THE SINLESS, SICKLESS, 
 DEATHLESS LIFE 
 
 FRANK N. RIALE 
 
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THE SINLESS SICKLESS 
 DEATHLESS LIFE: 
 
 GOD'S GLORY-GOAL FOR ALL 
 
 7 
 
 REV. FRANK N. RIALE, Ph. D., D. D. 
 
 "A man's vision shall be his burden." 
 "Where there is no open vision, the people perish. 
 
 tL^u^^^^" 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 tER & COMPANY 
 
 90 Bible House 
 1913 
 
Copyrighted 1913 by 
 Frank N. Riale. 
 
To my 
 BELOVED MOTHER 
 
 this volume 
 
 is most lovingly 
 
 dedicated 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Foreword 
 
 I. The Vision 
 
 II. Told by "The Christ of God" . 
 
 III. Seen by Artists and Seers 
 
 IV. Sought by Scientists and 
 
 Philosophers .... 
 V. The High Water Mark of Religion 
 VI. The Holy Communion Realized 
 VII. The Last Race Enemy Ours 
 VIII. "Paradise Regained" 
 
 IX. "The Preaching of the Cross" 
 Clarified 
 
 X. The Triumph of the Trinity 
 
 XI. "In the Likeness of His Resurrection" 156 
 
 XII. The Return of the Christ 
 
 XIII. The Tap-Root of Sin Removed 
 
 XIV. How THE Light Came and the Fire 
 
 Fell 
 
 XV. The Triumphant Truth Practically 
 
 Applied 
 
 XVI. The Summary of "God's Perfect 
 Whole" 
 
 16 
 
 42 
 
 63 
 
 79 
 
 89 
 
 97 
 
 108 
 
 124 
 144 
 
 171 
 
 183 
 
 197 
 231 
 243 
 
FOREWORD. 
 
 Many have expressed the help received 
 from reading the second chapter of this little 
 volume, which appeared in print under the 
 title of "The Deathless Life," as God's design 
 for all. 
 
 Repeated requests for more have called 
 forth a number of articles, which have had 
 as their common thought- thread, "The Sin- 
 less, Sickless, Deathless Life — God's Glory- 
 Goal for All." All save the chapter referred 
 to have been entirely recast and rewritten, to 
 bring out more clearly the unfolding of the 
 theme, as the crowning purpose of "God's 
 Perfect Whole." 
 
 Inasmuch as these papers were written for 
 independent use, a number of repetitions will 
 be found. These, however, are not enough 
 perhaps to mar the message, the central 
 theme of which, at this hour, is burning on 
 the altars of men's hearts everywhere, like a 
 holy fire. 
 
 The 119th Psalm is but a kaleidescopic 
 tumbling, as most know, of the simple truth 
 which is the germ and genius of the whole 
 
Foreword 
 
 Old Testament — viz., the law of the Lord 
 is the highway of holiness. Eight times as 
 many times, in this sacred song, is the truth 
 told, as there are letters in the Hebrew alpha- 
 bet. This made it appear to the people as 
 the Alpha and Omega of all God's redemptive 
 revelation to the "chosen folks." Indeed the 
 message seemed to them even more, as their 
 telling it in series of octaves would show. 
 This octave grouping over the whole key- 
 board of the alphabet was to them like the 
 sweeping of the hand of God over every 
 string of the great harp of life, making it 
 give forth the whole of its heavenly re- 
 demptive music. 
 
 So this little message of "The Sinless, 
 Sickless and Deathless Life, as the Glory- 
 Goal of God for All," is but a kaleidescopic 
 putting of the one simple sublime truth 
 which was the key and core of the whole 
 message of the universal redemption, as 
 Jesus the redeemer of all mankind, by his 
 deathless precept and practice, has ever pro- 
 claimed it. 
 
