"For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my soul" (sense of life as material), "that again I may receive it" (as sense of Life, Spirit);
John x. 17, Rotherham's translation."at present we know not fully what we are, but this is certain that we shall be Love, Life, and Truth, when we understand them."
Science and Health, p. 246. It is by laying down the sense of life as material; seeking out and renouncing beliefs of pleasure in "this world" even more earnestly than those of pain, that the spiritual estate—consciousness in reflection of Love, Life, and Truth—is entered on.
Public meetings, Bible classes, etc., are testimonies visible to the senses, of the unity of consciousness in Spirit. They are the sign of our faith apprehensible to this generation, and are thus the unfurled standard of the Christ; they are the call to our brethren yet in ignorance of the message of Grace, and the most direct means, according to sense, of conveying it to them. They are the protest, in the seemings of personality, against personality, and the chiefest of the altars on which personal claims are to be laid "in the presence of all the people." The claim of personality in each one who comes to these meetings in recognition of the One Mind, is made to pay homage to Principle. The aggregate realization of Principle of those attending on them measures present attainment of conscious reflection of Life as impersonal. To each individual they are a test of the extent to which self consciousness has been overcome, and a means of growth in learning "in the brethren's behalf, our souls to lay down."
The claim of greater good to ourselves through abstinence from these meetings is one of the highest forms of the error of personality. Rides or promenades in town or country, or other engagements with members of family or friends, not scientists, are lower manifestations of the same error.
