Truth And Life E-Book

Albert C. Grier

• Herausgeber: Jazzybee Verlag
• Kategorie: Ratgeber
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2014

Seitenzahl: 378

Beschreibung

It is agreed by all thinkers that we are entering upon a new period of human history. We are approaching it not without observation; but it is not the things observed that are the real elements of the transformation. The statesmen, the scholars, the reformers, having their eyes on the changes in material or purely intellectual things of life, believe that in the forms of government or economic adjustment or educational qualities they see the goal of these momentous changes. The crux of the revolution, however, lies far deeper and in another realm. The surface changes are in themselves insignificant, having their values only as indications of more pregnant events. These forces, these lines of direction, are never seen by any but the idealists. Only the school of the prophets can study or be acutely aware of these hidden lines.

Leseprobe

Truth And Life

Albert C. Grier

Contents:

Truth And Life

Introduction

Chapter I - Truth.

Chapter Ii - God.

Chapter Iii - The Principal And The Principle.

Chapter Iv - The Kingdom Of Heaven.

Chapter V - The Problem Of Evil.

Chapter Vi - Prayer And Answer.

Chapter Vii - Consciousness,

Chapter Viii - Healing.

Chapter Ix - Faith.

Chapter X - Love.

Chapter Xi - Fundamentals And Practical Work.

Chapter Xii - Cosmic Consciousness.

Truth And Life , A. C. Grier

Jazzybee Verlag Jürgen Beck

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Germany

ISBN: 9783849642389

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Truth And Life

INTRODUCTION

It is agreed by all thinkers that we are entering upon a new period of human history. We are approaching it not without observation; but it is not the things observed that are the real elements of the transformation. The statesmen, the scholars, the reformers, having their eyes on the changes in material or purely intellectual things of life, believe that in the forms of government or economic adjustment or educational qualities they see the goal of these momentous changes.

The crux of the revolution, however, lies far deeper and in another realm. The surface changes are in themselves insignificant, having their values only as indications of more pregnant events. These forces, these lines of direction, are never seen by any but the idealists. Only the school of the prophets can study or be acutely aware of these hidden lines.

Never before in human history have there been so many souls with prophetic vision. Seership of a high order is a heritage of this hour. Souls of this type discern what it is that is taking place in the "chambers of imagery" of mankind. They stand in awe before the rebirth of a race.

If to stand and watch a race being born into a world life would have been great beyond thinking, how transcendently greater is it to be witness of the second birth of man — the birth into his divine heritage of being, the conscious co-operator with God in his own destiny? It is this change that we are witnessing — yes, forwarding.

Though this transformation is indeed the "supreme event in nature," still it is a perilous period in human history. As in the life of man the age of puberty is accompanied with perils, so in this period of race-maturing there are dangers and pitfalls that would almost call a Saviour from heaven. If ever guidance were needed, it is needed now. All the scholarship, all the revelation, all the sanctification, all the consecration that can be commanded by those who see must be called into service. This is a crucial period in human history. While the Truth must inevitably triumph, a false step may delay its reign of peace for another thousand years.

Any man who claims the right to lead in so momentous and so crucial a time, does so at the peril of being thought an egotist. There was in Jesus something unnamable — so fine is its essence, I— that caused Him simply to ignore the matter of egotism though the form of His words convicted Him of the charge. In somewhat, I trust, of His Spirit, I dare give forth the revelation the Father has made to me for the guidance of man as he steps into the new fields of divine adventure.

A famous English scientist has recently said that we may look any day for a discovery, from some obscure laboratory, by an unknown scientist, that will bisect human history. This discovery has been made, and its natural and contagious extension is the subtle and underlying cause of that cracking in the surface of life which men, not yet wise in the deeper things, are trying to interpret.

That which will bisect one life has in it the potency to bisect human history. Some years ago, this old, new discovery was made by me for myself. It bisected my whole existence. Mine had been a ruined life, although I had education, ancestry and opportunity. And on every side I greet others who have made the same transforming discovery.

