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SUE HARPER MIMS, CSD There is one God, and one
mediator between The human mind is deeply stirred today with the longing for better things, for honesty, righteousness, freedom; the aspiration for spirituality is abroad in the whole world, and the crumbling of an effete scholastic theology which for centuries has hampered spiritual progress is one of the pregnant signs of the times. Trials for heresy, revisions of creeds, expurgations of such old hymns from the church hymnals as "Hark from the tomb a doleful sound," evidence that risen hope — a daystar of Truth — is shining on the horizon of faith and understanding. Christ Jesus is being recognized as the normal man — in origin, works, and destiny. Dr. Crapsey's position, the denial of the supernatural, is the intellectual and logical sequence of any system based on the reality of matter and the material origin of man and the universe; it is the inevitable result of belief in material evolution, or indeed of any recognition of matter. The points involved in Dr. Crapsey's trial are his repudiation of the virgin birth, the physical resurrection, and the final ascension of Jesus Christ. This is a deeply vital subject and we cannot be surprised that it has occasioned such wide comment in this and other countries. The Church must face this great problem. The world is too much awake to be satisfied any longer with mystery or with agnosticism; we must face bravely this sublime statement of Christianity and the vital points involved. There must be, and there is, an answer to and solution of this great question. The impossible never happens, never has happened; whatever has been, can be again, and must be natural, normal, and demonstrable to progressive humanity. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, through philosophic research the human reason was sufficiently enlarged to begin to entertain a less personal and anthropomorphic view of God, and when Pope, the poetic voice of this higher view, wrote his "Universal Prayer," beginning, "Thou great First Cause, least understood," the English Church was roused to great indignation and wrath, and "infidel and heretic" became the timeworn cry of the hour. Nevertheless that exquisite poem contained the sweet lines which are still an admonition to all Christians. Teach me to feel another's woe, In spite of creedal persecution, however, the perception of Cause, of Principle unfolded, and of a reign of law began to be acquired. Unerring law in the government of the universe was recognized, — the starry hosts, their times and periods, were more accurately calculated, and even the wandering comet, that brilliant knight-errant of the skies, was seen to be subject to this law. This expanding sense of law and order naturally appealed to the highest human reason, it opened grander views, a larger scope, and when emancipated thought was asked to accept a Christianity whose very basis (according to the teaching of the day) was the reversal of law, naturally and inevitably there came an intellectual revulsion, agnosticism, and infidelity. A sense of Christianity in which both the life and works of the Master seem abnormal, unnatural, brought its outcome, — the denial of the divinity of the Christ, the immaculate conception of Jesus, his resurrection and ascension, — and that this condition and attitude towards Christianity is prevalent where least expected, is indicated by the recent declaration of a prominent divine that "ministers doubt the miracles told of in the Bible, but only in their inmost private chambers." From a material point of view, the acceptance of the "seen and temporal" as the real, there is no other logical sequence or result, and no way of emergence into the light and acceptance of the true Christian philosophy, or Christian Science, save by that absolute, radical change of viewpoint respecting man and the universe upon which Jesus based his teaching and did his wonderful works. Christian Science is today recalling Jesus' words and works; it is reconciling reason and revelation. (Science and Health, p. 110.) We all know how entirely different even natural scenery looks from different points of observation. The writer recalls an early rising on Lookout Mountain, Tenn., when the whole valley below was hidden from view by a mist so thick that it seemed a surging sea. As the light of rosy dawn reached this ocean of mist it was transformed into a rainbow splendor of coloring, a scene beyond words, an enchanting spectacle of light and beauty about the mountain's peak, which reminded one of the "sea of glass;" and the "rainbow about the throne" that John saw in his glorious vision. It has been thirty years since this wondrous scene gladdened my being. It had a beauty beyond the physical; spiritual sense saw beyond the seeming, and it has remained with me to this day. Later I descended to the valley city to find the atmosphere smoky and obscuring, and I sensed as not before why nearly all great revelations of Truth have been