life through Jesus Christ. The dead are to be raised. The place Jesus went to prepare is not some fardistant one, but a new, and higher state of consciousness. This is here in our midst. "Lo I am with you alway." Our Class thought of a few months ago Jesus Christ is now here raising me to his consciousness of life and wholeness," opens up the way for our entrance into the place which he has prepared for us. The Jesus of the Bible is not to be eliminated, but his teachings are to be interpreted in Spirit, and not in the letter. Heaven is not a far-away place, but it is a state of consciousness here with us, and into which we can enter through Jesus Christ. The house of many mansions is the Father's house -your own spiritual consciousness. As you are quickened, you will find yourself living an increasingly larger life, and the world will be new to you. Jesus resurrected his body. His flesh did not know decay, but was raised through his high consciousness of life as always present. This same resurrection is ours if we take it in faith. This mortal shall put on immortality, and this corruptible shall put on incorruptibility. This is very different from the old error belief that the body must perish in the corruption of the grave. What you need is a consciousness of life, abundant, always-present. God is omnipresent. Conscious oneness with his life and love is heaven. It is the personality which makes heaven a far-away place. Spiritual understanding reveals it as just as omnipresent as God is omnipresent. To overcome by spiritual means requires steadfastness. It is possible that you are dissipating your faith through so many means that you are retarding your victory. The fact that you sleep well, that all your organs are in good condition, should give you. more in the way of hope than the judgment of the doctors could give in the way of fear. An analysis of your letter shows that you are putting the emphasis on the adverse statements; this is exactly opposed to what you should do. If you feel that you should state symptoms and conditions, do it lightly, and put all the strength of expression into the encouraging words. Spirit works through recognition. Your idea of God being within to meet every demand, is certainly very clear and very true of the real force in life. . It is to get a fixed knowledge of God as everywhere, the foundation and the sustainer of all things, that all spiritual development aims. When this is so thoroughly instilled into the mind that it is the instinctive attitude of our thoughts, the matter of demonstrating any blessing will be easy and natural. We would say, however, that the word "mortal" should not be used in connection with the body. Since God dwells in the body, the structure of the body is meant to be enduring; otherwise, you look to the unhousing of God. It is only by the action of man's ideas of change that the body has ever failed: that in which God is recognized is enduring. "Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey his servants ye are to whom ye obey?'' To whom do you give power, to God or to the weather? You cannot get the realization of God as long as you yield all your being to adversity. To claim sensitiveness is a palliating word for selfishness. The Son of God is not sensitive. He is bold, confident, free. He knows his freedom. He knows his mastery. He knows that God has put everything under his dominion. He knows that the only way to realize is just to realize. Healing is a result; it is never a cause. It comes from holding on, in the face of everything, that there is only One Presence and One Power, THE GOOD OMNIPOTENT, that this Power is IN ME AND OMNIPOTENT IN ME, and that everything that seeks to be contrary to this is nothing and unworthy the attention of a Son of God. Therefore, I will have nothing to do with it; I do not recognize it; depart, I never knew you. QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS "Freeman Nickerson of Fall River, Mass., who has just passed his 95th birthday, has not tasted meat in 60 years. wife is 88, and both are in good health." His In this connection please explain Luke 3:11, "He that hath two coats, let him impart to him that hath none; and he that hath meat, let him do likewise." Does not this mean that they used to eat meat in Jesus' time?-- R. L. The general name for food in old English was "meat," hence this translation. Testament it is given "food." In the Revised New In Bible days there were both carnivorous and herbivorous people as there are today. Those who want Scripture authority for flesh-eating quote Peter's vision of the sheet let down from heaven upon which were all the beasts of the field; and vegetarians call attention to the very first chapter in the Bible, “Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat;" and Daniel 1:15, “And at the end of ten days their countenances appeared fairer and fatter in flesh than all the children which did eat the portion of the king's meat." But it is not what people ate 1900 years ago that fills our stomachs but what we eat now. So this question of Scripture authority on food will be settled by testing the facts of experience. Instead of arguing, why not try a meatless diet for, say six months? Many good people are doing this very thing and |