“And he did. In the depths of their night––in the midst of the heaviest darkness that ever lay over the world––there arose a great light. Through the densest ignorance of the human mind filtered the Christ-principle, and was set forth by the channel through which it came, the man Jesus.
“What had happened? Had there been a conference among God, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, to debate the sending of salvation to mankind, as recorded by the poet Milton? Alas! what a crude, materialistic conception. Had God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son? But God is Love, infinite, unchanging. And His unique Son, the Christ-principle, available to all mankind, was ‘before Abraham.’ Had a great, 131 dimly perceived principle been demonstrated, namely, that, if we yearn long and earnestly for the right, it comes? Had the Jewish nation ‘demonstrated’ the Christ? Had their centuries of looking and expecting resulted in a saviour being manifested to them? It was a period in the unfolding of human thought when civilization had reached its lowest depths. Morality had evaporated to the dregs. Rome was become the world’s harlot. A few years more, and Nero would drag his vulpine immorality across the stage. Paganism was virtue in comparison with the lust of men in that dark hour. And yet, in the very midst of it, appeared the most venerated, the most beloved man in all history, bearing the Christ-message like a flaming torch!
“‘Always our being is descending into us,’ said Emerson. But our true being can be none other than infinite mind’s idea of itself. Our true individuality must be the way that mind regards us. And thus it was that Israel’s true being descended, filtering in through the thick mists of error. That true being was the deliverer, par excellence, for it was the message of truth that bade men deny themselves, their carnal selves, and know but the one God, infinite mind. That was the grace sufficient for them, that would have solved their problems, that would have enabled them to lay off the ‘old man’ and his woes and afflictions, and put on the ‘new man,’ divine mind’s image. But the carnal mind sought a material kingdom. It wanted, not spirit, but matter. It cruelly rejected the message-bearer, and sought to kill his message by slaying him on the cross. And thereby the Jewish nation rent itself asunder, and sank into carnal oblivion. Ah, how they have been cursed by the crucifixion of Jesus!
“Men ask to-day: Did Jesus really live? Or is he a mythical character, like the gods of pagan Rome? Let us ask, in making our reply, how truth comes to mankind? Is it not always through some human channel? Then the great sayings attributed to Jesus at least came from a human being. Let us go further: it is the common history of mankind that truth comes to the human mind only after a period of preparation. Not conscious preparation, necessarily, but, rather, a preparation forced by events. The truth of a mathematical principle can not come to me unless I am prepared to receive it. And the greatest good comes to men only after they have learned the nothingness of the material ambitions and aims which they have been pursuing. By its own rottenness the world had been made fallow for truth. The awfulness of its own exposure in its rampant, unlicensed revels, had shown as never before the human mind’s absolute nothingness––its nothingness as regards real value, permanence, and genuine 132 good––in that first century of our so-called Christian era. And when the nothingness of the carnal mind was made plain, men saw the reality of the truth, as revealed in the Christ, back of it all. The divine message was whispered to a human mentality. And that mentality expanded under the God-influence, until at last it gave to the sin-weary world the Christ-principle of salvation. Let us call that human mentality, for convenience, the man Jesus.
“And now, was he born of a virgin? Impossible! And yet––let us see. It was common enough in his day for virgins to pretend to be with child by the Holy Ghost; and so we do not criticise those who refuse to accept the dogma of the virgin birth. But a little reflection in the light of what we have been discussing throws a wonderful illumination upon the question. If matter and material modes are real, then we must at once relegate the stories of the virgin birth, the miracles, the resurrection, and the ascension to the realm of myth. If the so-called laws of matter are real, irrefragable laws, then we indulgently, pass by these stories as figments of heated imaginations. But, regarding matter as a human, mortal concept, entirely mental, and wholly subject to the impress and influence of mind, and knowing, as we do now, that mental concepts change with changed thought, we are forced to look with more favor upon these questions which for centuries caused men to shed their fellows’ blood.
