neednot tell you that, for what an earnest truth-seeker you are, nobodyknows better than myself.
"This is the best I can do toward giving the first lesson, but you mustthink well upon it and get a good foundation laid for what is to comenext. This science is to be developed rather than learned.
"I want to put in every moment I can get for study, so must close. Handthis to Kate and Grace. I do hope they will be interested.
"Tell me all about your progress, and the precious little ones--how arethey?
"Your loving MARION."
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