The Test of a Soul, — It is obvious that only that which will bisect an individual's history can bisect humanity's history. Humanity is the aggregate of its members; no new factor is added to it. The history of the race is but the history of the Individual's experience written large. If, then, we can find that which will transform the individual, and that which alone will do it, we have found the secret of the New Heaven and the New Earth. Every soul that has come into a living knowledge of the Truth will bear glad testimony that the knowledge has transformed his life. It is the common experience of such that they reckon their age from the day when the light of Truth broke into their souls.

The Nature of the Universe, — Abstract as this question is, there is no more vital one which presents itself to the mind of man. This is the case because man must erect every plan of his life upon his understanding of the nature of the universe in which he lives. It is obvious, then, that any structure which be may build will be untenable if it erected upon a false foundation. And when it is found that all the structures which humanity has built have proved untenable under test conditions, it is conclusive that it is because they are resting upon false foundations. When, added to this proof, we have the experience that by a change from a certain basis to another our structures become stable and harmonious, we are driven to the conclusion that the old foundation was wrong and the new one is right.

In practically all of the past, man has taken a material basis for his foundation of thought in the realms of economics, of government, of sociology, of healing, of education, and of religion. Upon this, he has built all of his individual and social structures. Today every one of them is falling upon his head. And through he may change the form of any of these structures, it will meet with a similar fate if he does not change the foundation upon which it is built. The material concept of life is doomed. It is passing to its destruction. It has been weighed in the balance and found wanting.

The Basis of Spirit. — There is only one other possible foundation for the superstructures of thought and activity. It is the basis of Spirit. To this man is being driven, not alone by the failure of the old, but by the success of the new. Added to this is the compelling fact that the spiritual nature of the universe is the truth revealed to the soul of man.

We are living in an age in which a multitude of people are emerging from the mist of matter and are being made divinely aware of the true nature of Being— the nature of Man, of the universe, and of

the great Source. There is practically a consensus of the experiences of these illumined souls. They have all been made to realize the spiritual nature of the universe, and in this revelation they have discovered the perfect unity of God, man, and the universe — that they are all of the same essence. This essence we call spirit. We see that whatever is the nature of God, that must be the nature of all His manifestations.

In the light of this experience, man looks in upon himself with a new vision. He understands, now, the potencies of Jesus Christ. He sees the rationale of the Master's healings and the sovereignty he manifested over the supposed laws of nature; and there opens before him a vista of the triumphs of humanity in this newly discovered realm of the soul. Looking out, he sees a new world. No longer is it a world of unresponsive solid matter, but a universe partaking of the nature of God.

The Truth sees the whole Cosmic purpose as the process through which the sense-conscious mind of man is transformed to the Spirit-conscious mind of Christ. So, every experience has for its purpose this transformation. Experiences occur that we may learn to distinguish between our false seeing and the true, that we may pass from "sense to soul," and properly interpret the Divine Purpose, Plan, and Nature. It is not the Truth that the cosmos is a nightmare into which man fell and from which his goal now is to extricate himself.

The Purpose of the Universe. — The Divine Mind desired a mighty thing, the production of which is the purpose of Cosmic existence. And that mighty thing is a self-induced love — a response to the great love of God. This was so valuable in the mind of God that He dared to let man pass through all the experiences of life in order that it might be brought about, and it is being brought about. Here and there, through the ages, there have arisen souls that have truly responded to the Love which laid down its life for Man.

So, Truth affirms the reality of the universe in all of its manifestations. Truth bends all its powers to the end that God proposed in the beginning, that the soul of man shall see the universe as it is in Him. The Truth accepts all experiences as actual and as having for their purpose the progression of the soul of man to that place where it knows God, the Source of Being.

How Is Man Related to This Universe? — No survey of the universe is complete or comprehensible which does not include man.. He is part of the universe and its every equality is in him. Its nature is his nature, and as we have discovered that the universe is spirit, we are compelled to a spiritual interpretation of man. This means more than the fact that he has a spirit; it means that he is spirit — soul, mind and body.

So I behold a spirit being dwelling in a world of Spirit. This is the final of all analyses and the basis of all true life philosophy. Then arises the mightiest of questions, how is man related to this universe in which he is called to function — related not merely in nature or in time or in space, but how is he related effectively? How is an engineer related to his engine? How does he function in it? This is the question which man must answer if he is to use successfully this mighty universe and properly co-operate with it in its purpose.