“Mr. Hitt pointed out in our last meeting that mortal beings are interpretations in mortal or human mind of the infinite mind, God, and its ideas. The most perfect human interpretation of God’s greatest idea, Man, was Christ Jesus. The real selfhood of every one of us is God’s idea of us. It is spiritual, mental. The world calls it the ‘soul,’ the ‘divine essence,’ and the ‘immortal spark.’ The Christ was the real, spiritual selfhood of the man Jesus. So the Christ is the real selfhood of each of us. It is not born of the flesh. It is not conceived and brought forth in conformity with human modes. Now was this great fact externalized in the immaculate conception and birth? It does not grow and decay and pass away in death. It is the ‘unique’ Son of God which is back of each one of us. But the world has seen it only once in its fullness, and then through the man Jesus.
“Something happened in that first century of the so-called Christian era––something of tremendous significance. What was it? It was the birth of the Christ-idea into the human consciousness. Was the Christ-idea virgin-born? Aye, that it was, for God, infinite Mind, alone was its origin and parent. The speculation which has turned about that wonderful first 133 century event has dealt with the human channel through which the Christ-idea flowed to mankind. But let us see what light our deductions throw even upon that.
“Referring all things to the realm of the mental, where we now know they belong, we see that man never fell, but that Israel’s idea of God and man did fall, woefully. We see that the Christ-principle appeared among men; we see that to-day it works marvels; we must admit that throughout the ages before Jesus it had done so; we know now that the great things which Israel is recorded to have done were accomplished by the Christ-principle working through men, and that when their vision became obscured they lost the knowledge of that principle and how to use it. History records the working of great deeds by that same Christ-principle when it was re-born in our first century; and we also can see how the obscuring of the spiritual by the material in the Emperor Constantine’s time caused the loss of the Church’s power to do great works. We are forced to admit the omnipotence, immanence, and eternality of the Christ-principle, for it is divine mind, God himself. Moses, Elisha, Elijah, the ancient prophets, all had primitive perceptions of truth, and all became channels for the passing of the Christ-principle to mankind in some degree. But none of these men ever illustrated that principle as did the man Jesus. He is the most marvelous manifestation of God that has ever appeared among mankind; so true and exact was the manifestation that he could tell the world that in seeing him they were actually seeing the Father. It is quite true that many of his great sayings were not original with him. Great truths have been voiced, even by so-called pagans, from earliest times. But he demonstrated and made practical the truth in these sayings. And he exposed the nothingness of the human mental concept of matter by healing disease, walking the waves, and in other wonderful ways. It is true that long before his time Greek philosophers had hit upon the theory of the nothingness of matter. Plato had said that only ideas were real. But Jesus––or the one who brought the Christ-message––was the clearest mentality, the cleanest human window-pane, to quote Carmen, that ever existed. Through him the divine mind showed with almost unobscured fullness. God’s existence had been discerned and His goodness proved from time to time by prophets and patriarchs, but by no means to the extent that Jesus proved it. There were those before him who had asserted that there was but one reality, and that human consciousness was not the real self. There were even those who believed matter to be created by the force of thought, even as in our own day. But it remained for Jesus to make those ideas 134 intensely practical, even to the overcoming and dissolution of his whole material concept of the universe and man. And it remained for him to show that the origin of evil is in the lie about God. It was his mission to show that the devil was ‘a man-killer from the beginning,’ because it is the supposition that there is power apart from God. It was his life purpose to show mankind that there is nothing in this lie to cause fear, and that it can be overcome by overcoming the false thought which produces it. By overcoming that thought he showed men the evanescent nature of sickness and death. And sin he showed to be a missing of the mark through lack of understanding of what constitutes real good.
“Turn now again to the Bible, that fascinating record of a whole people’s search for God and their changing concept of Him. Note that, wherever in its records evil seems to be made real, it is for the purpose of uncovering and destroying it by the vigorous statements of truth which you will almost invariably find standing near the exposition of error. So evil seemed very real in the first century of our era; but it was uncovered by the coming of Jesus. The exposure of evil revealed the Christ, right at hand.”
“But,” protested Haynerd, “let’s get back to the question of the virgin birth.”