Page:The People's Idea of God.djvu/10

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.
8
SERMON

medicine must be dematerialized to present the right idea of Truth; then will this idea cast out error and heal the sick. If changeableness that repenteth itself; partiality that elects some to be saved and others to be lost, or that answers the prayer of one and not of another; if incompetency that cannot heal the sick, or lack of love that will not; if unmercifulness, that for the sins of a few tired years punishes man eternally, — are our conceptions of Deity, we shall bring out these qualities of character in our own lives and extend their influence to others.

Judaism, enjoining the limited and definite form of a national religion, was not more the antithesis of Christianity than are our finite and material conceptions of Deity. Life is God; but we say that Life is carried on through principal processes, and speculate concerning material forces. Mind is supreme; and yet we make more of matter, and lean upon it for health and life. Mind, that governs the universe, governs every action of the body as directly as it moves a planet and controls the muscles of the arm. God grant that the trembling chords of human hope shall again be swept by the divine Talitha cumi, “Damsel, I say unto thee, arise.” Then shall Christian Science again appear, to fight our sepulchres with immortality. We thank our Father that to-day the uncremated fossils of material systems, already charred, are fast fading into ashes; and that man will ere long stop trusting where there is no trust, and gorging his faith with skill proved a million times unskilful.