The Transfer of the Universe into Consciousness. — The Truth vision takes man out of the status of a subject to the universe and places him in the realm of mastery. In this vision, man is never the creature of circumstances but is forever the creator and controller of circumstances. No matter how ignorant of this fact he may be, he still makes and shapes circumstances. It is, however, only when he knows his power and consciously exercises it that he becomes sovereign. In the realm of Spirit Man, God's ideal of Himself, is in supreme dominion of his entire circumstances; he is in harmonious relationship with every other idea of God, for one Mind animates all and that is Love.

Three Possible Attitudes. — There are only three possible attitudes of mind toward man's relationship to the universe:

First, he is the creature of circumstances and his character and circumstances are shaped by his environing universe.

Second, he is absolutely independent of any universe and the universe in which he seems to function is a delusion.

Third, he is master through Mind of his environment and by his thought he shapes every form, fact and circumstance of his experience.

The author sees and accepts the last of these three concepts. He sees that God is all there is and that He is substance and intelligence. God has a body through which He functions. That body is the universe, and it is through the universe that He expresses Himself. He thinks or feels (for the two are one with Him), and His thought forms a mold into which His substance pours, and behold the thought exists in substance! If this is the method of God functioning it must be the method of beings created in His image. His sons.

Man's Method of Functioning. — "My Father worketh hitherto, and I work." "As I hear I judge." Man must eternally work as his Father works, and so we have the true method of man's operation. One individual differs from another only because he thinks differently.

So every thought is a mold and shapes something out of the substance of God. If the thought is a true thought, a God thought, the thing that it shapes spells health, well-being or happiness in some form. If it is a thought which does not conform to the Divine Idea, it will shape a disease, a want or a sorrow. When this is perceived all education will be directed to one purpose, the translation of the eternal Reality.

In this vision lies the foundation principle of Truth. There is a consensus of opinion today as to the healing power of thought or prayer; of the phenomenon there are many explanations. Some who do not accept our beliefs may do as great healing as we, for faith is power, and they feel that they prove the truth of their interpretations by their demonstrations. But they prove rather a principle which underlies them all. It is our purpose to find that underlying principle, and we have it in this tremendous discovery. We lay no claim to being the first discoverers of the principle. We believe, that Jesus gave it to the world in word and act; in this age it has been stated in our vernacular by Ralph Waldo Emerson. It is outlined by him in many places but given in boldness in his Essay on "Prospects" and likewise in "The Transcendentalist." I made it mine through the absolute approval of my soul of the verdicts given by the mightiest of thinkers. Jesus said to Peter, "Upon this rock I build my church," and I say to you, "Upon this rock I build my church."

The Eternal Promise. — One promise runs like a golden thread through the Bible; it is the statement that some day things shall be on earth as they are in heaven. To the illumined soul, this means that what is seen to be in the Great Reality shall some day manifest in the experience of man. The Kingdom of Heaven has been discovered to be "at hand"; but it has never been "among us." The object of man's life on earth is to attain this goal. That it shall be accomplished is not only the promise of the Scriptures, but it is the anticipation of every true poet and seer in every land and in every time. But human history would seem to belie these fond dreams of our best minds. Not only is the kingdom of earth not the Kingdom of Heaven, but as the years pass it does not seem to approximate it. There has been progress, but with all the refinements it has brought it has yet failed to bring in the Kingdom. In these days close to the experience of the Great War, the crudest in history, it is not necessary to present statistics or facts in regard to the alarming condition of mankind. Every means that promised the coming of peace on earth and good will among men has failed. Inventions, discoveries, printing, rapid transit, world interests, education, reforms, charities, philanthropies, social and industrial democracy — not one of these has availed. And when we add that religion in any of its commonly known forms has failed as utterly as any of these lesser means, we are constrained to examine with suspicion anything which claims the power to bring the Kingdom of Heaven to earth.

