The herald., 1896-02-10

that he might destroy the works of the
DEVIL" The question naturally arises,
What does it mean, this statement ''for
this purpose the Son of Man was made
manifest, that he might destroy the works
of the devil?' In other words. What is
the devil? When Homer sang, the plains
of Troy, the seashore and the sea were
peopled with imaginary deities, with
gods and goddesses, and heroes tabled to
be part god, part man. When Dante
wrote, he described all the terrors of the
damned in his Inferno. When Milton
sang, "high on a throne of royal state Sa-
tan exalted tat. These were but
pictures of the Observation-Disclosures that
iinmortalized the poet, but cursed hu-
mainly. When Jesus came they asked
him, ''Who art thou:n and he said, II am
the truth" The truth, then, is that which
is to destroy these creatures of the magma
ton which have been affecting mankind.
The devil has no other existence than in
the imagination of man. Herbert Spencer
says in consequence suffering and death
are the penalties attached by nature to ig-
norance. Nature eXacts the growth of
race of men who shall both unders and the
conditions of existence and act up to
them" So science, or the understanding
of truth. dissolves these imaginary beings
of the mind as thoroughly as waking dis
solves the horrors of a dream, and we
see that right thinking produces right
conditions, and that wrong thinking is the
cause of all our Ills. There is no pain or
sorrow that cannot pe traced to ignorance.
In the study of this subject we have to
eliminate from our minds devil of any
kind whatever. The divine mind is the in
telligence of the individual. The mortal
mind is fallacy; there is no mortal mind.
Simply because make a mistake in ma IL
ematics cannot call that by the name of
mathematics. Intelligence is God. lgnor-
ance is devil, and the only devil. In this
account of healing this man was afflicted
by his mentality. which undoubtedly was
handed down to him BY his parents. Man
is possessed of the ability to turn from
wrong thinking to right thinking, and it is
inconceivable that person of understand
ing should remain always in the same way
of thought. Step by step he gets light and
that light opens the door for more light.
This man then was governed by the men,
tally which paralyzes as fear paralyzes it.
The physician will tell you there is moth
ing the matter with the nerves, nothing the
matter with the body-simply lack of vi
tally. In science we learn that all power
of motion is an express on of mind and
that it is mind that governs the actions OF
the body. If person believes that it is
something aside from that he is believing
wrong and his wrong belief is governing
him. Change the thought and you have
changed the phenomena. When his man
was brought to Jesus ne says: Thy sins
are forgiven tne6." ne question tnen
arises, How could Jesus forgive sin and
what sins were forgiven? The definition
of sin is ''rnissing the mark" So then.
forgiveness of sin is correcting error and
Jesus was correcting the error in
the mans mind-was correcting
the thought. You can call it anything you
please. You can say that he transferred
to that man his own thought, because that
was what he did do. He simply transferred
to that man a thought that was true, which
destroyed the belief or error. that was not
true. 40 show unto you" he says, ''that
the Son of Man has power on earth to for
give sins, say unto you, arise and walk"
Jesus was well aware that they would at
tribute to him supernatural power, and he
wanted to impress upon them that he was
the Son of Man and that this power of cor
recting error belongs to the sons of men.
So, then, if we would eliminate from our
MINDS the thought that in order to do such
works we should have to be possessed of
some supernatural power, we shall
come much nearer to being able to
do such works. In speaking to others
he said, "Call not yourselves the sons of
men, ye are the sons of God" AS we
come to see that every man is the son of
God we see that every man must possess
the characteristics which distinguish his
originator or father. The first thing then
for people to understand is that God is
spirit, that spirit is intelligence, that intel
ligence is law, and that law is God. These
people were quite correct when they said
that no one but God can forgive sins. True
forgiveness of sins is the power of intelii-
pence to correct mistakes.