IF it be a fact that all is Mind, it precludes the possibility of the existence of matter as an integral part of the universe, or as having any real existence.
All agree that Mind is Intelligence. There can be no intelligence apart from Mind. Mind, or intelligence must be Life. Non-intelligent Life is an impossibility.
Mind must be Life or alive. We cannot conceive of dead Mind. Life then, or that which is alive, must be the only entity, the only reality.
If matter is entity, or is real, in the true sense of reality, it must be Life or alive.
I suppose all admit that matter is not intelligent; but while this is admitted, it is maintained that it is substance and contains life.
It is not generally maintained that it is life. The attempted distinction is that it contains life. If it were true that it contained life, but was not itself life, it would follow as a necessary logical conclusion that the non-intelligent can contain the intelligent. Is this possible? If only that which is intelligent, or intelligence, is Life, it follows by equally inevitable logic that the non-intelligent is lifeless.
If that is true, the following must also be true; that if matter is a vessel which contains Life (matter being itself inert), then that which is lifeless must contain Life. Can this be?
If matter contains Life it must be true that matter is the base of Life. If matter is lifeless it follows that death is the base of Life. Is this logically admissable?
If mankind is the offspring of matter— matter being nonintelligent —,inert matter must be the parent of mankind.
Like can only produce like. Then only Life can produce Life. Hence if matter is the base of Life, matter must be Life. Is there any escape from this conclusion?
That which is lifeless is extinct. If matter, therefore, is lifeless, or does not contain life, matter is extinct. That which is extinct is nothing. It is Mindless, Lifeless, inactive, therefore nothing.
If matter is extinct— nothing— a most satisfactory reason exists why human wisdom, or material philosophy, has never been able to discover its origin, or account for its existence. It explains why, even under the microscope it appears to have a common physical origin.
The atoms which are said to constitute the basic element of physical life, and are classified as the animal, vegetable, and mineral kingdoms, are indistinguishable under the microscope. One appears to be, or to contain, as much life as the other. Yet it is held that while the animal and vegetable kingdoms are active and have life, the mineral kingdom is lifeless, inert. But anomolous as it may seem, it is maintained by many that those healing remedies which are drawn from the mineral kingdom have as great activity and virtue as those which are drawn from the animal and vegetable kingdoms.
Matter in its last human analysis is an atom. What is the atom?
Have these indistinguishable atoms the inherent faculty of evolving or projecting the varied manifestations of life which are presented to the material senses? What deeper mystery than this?
If these atoms can evolve Life, they must possess not only power but intelligence. Unintelligent power is an impossibility. If they are intelligent, or possess intelligence, and are matter, they must of necessity be intelligent matter.
If they are intelligent matter, and are the base of life, then matter must be the creator of all forms of life, and thus matter would be God.
Can we imagine a grosser pantheism than this?
Were this true, mortal man would be the only man, and man would be the child of dead matter rather than the child of the living God.
As Christian Scientists we look for the origin of Life in the living God rather than in dead matter.
We accept the Scriptural definition of his character and refer all Life to him. The Bible distinctly declares him to be Spirit. If he is Spirit he cannot be matter either in whole or in part.
It declares him to be Love. If he is Love he must be Mind. Mindless Love is not conceivable. Nor can Love be lifeless matter.
It declares him to be Truth. Can there be Mindless Truth? or can matter be defined as Truth?
It as distinctly and definitively declares him to be all in all; that he fills all space; that he is infinite, eternal, everlasting.
If he is these and is Spirit, where in infinity shall be found that which is opposite to or apart from him? It seems to me we have but to think deeply of the meaning of the word infinite, or infinity, to apprehend the all-presence, the allpower, the all-wisdom of God, for in the infinity of Supreme Intelligence these must be included. If God is the all-present, all-powerful and all-wise infinite, he must be at once the One and the Triune God. His oneness and his triunity are thus irrefutably established. We have thus the infinite Father, the infinite Mother, and the infinite Son, in this triune-unity of the Infinite.
Thus have we defined the meaning of the Pauline declaration, "For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily."
The definitions of God as found in the Methodist Episcopal Articles of Faith, the Westminster Confession of Faith (and these fairly represent the Protestant as well as the Roman Catholic churches in their definition of God), and our Text-book Science and Health With Key to the Scriptures, page 556, incontrovertibly establish God as all, as infinite Principle, eternal Individuality, supreme Personality, "incorporeal Being," without body, parts or passions."
Upon this common definitional platform we are content to stand, and to the contemplation and worship of this God, we invite all nations, peoples, kindred and tongues.
We invite them to participation in that Love-feast which alone can be had "beneath the shadow of his Wing," in the infinite heart of the eternal Father and Mother.
To this Fatherhood, this Motherhood, this Brotherhood and Sisterhood, we bid the nations assembled on Columbia's shores, a heartfelt welcome; and extend to them the fraternal greetings of those who believe the time has come for the apprehension and exemplification of a Scientific Christianity.
To the Management of the World's Congress Auxiliary of the World's Columbian Exposition, we extend our deepest congratulations upon their felicitous selection, as the keynote to their General Programme of the Series of World's Congresses, of those glorious sentiments: "Not things, but Men;" "Not Matter, but Mind."
They have emblazoned these great truths on the pages of that greatest of all histories,— the history of the New Religious Era.
They have implanted them forever in the hearts and consciousness of men.
They have sent them ringing through the corridors of time, down the vistas of human thought, around the cycles of the ages.
Nor will their music cease, until in sweeter symphony and grander diapason, they shall swell the angelic chorus whose harpstrings are touched to the eternal refrain: "Not Matter, but Mind."