Whatever it is that can transform the kingdom of earth to the Kingdom of Heaven must differ radically from all the ways that the past has known. To the unillumined soul there seems to be no such way. But to find such a way is just what illumination means — the capacity to discern that eternal thing, the apprehension of which contains the potency of all promises. Every problem contains its own solution. Life is a problem, but the answer lies within its heart, and that which Emerson calls "the highest event in nature" is the revelation to the soul of itself and also of its world. This is the key of Being, the apperception of which brings the Kingdom of Heaven at once into expression in the life. It is the rationale of that dynamic edict of Jesus, "Ye shall know the Truth and the Truth shall make you free." The Kingdom of Heaven, now in obscuration, awaits man's discovery of the Truth for its manifestation in him and for him. So impossible has it seemed to bring the Kingdom of Heaven to earth by anything that man could do, that the world has been constrained to believe that only through the personal coming of Jesus Christ can die millennium be established. So that, for this advent, men have waited through the ages — and they have waited in vain.

The Struggle of the Race Against Evils.— Mankind has not submitted quietly to the direful evils of life. The world has been engaged in Titanic warfare against every form of evil, but practically to no avail. There is a deep and subtle reason for this calamitous failure; but the cause is obvious to him who knows the Truth. Man has been unsuccessful in his warfare because in his ignorance of the real cause of evil he has fought a seeming cause, which was not a cause at all, but only an effect. Immediately man knows the reason for his unhappiness, he has practically overcome it.

The True Cause of Distress.— If it be true, as Jesus said, that a knowledge of the Truth would make us free, it follows that ignorance of the Truth is the cause of our lack of liberty. This is revelation. We are compelled to see the truth that man is always free, or otherwise the knowledge of the Truth would not make him free.

It is, then, the startling and revolutionary discovery of the eternal freedom of man that is the hope and the compulsion of the New Heaven and the New Earth. So long as man believes himself to be subject to material law, so long is he in bondage. So long as he believes himself to be the victim of disease, so long will sickness prevail on earth. So long as he believes that he is born to poverty — that religion and poverty are twins- so long will lack have dominion over him. So long as he believes that he is liable to accidents and calamities, so long will he live in fear.

There Is a Way Out. — Man has lived in the without, in the world of appearances. He has believed that experience was his only teacher, and therefore he has constantly reproduced his errors. He has seen diseases and he has reflected and multiplied them. He has seen accidents, and in his very attempts to protect himself against them he has impressed them so vividly into his consciousness that he has constantly produced them. This has been the method and the history of the past. It will continue to be the method unless some new and radically different mode of thinking shall become known to him and be practiced by him. There is not enough science in the world to heal his diseases, which multiply with every advance of science. He is sometimes deceived by the changes in the forms of diseases. He boasts of annihilating smallpox, but in doing even what he has done, he has multiplied cancer. He has vitiated the very life blood of the race by his vaccine.

Circumstances the Mirror of the Mind. — It is a law of life that we reproduce what we fix our minds on and believe in. In the world of experience there are diseases and deformities, and man has believed that by the study of them he could destroy them. But the result has been, and it always will be, that this study, instead of destroying these enemies of man, increases them. The physicians may cure one particular person of a disease, but they will multiply the number who will have that disease. One malady after another arises, becomes fashionable, and then dies out. And so at the end of one hundred years of intensive medical practice we are confronted with a diseased race. Among the Jewish people, for over a thousand years, the medical profession did not exist and the Psalmist naively declared: "There was not one feeble person in all their tribes."

Men Knew no Better Way. — If there is no other way, the race is destined to extinction. A better way does exist, but it is not yet known to man as a race. It is the way which Jesus Christ revealed and took. Its secret lies in his words: "The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand." This is the dynamic center of the Christ revelation so fraught with Titanic powers. It is not a thing that can be lightly estimated; it is an eternal truth, the ramifications of which extend into the very fabric of Being. Its comprehension is the first essential to the understanding of any element of Truth or the working out of any of life's problems. This is what Jesus meant when he declared that we should know the Truth and the Truth should make us free.

The Truth Is the Knowledge of the Kingdom as Present. — To know the Truth, then, is to know that the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand. Here is the secret of the ages, the genius of the revelation of Jesus Christ, the veiled cause of His marvelous powers. In it is revealed to us the perfect creation of God. Here is the Kingdom of Heaven which men postponed until after death or until the Messiah should come. By the declaration of Jesus that Kingdom is present now and here. It is, it was, and it evermore will be. For man to be unaware of such a momentous thing is enough cause for every disease, every accident, every war, every famine, every lack of the race. This ignorance is the cause of all these human miseries, and being the cause, the cure is, manifestly, knowledge. The knowledge, then, of this transcendentally great Truth is the hope of the world.