 He has declared it is the divine design 
 for all. He has shown that it is the pearl 
 of great price, for which when men once feel 
 that they can truly have, they will gladly sell 
 
Foreword 
 
 all and buy. The call of heaven is to the 
 whole wide world to take by faith this gift 
 of God, and enter into the fullness of our 
 priceless heavenly inheritance. He whose 
 very name is "music to our ears," has 
 touched the heart of humanity, which is "the 
 harp of a thousand strings," and made it 
 send forth this music, which all the world 
 feels is the "lost chord" in the halleluiah re- 
 demptive music for the full and free salva- 
 tion of all sick, sinning and death-struck 
 souls. 
 
 Altho the message may at first seem some- 
 what iconoclastic, it is believed that in the 
 end it will only reveal a larger and holier 
 life symphony and life synthesis. It de- 
 stroys nothing that is vital in any of the 
 great Creeds of Christendom, but fulfills 
 most wonderfully the best that is in all. 
 
 The thought that has ever been uppermost 
 in the mind of the writer can be no better 
 expressed than in the little prayer put up 
 by James Freeman Clarke, when he was 
 about to write, as the Lowell Lectures, the 
 second part of his "Ten Great Religions of 
 the World." 
 
 "May I be helped to put out of my heart 
 any wish but this, that the truth of God and 
 
Foreword 
 
 the good of men may be served by them. 
 May I be led by the Spirit to say the best 
 and most needed things — whatever may con- 
 firm love to God and men. May I rely on 
 the promise of my Master and Friend to give 
 of this Spirit to lead us into all Truth, even 
 unto the end." 
 
 To the writer the thoughts of the chapters 
 are like "My Rosary." If they become any- 
 thing like this to others; if they help to 
 make life a holy creed of heavenly deeds, he 
 shall rejoice that the good seed of the King- 
 dom has fallen upon the good soil of souls, 
 ready to bring forth abundantly of the heav- 
 enly harvest of which Jesus was the "first 
 fruits" in the garnering of God, "where the 
 reapers are the angels," and the final har- 
 vesting "the end of the world." 
 
I. 
 
 THE VISION. 
 
 "An arrow is in the heart of death." 
 
 — Alfred Noyse. 
 "Whosoever liveth and believeth in me, 
 shalll never die. Believest thou this?" 
 
 —John XI:26. 
 
 "These are the wonderful words which 
 
 Jesus the living Lord spake : Every one that 
 
 harkens to these words shall never taste of 
 
 death." — Neiv Sayings of Jesus. 
 
 "Death will be no longer, in the 
 Glare of the deathless fire." 
 
 — Tennyson. 
 
 "The whole purpose of the Bible is to tell 
 us most emphatically, that death is not the 
 will of God." — Judge Tr'oium'd (Edinburgh 
 Lectures, 1910.) 
 
 There has been no people or kindred or 
 tribe that has not longed for the redemption 
 of the body as truly as the redemption of 
 the soul. In some the hope has burned dim ; 
 
 9 
 
The Sinless, Sickless, Deathless Life 
 
 but in none has it ever been entirely ex- 
 tinguished. In some the truth has shown 
 forth so brightly as to make one feel they 
 had almost caught the glimpse of the great 
 consummation glory, as it burned undimmed 
 forever in the life and light of Jesus. 
 Egypt, the oldest of the world's civiliza- 
 tions, believed most intensely in this. "It 
 must be so," else why this longing for the 
 preservation of the bodies of their dead. 
 The sayings of their Sacred Writings tell 
 most clearly that these bodies are not made 
 to die. The writings around the walls of the 
 resting places of the departed, and the joy 
 which they had in tarrying, as in sweet con- 
 course with those who had gone on before, 
 tell that they were constantly living in great 
 expectations that these bodies would again 
 be the abode of the spirits of the departed, 
 and be finally glorified. 
 
