GOD AND THE UNIVERSE.

All the lower races of mankind have believed in and worshipped the god of creation, the god that is manifested in the life of all living. They have recognized the fact that they were one in spirit with all animate nature-in short, with all law and all force. From this fact came the deification of the most prominent forces that act upon and through human life. They most devoutly worshipped these gods, and by applying their minds to these forces, laws, principles, whatever we may call them, in nature, they became so thoroughly identified with them, that, in those particular directions, they possessed greater powers than other men. Thus the various orders of priests origi nated, supposed to be special favorites of certain gods. From this, again, arose the worship of many gods, and of the images of those gods, or powers, which is still perpetuated in China, Hindustan, and other countries.

The marked distinction between Israel and other nations was that, having a revelation of the God of the universe, they ceased to worship the laws and forces of nature and worshipped the one true Spirit. There was one sentence which elevated Israel above all the nations of the earth, and it was: "Hear, O Israel: Yahveh our God is one Lord." This turned their attention from the worship of the laws and forces of nature, in their multiplicity, to the One Deific Mind and Will. This one thought has ever kept God's Israel high above, and distinct from, all other nations. The Teutonic and Celtic races, the Anglo-Saxons, stand to-day preeminent in the world, as they are based upon that one great central truth. Believing in one God, they have aspired to the highest. For this reason they have ever climbed higher and yet higher in racial development, while those that could see, handle, and know their gods, had nothing beyond themselves toward which to aspire, and, consequently, have not risen, but have descended; for the aspiration towards-if the term is admissible in such connection-the god, or spirit, of the life that

animates all nature,-vegetation and the whole animal world from the serpent up,-is a looking backward and downward, reaching out in that direction instead of ever upward and onward toward one Infinite Spirit, as the Anglo-Saxon races have been and are now doing.

During the last few years the spirit of the Orient has begun to permeate the English-speaking people, and it is surprising to what an enormous extent the one great central error to which we refer has found its way into the Western mind. All the socalled advanced thinkers of the day have turned their attention from the God of the universe, the God of Israel, and have begun to worship, first, the god within themselves, and then to recognize the same god as active in all life, from its lowest manifestation up to their own standard. Thus they have entered "The Path" that for centuries the Chinese and the Hindoos have traveled; and a glance at the high eminence to which China and India have climbed by following that path is sufficient to enable any sensible man or woman to determine whether the path leads upward or downward.

"The Path" has easy stepping stones, so that it is not difficult for any and every one to find it in the very beginning of thought. One of the first of these is, that God and "good" are synonymous terms; and the second one is, that all is God and therefore all is good. When the individual has reached this point. he has but one more step to take to be fully in "The Path," and that step is to select, from the multifarious manifestations spread out before him in nature, which "good" is god; or, in other words, all is lawful and good which tends to the gratification of his own desires, whether those desires lead in the di rection of the appetites and passions, or whether they be love of power or gain. Many Christian Scientists have already made their decision, and have begun the worship of the god of gold. As soon as the mind is freed from what we would denominate man-worship, or the worship of a God limited to the form of a man, as he appears to the imagination of such a large majority of the Christian world, it is a very natural thing to turn one's attention to the immediate surroundings, that which is most completely in evidence, which is nature and her laws. Thus,

as soon as the people's minds are turned from the revelation that was given to Israel,-the Bible, they immediately descend to the worship of idols, which to-day are identical with those of any period of the world before or since Israel's time.

The Bible presents to us the God that made the world, yet not as an anthropomorphic god, but as the all-pervading, the alldominant, and, at the same time, the all-separate (Holy) Spirit. Solomon, when he built the temple, said, "I have built a house for the name of the Lord God of Israel," and he added, "Behold, the heaven and heaven of heavens cannot contain thee; how much less this house that I have builded." These words. show how fully Solomon recognized the difference between God, the All-Pervading and All-Mighty, and his works, the distinction between the house that is builded and the builder.