A Great Hope Is Man.— Since he was ignorant that there is in the Great Reality this perfect Creation, man took every other conceivable pattern for his world. Human opinions, imperfect models of sense consciousness, the broken molds of mortal experience, all these have been for him the copies in his book of life. Yet the knowledge of a perfect model is within his grasp. What revelation could be more fraught with promise? It is the only antithesis to the entire group of sense-conscious patterns which the past has so disastrously employed. If this fact were accepted upon the unsupported testimony of Jesus Christ, we might find it too frail to rest upon it the entire weight of human destiny; but the testimony comes from three other sources. First, we are bound to predicate a perfect universe from our fundamental of a perfect Creator; second, the prophets of all ages have taught the same Real of Reality; and third, it is proclaimed by the intimations of the soul of man and the revealings of God-taught spirits.

The Vital Element of this Revelation. — The whole is not realized by simply believing in the perfect Kingdom, The astonishing thing lies in the fact that a contemplation of this Kingdom reproduces its perfection in the life of man. The realization that the Real self is a perfect creation of God eventuates in the perfectness of this divine image in the body of man. The realization of the perfectness of the mind of God in the mind of man results in perfect wisdom in the thoughts of man. The realization of the perfectness of the divine nature in us manifests itself in sinless lives. Man has always been obliged to follow a pattern, and he has followed the only one he knew, the pattern of his expression in the realm of appearances, or the expression of others in that term.

A Divine and Perfect Pattern at Hand.— What greater news could be given to man than that he had at hand a perfect pattern — a pattern that contains no disease, that has no place for pain, that is free from all poverty, sorrow, disappointment, and death? We learn that this pattern is not to be found afar off, but lies in the immediate Presence; it is not to be ours in a distant time, but in the eternal present. Aye,, even more than that — "It is within us." In other words, the kingdom pattern is written in the very heart, mind and soul of each and every one of us. No man need ever lack wisdom, for infinite wisdom is within him. No man need lack strength, for "We are gods, and every one of you is a son of the Most High."

The Consequent Kingdom on Earth. — Since the present sick, sinful, poverty-stricken human structure has been produced from humanity's study of the faulty pattern of experience and from external sense-conscious seeing, that structure will have a chance to grow healthily when man has discarded this pattern. As the new pattern is now being perceived the Kingdom edifice is certain to appear. As disease was inevitable from his disease-conscious mind, so will health be inevitable from man's divinely conscious soul. He sees, now, that all the poverty he has ever known was but self-induced lack, the direct product of his limited consciousness. Before his "all-that-the-Father-hath-is-mine" consciousness, all poverty must disappear.

The End of War. — In man's material thought of himself, he has experienced sharp and distressing conflicts between his rights and those of his fellow man. The one way by which those matters could be adjudicated was through the arbitrament of law in social, economic or material conditions. All the religion in the world could not change these bad conditions; all the ethics in the universe could not cause the cruel struggle to cease. If men are separate creations in a material world in which there is a limited supply of everything, life must be a struggle unto death. It is the vision of the Perfect Kingdom at hand and its steadfast contemplation that will cause all conflict to cease. Man learns that such strife is not only wrong but suicidal. Then the perfect way is revealed, and the infinite provision is entered upon.

Heaven on Earth not an Artificial Thing. — In the past, it has been deemed necessary to change rulers and devise new kinds of government to bring about even an approach to the Kingdom on earth. But the Kingdom of Heaven requires no such changes; it is the natural Kingdom. It is the God-devised Kingdom, and all the machinery for its functioning is eternally at hand. Heaven is not an invention. It is our man-made state that is invented; That is a human device. "God hath made man upright, but they have sought out many inventions," we are told in the Book of Books. The Kingdom day is "indefinitely postponed," by man's belief that it is impossible and impracticable to realize it. He has believed that this earth has its laws and its ways, and that we must wait for death in order to enjoy the Kingdom of Heaven.

