This, however, is not the cup to which I call your at- tention,-even the cup of martyrdom: wherein Spirit and matter, good and evil, seem to grapple, and the human struggles against the divine, up to a point of discovery; namely, the impotence of evil, and the om- [10]

nipotence of good, as divinely attested. Anciently, the blood of martyrs was believed to be the seed of the Church.

Stalled theocracy would make this fatal doctrine just and sovereign, even a divine decree, a law of Love! That the innocent shall suffer for the guilty, is inhuman. The [15]

prophet declared, "Thou shalt put away the guilt of innocent blood from Israel." This is plain: that what- ever belittles, befogs, or belies the nature and essence of Deity, is not divine. Who, then, shall father or favor this sentence pa.s.sed upon innocence? thereby giving the [20]

signet of G.o.d to the arrest, trial, and crucifixion of His beloved Son, the righteous Nazarene,-christened by John the Baptist, "the Lamb of G.o.d."

Oh! shameless insult to divine royalty, that drew from the great Master this answer to the questions of the [25]

rabbinical rabble: "If I tell you, ye will not believe; and if I also ask you, ye will not answer me, nor let me go."

Infinitely greater than human pity, is divine Love,- that cannot be unmerciful. Human tribunals, if just, borrow their sense of justice from the divine Principle [30]

thereof, which punishes the guilty, not the innocent. The Teacher of both law and gospel construed the subst.i.tution

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of a good man to suffer for evil-doers-a _crime_! When [1]

foretelling his own crucifixion, he said, "Woe unto the world because of offenses! for it must needs be that offenses come; but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh!" [5]

Would Jesus thus have spoken of what was indis- pensable for the salvation of a world of sinners, or of the individual instrument in this holy (?) alliance for accom- plishing such a monstrous work? or have said of him whom G.o.d foreordained and predestined to fulfil a divine [10]

decree, "It were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea"?

The divine order is the acme of mercy: it is neither questionable nor a.s.sailable: it is not evil producing good, [15]

nor good ultimating in evil. Such an inference were impious. Holy Writ denounces him that declares, "Let us do evil, that good may come! whose d.a.m.nation is just."

Good is not educed from its opposite: and Love divine [20]

spurned, lessens not the hater's hatred nor the criminal's crime; nor reconciles justice to injustice; nor subst.i.tutes the suffering of the G.o.dlike for the suffering due to sin.

Neither spiritual bankruptcy nor a religious chancery can win high heaven, or the "Well done, good and faithful [25]

servant,... enter thou into the joy of thy Lord."

Divine Love knows no hate; for hate, or the hater, is nothing: G.o.d never made it, and He made all that was made. The hater's pleasures are unreal; his sufferings, self-imposed; his existence is a parody, and he ends- [30]

with suicide.

The murder of the just Nazarite was incited by the

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same spirit that in our time ma.s.sacres our missionaries, [1]

butchers the helpless Armenians, slaughters innocents.

Evil was, and is, the illusion of breaking the First Com- mandment, "Thou shalt have no other G.o.ds before me:"

it is either idolizing something and somebody, or hating [5]

them: it is the spirit of idolatry, envy, jealousy, covet- ousness, superst.i.tion, l.u.s.t, hypocrisy, _witchcraft_.

That man can break the forever-law of infinite Love, was, and is, the serpent's biggest lie! and ultimates in a religion of pagan priests bloated with crime; a religion [10]

that demands human victims to be sacrificed to human pa.s.sions and human G.o.ds, or tortured to appease the anger of a so-called G.o.d or a miscalled man or woman!

The a.s.syrian Merodach, or the G.o.d of sin, was the "lucky G.o.d;" and the Babylonian Yawa, or Jehovah, was the [15]

Jewish tribal deity. The _Christian's_ G.o.d is neither, and is too pure to behold iniquity.

