Beauty and glory shine round about New Jerusalem. It is a state of consciousness which comes with the new birth of water and the Spirit. Neither pain nor bereavement can enter those fair gates; both the lie and the liar are excluded, for the dream of mortal existence gives place to the reality of spiritual living; decrepitude, failure, disappointment, are unknown there. Christian Science has opened the gates of this fair city to those who endure to the end of mortal law, who follow God into the humanly unknown, safe through obedience and trust, overcoming through the sacrifice of self typified by the lamb. In the Glossary of Science and Health (p. 592) we find New Jerusalem interpreted as "divine Science; the spiritual facts and harmony of the universe; the kingdom of heaven, or reign of harmony."
Old Jerusalem typifies the hard and barren dogmas of ecclesiasticism, tyrannizing over its votaries with a tyranny worse confounded. Out of old Jerusalem come the scribes and Pharisees. Saul, the inadequate king, reigned there, and Ananias, the murderous high priest, conspired there for Jesus' crucifixion; it is the abode of the stiff-necked, the self-righteous, those careful of tithing mint, anise, and cummin, the herbs that border a garden, but forgetful of charity and loving-kindness. Of the temple in old Jerusalem Jesus said that not one stone of it should be left upon another, and his prophecy came true, for its exact site is difficult to find to-day. It was over this old Jerusalem that the great Master uttered those sorrowful words, containing both a warning and a lament, "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not." Mrs. Eddy's definition of this old Jerusalem is in part (Science and Health, p. 589), "Mortal belief and knowledge obtained from the five corporeal senses; the pride of power and the power of pride; sensuality; envy; oppression; tyranny."
But New Jerusalem is a heavenly home everywhere present, founded upon the spiritual stone which the builders rejected. Its fair stones cannot be overthrown nor its site lost, because it is everywhere. Zechariah describes this happy city when he prophesies, "And the streets of the city shall be full of boys and girls playing in the streets thereof." Nehemiah spoke of the rejoicings in the reconstituted Jerusalem of his day, "So that the joy of Jerusalem was heard even afar off."