The Secret of Its Coming. — If the contemplation of the perfect Kingdom did not bring that kingdom into manifestation, there would be no hope of the great advent. But we have made the transcendental discovery that by seeing the perfect idea of God in him whom sense consciousness calls sick we manifest health. We realize the meaning of the seemingly ethical declaration of Jesus: "Judge not according to appearances but judge righteous judgment." "Righteous judgment" is true judgment — to judge as God judges, as He sees and as He knows. He knows that He has created His children in His own absolute perfectness, and we have found through many experiences that His righteousness prevails by this right seeing. Prayer has a variety of forms, but every one of them has this vision for its motive power, no matter how obscured that vision may be.

The Universality of the Law. — It seems revolutionary to heal diseases — "incurable diseases" — by right thinking, and its rightful place in the scheme of all difficulties might not be apparent; but it gives at least a working clue to the solution of other perplexing problems, and we are bound to follow this clue. Immediately the soul takes this step, it finds itself on a wonderful highway. When we find that by seeing the perfect man, the tobacco habit disappears, that profane persons are made reverent, that drunkards are transformed into true manly men, that the victim of morphine is set free, then we are compelled to recognize that we are on that Way which Jesus said "I am."

Now are we inspired to test this Way in matters of apparently different natures. When accidents threaten, we find that the Perfect Kingdom is imaged, the calamity does not occur. Fire loses its power to hurt, water its power to drown, poisons their deadly potency. And we must test the Perfect Way in still another direction. The problem of our relationship to nature is small compared to the problems involved in our relationship to our fellow man. The jealousies among men, the frictions of daily life, the competitions in the world's courts and markets are sources of unending sorrow. And yet how wonderfully the Way works here! There is no kind of human in-harmony that does not yield to the Vision.

This Is the Kingdom Come. — Is not this the Kingdom of Heaven on earth? Heaven means harmony. It is when every element of discord has disappeared from life that heaven is realized. We have now in our hands the means of this divine consummation. We know the cause of life's in-harmonies; we know that by visioning the perfectness of the always present and really existent Kingdom of Heaven we bring it into manifestation. Man has lived so long in the state of in-harmony that he thinks it is his natural condition. But it is not; it is absolutely unnatural. The stars in their courses cry out against it, and the whole divine economy is on the side of the coming Kingdom. Never before as now has there been a chance for this Kingdom to manifest itself. Jesus declared that it was at hand and within man; but His revelation was not accepted by the world. His declaration was the first coming of Christ. The second coming is the arrival of the consciousness of the truth of His revelation. Just as rapidly, then, as this consciousness becomes the property of man, so will the true Kingdom come. And the gladdest news that has ever been brought to earth is the news of the rapid spread of this Christ Consciousness. Every Truth-Soul is a watchman on the tower of Zion, hailing the dawn of the light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world. This is the light of the Heaven that always was, but which mankind comprehended not. Now he is comprehending it and it is transforming the face of his earth. The kingdom of earth is becoming the Kingdom of God.

Looking upon the world, I see a race in pain — in the pain of sickness, poverty, war, discord, fear, and sin. Can I, even from a human standpoint, refrain from offering to my suffering brothers the redemption of which I have so gloriously partaken? As a lover of my kind, I offer this, my contribution, to the welfare of the race, for the love of whom the first revealer of this Truth gave His life.

Had there been granted me the leisure that scholarship demands, I would have given gladly my vision and my experience to mankind. But at the very opening of my new existence, I was plunged into a life not only of intense activity but of such struggle with "principalities and powers," that it left neither time nor strength for that monumental work which was so appealingly called for. The Father solved the problem by sending to me Mrs. Lawson, whose soul was quickened with the purpose of giving a scientific and inspirational guide to thought and feeling — a guide which must present to the as yet unconvinced, but ripe minds of the race a religion which is rational and satisfying. And she, with the devotion of the true lover of her kind, has assumed the far heavier share of this consecrated work.

We have joined hands in this task, with a common purpose — to bless. We present to the world these principles and visions which are fundamental, and which will, we believe, be the foundation of the interpretation of life that shall endure. We are deeply persuaded that this vision of life is the means, and the only means, of solving every problem and overcoming every sin of man. We offer it not as a new religion, but as a new statement, in the tongue of this age, of the discoveries of Jesus Christ, before whom we stand as little children — yet as children who comprehend and so love the Elder Brother.

CHAPTER I - TRUTH.

