It was Saturday. The church edifice was so far put in order that Josè found no reason for not holding service on the morrow. He therefore announced the fact, and told Carmen that he must devote the day to preparation. Their lessons must go over to Monday. Seeking the solitude of his house, Josè returned to his Bible.
He began with Genesis. “In the beginning––God.” Not, as in the codes of men, God last, and after every material expedient has been exhausted––but “to begin with.” Josè could not deny that for all that exists there is a cause. Nor can the human mind object to the implication that the cause of an existing universe must itself continue to exist. Even less can it deny that the framer of the worlds, bound together in infinite space by the unbreakable cables of infinite laws, must be omnipotent. And to retain its omnipotence, that cause must be perfect––absolutely good––every whit pure, sound, and harmonious; for evil is demonstrably self-destructive. And, lastly, what power could operate thus but an infinite intelligence, an all-inclusive mind?
Now let the human mentality continue its own reasoning, if so be that it hold fast to fact and employ logical processes. If “like produces like”––and from thistles figs do not grow––that which mind creates must be mental. And a good cause can produce only a good effect. So the ancient writer, “And God saw every thing that He had made, and, behold, it was very good.” The inspired scribe––inspired? Yes, mused Josè, for inspiration is but the flow of truth into one’s mentality––stopped not until he had said, “So God created man in His own image”––
Wait! He will drive that home.
––“in the image of God”––not in the image of matter, not in the likeness of evil––“created He him.” But what had now become of that man?
So Jesus, centuries later, “God is spirit,” and, “That which is born of the Spirit is spirit.” Or, man––true man––expresses mind, God, and is His eternal and spiritual likeness and reflection. But, to make this still clearer to torpid minds, Paul wrote, “For in Him we live, and move, and have our being.” Then he added, “To be spiritually minded is life.” As if he would say, True life is the consciousness of spiritual things only.
Is human life aught but a series of states of consciousness? And is consciousness aught but mental activity?––for when the mind’s activity ceases, the man dies. But mental activity is the activity of thought.
“It is the activity of thought,” said Josè aloud, “that makes us believe that fleshly eyes see and ears hear. We see only our thoughts; and in some way they become externalized as our environment.”
His reasoning faculty went busily on. Thought builds images, or mental concepts, within the mind. These are the thought-objects which mankind believe they see as material things in an outer world. And so the world is within, not without. Jesus must have known this when he said, “The kingdom of heaven is within you.” Did he not know the tremendous effects of thought when he said, “For as a man thinketh, so is he”? In other words, a man builds his own mental image of himself, and conveys it to the fellow-minds about him.