Chapter V - Prayer and Atonement
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quest by living consistent with that prayer. If selfish-
quest by living consistent with that prayer. If selfish-
ness gives place in us to Love, we shall love our neigh-
bor and bless them that curse us, but can never meet
this great demand by asking for it; there is a cross to
be taken up, before the reward is given.
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Do we "love the Lord our God with all our heart,
Do we "love the Lord our God with all our heart,
Soul, and strength?" This includes much, even the
surrender of all personal affections and personal wor-
ship; it is the ultimate of being, the science of Life that
recognizes only the consciousness, Spirit, wherein Soul
is our Master, and sense without a claim. Are you
willing to leave all for Christ, Truth, and be reckoned
with sinners? Have you reached this point? No.
Do you really desire to attain it? No. Then where-
fore make long prayers about it, and ask to become
Christ-like, when these are the footsteps of our dear
Master; if unwilling to drink his cup, wherefore
pray with the lips to be partakers of it? The only
consistent prayer is, to do right so far as we understand
the right, and to walk in the light so far as we receive
it, even though it be with bleeding footsteps, and let
our real desires and works be rewarded by the Father
who seeth in secret. The whole world will not un-
derstand Christianity for centuries to come. When
we are good enough to take His cup of earthly sorrows,
we shall have it, and until we are, and do drink of it,
all the vain repetitions that heathen use can never reach
the demonstration that Jesus gave and instructed his
followers to give, as the test of Christianity, saying,
"And these signs shall follow you." We learn in sci-
ence the necessity for Christians to suffer in this wicked
world of sense, insomuch as they oppose it, and are
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helping to destroy it, therefore it would destroy them.
helping to destroy it, therefore it would destroy them.
Anciently, in Japan, they conveyed a praying-machine
through the streets, stopping at the doors to earn a
penny grinding out a prayer. But in the belief of
higher civilization, we pay for prayers in lofty edifices.
Experience teaches that we receive not the good we
ask for in audible prayer. Petitioning a personal Deity
is a misapprehension of the source and means of all
good and blessedness; therefore it cannot be beneficial,
and we receive not, because, as the scripture saith, "We
ask amiss, to consume it on our lusts."
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Suffering for sin is all that destroys it; every sup-
Suffering for sin is all that destroys it; every sup-
posed pleasure of personal sense, will furnish more
than its balance in pain, until the belief of Life and
Intelligence in matter is ultimately destroyed. We are
not rid of mortal experiences, of sin, sickness, or death,
at the change called death; we cannot reach heaven,
the harmony of Life, except we understand the Prin-
ciple of harmonious being, that alone destroys personal
sense and error. Seeking is not sufficient to destroy
error; striving to enter into the straight and narrow
way of science, is all that will enable us to do it.
Spiritual attainments are the preparation for heaven,
and that which opens the door to a higher understand-
ing, even the Life that is God. The petitions to a
personal Deity bring to man only the results of his be-
lief; they cannot obtain Truth, Life, or Love. We
know that a desire for holiness is requisite to gaining it,
but if we really desire this above all else, we shall lay
down all for it; first learn your willingness to do this,
and then you may calculate safely on the only practical
way of reaching holiness. Prayer cannot change the