Howbeit when He, the Spirit of Truth, is come, He will guide you into all Truth.— John 16:13.

I am the Way, the Truth and the Life.— John 14:6.

There is nothing hid that shall not be revealed. — Matt. 10:26.

The Eternal Quest. — Since man first began to think, he has been organizing expeditions for die discovery of that which will yield him satisfaction. The hunt for the Golden Fleece, the search for the Holy Grail, the quest for the Fountain of Youth, the expected coming of the Messiah, the eager longing for the Millennium; all these are expressions of an unceasing urge within him to obtain that which will satisfy his physical and spiritual needs, and fulfil his desire to comprehend life in all its mysteries. This is the Spirit in man of which the Almighty is the inspiration; and it can never rest save in the attainment and expression of "The Truth."

Christianity gave a new impetus to this indefatigable spirit of investigation and discovery by the imperative assertion of its Founder: "Ye shall know the Truth and the Truth shall make you free." It is therefore not only possible for us to find that for which we have always been seeking, but it is compulsory that we find it. "We are piqued to this end," said Emerson.

We speak glibly of the knowledge of Truth; but Truth is the ultimate, illimitable, infinite. In that sense, no man can say that he knows the Truth. Yet in another and very real sense we do know the Truth when we have the vision to perceive a principle or demonstrate a law. It is not necessary to know all truths to know The Truth. We are, however, on the road to Truth when we have received the Spirit of Truth.

We are not on the way to The Truth if we seek the aid of material drugs for health; or employ material facts for solving spiritual problems; or when we feel fear and menace in any thing; or believe that accident or chance plays any part in our lives. These beliefs hamper us, they lead us astray and defeat demonstration of Truth. We keep in the right Way only when fear of lack, fear of disease, fear of old age and death find no place in our mentality. To stand fast in Truth is to stand with Christ in the resurrection. Since there is no possible way of becoming free save by knowing The Truth, it is essential for us to have a clear and distinct idea of what Truth is, in order to have a working basis for accomplishment.

Truth is the vision we perceive through soul insight, and its persistence is its most perfect assertion of itself. The ever-changing material conditions are but the passing beliefs in the race-thought about creation. Truth enables: us to penetrate the mist of matter and find the idea. The truth of anything is the idea of it, and it is spiritual discernment only which enables us to perceive ideas. The work confronting us is the correction of our material misconceptions by this perception. The discovery that "all is Infinite Mind and Its Infinite manifestation" is the Truth now accepted not only by metaphysical seers but by scientific thinkers also. It enables us to determine clearly that the spiritual world is the God Idea of creation, and the "material" but the misconception of immaturity in regard to it.

Accuracy of Truth, — The one truth about which we are all agreed is the truth of mathematics. No educated person would attempt to promote an argument on this science. The acceptance of it is our test for intelligence and education. No one can hope to be proficient in any science, art or craft without a definite understanding of mathematical principles. In physics, chemistry, architecture, music and business mathematics is essential to any progress.

Yet in and of itself mathematics has no existence. Its only basis is the Truth of the universe, the accuracy of the One Mind true and equal to itself everywhere. It is on this Truth that we base the relationship of Mind to Its ideas, and trace the relationship of idea to idea. When this Truth is apprehended in all its implications, religions will cease to be sectarian and local, for religion will then be accepted as the accurate perception, classification and demonstration of Truth established in the consciousness of man. Then will there be no more possibility for an argument about it than there is today about mathematics.

There is no evil in mathematics and there is none in Truth. Everything in mathematics is good and true; everything in Truth is as truly so. From the tiniest atom to the greatest sun mathematics reigns in undisturbable accuracy. In even a far more magnificent range Truth holds her spiritual dominion. Mathematics is not a thing to be merely believed in; it is a thing that must be known, if we are to become efficient. Truth must be known if we are to become free.

Errors in our belief with regard to it in no way disturb the truth of mathematics; it can wait serenely until we see our mistakes. It existed at the beginning, it will be at the end. Truth has not been perplexed by all the persecutions of the various sects against each other. Truth is the eternal Mind of God; it can well afford to wait in its infinite calm our acceptance of it. Our acceptance or our rejection of either mathematics or Truth affects only our individual success or freedom.

