"Got but the truth once uttered, and 'tis like
A star new-born that drops into its place,
And which, once circling in its placid round,
Not all the tumult of the earth can shake."
--_Lowell._
"How are you getting on in your study of Christian Healing?" asked Mr.
Hayden, meeting Kate as he was going home, and handing her the letter.
"It is getting plainer, but Grace seems to catch the reason of things
much more readily than I. In fact, I am afraid I should have given up in
disgust had not she helped me out, for some of the statements seemed so
unreasonable."
"They are rather inconsistent in some respects, I must admit; but if we
will only be patient, and not allow prejudice to color our judgment,
everything will straighten out," replied Mr. Hayden, smiling. "You
notice Marion is careful to warn me not to judge hastily. She knows how
I am in religious matters, always insisting on the one interpretation.
But I am growing some, I hope, so I trust my judgment is broad enough to
make a fair and impartial investigation."
"Do you follow directions about denying?" Kate asked, as they walked
along.
"I am trying to, but of course my days are busy, and evenings somewhat
taken up with the children. Still, I deny matter as being inert, having
absolutely no power of itself, except what is delegated to it by the
senses. I know it has no life, intelligence or causation of itself, but
only as man in his ignorance allows it to have. This has been held by
wise men of all ages. I have an idea this way of thinking will help me
in business as well as socially and religiously."
"I am glad to hear that," said Kate; "though I must confess at first I
was very much afraid to look into this; but last night I had a very
clear assurance that there is something in it. Grace and I denied a long
time, and I had a most peculiar experience. Such a strange, exalted
feeling, as if there were no weight about me, and it was very clear that
there is no reality in matter."
"Remarkable!" murmured Mr. Hayden. "Suppose you come down Sunday and
we'll compare notes," he suggested, as he turned the corner toward home.
"We will," she promised, and went on with a hurried step, anxious to
read the letter, for she was now as interested as Grace. When she
arrived at their rooms she found her friend had gone out, so she went
about the domestic duties, resolving to have everything ready when Grace
returned.
"Isn't that a beautiful lesson?" exclaimed Grace, when they finally sat
down to study, later in the evening.
"Perfectly grand; but I want the Bible corroboration, though I am not
afraid it is not there this time."
"Of course everything that proves the theory helps to establish the
consequent facts, and I suspect all things prove it when we understand
it. Well, here is the first statement about God that is about the same
as in the first lesson," said Grace. "Look up the references to life."
"Here is one in Psalm xxvii: 1. 'The Lord is my life and my salvation,
whom shall I fear?'" read Kate; "and here is another in Acts xvii: 25:
'God giveth to all life, and breath, and all things.'"
"That is good; see if you can find another," said Grace.
"Here is one, but I hardly understand it--John xi: 25, 26. 'Jesus said
unto her, I am the resurrection and the life; he that believeth on me,
though he were dead, yet shall he live; and whosoever liveth and
believeth in me shall never die.' What can that mean, Grace?"
"Wait a moment," said Grace, silently pondering. Then she looked again
at the letter. "Why, of course! How could we forget so easily? I had it
just a moment ago. Jesus never referred to his flesh and blood when he
spoke of himself as life, resurrection, truth, bread, but always meant
the Spirit of God that was manifest in him, and the Spirit of God which
is the Christ, is Truth, and whosoever believes or apprehends Truth,
shall be whole and live."
"But it says, 'shall never die,'" interrupted Kate, still unsatisfied.
"I don't know, then, unless it means 'the Spirit is all.' Find another
passage."
Kate read John vi: 51-64, and then added, anxiously, "it seems to grow
more mysterious all the time."
"Never mind, let us be patient. Read the fifty-first and sixty-third
verses again."
Kate read, "'I am the living bread which came down from heaven, if any
man eat of this bread, he shall live forever; and the bread that I will
give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.... It is
the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing, the words that
I speak unto you they are spirit and they are life.'"
