_ CHAPTER XVIII
"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. _