Chapter II - Imposition and Demonstration
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travels one day east and another west, but thinking the
travels one day east and another west, but thinking the
passage west a more fashionable route, the company
more alluring and its pleasures more enticing, changes
tactics and journies six days westerly, and the seventh
day toward the east, vehemently protesting he is travel-
ing in one direction only. You would say of that
man he is untrue and cannot be trusted; and don't let
him cajole you into the belief he is really going east
because he produces from his pocket a ticket earned by
some toil-worn pilgrim, who had explored the way, and
from whom he begged it, and with this passport means
to make his passage. Unless a man advances spiritually,
he is not scientific; and if he is scientific he must start
honestly, and journey some every day; and however
long he is in reaching the desired goal, if his honesty
be preserved, he will finish his course. Many starting
with the letter of science, will omit the Spirit, and make
shipwreck of their course. We must not only seek, but
strive, or we cannot enter the narrow path of science;
for broad is the opposite one of sense that leadeth to
destruction, and many go in thereat.
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Jesus experienced few of the so-called pleasures of
Jesus experienced few of the so-called pleasures of
personal sense; perhaps he knew its pains, for "he bore
our infirmities that through his stripes we might be
healed;" Truth in contact with error produced chemi-
calization. Hence our Master's sufferings came through
contact with sinners; but Christ the Soul of man never
suffered. Jesus mapped out the path of the science of
being, and through poverty of sense was enriched by
Soul; but to those buried in the belief of Life in matter,
and insisting that we see alone with eyes, and hear with
ears, and feel through nerves, he said, "Having eyes ye
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see not, and ears ye hear not, that ye might understand
see not, and ears ye hear not, that ye might understand
and be converted and I might heal you." Their belief
of personal sense shut out the communications of Soul;
hence the saying, "Ye cannot serve two masters."
Jesus adhered to one only, was guided by spiritual
sense; therefore the sensualism of the age separated
from him, and hated him. His affections were pure;
theirs carnal; his senses were Truth; theirs but error,
therefore Love with him was spiritual science; with
them it was material sense; their imperfection and
impurity felt his perfection and purity an ever-pres-
ent rebuke; hence the world's hatred of the just and
more spiritual Jesus; and the prophets' foresight of
the reception it would give him. The people knew
not how to interpret their uncomfortableness arising
from his presence with them; and the chemical changes
he instituted in their being. When those opposites
met, had they understood the meaning of the stir it
produced, they would, like Peter, have wept at the
warning, and begun a warfare with personal sense that
opposed Truth. They in their ignorance of the science
of Life, never regarded the fact that the good are hated
only by the evil, while the former suffer for the latter
in life-long sacrifice. He bore their sins in his own
person; that is, he felt the suffering their error brought,
and through this consciousness destroyed error. Had
the Master utterly conquered the belief of Life in mat-
ter, he would not have felt their infirmities; he had
not yet risen to this his final demonstration, or had he
partaken equally of their sensuous being, he would not
have so suffered from them, nor they from him. By
overcoming his own temptations he had measurably