associated with a mountaintop. When material sense is left in the valley, spiritual vision soars above, to grasp the grander view, "where sense is lost in sight." Though the poets, prophets, seers, and revelators have come "trailing clouds of glory," they have rarely been welcomed, often scoffed at, ridiculed, reviled, persecuted, crucified; yet nothing has ever quite obscured the vision from the "Horeb height where God is revealed" (Science and Health, p. 241). Almost twenty centuries ago there came to sad, troubled humanity one with a most glorious message and the grandest vision that ever illumined a darkened world. It was a message of good, of health, harmony, and immortality — a declaration of "Immanuel, . . . God with us," a revelation of man's divine sonship to a heavenly Father here and now, his heirship to limitless Life and perfection. Jesus walked humbly with men, and showed them the beneficent power belonging to the understanding of God's fatherhood and man's sonship. He dominated every discordant human condition that presented itself, overcame every limitation of materiality. Did Jesus actually do these wonderful works? Christian Science teaches that he did, — indeed Christian Scientists fully and intelligently accept every demonstration of spiritual supremacy, from the manna that fed the children of Israel in the wilderness to the feeding of the multitudes on the hillsides of Judaea, and they accept all the proofs of spiritual supremacy in Jesus' career, including the immaculate conception, resurrection, and ascension. The world had quite lost sight of the works of Christ Jesus, while blindly clinging to his words, when Christian Science came, through our beloved Leader, the Revelator whose "little book" explains the deep spiritual truths of Christianity, to explain these blessed phenomena as belonging not to another dispensation, but to this; to teach and to demonstrate that the Truth of being is ever-present and powerful to do the same works now. Jesus did not hint that he regarded himself or his works as abnormal or unnatural; he said, "He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also." Jesus was a part of the brotherhood he revealed. Having the same Father, "which is in heaven," all must be brethren. As the elder brother he blazed the way for us to follow him to the very throne of God. "To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in his throne." The error of viewing Jesus as an abnormal being, instead of the normal, natural, divine man, in the image and likeness of God, has darkened the centuries. Should not man, the image and likeness of God, reflect His power, majesty, wisdom, intelligence, love, immortality? Is not that a more natural expression of God than a material, sinning, sick, and dying mortal? As one gets the sunlight even when his back is turned to the sun, so is the human mind being illumined by the effulgence of spiritual light through the revelation of Christian Science, even though it may not yet have awakened to the fact. The following remarkable words from the pen of Sir Oliver Lodge are most interesting by way of illustration. This great English physicist declares that "Jesus' humanity is to be recognized as real, and ordinary, and thorough, and complete, not in middle life alone, but in birth and death, and after death. Whatever happened to him may happen to any of us, provided we attain the appropriate altitude, an altitude which, whether within our individual reach, is assuredly within reach of humanity." Commenting upon this The Review of Reviews says, "In Sir Oliver Lodge's eyes the whole value of Christianity lies in the denial of the supernatural difference between Jesus and the ordinary man. We do not take it that Sir Oliver denies the possibility of the immaculate conception, the resurrection, or the ascension. He merely maintains that if such things happened to Jesus Christ, they are possibilities latent in humanity, and may yet become the common experience of mankind." In reading all this one is reminded of the saying of Fuerbach, that "the plainer truths are those precisely upon which men hit last of all;" and of Goethe's declaration that "it nettles men to find that Truth should be so simple." In a little volume called "The Agreement between Science and Religion," by Orlando Smith, we find it stated that throughout all nature, mathematics and morality, human conduct and experience, we may trace the law that "consequents are true to their antecedents." This fundamental postulate of reasoning substantiates Mrs. Eddy's teaching, that since God is Spirit, and Spirit is the antecedent cause or creator, man and the universe, as the expression or image of the creator, must be spiritual and immortal; that is, be true as consequent to Spirit, its immortal and perfect antecedent, and this profound and simple truth constitutes Mrs. Eddy's sublime message to humanity. Jesus said, "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect." In other terms, "Correspond to your perfect cause, or antecedent, God, infinite good." In