 Christendom alone has found the climax 
 and key to this universal heart longing, for 
 it alone has brought forth the substantial 
 reality of this holy quest, and proclaimed it 
 as the gift of God to all people forevermore. 
 Christ came to save the ivhole man. In him 
 the great longing for the redemption of the 
 body is fulfilled. The great conviction, "I 
 
 10 
 
The Vision 
 
 believe in the resurrection of the body," is 
 coupled with the conviction, "and in life 
 everlasting," as the closing of the church's 
 universal and most hallowed creed. The 
 heart-wrenching sorrow at the tomb is the 
 world-wide protest of the race, that man 
 was not made to go forth in his full glory to 
 God by the dark way of the grave. Man was 
 not made to die. We were not made to be 
 "unclothed" but to be "clothed upon" with 
 the glory that cometh down from on high. 
 Paul, the great formulator of the message 
 of the Messiah forever, felt this most pro- 
 foundly. His great longing was for the re- 
 demption of our bodies, the temples of the 
 Spirit of the Most High. In his eyes, things 
 would not come forth as they were meant 
 to be, till our faith would makes us rise to 
 the mighty fact that "we should not all 
 sleep," but be "changed in the twinkling of 
 an eye." He believed most firmly that "this 
 mortal should put on immortality," and the 
 day would come when we should "be caught 
 up to be forever with the Lord." The 
 sloughing off of the body and the consigning 
 it to the tomb, "earth to earth, ashes to 
 ashes and dust to dust," was to him but a 
 travesty of the great truth of God's redemp- 
 
 11 
 
The Sinless, Sickless, Deathless Life 
 
 tive purpose. It is only because we have 
 seen the Redeemer and his great world-plan 
 "through a glass darkly," that this tragic 
 thiumph of the last great enemy of the race 
 is to be met with everywhere. The call of 
 God is into a life of faith, in which death 
 is downed and doomed forever. This fact 
 will never he accomplished till first tve have 
 faith enough to believe and "the will to be- 
 lieve" this is the Eternal's final, full and 
 universal purpose in the perfect order of 
 the world. 
 
 We could not write a line, or walk a step, 
 or perform a single deed, unless we first 
 had faith we could. Stepping out in this 
 confidence we find we have power to bring 
 about the very things we hoped for and felt 
 we had the power actually to do. So it is 
 in this great final triumph of the race, the 
 victory over death, the last enemy that Christ 
 met by his faith and forever vanquished. 
 When we believe that the redemption of the 
 body and the deathless life is the will of God 
 for every one of us — and ever act as tho we 
 thus believed — we will meet death in holy 
 victory and stand with Jesus victorious over 
 the foe that never knew a failure, and find 
 that "death and hell will be beneath our 
 
 12 
 
The Vision 
 
 feet" as triumphantly as they were beneath 
 the feet of our all-conquering Lord. Be- 
 lieving thus we will step out with a most 
 holy boldness, and meet the Goliath that has 
 taunted and terrified the ages, and find the 
 dread destroyer fall forever by the sling of 
 faith that hurls this confidence, which is in- 
 stilled into the heart by the everlasting vic- 
 tory of Jesus, with whom we are joint heirs 
 in the inheritance of all the power and pur- 
 pose of God. Then will we be able to join 
 rejoicing in the great victory song, "Oh, 
 death, where is thy sting, oh, grave, where 
 is thy victory?" This faith, which the world 
 may call a most fanatical faith, is to be the 
 forerunner of this fact of facts, that the 
 whole world is longing for to bring forth its 
 universal and full deliverance. 
 
 In the days of the great theologians in the 
 fourth century, Athanasius of Alexandria 
 stood forth supreme, as he brooked by his 
 larger faith the whole wide world. From 
 this heroic defiance was born the great 
 proverb of "Athanasius against the world." 
 Greater days than those of the framers of 
 the Athanasian creed are upon us. We are 
 to make a greater stand by far against the 
 belief of ages, and the world's universal 
 
 13 
 
The Sinless, Sickless, Deathless Life 
 
 thinking. It is to believe that death to man 
 ivas never mearit to be, and will no longer 
 be when one has faith in his heart to believe 
 that it is downed forever in the full surren- 
 der of life to the unfolding of the indwelling 
 Spirit, which is the Spirit of the Christ, the 
 Spirit of the everlasting Truth that filleth 
 all and all. Here all heaven by its call, and 
 all earth in its longing is asking us to take 
 our stand fully and forever. Faith in this 
 mighty fact will be the victory that will en- 
 able us to overcome the death penalty, and 
 make us usher in the final full day of the 
 whole race redemption, when the whole man 
 will be saved; and in this liberty of the 
 Spirit there will be a redeemed body as well 
 as a sin-cleansed heart. Then there will be 
 a new body as well as a new heart in the new 
 heaven and the new earth to be found every- 
 where about. Then the great mission of 
 the universal redemption will have been ac- 
 complished, and the travail of the Redeem- 
 er's soul shall have been satisfied, when we 
 have thus fully awakened into his perfect 
 likeness. 
 