Mathematics has neither problems, failures, nor errors; its principle meets every demand made upon it. Truth has stood through its eternity of past and will stand through its eternity of future, secure in its own perfection and its adequacy to meet every human need.

Mathematics neither accepts an excuse, nor yields to Ignorance, nor pities immaturities, nor admits a failure. We succeed or fail in proportion to our knowledge of it. Truth never abdicates its throne out of sympathy for our human frailties or weaknesses. Truth knows that its children have power to fulfil all of its requirements and to be free. Its sympathy is always with our strength and never with our infirmities.

Prayer, — The human idea of prayer is akin to that of the little girl who rushed excitedly to her mother with the plea, "Mother, please pray for Boston to be the capital of New Jersey." "Why?" was the puzzled query. "Because that is the way I have written it in my examination papers." Erring sense seeks to bend God to its petition, but "ye ask and receive not because ye ask amiss." True prayer is raising the consciousness into God through the correction of our misconception of God's undeviating Truth. Truth has amply supplied every need; it does not require petitioning. It needs only recognition to supply any demand. Truth is not something upon which to fashion a creed, but a something to be applied to every ill for its correction. It is the shortest line between two points, a definite rule for conduct and work, and the method by which to release spiritual power into the consciousness.

Jesus divided the human family into two great classes, the children of God and the children of the world; those who perceive Truth, and those who are still subject to material misconceptions. Finite sense can know nothing of the spiritual world; its horizon is limited to the material beliefs of the race. Its conclusions are not the result of Mind but of failure to perceive Mind's verities. Only that which reveals intelligent choice with regard to means of attainment can be called Mind. When working in Mind there is constant advancement When our choice is the selection of a means through which advancement is impossible, we sin and progress is halted. This choice is not of Mind, but outside of its principles.

There being but One Mind, all that is, is in and of this Mind. Its innumerable ideas constitute its eternal activity as they unfold into consciousness. Man is spiritually in Mind in the same sense that he is physically in air. Air is the common commodity of the whole human family. Each member of the race has as much air as he has lung capacity to inhale. Mind is Truth and in the spiritual realm each has as much of the universal Truth as he is conscious of and can demonstrate intelligently and accurately.

Man's Security, — Truth being infinite it is superior to all mortal beliefs and able to destroy all ills. Man is the result of God's self-consciousness, and therefore God sees but the Truth of man. He sees in man His own absolute perfection. There can be no more a fallen man than a fallen God. Man is eternally placed in divine Mind, and has never been, nor can be other than as he is here. Man is God's perfect expression, his "Son," partaker and interpreter of omniscience and omnipotence.

The truth of man and the universe is the way God is thinking them. The only way anything can possibly be, must of necessity be the way it is in Truth. This is now recognized even by modern science, for the dictum of evolution is, "A thing always is what it will finally become" All men must ultimate in the perfect consciousness of what they are in God, for this is the only way they ever have been in Reality. This established Truth is the rode upon which man must base every premise, build every structure, demonstrate every problem. "He is the Rock, His work is perfect, for all His ways are judgment; a God of truth and without iniquity, just and right is He."

This established creation is the "stone which the builders rejected. The same is become the head of the comer. Whosoever shall fall upon that stone shall be broken; but on whomsoever it shall fall, it will grind him to powder," said He who knew. So long as mortal sense misbuilds it must meet this fate. Creation is spiritual, and there is nothing that can produce discord or imperfection in the universe of God. Truth is spiritual perfection, and Truth's lovers have already proved that a knowledge of this, even in a small degree, will change the whole tenor of their lives. Character is elevated and purified, bodies are healed, competency is developed, society is improved. Progress in Truth will finally bring immortality to the consciousness of the race.

Truth is uncompromising, unyielding, established. Ideas are real and tangible to those who are able to look past the material beliefs which obscure consciousness. Truth demands absolute acceptance on our part and comes on no other terms than the autocratic government of every thought and act. He who does not build from the Rock finds his work spurious, and to sense becomes an impotent failure. Untrue thoughts and erroneous beliefs are counterfeits and hold their miscreator in their meshes. Truth yields neither to you nor me, neither to king nor potentate. Those who have not yielded to Truth's absolute dominion have found their kingdoms swept away and their work come to naught.