Science and Health (p. 476) Mrs. Eddy writes, "Jesus beheld in Science the perfect man, who appeared to him, where sinning mortal man appears to mortals. In this perfect man the Saviour saw God's own likeness, and this correct view of man healed the sick. Thus Jesus taught that the kingdom of God is intact, universal, and man pure and holy." It is interesting to note how absolutely this statement corresponds with Jesus' own words regarding himself. He said, "I came forth from the Father, . . . and go to the Father," "I ascend unto my Father, and your Father." This is his simple but impressive declaration of the fatherhood of Spirit and the brotherhood of man — a common origin and destiny for him and for the brethren. In John we read: "But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God . . . which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God." We thus see that from Jesus' point of view an absolute renunciation of material origin is demanded. So also Copernicus, having discovered a higher sense of the solar system, demanded the renunciation of the old viewpoint, the relinquishment of what for centuries had seemed sure, absolutely true and real. Now his point of view is universally accepted; it has awakened a higher, grander sense of the universe. Any calculation made upon the old supposition that the earth is flat and stationary, would be false, misleading, and confusing. Jesus demanded an equally radical and revolutionary change in the human point of view when he said, "Call no man your father upon the earth: for one is your Father, which is in heaven." Is this demand heeded by professed Christians today? No! except by Christian Scientists, who do see that man cannot have two fathers, one spiritual and one material. The demand is to acknowledge only the fatherhood of Spirit, for, said Paul, "We are also his offspring." Thus we see that the great apostle also regarded man as a child of God, Spirit, and hence spiritual; and this pure, uplifted sense of humanity was the basis of his wonderful power over sin, disease, and death. A learned professor, a teacher of higher mathematics in one of our colleges, to whom the logic of Christian Science was presented in this way, said, "Yes, I grant it, antecedent and consequent must agree, and if God is Spirit, the one creator and cause, it must be that man and the universe are spiritual and not material;" then with a puzzled look — a backward glance at Egypt — he added, "But what do you do with this material universe?" I said, "Just what Copernicus did; he turned his back on the Ptolemaic theory because it was false, a misconception of astronomy. The discord, sin, sorrow, suffering, and mutability of this false sense of man proves its unreality, for immortal harmony must be the supreme law of being, since God is the Author, sole cause, and governor of all." Such an absolute reversal of human opinions and experiences could not obtain in human consciousness, perhaps, were the new concept not accompanied with beneficent works, — the elevation of character, the regeneration of mind and body, the destruction of the discordant conditions which attach to the present false material sense of life. Is not this change from a false view and its disastrous conditions what Paul refers to when he speaks of putting "off the old man with his deeds," that we may put on the "new man?" In declaring for a spiritual sense of the Scriptures, Mrs. Eddy teaches the true metaphysical method by which the false concept of man must be denied — "put off" — before we can put on the new man; that the mortal erring, finite, discordant sense must give place to the harmonious and immortal sense; the mortal must put on immortality, "this corruptible must put on incorruption." This is a metaphysical, not a physical process. The belief that this is accomplished through death, instead of through the victorious steps of overcoming sin, disease, and death, has robbed the Christian warfare of its glorious meaning. Jesus, our Exemplar, overcame them for himself and others, and commanded us to follow him in the stupendous ascent out of the "mind of the flesh" into the Mind of Christ or the divine consciousness of eternal life, without beginning and without end. When the general Christian thought more widely accepts this pure logic of God, this glorious promise, "Now are we the sons of God," — now and evermore God and man at-one in the divine unity of good, — then will this promise bring its grand conclusion, and the old man (false theories) vanish from consciousness. The perfect man and universe will be revealed, — understood, — its perfect phenomena of holiness, harmony, and immortality be manifest on earth as it is in heaven. The hour has struck when every idol of the human heart, everything that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, must be brought into obedience to Christ, and God's presence, power, and government be acknowledged as supreme.
The Christian Science Journal, September, 1906 |
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