The Substance of Life, of Truth, Love, Wisdom, Principle, is Spirit. Spirit is therefore real; matter is unreal; Truth is the stone cut out of the mountain without hands, that shall break in pieces the image —materiality—and scatter it like chaff of the threshing-floor, that no place shall be found for it, "The beast that thou sawest was, and is not." "He that over-cometh will I give to eat of the hidden manna,"—the divine Spirit of life, visible only to the eye of understanding,—" and I will give him a white stone, and in the stone a new name written,"—"the new, best name of love,"—" which no man knoweth save he that receiveth it,"—no one can experience it for another. Hence, the time cometh, when, like the oil in the virgins' lamps, there will not be enough for me and thee. Every statement becomes at once a problem, and if true, must bear the evidence of truth within itself; we cannot prove one statement by making another. True Science will bear scrutiny, will invite investigation, always asks and answers the ultimate what, how and why. Pure science alone builds a perfect cube; mechanics have tried and failed. Divine Science is the New Jerusalem let down out of heaven, the length and breadth and height of which are equal. Pure science begins with, and is founded upon, self-evident truth, fundamental principle, and reaches out to greater and greater possibilities. But theory, creeds, doctrines, etc., begin with the greatest possibilities in the evidence of the senses, and tries to reach foundation or fundamental principle, but never finds it, never answers, but evades, the ultimate what, how and why. Some of these are Evolution, Materiality, Materia-medica, Pathology, Physiology, Hygiene, and all the two hundred and fifty "isms" founded upon the shifting sands of belief; but all these, when the floodgates of immutable truth shall open against them, must fall, and great will be the fall thereof; and over the ruins Science will walk unfettered, unshackled and undismayed. A good example of this is seen in the old theory of the earth and its foundations. And why did they not find the material foundations of the earth? For the very same reason that all other theories fail, the simple reason that it had none. But all these, like that, must have their day, in order to show their baselessness, to be met by unchanging truth, when they will fall, and be, like it, forever falling; from the fact of their ever being removed from the possibility of being true (here see again the bottomless pit). While truth will, as it were, rise higher and higher, from the fact of its ever being removed from the possibility of being false; "we rise by the things that are under our feet." If we try to prove false that which is true, we must of necessity find our mistake. Thus we work for the truth, whether we will or not. The question is, Shall we take the positive side, and reap the reward of joy and satisfaction; or will we take the negative side, and reap the reward of disappointment and shame? Every person, animal, bird, fish, insect, plant or thing, represents, in a greater or lesser degree, that Infinite Principle,—God, Life, Truth, Love, Intelligence, Wisdom, Mind, Spirit; and each one is complete within itself, as the numbers one, two and three are each complete within itself; yet it requires them, and one more, to make four; so each and every lower order, and something more, are requisite to make the next higher, up to mankind, the highest. Man and the universe represent, express and reflect Him; are co-existent with, are accountable to, and nothing without, Him; yet are not Him, and He is not us. But as the government would be void without the governed, so God would be a nullity without His expression; and would be less than infinite without His infinite expression in variety, species, or individuality. But it is not lacking; go where we will, search how and at whatsoever length we may, we find some new character, element, or expression still, revealing to us the infinite principle of God's eternal entity. Life, we have seen, is self-existent Principle, and cannot therefore be slain; Life is positive, death is negative, and the positive cannot result in the negative. Death is a deception; knowing and realizing fully this fact, we could never pass through the phenomenon of death. But the two-edged sword of Truth will forever guard the Tree of Life, that we may not eat the fruit thereof, and live forever in selfishness and sin. "God—the Truth—is a jealous God He will admit of nothing less than the whole. "We cannot serve God and mammon." "The pure water of the river of Life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb," is the all-supporting and sustaining Principle, in which we live, move, and have our being, and is constantly and forever flowing to us, through the avenue of Mind, expressed in pure thoughts winged with Truth and Love; giving the strength that is infinite,—for thought is our motor-power, and comes from an infinite Source; hence we can "run and not get weary, walk and not faint," giving us also courage and fortitude against the dark forebodings of sin, sickness and death. Will we open the door to these angel-visitants, and have our life, our strength, our intelligence, our all, in Him who is invisible? Shall we eat of the fruit of the Tree of Life, that on the banks of this river is growing? and have our life hid, now and forever, with Christ in Him, whom we then shall worship in spirit and in truth, and whom to know aright is Life eternal? Or, shall we close the door, shutting out the light, and listen to the music of that Siren whose beguiling song is death; and eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, saying that Life is in the body, that Spirit is in matter, that strength is in muscle, that sensation is in a nerve, that intelligence is in the brain, that good and evil mingle, and evil is as real as good? until our eyes, being blinded, are opened only to the darkness, and we make ourselves as gods; thus linking our lives to mortality's self, whose galling chains will fester as they lead to the nether depths of misery and woe.
