"Life hath its Tabor heights,
Its lofty mounts of heavenly recognition,
Whose unveiled glories flash to earth munition
Of love, and truth, and clearer intuition:
Hail! mount of all delights!"
--_I. C. Gilbert._
"MARLOW, September ----.
"Good morning, dear ones all! I must tell you a little of yesterday
before I go to the lesson to-day. We were not in class, and I staid in
my room all day trying to solve the many questions that present
themselves to us all, and to claim a little more understanding. Many
points became very much clearer after my long meditation in the silence.
In the evening I ran down to see Mrs. Dawn, who is several blocks away.
We were so interested, so completely absorbed in telling our thoughts
and experiences, that it was after eleven o'clock when I arose to go,
and then she accompanied me home, only intending to come part way, but
as we passed a little low house about half way home, the door suddenly
opened and a little girl of ten or twelve years ran out sobbing, 'The
baby is dying! the baby is dying!'
"She was going up an outside stairway to inform a neighbor. We rushed
into the house and found the frantic mother sobbing and wailing over her
baby apparently in the last agonies of death.
"'What is it? Can't we do something for you?' we asked, not knowing what
else to say.
"'Oh, my baby, my precious baby is dying! Don't you see? she is almost
gone.'
"Indeed, for an instant it seemed the little life had gone out, when,
like a flash of lightning, the words came to my inner self, 'There is no
death.' 'He that believeth on me shall not see death;' 'I am the way the
truth and the life.' 'Treat,' I whispered to Mrs. Dawn, and soon the
awful lie was denied by us in the peaceful silence of our own souls; for
all consciousness of appearances had vanished as we denied death and its
power, till we could _command_ the waves of mortal thought to subside
and say, 'Peace, be still.'
"It was the Master, the Christ within, who spoke for us, and we were
filled with the mighty peace and calmness of Truth that worked through
us and was immediately made manifest. The little face relaxed, the eyes
lost their glassy stare, the color returned to the pale lips.
"The mother ceased her mourning and gazed at the precious child in
awesome silence. The neighbor and the little girl who had come in, stood
by in hushed amazement. For a while all felt the presence of the great
invisible Power that had wrought so wondrous a work in their midst,
although no one knew but ourselves what had been done. Presently the
mother leaned back in her chair with a sigh of relief, awaiting the
doctor, for whom her husband had gone before we entered the house. We
waited till he came, and then quietly slipped out.
"Mrs. Dawn came clear home with me, and we found our thoughts and
feelings had been almost identical in this remarkable experience,
showing the oneness of truth. It is something we shall never forget, for
it was indeed from the very depths of our being we were stirred and
thrilled with the mighty Principle.
"This morning I went to see the baby, and found it quite bright and
happy, but still breathing a little heavily. The M. D. had left
medicine, and of course, they were giving it 'according to directions.'
I told the mother something of the Healing, and she readily acknowledged
that something mysterious had saved her child's life, because it
certainly was dying as much as the child she had lost years ago.
"'After you left last night, the neighbor who was here said like as not
you were Christian healers or whatever that is, but she did not believe
a word in it, and that it was all nonsense, but I told her I didn't
care. I thought you saved my baby, and the doctor said it had grown much
better since he came. 'Well,' says I, 'ef you had seen her condition
when the ladies came in, you would say she _is_ better.'
"'Oh, we won't argue about what made her better, whether medicine or
something else; all we want now is to have the child cured,' said the
doctor, very kind-like, and I really thought a great deal better of him
than I had before, for most M. D.'s think they know everything,' she
said.
"I was so glad to find she acknowledged even this much, so I talked a
little longer, and explained the necessity of perfect trust in God, and
the consequences of distrust in Him. She seemed very responsive and
ready to believe, but then, who would not believe after such a
demonstration? I have felt awed and hushed all the morning, remembering
the mighty something surging through me. It seems hard to believe that
at last my desire to have some grand sign shown me is already fulfilled.
"Mrs. Pearl talked beautifully this afternoon on understanding. I wish
you could hear the lectures as she gives them, with all her grace and
beauty and impressiveness. Here is the essence of the lesson:
"As we evolve from material to spiritual understanding, we put ourselves
more and more into the divine current of Life, Health, Goodness, which
is God. The higher our ideal, the higher our attainment. Believing in
God as supreme Love, we find it impossible to conceive of wrath,
jealousy, revenge, as emanating from or existing in Him, Her or It. As
we are filled with love, it becomes universal. Everybody is judged by
its tender charity, everything is tinged with its warm radiance.
