In that wonderful fourteenth chapter of John's gospel wherein is set forth a portion of the last instructions of Christ Jesus, he is quoted as saying, "The prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in me," therewith giving to the world one of the marvelously condensed lessons in the fundamental truth of Christianity which so thickly studded the few short years of his ministry. While not forgetful that the theological exposition of this declaration will be found in the statement of our text-book, it is not inept in us, perhaps, to examine the sentence for the light it may shed upon the every-day problems of humanity and for the sense in which it may be presumed Jesus used it.
At this supper with his disciples, just before the feast of Pentecost and so short a period before the crucifixion, Jesus doubtless recognized clearly that the days of his earthly pilgrimage were drawing to a close, and that in accordance with prophecy the time was not far distant when he would be called upon to make the supreme demonstration of the Principle he had taught. From his conversation with his followers, day by day, it can be plainly seen how spiritualized his consciousness had become, and how slender was the thread which bound him to an earthly existence. His words now showed that he was speaking in the full apprehension of spiritual things, and that his mental gaze was fixed upon the Shekinah, far beyond the material veil.
In those final days when he sought ever more earnestly to convey to the dull comprehension of his disciples some fraction of the mighty truths he taught, he rose to heights of perception which can be but faintly glimpsed by the dweller upon this mortal plane, and he sought ever more faithfully to produce some statement which would illustrate his meaning more clearly. It would seem that, in using the words above quoted, Jesus intended to convey the definite thought that on the one thoroughly imbued with his spiritual teachings, "the prince of this world," mortal mind, would make its malicious assaults in vain, for it would find no belief of the evil invader's reality upon which it could delineate its false images of life and sensation in matter; that to the one thoroughly persuaded of the sole reality of the spiritual universe, no material theory or supposition, no belief in other gods, could carry either evidence or conviction. It being clear to him that the very appearance of matter is a state of self-deception, the belief in it was therefore under the control of the thinker in just so far as he was conscious of the truth of his capacity in that direction and was willing to undergo the mental discipline entailed by continuous right thinking. Thus Jesus' statement must evidently be regarded as a warning that any continuance in the commonly accepted belief of a material universe could only result in giving lodgment to "the prince of this world," evil, and thus opening the mental doorway to the whole train of discords which are born of such belief.
