Part 6 (1/2)

Present salvation

39:18 ”_Now_,” cried the apostle, ”is the accepted time; be- hold, _now_ is the day of salvation,” - meaning, not that now men must prepare for a future-world salva- 39:21 tion, or safety, but that now is the time in which to experience that salvation in spirit and in life. Now is the time for so-called material pains and material pleas- 39:24 ures to pa.s.s away, for both are unreal, because impossible in Science. To break this earthly spell, mortals must get the true idea and divine Principle of all that really exists 39:27 and governs the universe harmoniously. This thought is apprehended slowly, and the interval before its attain- ment is attended with doubts and defeats as well as 39:30 triumphs.

Sin and penalty

Who will stop the practice of sin so long as he believes in the pleasures of sin? When mortals once admit that 40:1 evil confers no pleasure, they turn from it. Remove error from thought, and it will not appear in effect. The ad- 40:3 vanced thinker and devout Christian, perceiv- ing the scope and tendency of Christian healing and its Science, will support them. Another will say: 40:6 ”Go thy way for this time; when I have a convenient season I will call for thee.”

Divine Science adjusts the balance as Jesus adjusted 40:9 it. Science removes the penalty only by first removing the sin which incurs the penalty. This is my sense of divine pardon, which I understand to mean G.o.d's method 40:12 of destroying sin. If the saying is true, ”While there's life there's hope,” its opposite is also true, While there's sin there's doom. Another's suffering cannot lessen our 40:15 own liability. Did the martyrdom of Savonarola make the crimes of his implacable enemies less criminal?

Suffering inevitable

Was it just for Jesus to suffer? No; but it was 40:18 inevitable, for not otherwise could he show us the way and the power of Truth. If a career so great and good as that of Jesus could not avert a 40:21 felon's fate, lesser apostles of Truth may endure human brutality without murmuring, rejoicing to enter into fellows.h.i.+p with him through the triumphal arch of 40:24 Truth and Love.

Service and wors.h.i.+p

Our heavenly Father, divine Love, demands that all men should follow the example of our Master and his 40:27 apostles and not merely wors.h.i.+p his personal- ity. It is sad that the phrase _divine service_ has come so generally to mean public wors.h.i.+p instead of 40:30 daily deeds.

Within the veil

The nature of Christianity is peaceful and blessed, but in order to enter into the kingdom, the anchor of 41:1 hope must be cast beyond the veil of matter into the Shekinah into which Jesus has pa.s.sed before us; and 41:3 this advance beyond matter must come through the joys and triumphs of the right- eous as well as through their sorrows and afflictions.

41:6 Like our Master, we must depart from material sense into the spiritual sense of being.

The thorns and flowers

The G.o.d-inspired walk calmly on though it be with 41:9 bleeding footprints, and in the hereafter they will reap what they now sow. The pampered hypo- crite may have a flowery pathway here, but 41:12 he cannot forever break the Golden Rule and escape the penalty due.

Healing early lost

The proofs of Truth, Life, and Love, which Jesus gave 41:15 by casting out error and healing the sick, completed his earthly mission; but in the Christian Church this demonstration of healing was early lost, 41:18 about three centuries after the crucifixion. No ancient school of philosophy, _materia medica_, or scholastic theol- ogy ever taught or demonstrated the divine healing of 41:21 absolute Science.

Immortal achieval

Jesus foresaw the reception Christian Science would have before it was understood, but this foreknowledge hindered 41:24 him not. He fulfilled his G.o.d-mission, and then sat down at the right hand of the Father.

Persecuted from city to city, his apostles still went about 41:27 doing good deeds, for which they were maligned and stoned. The truth taught by Jesus, the elders scoffed at.

Why? Because it demanded more than they were willing 41:30 to practise. It was enough for them to believe in a national Deity; but that belief, from their time to ours, has never made a disciple who could cast out evils and heal the sick.

42:1 Jesus' life proved, divinely and scientifically, that G.o.d is Love, whereas priest and rabbi affirmed G.o.d to be a 42:3 mighty potentate, who loves and hates. The Jewish the- ology gave no hint of the unchanging love of G.o.d.

A belief in death

The universal belief in death is of no advantage. It 42:6 cannot make Life or Truth apparent. Death will be found at length to be a mortal dream, which comes in darkness and disappears with the light.

Cruel desertion

42:9 The ”man of sorrows” was in no peril from salary or popularity. Though ent.i.tled to the homage of the world and endorsed pre-eminently by the approval 42:12 of G.o.d, his brief triumphal entry into Jerusa- lem was followed by the desertion of all save a few friends, who sadly followed him to the foot of the cross.

Death outdone

42:15 The resurrection of the great demonstrator of G.o.d's power was the proof of his final triumph over body and matter, and gave full evidence of divine 42:18 Science, - evidence so important to mortals.

The belief that man has existence or mind separate from G.o.d is a dying error. This error Jesus met with divine 42:21 Science and proved its nothingness. Because of the won- drous glory which G.o.d bestowed on His anointed, temp- tation, sin, sickness, and death had no terror for Jesus.

42:24 Let men think they had killed the body! Afterwards he would show it to them unchanged. This demonstrates that in Christian Science the true man is governed by 42:27 G.o.d - by good, not evil - and is therefore not a mortal but an immortal. Jesus had taught his disciples the Science of this proof. He was here to enable them to 42:30 test his still uncomprehended saying, ”He that believ- eth on me, the works that I do shall he do also.” They must understand more fully his Life-principle by casting 43:1 out error, healing the sick, and raising the dead, even as they did understand it after his bodily departure.