"As Paul so beautifully wrote: 'Love suffereth long and is kind, love
envieth not, vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, doth not behave
itself unseemly, seeketh not its own, is not provoked, taketh not
account of evil, rejoiceth not in unrighteousness, but rejoiceth in the
truth.... Love never faileth.' If this be a standard by which to judge
the love of men, how much more appropriately might it judge God, who is
love itself.
"In proportion as we are freed from the ignorance and narrowness of
primitive, ancient opinions concerning God, we shall rise to broader and
tenderer and truer conceptions of Him. To the warm, sympathetic heart,
that knows the deepest needs of humanity, the 'mercy that endureth
forever' is an established fact of the universal Love. To understand
this Love is to be at one with it, to do the works and think the
thoughts of Love. It is essential, then, first to understand the law of
effort, then faith, then love, then spiritual understanding, which is
the goal toward which we all hasten--understanding of all spiritual
things, understanding of God, who is all spirit. As we make the effort
we receive faith, as we use faith we grow in the power and capacity of
love, and love brings us the fullness of all things, even understanding
of infinite wisdom. Every glimpse of truth we have ever had, every
glorious breath of freedom, is but a hint of what will be when we have
'awakened to righteousness.'
"We gain our knowledge by and through the law of right speaking and
consequently right acting. In the Bible, the New Testament especially,
great stress is laid upon the power of words. Solomon wrote, 'How
forcible are right words.' 'Life and death are in the power of the
tongue,' and from St. Paul we hear, 'Hold fast the form of sound words;'
and James' admonition, 'Be ye doers of the word and not hearers only,'
show that both considered it necessary to speak the word if they would
manifest its power.
"But there is another and a holier office given to the word and that is
the office of atonement. The original meaning of atone was to 'make
at-one, to agree, to be in accordance, to accord.' To be at-one with a
person is to be in such perfect sympathy that the thoughts of both are
the thoughts and feelings of one.
"Another illustration would be to say of a chip thrown into the river,
it is at-one with the current. In this sense we should aim to be so
at-one with the divine Principle that we may say with Jesus, 'I am one
with the Father,' for did he not say: 'They are not of this world even
as I am not of this world,' and 'That they may be one even we are one.'
"To speak absolute Truth is to come into the true at-one-ment, to be at
one with the divine Mind, to realize that Christ the Truth is the
atoning power. The Christ is the impersonal Word of Truth which we are
to speak, for 'unto us hath been committed the word of reconciliation'
or atonement.
"When we think true thoughts and catch true ideas, when we understand
true meanings and love true knowledge, we are sustained by the living
word which sustains all who speak and live it, because we are truly at
one with the divine Word.
"Knowing the meaning of Christ to be Truth, blood to be life or word,
and sin to be error, we catch the spiritual meaning of the phrase 'sins
washed away by the blood of Christ,' which is, sins or errors washed
away by the word of Truth.
"In that wonderful sermon in the sixth chapter of John, Jesus used the
term blood as a symbol of his words, and emphatically told his
disciples, when they persisted in taking his sayings literally, 'the
flesh profiteth nothing, the _words_ that I speak unto you, they are
spirit and they are life.'
"That the Bible writers used the figurative language of those times,
must be taken into account when reading points that have been made
foundation doctrines. Owing to the ancient custom of sacrificing animals
to appease the wrath of God, whom they regarded as subject to anger,
jealousy or any human passion, they used figurative language when
describing Jesus as the Lamb sacrificed for the sins of the world.
"In one of the inspired moments of the prophet, when he apprehended God
as a God of Love, he cried out, 'I have desired mercy and not sacrifice;
and the knowledge of God more than burnt offering.' It is the knowledge
of God, the word of truth, that will save, and the only sacrifice is the
sacrifice of self which makes the atonement possible.
"To fast from all selfishness is to keep the true fast, so beautifully
described in the fifty-eighth chapter of Isaiah. 'Is it not to loose the
bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, to let the oppressed go
free, to break every yoke? Then shall thy light break forth as the
morning, and thine health shall spring forth speedily.' Here is the
fruit of atonement, the result of understanding, for understanding God
and being at one with God, is in reality the same. As we understand God
we shall be at one with Him, and to be at one with God is to be whole,
for He is Holiness, wholeness, health. 'If thine eye be single, then
shall thy whole body be full of light.' To be single in recognizing the
one Mind, one Power, one Creation, is to be filled with light, which is
life, which is health, for as the mind, consciousness, becomes
illuminated, the body responds by recording the history of thought upon
the visible page or body.
