“But,” he continued, “force, or power, is not material. God by very necessity is mind, including all intelligence. And His operations are conducted according to the spiritual law of evolution. Oh, yes, evolution is not a theory, it is a fact. God, infinite mind, evolves, uncovers, reveals, unfolds, His numberless eternal ideas. These reflect and manifest Him. The greatest of these is the one that includes all others and expresses and reflects Him perfectly. That we call man. That 99 is the man who was ‘made’––revealed, manifested––in His image and likeness. There is no other image and likeness of God. Moreover, God has always existed, and always will. So His ideas, including real man, have had no beginning. They were not created, as we regard creation, but have been unfolded.
“All well and good, so far. But now we come to the peculiar part, namely, the fact that reality seems always to have its shadow in unreality. Every positive seems to have a negative. The magnet has its opposite poles, one positive, the other negative. Jesus had his Nero. Truth has its opposing falsities. At the lowest ebb of the world’s morals appeared the Christ. The Christian religion springs from the soil of a Roman Emperor’s blood-soaked gardens. And so it goes. Harmony opposed by discord. Errors hampering the solving of mathematical problems. Spirit opposed by matter. Which is real? That which stands the test of demonstration as to permanence, I say with Spencer.
“And now we learn that it is the communal mortal mind that stands as the opposite and negative of the infinite mind that is God, and that it is but a supposition, without basis of real principle or fact. It has its law of evolution, too, and evolves its types in human beings and animals, in mountain, tree, and stream. All material nature, in fact, is but the manifestation, or reflection, of this communal mortal mind.
“But, though God had no beginning, and will have no ending, this communal mortal mind, on the contrary, did have a seeming beginning, and will end its pseudo-existence. It seemingly began as a mental mist. It seemingly evolved form and became active. It seemingly evolved its universe, and its earth as its lower stratum. It made its firmament, and it gradually filled its seas with moving things that manifested its idea of life. Slowly, throughout inconceivable eons of time, it unrolled and evolved, until at last, through untold generations of stupid, sluggish, often revolting animal forms, it began to evolve a type of mind, a crude representation of the mind that is God, and manifesting its own concept of intelligence. That type was primitive man.
“Now what was this communal mortal mind doing? Counterfeiting divine mind, if I may so express it. Evolving crude imitative types. But types that were without basis of principle, and so they passed away––the higher forms died, the lower disintegrated. Aye, death came into the world because of sin, for the definition of sin is the Aramaic word which Jesus used, translated ‘hamartio,’ which means ‘missing the mark.’ The mortal mind missed the mark. And so its types died. And so they still die to-day. Yes, sin came through Adam, for Adam is the name of the communal mortal mind.
“Well, ages and ages passed, reckoned in the human mind concept of time. The evolution was continually toward a higher and ever higher type. Why? The influence of divine mind was penetrating it. Paleolithic man still died, because he did not have enough real knowledge in his mortal mind to keep him from missing the mark. He probably had no belief in a future life, for he did not bury his dead after the manner of those who later manifested this belief. But, after the lapse of centuries, Neolithic man was found manifesting such a belief. What has happened? This: the mortal mind was translating the divine idea of immortality into its own terms and thus expressing it.
“Ages rolled on. The curtain began to rise upon what we call human history. The idea of a power not itself began to filter through the mist of mortal mind, and human beings felt its influence, the influence that makes for righteousness. And then, at last, through the mortal mind there began to filter the idea of the one God. The people who best reflected this idea were the ancient Israelites. They called themselves the ‘chosen’ people. Their so-called minds were, as Carmen has expressed it, like window-panes that were a little cleaner than the others. They let a bit more of the light through. God is light, you know, according to the Scriptures. And little by little they began to record their thoughts regarding their concept of the one God. These writings became sacred to them. And soon they were seeing their God manifested everywhere, and hearing His voice in every sound of Nature. And as they saw, they wrote. And thus began that strange and mighty book, the Bible, the record of the evolution of the concept of God in the human mind.”
“Do you mean to say that the Bible was not given by inspiration?” demanded Reverend Moore.
“No,” replied Hitt. “This filtering process that I have been speaking about is inspiration. Every bit of truth that comes to you or me to-day comes by inspiration––the breathing in––of the infinite mind that is truth.