“Padre dear,” she had said, when his tremulous voice 339 ceased, “how much longer will you believe that two and two are seven? And how much longer will you try to make me believe it? Oh, Padre, at first you did seem to see so clearly, and you talked so beautifully to me! And then, when things seemed to go wrong, you went right back to your old thoughts and opened the door and let them all in again. And so things couldn’t help getting worse for you. You told me yourself, long ago, that you would have to empty your mind of its old beliefs. But I guess you didn’t get them all out. If you had cleaned house and got your mind ready for the good thoughts, they would have come in. You know, you have to get ready for the good, before it can come. You have to be receptive. But you go right on getting ready for evil. If you loved God––really loved Him––why, you would not be worried and anxious to-day, and you would not be believing still that two and two are seven. You told me, oh, so long ago! that this human life was just a sense of life, a series of states of consciousness, and that consciousness was only mental activity, the activity of thought. Well, I remembered that, and put it into practice––but you didn’t. A true consciousness is the activity of true thought, you said. A false consciousness is the activity of false thought. True thought comes from God, who is mind. False thought is the opposite of true thought, and doesn’t come from any mind at all, but is just supposition. A supposition is never really created, because it is never real––never truth. True thought becomes externalized to us in good, in harmony, in happiness. False thought becomes externalized to us in unhappiness, sickness, loss, in wrong-doing, and in death. It is unreal, and yet awfully real to those who believe it to be real. Why don’t you act your knowledge, as you at first said you were going to do? I have all along tried to do this. Whenever thoughts come to me I always look carefully at them to see whether they are based on any real principle, on God. If so, I let them in. If not, I drive them away. Sometimes it has been hard to tell just which were true and which false. And sometimes I got caught, and had to pay the penalty. But every day I do better; and the time will come at last when I shall be able to tell at once which thoughts are true and which untrue. When that time comes, nothing but good thoughts will enter, and nothing but good will be externalized to me in consciousness. I shall be in heaven––all the heaven there is. It is the heaven which Jesus talked so much about, and which he said was within us all. It is so simple, Padre dear, so simple!”
The man sat humbly before her like a rebuked child. He knew that she spoke truth. Indeed, these were the very things that he had taught her himself. Why, then, had he failed to 340 demonstrate them? Only because he had attempted to mix error with truth––had clung to the reality and immanence of evil, even while striving to believe good omnipotent and infinite. He had worked out these theories, and they had appeared beautiful to him. But, while Carmen had eagerly grasped and assimilated them, even to the consistent shaping of her daily life to accord with them, he had gone on putting the stamp of genuineness and reality upon every sort of thought and upon every human event as it had been enacted in his conscious experience. His difficulty was that, having proclaimed the allness of spirit, God, he had proceeded to bow the knee to evil. Carmen had seemed to know that the mortal, material concepts of humanity would dissolve in the light of truth. He, on the other hand, had clung to them, even though they seared the mind that held them, and became externalized in utter wretchedness.
“When you let God’s thoughts in, Padre, and drive out their opposites, then sickness and unhappiness will disappear, just as the mist disappears over the lake when the sun rises and the light goes through it. If you really expected to some day see the now ‘unseen things’ of God, you would get ready for them, and you would ‘rejoice always,’ even though you did seem to see the wickedness of Padre Diego, the coming of the soldiers, the death of Lázaro and Don Mario, and lots of unhappiness about yourself and me. Those men are not dead––except to your thought. You ought to know that all these things are the unreal thoughts externalized in your consciousness. And, knowing them for what they really are, the opposites of God’s thoughts, you ought to know that they can have no more power over you than anything else that you know to be supposition. We can suppose that two and two are seven, but we can’t make it true. The supposition does not have any effect upon us. We know that it isn’t so. But as regards just thought––and you yourself said that everything reduces to thought––why, people seem to think it is different. But it isn’t. Don’t you understand what the good man Jesus meant when he told the Pharisees to first cleanse the cup and platter within, that the outside might also be clean? Why, that was a clear case of externalization, if there ever was one! Cleanse your thought, and everything outside of you will then become clean, for your clean thought will become externalized. You once said that you believed in the theory that ‘like attracts like.’ I do, too. I believe that good thoughts attract good ones, and evil thoughts attract thoughts like themselves. I have proved it. And you ought to know that your life shows it, too. You hold fear-thoughts and worry-thoughts, and then, just as 341 soon as these become externalized to you as misfortune and unhappiness, you say that evil is real and powerful, and that God permits it to exist. Yes, God does permit all the existence there is to a supposition––which is none. You pity yourself and all the world for being unhappy, when all you need is to do as Jesus told you, and know God to be infinite Mind, and evil to be only the suppositional opposite, without reality, without life, without power––unless you give it these things in your own consciousness. You don’t have to take thought for your life. You don’t have to be covetous, or envious, or fearful, or anxious. You couldn’t do anything if you were. These things don’t help you. Jesus said that of himself he could do nothing. But––as soon as he recognized God as the infinite principle of all, and acted that knowledge––why, then he raised the dead! And at last, when his understanding was greater, he dissolved the mental concept which people called his human body. Don’t you see it, Padre––don’t you? I know you do!”
Yes, he saw it. He always did when she pleaded thus. And yet:
“But, Carmen, padre Rosendo would send you out of the country with these Americans!”
“Yes, so you have said. And you have said that you have always feared you would lose me. Is that fear being externalized now? I have not feared that I would lose you. But, Padre dear––”
The ghastly look on the man’s face threw wide the flood-gates of her sympathy. “Padre––all things work together for good, you know. Good is always working. It never stops. Listen––” She clung more closely to him.
“Padre, it may be best, after all. You do not want me to stay always in Simití. And if I go, you will go with me, or soon follow. Oh, Padre dear, you have told me that up in that great country above us the people do not know God as you and I are learning to know Him. Padre––I want to go and tell them about Him! I’ve wanted to for a long, long time.”
The girl’s eyes shone with a holy light. Her wistful face glowed with a love divine.
“Padre dear, you have so often said that I had a message for the world. Do not the people up north need that message? Would you keep me here then? The people of Simití are too dull to hear the message now. But up there––Oh, Padre, it may be right that I should go! And, if it is right, nothing can prevent it, for the right will be externalized! Right will prevail!”