 God does not wish to leave these souls of 
 ours in Hades; or these bodies of ours "to 
 see corruption." He came to redeem our 
 
 14 
 
The Vision 
 
 bodies as truly as to "make clean our hearts." 
 Happy will be the day when we shall by 
 faith see this consummation toward which 
 the whole creation moves ; and line up in life 
 vision with him who is "the great captain 
 of our salvation," in bringing this last great 
 victory in the Armageddon conflict, for the 
 full divine redemption of the race. Then 
 we will see that "the chief end of man, that 
 he may glorify God and enjoy him forever," 
 is to believe that the sinless, sickless, death- 
 less life is as much God's perfect purpose 
 for us, as it was declared and demonstrated 
 as his great life purpose in Jesus. 
 
 IS 
 
II. 
 
 TOLD BY THE "CHRIST OF GOD." 
 
 Coming events cast their shadows before 
 them. 
 
 The one great glory goal, toward which 
 the whole creation moves is the coming of 
 that kingdom of heaven and of God, that 
 wonderful reign of love, when men shall 
 love the Lord their God with all their mind 
 and soul and strength and their neighbor as 
 themselves. The great foregleam of this 
 glorious, divine time was flashed forth in 
 Jesus, the Messiah, who was indeed the Light 
 of the World, from whom all the torch- 
 bearers of Christendom light their tapers to 
 make them lights of the world also. Lives 
 that love are what the whole creation is 
 groaning and trembling to bring forth, lives 
 that love with the universal, disinterested, 
 altruistic love that made the Incarnation his- 
 tory's most holy moment and Calvary forever 
 most heavenly sublime. When we believe 
 that Jesus is God's most holy purpose for 
 mankind, "drawn out in living character" 
 humanly visualized; when we believe that 
 
 16 
 
Told by "The Christ of God" 
 
 the Spirit which raised Christ Jesus from the 
 dead, is the Spirit of life that abideth in us 
 who believe, to lift us also into Christ's tri- 
 umphs, we are born into a new world. Led 
 by such a Spirit we also become most truly 
 sons of the Most High. 
 
 When this Spirit of Truth comes to abide 
 in the life forever more as the eternal pilot 
 that will bring our bark in safety to the 
 docks of God, where He piloted Christ the 
 Lord of all, a whole new beauty from day to 
 day begins to dawn upon the soul. Heavenly 
 things are shown which the world feels are 
 utterly incredible. Such would most surely 
 be the case, Jesus said, for spiritual things 
 are only spiritually discerned. To speak of 
 things that by the Spirit you absolutely 
 know, often makes the world feel that you 
 are beside yourself, that "you have a devil," 
 and that your spiritual learning has made 
 you mad. 
 
 God has ever hid these things from the 
 wise and prudent and revealed them unto 
 babes. For some mysterious reason such 
 method has ever seemed good in the divine 
 eyes. The function of the school seems to be 
 only to buttress up by reason and practically 
 apply the things that the "open vision" 
 reveals. 
 
 17 
 
The Sinless, Sickless, Deathless Life 
 
 The greatest thing which the Spirit 
 through Christ thus reveals is that deathless 
 life is the diviyie design for all. God's plain 
 purpose will fail in this sublime realization 
 only when we resist by our unbelief this 
 Spirit of life that is striving for this heav- 
 enly mastery, as it strove in the heart of the 
 Master of us all. It is surprising how this 
 clear-cut purpose runs as a heavenly crypto- 
 gram throughout the Gospels, especially 
 throughout the Gospel of John. 
 