Divine Science has rolled away the stone from the sepul- chre of our Lord; and there has risen to the awakened thought the majestic atonement of divine Love. The [20]

at-one-ment with Christ has appeared-not through vicarious suffering, whereby the just obtain a pardon for the unjust,-but through the eternal law of justice; wherein sinners suffer for their own sins, repent, forsake sin, love G.o.d, and keep His commandments, thence to [25]

receive the reward of righteousness: salvation from sin, not through the _death_ of a man, but through a divine _Life_, which is our Redeemer.

Holy Writ declares that G.o.d is Love, is Spirit; hence it follows that those who worship Him, must worship [30]

Him spiritually,-far apart from physical sensation such as attends eating and drinking corporeally. It is

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plain that aught unspiritual, intervening between G.o.d [1]

and man, would tend to disturb the divine order, and countermand the Scripture that those who worship the Father must worship Him in spirit. It is also plain, that we should not seek and cannot find G.o.d in mat- [5]

ter, or through material methods; neither do we love and obey Him by means of matter, or the flesh,-which warreth against Spirit, and will not be reconciled thereto.

We turn, with sickened sense, from a pagan Jew's [10]

or Moslem's misconception of Deity, for peace; and find rest in the spiritual ideal, or Christ. For "who is so great a G.o.d as our G.o.d!" unchangeable, all-wise, all- just, all-merciful; the ever-loving, ever-living Life, Truth, Love: comforting such as mourn, opening the prison [15]

doors to the captive, marking the unwinged bird, pitying with more than a father's pity; healing the sick, cleansing the leper, raising the dead, saving sinners. As we think thereon, man's true sense is filled with peace, and power; and we say, It is well that Christian Science has taken [20]

expressive silence wherein to muse His praise, to kiss the feet of Jesus, adore the white Christ, and stretch out our arms to G.o.d.

The last act of the tragedy on Calvary rent the veil of matter, and unveiled Love's great legacy to mortals: [25]

_Love forgiving its enemies_. This grand act crowned and still crowns Christianity: it manumits mortals; it translates love; it gives to suffering, inspiration; to patience, experience; to experience, hope; to hope, faith; to faith, understanding; and to understanding, Love tri- [30]

umphant!

In proportion to a man's spiritual progress, he will

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indeed drink of our Master's cup, and be baptized with [1]

his baptism! be purified as by fire,-the fires of suffering; then hath he part in Love's atonement, for "whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth." Then shall he also reign with him: he shall rise to know that there is no sin, [5]

that there is no suffering; since all that is _real_ is _right_.

This knowledge enables him to overcome the world, the flesh, and all evil, to have dominion over his own sinful sense and self. Then shall he drink anew Christ's cup, in the kingdom of G.o.d-the reign of righteousness- [10]

within him; he shall sit down at the Father's right hand: _sit down_; not stand waiting and weary; but rest on the bosom of G.o.d; rest, in the understanding of divine Love that pa.s.seth all understanding; rest, in that which "to know aright is Life eternal," and whom, not having seen, [15]

we love.

Then shall he press on to Life's long lesson, the eternal lore of Love; and learn forever the infinite meanings of these short sentences: "G.o.d is Love;" and, All that is real is divine, for G.o.d is All-in-all. [20]

Message To The Annual Meeting Of The Mother Church, Boston, 1896

_Beloved Brethren, Children, and Grandchildren_:- Apart from the common walks of mankind, revolving oft the hitherto untouched problems of being, and [25]

oftener, perhaps, the controversies which baffle it, Mother, thought-tired, turns to-day to you; turns to her dear church, to tell the towers thereof the remarkable achievements that have been ours within the past few years: the rapid transit from halls to churches, from un- [30]

[Page 126.]

settled questions to permanence, from danger to escape, [1]

from fragmentary discourses to one eternal sermon; yea, from darkness to daylight, in physics and metaphysics.

Truly, I half wish for society again; for once, at least, to hear the soft music of our Sabbath chimes saluting the [5]

ear in tones that leap for joy, with love for G.o.d and man.

Who hath not learned that when alone he has his own thoughts to guard, and when struggling with man- kind his temper, and in society his tongue? We also [10]

have gained higher heights; have learned that trials lift us to that dignity of Soul which sustains us, and finally conquers them; and that the ordeal refines while it chastens.