"It is the revealment of God that we seek, and our individual relation
to Him. What more is there for us to know after we know Him, for is not
He all there really is? He has given many marvelous signs to His
children, who must be taught in simple childish ways and the 'still
small voice' is ever near, speaking to whomsoever will listen. It is the
inner guide, the 'spirit of truth that guides us into all truth.' Then
we are 'clothed upon,' we have returned to our Father's house and the
feast is spread, the rejoicing has begun.
"For awhile our only conception of power, is in visible manifestations
or feelings, but there comes a time when 'to be alone with silence is to
be alone with God,' when joy is unutterable, and love the very potency
of silence, when we wait with bated breath and let the divine Thought
surge through us, when we put away all material beliefs and stand
glorified in the 'secret of His Presence.' Then indeed are we baptized
of the spirit, and in the silent chamber of our new consciousness may we
hear the blessed words, 'Thou art my beloved son.'
"No longer 'Thou shalt and thou shalt not,' but the sweet affirmation of
sonship, of daughtership, of the precious benediction of a Father's
love. Then glad light rushes into every dark crevice of our mind. We see
as we never saw before, we understand as we never understood before, we
speak as we never spoke before, we live as we never lived before,
because we have been lifted out of the depths of ignorance to the
radiant heights of the Promised Land, because we hear the angel saying
as of old, 'Behold the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell
with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with
them and be their God ... and God shall wipe away all tears from their
eyes, and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow nor crying,
neither shall there be any more pain, for the former things are passed
away.' Finally, oh my husband, because we have been born again, and so
find ourselves within the royal gates, the palace doors open to receive
us and the insignia of royalty written upon our faces, for we shall be
stamped with the signs of understanding, and know, as Jesus did, 'it is
not I, but the Father that dwelleth in me, He doeth the works.'
"Then, as the beauteous sunlight bathes and blesses all the world with
its effulgent glory, so will the light of Truth, known as understanding,
shine through us and turn pain into peace, sadness into joy, sickness
into health, error into truth.
'Wisdom ripens into silence,
And the lesson she doth teach,
Is, that life is more than language,
And that thought is more than speech.'
"How I long for this ultimate experience! How I yearn for the fullness
of this knowledge now; for the ripened wisdom that shall unlock the
doors of my own consciousness, but I know, dear, this will come to us if
we are faithful to the few little steps we know, no matter how we
stumble and fall in taking them. Oh, that we may reach out to all the
world in the sweet ministry of 'peace on earth, good will to men.'
"You say 'there is a rift in the clouds for you, too, and the vague
something which sometimes loomed up in your horizon is gone.' How glad I
am, no words can tell. What a change there will be! The old past shall
be sweetened and sanctified by the new present, and only the good
memories shall remain.
"What a blessed comfort in this thought, 'the Lord shall be thy rear
ward.' We have nothing to do with the past, for it shall be utterly
annulled. The Truth has erased it, and it is swallowed up in the good in
proportion as we recognize only the Good. This thought is a great
consolation to me when I recall the hasty words I used to say when my
temper got the better of me. Oh, that old failing! I hope it is forever
vanquished--but there, I must not forget to be scientific, and of course
it is not scientific to talk of error in any way.
"Jamie is a dear little scamp, if he _did_ try to break the rules and
get something to eat between meals by playing prairie dog. It must have
been very funny to see him sitting in the attitude of a begging dog,
mutely appealing for something, and being obliged at last to suggest
that there was candy on the top shelf. Even my heart would have softened
for the innocent little trickster.
"Well, really, we must try to give the children the liberty we older
children desire and insist upon having in such a headstrong way. Bless
my little darlings! They shall realize the absence of fear, the presence
of love in their home, which we must strive more and more to make
typical of the great Home in which we are all members.
"I feel that they are dearer now than ever. My love is more unselfish,
and I can really feel that they are truly consecrated to the Good,
because I know how to hold them in the thought of the Good, how to annul
the opposite influences and fill their minds with the sweet, pure,
ennobling realizations of Love. Meekly I say this, because I know not my
own strength, or rather I know not how much divine strength I may
recognize and use, but this is the right path, and I earnestly desire to
walk in it.
"You know some people say (in their ignorance, of course) that this free
thinking breaks up families. Oh, if they could only know, on the other
hand, how it strengthens the bonds, how it clears up misunderstandings
and falsities, how it teaches us the sacredness of family relations, and
brings us into spiritual oneness, which is the only true marriage.
"Spiritual light has come to me on this subject which can not be put
into words, but some time you will know what I know, and we shall both
be blessed by the knowledge.
"Peace be unto all God's children.
"Your loving
"MARION."