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it. We built space and peopled it, and we will involve that which we have evolved.

Those who dwell in matter shall resolve their universe into Spirit; those who walk the moonlit plains of the astral shall consume their shadows in the undimmed effulgence. The worlds man has constructed by cycles of differentiated thinking he shall redeem to spirituality before one Son of God shall ascend to the heavens of the Absolute.

All that have been now are, and are present in the "here" of consciousness. "My Father worketh hitherto, and I work." When I have made my world one with God's world of Spirit, I shall be free from forms. Until that consummation, I shall not slack my effort.

The only real thing in life is thought. The Rock of Gibraltar seems real, but it is only real to you, BECAUSE YOU SEE IT AND THINK OF IT. If you should bump your head against it the reality would not be in the rock or in the bump, but in the feeling in your head, and the angry thought arising.

The thunder and the earthquake are real only because of the thunder and earthquake THOUGHT in the mind that perceives the phenomena.

Millions of men have lived and died on this earth, and all that is left of them is their THOUGHTS written in laws, in poems, in pictures, in statues, in architecture, in better civilization.-New York American.

It may not be on the mountain's height,

Or over the stormy sea;

It may not be at the battle's front,

My Lord will have need of me.

But if by a still small voice he calls
To paths that I do not know,

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I'll answer, 'Dear Lord, with my hand in thine

I'll go where you want me to go."

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ABOUT "PRACTICAL CHRISTIANITY."

Students are asking what relation this teaching bears to Christian Science, Mental Science, Theosophy, and Orthodox Christianity, and where we get our authority.

Religion is natural to man. The religious nature has always been considered first and highest in man's constitution. Every man has a religion of some sort, and in his extremity he calls upon his God. In the exercise of his inherent freedom of choice, man selects that form of religious belief that best suits him, or meets his needs, and there are all kinds of religions in consequence, because man really makes his own religious belief. Fundamentally, there is but one religion, but many interpretations of it. In the Divine economy every man is free to form his own concept of God, and his relation to Him. This constitutes religion.

Every man should reason out his own religion, and adjust himself to it. In this way he becomes acquainted with his Source, and learns the law of his being. If he adopts the religion which another has formulated, he is memorizing instead of unfolding. from within. The law of right development for the soul is individualism. God is personal to every one of us, and we must know Him intimately before we can be truly religious. This, then, requires that we shall adopt the course that will most speedily open our souls to this individual acquaintance with the Most High, and the system of religious training that will show us the Father" is the one we should seek. Jesus said, "He who hath seen me hath seen the Father," and, "The Kingdom of God is within you.'

Thus Jesus of Nazareth is the type of man we

should follow in our search for God. He was thoroughly individual and independent in his religious views. He proclaimed his own understanding, and asserted his freedom and right to do what his highest reason told him was true, regardless of the standards of the Hebrew church. When the Hebrew Scriptures corroborated his position he quoted from them, but he as often acted in direct opposition to their teaching; and when the Pharisees refused to receive the living word which proceeded forth from him, he said, “Ye search the Scriptures, because ye think that in them ye have eternal life; and these are they which bear witness of me." It is clearly idol worship-bowing down to graven images to search any religious writing, expecting through it to find the Word of the Spirit, which is revealed in its original purity to all who faithfully seek it in Spirit. Thus the proclamation of Jesus was, "When the Spirit of truth is come he will lead you into all truth.”

It is universally admitted that Jesus Christ is the greatest teacher of all the ages, and from a religious standpoint his doctrine far surpasses that of any other. It covers the whole earth, and is now accepted by intelligent people everywhere. It appeals to the religious and moral natures of all who are trying to do right, and those who follow the teachings get the fruits, and thus demonstrate that it is founded in Truth. As Practical Christians we follow Jesus the Christ, and our whole aim is to do as he did, and draw from the same great Universal Fount. In doing this, we find that we conform closely to the doctrine of the Christian church, yet, not being trammeled by external rules of church worship, we open our spiritual natures to the inner, or esoteric, side of Jesus' doctrine. We find that there is an occult, or inner, teaching in Christianity, which those who look upon it in its historical light only, are ignorant of. Yet we do not put aside the historical part, but seek to join

the within and the without, and make of them a perfect whole. We accept Christ in his spiritual nature, that is, his Divinity, and the ideas which he promulgated as the saving power that is redeeming the race from the effect of the transgressed law. We believe that Jesus Christ was everything that he proclaimed. We do not, however, forget that we are following him, and do as he did. He said, "Ye shall do these things and greater." We do not worship his personality, but seek through him to find the Principle, or Father, who dwells within every one of us. "In Him we live, move and have our being," and He lives, moves and has His being in us.

It is not the object of our work to build up another sect or to establish churches. We come, as John the Baptist came, crying, "Make straight the way of the Lord." The church must eventually accept the doctrine of complete regeneration of both soul and body. We propose to establish schools for the purpose of instructing Christians in this esoteric part of Jesus Christ's religion. We are not working in opposition to the Christian church, but in harmony with it. We recognize that in every church organization there are a few who are in the Spirit and understand, though it be "through a glass darkly," the real character of Christianity. Consequently, Primitive or Practical Christianity, as we teach it, is in perfect harmony with the accepted religion of the Christian world.

By many of those not acquainted with the distinctions of metaphysical thought, we are classed with Christian Scientists because we do healing. But we are radically different from them in nearly all of our expositions of Truth, and it is an error to class us with them in any way, except in the fundamental perceptions of the being of God, which are common. to all religions. Christian Science teaches that God does not dwell in man, but is "reflected" into him. We hold that this limits the all-pervading Spirit of

God, and is in direct opposition to the teaching of Jesus Christ, who, in several places in the Scriptures, affirmed the Kingdom of God to be within man. He said the Father was within him.

Christian Science teaches that the body is the creation of mortal mind, consequently mortal error. Yet through the power of the Spirit they heal the body. This is an inconsistency which has no place in our doctrine. We hold with Paul that the body is the temple of God. Jesus' teaching faithfully followed will give us the same power and dominion over this temple that he had over his body, and we can say with him, "I can take it up and lay it down." We are not to put off this redemption to some future time, when we shall become strong, but are to realize that God is always with us, and that the power to overcome the errors of the carnal mind is indwelling, and an integral part of the constitution of man. Scripture says that God created man in His “image and likeness," and gave him dominion over all things in the beginning. "For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until waiting for our adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body." (Romans 8:22, 23.)

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Thus it will be seen that our teaching differs from Christian Science and we should not be confounded with that sect because we do healing. We do not claim to do the healing-it is done by the Father. "It is not I, but the Father within me, he doeth the works." If the Father does the healing, He knows what the compensation should be, and we proclaim. Him as our resource, letting the people give as they are moved. "Freely ye have received; freely give." We rejoice in and accept gladly the good that is set forth by Christian Science, and all religious doctrines, but we do not follow them, nor are we borrowers of their teachings. The Spirit of Truth is our teacher, and we look to that source alone for our authority.

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