The belief of a God afar off, a God of whom we know but little, is not the true thought; it is not the Christ idea, which is that "the Spirit within quickeneth and maketh whole every part of our being." It is, therefore, the spirit of God within us that brings health and strength; thus it is necessary first to realize the power of God in our own lives - to feel that we are one with it, and that all the intelligence we have is derived from this one source. Knowing God in this way brings eternal life, since we realize that if a part could cease to be the whole would cease to be; hence, man's heaven consists in a realization of the Spirit of God in his own life, and that knowledge brings a consciousness of eternal life.

One of the greatest of all questions that man has had to consider in the past is his attitude toward evil. Now, certain knowledge can be derived only from what we term evil. Evil is just as much a necessity in the world, to show man the good and true, as darkness is to reveal the presence of light; or we may say that evil represents the undeveloped or partial expression of life, which, however, always contains within itself the prophesy of wholeness - completeness; even as the seed, through all its varying stages of growth, carries within itself the prophesy of the ripened fruit. Evil indicates the absence of good, as ignorance indicates the absence of knowledge. We would have no idea of the beauties of light, of truth, of love, if their contradictories had not existed - if there were no darkness, no error, no hatred. And the reason is that we compare one with the other. If it were always light we would have no word for light - it would have no meaning. If people always told the truth we would have no word for truth.

It is only through the contradictory that we learn of the reality. Having once learned the reality, the unreality (the contradictory) becomes meaningless. But so long as we endow it with the same power as the reality, just so long will it have that degree of influence over us.

The great lesson for mankind to learn is the reality of good and the nothingness of "evil." There is no way of overcoming the false, unreal conditions of life (the evil) save through good. "Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good."

For thousands of years the world has vainly tried to overcome evil by evil. Can we overcome darkness by darkness? No; only through light. Overcome evil by good; overcome ignorance by knowledge. When we have overcome the ignorance, the evil, and the darkness of the past will disappear; and the reason is plain; two ideas can not dwell in the mind at one and the same time. If the mind is filled with thoughts of good and of truth, there is no possible room for those of evil or of falsehood. If a room is filled with light, all the darkness of the outer world can not dispel one particle of that illumination; therefore, if we keep our lives surrounded by the light - if we keep the light burning within - there is no power without that can dispel it. We have the power to close our eyes to the light within our-lelves; but no other soul in all the world can do it for us, because that light is a living reality that can not be overcome from without.

We come now to the development of certain mental powers, or, rather, soul powers, because we have faculties transcending those that are purely mental. We find that through their development will come our greatest good, and that no single power occupies as great a place as that of the will, which is the most powerful force in the life of man when rightly directed and controlled. The will is the actual Self of man - the real man; and when it finds its true direction there arises a power that overcomes the false will. It is the development of this will to which Jesus referred. He recognized the contradictory will - purely human, or partial, and therefore to be overcome. He said, "Not my will, but Thine be done." To recognize the will of God as the supreme factor in our lives is of the utmost importance. We may not say we do things of ourselves - Jesus never said that. He said: "Of myself I can do nothing. The Father working within me, He doeth the work." One will alone reigns supreme.

Next in importance to the will comes the imaging faculty. If man uses this faculty aright (for we are now dealing with a faculty of mind, not of soul), he will obtain nothing from it save that which is good. Every ill, or evil, that enters into the life of man comes through the misuse of his imaging faculty. While everything is good in itself, it is only good as it is used aright. When man attempts to combine the different images from this outer world, tho each in and of itself is good, he may produce evil through untrue combinations. For example, a web of cotton in itself is perfectly harmless; but by adding to it certain acids we can make gun-cotton and with it destroy a building. The force in the cotton is liberated in an instant, and that liberation causes the destruction. There is more sunshine - more force - in cotton than in any other manufactured substance; and if that force be suddenly liberated, the results are terrible.

Pictures of sorrow and evil fill the mind with anxiety, malice, hatred, jealousy, etc., and cause most of the distress of life. If we could but see that every experience that enters into the life of man comes for a good purpose - to show him something higher, better, and truer; if we could realize that all things are working together for good - then we might not have to undergo certain experiences that bring suffering. We would see that they contain lessons, and our great object would be so to profit by them that the experiences need not be repeated. But they will continue to recur until the lesson of life is learned.

If we image in our minds the good and true, we will obtain the good and true as results; because the mind first makes these pictures, and they afterward express themselves in the physical structure of man. We are suffering to-day from the evil pictures of the past. If we have rilled our minds with fear, envy, anger, etc., we suffer, and wonder why we should be so afflicted. We wonder if God has sent these afflictions upon us, whereas we bring them upon ourselves as the result of false mental images, which in turn produce physical poisons.