"That last clause is the key to all," exclaimed Grace, eagerly. "He was
the Word, idea made manifest in the flesh. Flesh was a symbol of Word,
and he said they were to eat his flesh, which meant they were to eat his
word. Now let us look up Word, since so much hinges upon that."
Rapidly turning over the leaves, Kate read again, John xv: 7: "'If ye
abide in me and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will and it
shall be done unto you.'"
"There we have it. Christ, we must remember, means Truth. If we abide in
the Truth and the words of Truth abide in us, that is, in order to eat
the flesh and drink the blood of Christ, we are to abide in the spirit
and speak the words of Truth. Oh, how beautiful!"
"Yes, it is. Here is another passage, Col. iii: 3, 4: 'For ye are dead,
and your life is hid with Christ in God.... When Christ, who is our
life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory.' Even
I, can see that," cried the delighted Kate, "and I remember a verse in
Ephesians, iv: 18, that will make it still plainer. Here it is: 'Having
the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through
the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart'
(mind). Ignorance is the opposite of truth, and one who is ignorant of
truth is subject to the carnal mind which leads to death. When we know
truth, we know the opposite of death, which is life, so when Christ the
Truth, which is life, shall appear, we shall be glorified with the
knowledge of eternal life, and just as far as we realize truth we
manifest it, do we not?" She appealed to Grace, as if the thought were
too good to be true, and must needs be confirmed before she could
believe it.
"Manifest it? Why yes; I suppose so; that means in the body," answered
Grace, thinking deeply; "manifest truth in the body. Of course," she
continued, "we will show forth a more perfect body in proportion as we
acknowledge and realize more perfect thought. How strangely we lose our
premise! If this could not be reasoned out so clearly, I should get all
tangled up; as it is, I don't keep out of snarls."
"Just think of poor me who seem to have no reasoning faculty at all in
these matters. What should I have done without you to help me out?"
queried Kate.
Grace smiled as she replied: "In one sense you will get on faster than
I, for you can get it spiritually or intuitively, while I get it only
intellectually, and the intuition flies where reason walks. You had a
perception of the unreality of matter last night and I had nothing at
all but stupidity and sleepiness. But let us go on. I am more deeply
interested than I can tell, and the Bible is a new book to me. I never
dreamed there were such treasures of truth in it. No matter where I
read in the Bible before, I could not understand, and then I stopped
trying, but it is very different now."
"What is the next point in the lesson?" asked Kate, taking up the Bible
again.
"I am the child of God. Look for child."
"Yes, in Rom. viii: 16, 17: 'The spirit itself beareth witness with our
spirit, that we are children of God: and if children, then heirs; heirs
of God, and joint heirs of Christ; if so be that we suffer with him.'"
"That means," said Grace, "we prove ourselves heirs if we suffer with
him, mortify the flesh, lay down the life of appetites and passions and
talk continually of spiritual things; in short, live the life that Jesus
did."
"Here in Gal. iv: 1: 'The heir, as long as he is a child, differeth
nothing from a servant, though he is lord of all,'" read Kate.
"While he has a child's ignorance of his inheritance, of course he could
not enjoy its possession, and the longer he remains ignorant, the longer
will he have the station of a servant," explained Grace, readily.
"But there is a seeming conflict in the two passages. The first says the
spirit itself tells us we are children and heirs, and the second says,
as long as he is a child, even though an heir, he is nothing but a
servant," said Kate, in perplexity again.
"But isn't there a place in the Testament somewhere about being born
again?" inquired Grace.
"Yes," replied Kate, wondering what that could have to do with it. "Yes,
that is where Nicodemus went to Jesus by night--"
"Find it," interrupted Grace, who was determined to be thorough in this
study at least.
"John, iii: 3-7, reads: 'Except a man be born again, he can not see the
kingdom of God.... That which is born of flesh is flesh, and that which
is born of spirit is spirit.'"
"Well!" said Kate, as she finished.