But space will not permit us further to follow this line of thought; for volumes might be written showing how fully the teachings of all the patriarchs, prophets, of Christ and his disciples, draw the line between the Creator of all things and the created. It is true that the Church itself has no adequate conception of God, but behind all their words there resides the ideal of the one incomprehensible, eternal First Cause, Source of all mind, Fountain of all spirit. We will lay aside argument and effort toward proof of our position, and state briefly, and in accordance with Biblical thought, our idea of the God of the universe.

We do not imagine there was ever a time when there were not as many worlds floating in space as there now are; but these worlds do not stand still-they are growing, becoming more refined-in short, are progressing toward spirit, mind. Countless numbers of these worlds have passed beyond that phase of growth in which the vibrations of their light and material substance are slow, or coarse enough for our cognition. Nevertheless the one Mind, Spirit, was the producer of all of these as well as of the grosser worlds.

Here we enter a field of thought that none but the Infinite can encompass, but a mere glance reveals the accuracy of the revelation in the first chapters of the Hebrew Bible. "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth;" and God

said, Let there be this, that, or the other creative force to carry forward the purpose, "and it was so." The first and second chapters of Genesis are a complete revelation of his purpose, his objects; and these objects are very perfectly summed up in the words, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness;" "and God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth." Thus the machinery was put in motion, the vital current centralized and sent forth on its mission of carrying forward the work of creation by the generation of a great body of individualized intelligences. The vital currents correlated in the word of creation have been reeognized by some of the ancient thinkers as the "spiritus mundi,” and they have been individualized in the minds of some as the "god of creation." Thus the god of creation was, so to speak, separated from the Creator, even as a servant is separate from his master.

This servant, made for a special work and endowed with functions necessary to carry out that work, is good, in all its parts and characteristics, in view of the prosecution and accomplishment of the purpose for which it was made; but when the object of its existence shall have been achieved, its presence, disposition, and its work will become evil, because a completed work cannot be carried further without destruction to itself. A carpenter planes a board: the act of smoothing it to suit the place for which it was designed is good, but if he continue planing it after his purpose is accomplished, he destroys the board; his work must result in loss, destruction, and, consequently, is evil in view of the design. And so it will be with God's servant the power of creation.

Jesus was called the son of God, because, in his own individuality, he was the completion of generation; in the case of this one individual, generation had ended its work. The time has now come that those among the masses of humanity who have reached the highest development, instinctively realize that their greatest use is not in generation; and, under such conditions, every act in that direction becomes evil and a curse to them and to the world. Being ripe for a higher existence, they will be destroyed by the god of generation if they do not conquer

its influence over them, and, recognizing the object of their creation, begin the work of regeneration.

In the regeneration the individual life currents---which, by the way, are the mind enrrents-must be withdrawn from the god of creation; he must be actually treated as an enemy, and overcome and subordinated. This undertaking was symbolized in Jacob's vision, where he wrestled with God and overcame him. Then Jacob's name (nature) was changed from Jacob, Supplanter, to Israel, Prevailing Prince (Son of God); for the angel said, "As a prince hast thou power with God and with men, and hast prevailed," (Gen. XXXII. 28). The prophets manifested some of this power with God and man, but until the advent of Jesus the Christ none was a complete expression of it: as the prophet said, "he was manifest that he might bring many sons unto God." And whenever the time arrives that the mind powers of a man are sufficiently unfolded to perceive these truths, and sufficient courage and intellectual power is found in the individual to enable him to take the name of God, the "I will be what I will to be," and to resolutely wrestle with the god of creation until the breaking of the eternal day within him, then will he also become a son of God, an heir of all things, a prevailing prince. But this can never be accomplished by those who recognize as their god, their power, the god of creation, the spirit of the mundane. On the contrary, one must, through the power of mind and love, lay hold, as it were, upon Him who in the beginning sent forth the creative word, and draw the very life substance, the mind and will power, from him and him only; for only by and through Him who made the creative energies will any be able to conquer those energies and to free themselves from the power of sin and death.

We think that what has been said makes it sufficiently clear that the path that has been trod by all who recognize the spirit of the mundane as their god, leads in a direction exactly opposite to the way marked out by the Christ, who ever pointed to Him who created the forces of nature.-[ED.