"You ask if Mrs. Pearl has explained your queries. A few questions were handed in yesterday, but I had not time to put them in my letter. One that always puzzled us, was: What is the origin of evil? The questions are written on slips of paper and laid on the table. She answers them before giving the regular lesson. When she read this slip there was not a little stir among the fifty eager questioners. 'What is the origin of evil?' she repeated. 'It has no origin,' was the unsatisfactory answer, after a momentary silence. Oh! the blankness of those faces! 'But,' she resumed presently, 'if you ask how seeming evil originated, I may give you the ideas that came to me as a solution of that mortal mind question.'
"You know we might ask questions of each other forever, but unless our thoughts are tinged with same quality, or run in the same direction, the satisfactory answer to one may not be at all satisfactory to another. In other words, we will not recognize the same phase of truth, unless we are in the same stage of development, so if you are not willing to take my explanation as true, it may be that you are not yet where you can perceive it, or it may be, you require a different illustration to convey the same thought, or, there may be innumerable reasons, but of this one blessed fact be assured: if you hold yourself in the receptive attitude, and sincerely expect to be guided by the spirit of truth, some day the answer will come to you with such irresistible force and plainness that you can not forget it, or ever be in doubt upon that point again.
"It was in this way the light came to me. That question had puzzled me more than all else, and I asked every healer whom I met as to the correct solution. For several months I pondered and fretted over it. At last, in despair, I let it alone, resolving I would not be further troubled. But one day it unfolded itself so clearly and beautifully I was completely satisfied.
"Here it is: Taking the first account of creation, we find man made in the image and likeness of God, given dominion over all things. If we believe man to be spiritual and not material, if we know that spirit can not change its character or quality, we must know that spiritually man never fell, but that he seemed to fall through our misconception and misunderstanding of appearances.
"Man now manifests what he believes in; his consciousness of truth is not fully developed and he mistakes appearances for realities. Having all possibilities of recognizing only the good, he is perfect. For every mistake that is made he manifests error, the fallen, or rather the undeveloped state. The Truth and Love that he manifests in his life, is the revealment of his God-like nature. In the glimpses of his true self he recognizes his inheritance of power, and in his mistaken conceptions forgets to acknowledge God. He then judges according to appearances, and says things are true because they appear true to the senses.
"The creating principle of life is perfect, but man neglects to acknowledge this divine power in proportion to his selfishness. It is therefore his selfishness that prevents him from recognizing the Good, and causes him to see, name and believe in matter and its consequences; and he thus becomes materially minded, and is known as the 'Adam' in 'whom all die.'
"Adam signifies error, clay, unreality. Christ signifies Truth, Spirit, Reality. If we believe in things that appear to be the creation, we are believing in nothingness, which so proves itself by death and disintegration. If we believe appearances to be the sign of the real, we are acknowledging the spiritual to be the all, hence it proves itself by making even the body its sign, manifest life, health, perfection.
"If we cast out all selfishness, pure love takes its place. We must be purified from the beliefs of the world in selfishness and its consequences by recognizing that our 'sufficiency is of God.'
"This was very plain to me, John, and I hope you will find it so too, but if you do not, wait, and as soon as you are ready for it, the answer will come to you.
"The lesson to-day was on deception and personal influences. The whole world has been deceived into believing man is fleshly instead of spiritual, so many false thoughts and beliefs have arisen, which are the cause of all disease and trouble. Universally we are deceived, individually we are deceived, and it is not only because we are making our beliefs visible on the body, but because we suffer from them mentally and physically that it is necessary to discover what they are and cast them out.