"Didn't we learn that the words are spirit and life, and does it not
mean we are born into the spiritual knowledge by abiding in the words of
truth?" reasoned Grace.
"Why, that is it, I do believe, and one of the last verses of the third
chapter of Galatians says, 'for ye are all the children of God by faith
in Christ Jesus.'"
"By faith in the Truth," amended Grace, for the sake of the clearer
meaning.
"What a stupid I am!" cried Kate. A moment later she said thoughtfully,
"there is a text in the first chapter of James which reads: 'Of his own
will begat he us with the word of truth, that we might be a kind of
first fruits of his creatures.' My youthful Sunday school training is
not quite in vain," she added, meekly.
"It would not take us so long if we knew the Bible as some people do,
provided we want to take that as sole authority," remarked Grace,
referring to the letter again.
"I don't know about the advantage of knowing the passages unless you can
interpret them, and that is certainly essential to the understanding,"
replied Kate, thoughtfully, as she drew her hand slowly over the open
page.
"Mrs. Hayden refers to the liberty brought by the spirit. Suppose you
look up a reference to liberty," suggested Grace.
"Yes," said Kate, a moment later, "here in verses 17 and 18 of II. Cor.,
third chapter, it reads, 'Now the Lord is that spirit, and where the
spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.... But we all, beholding as in
a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from
glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.'"
"Why, Grace," exclaimed Kate, shutting the book in her eagerness, "I see
it all now. By denial we take away falsities that bar us from looking
into the face of God (Good), and by the affirmation we acknowledge Him,
which is turning an open face to Him and reflecting His glory. Isn't
that the way you understand it?"
Kate's face was all aglow with enthusiasm. A new light had come to her,
and she was lifted to a higher plane, both in conception and feeling.
"That is a beautiful interpretation, but I don't want to stop to think
about it now," said Grace, with a yawn, betraying fatigue for the first
time.
"Why, Grace, a little while ago you said you were 'so interested.' What
has come over you?" was Kate's rather discomfited answer.
"Oh, nothing, nothing!" rejoined Grace hastily, "only you know one _can_
be surfeited with good things, but never mind. I shall not stop till we
get through with this looking up, and then I must have a good long
think." She playfully chucked Kate under her chin, and asked her "to go
on," but the searching was not so spontaneous as before, and in the
spontaneity of study lies the acquisition of knowledge.
Grace, it must be confessed, was compelling herself to a thorough
intellectual investigation which, till now, had been a novel pleasure,
but was getting a little monotonous, although she was deeply interested
and more pleased with the Bible readings than she would have thought
possible, because, as she had said herself, the Bible had been a sealed
book to her before. She was very careful to conceal this new feeling
from Kate, for at least, she would not lay one obstacle in _her_ path,
and after a few moments' desultory conversation, they went on as before.
"The next affirmation is about the will, what can you find for that?"
asked Grace, as they had resumed their study again.
"I have found it already," replied Kate, with her finger on the passage.
"In Phil. ii: 13: 'For it is God who worketh in you both to will and to
do of his good pleasure.' That subordination to the will of God runs all
through the New Testament."
"Here is the last one," resumed Grace, referring to the letter again. "I
am subject to God's law and can not sin, suffer or die," she read.
"Oh, that does not sound right; I do _not_ see how it can be right to
say such things," interposed Kate, darkening again.
She looked up a reference to sin and turned to the sixth chapter of
Romans. "I don't see very clearly yet," she faltered, after she had
finished the chapter.
"Yes, in the 16th verse is the key to it all," said Grace, looking over
the page with her. "The idea is, if we admit sin or talk about it, we
are committing sin, for it is wrong to do either."
"I understand a little better now, but it is not an easy matter to be so
good," sighed Kate.
"But we are given these rules in order to know _how_ to be good. Let us
sit as we did last night, and say these affirmations," suggested Grace,
determined to do her duty, for Kate's sake at least.
Diligence and faithfulness never fail to bring forth fruit, and they
were laboring hard, both with soil and seed.