 It is needless to say that the sum and sub- 
 stance of the whole message of God was the 
 bringing of life and immortality to light, as 
 shown in Jesus and to be reshown in every 
 believer's soul. Jesus was the Life bring er 
 and the Life giver of the race. Led by his 
 spirit we are to reckon ourselves dead to sin 
 and equally dead to sickness and to death. 
 Indeed the latter are but the bitter fruitage 
 of the unbelieving or half believing soul. 
 
 That we believe we have passed from 
 death unto life in a far fuller sense than is 
 usually thought or than we have yet realized, 
 is most clearly the truth-trend in the unfold- 
 ing of John's message of our Lord. Here it is 
 in a word. In John 6:58 are these pungent 
 words : "This is the bread which came down 
 
 18 
 
Told bu "The Christ of God" 
 
 from heaven; not as your fathers ate in the 
 wilderness and are dead. He that eateth of 
 this bread shall live forever; for the bread 
 which I give I give for the life of the 
 world." The contrast seems to be clearly 
 between those who died in the wilderness, 
 though they had eaten of the heavenly manna 
 and those who are to eat of "the true bread 
 of heaven" and who are never to die. 
 
 It seems clear that God's purpose for his 
 children is that as we unfold according to 
 the divine purpose, there should not be a 
 death descent into the grave, but a divine 
 ascent into glory. It is that we should be 
 in such a friendly fellowship with God, such 
 a daily walk and talk with God, that life 
 under this heavenly companionship should 
 ripen toward that holy moment when the 
 glory that was about us in our infancy, and 
 which "in the growing child hath passed 
 away" should return and be with us in 
 ever increasing grandeur till we should not 
 see death but be caught up in an instant, in 
 the twinkling of an eye, into the larger glory 
 that awaiteth those who are to be "clothed 
 upon with the glory of their house which is 
 from on high." Such a sudden transition 
 is not contrary to, but rather in the most per- 
 
 19 
 
The Sinless, SicJcless, Deathless Life 
 
 feet keeping with experience and progress 
 that is seen about us on every side. 
 Suddenly ice passes into water, as a certain 
 temperature is reached; and the water 
 again into steam, a new mode of mani- 
 festation of matter, when the higher tem- 
 perature is passed. Suddenly the cata- 
 pillar passes into the chrysalis, and even 
 more quickly the chrysalis into the butterfly. 
 Even the scientific world is now rapidly com- 
 suddenly formed, and do not come about 
 ing to the conviction that new species are 
 after long, slow and gradual changes from a 
 change of invironment, as Darwin believed 
 and made the bed-rock of his "Origin of 
 Species," a belief accepted by practically the 
 whole scientific world since his day. De 
 Vires in his recent message on "M2itation 
 Theory," which Prof. Star of the University 
 of Chicago says is the greatest work in 
 years, startles the whole scientific world by 
 saying that "new species are formed by sud- 
 den mutations, by spurts or leaps or bounds, 
 the cause of the appearance of which is yet 
 entirely unknown." All of this truth very 
 deeply impressed John Fiske near the closing 
 moments of his life, as being perhape finger 
 boards pointing to the sudden glory that 
 
 20 
 
Told by "The Christ of God'' 
 
 awaits man in the moments when we are to 
 be caught up to be forever with the Lord. 
 It must be so. Life in its unfolding from 
 glory to glory surely is meant to pass through 
 sudden transitions, the full glory of which 
 we are not yet at all aware of. Jesus, the 
 great life revealer, is trying to press upon 
 us the mightiest and most matchless and 
 most glory-giving and most glorifying tran- 
 sition that may be ours, and 2vill be ours, if 
 we only walk fully in heaven's most holy 
 ways. He seems to say to us that to live 
 and move and have our being in the full guid- 
 ance of the Spirit means for us that the 
 moment will come when we shall not finally 
 be downed by death but be dead to death. If 
 we follow him, we shall come to the place 
 where that awful terror-moment will give 
 way to the most glorious triumph-moment; 
 when we can say with a joy unspeakable, and 
 with far more meaning than we have here- 
 tofore put into the words, "Oh death, where 
 is thy sting. Oh grave, where is now thy 
 victory?" Dead to Death! Alive to God! 
 To those who hear this truth thus boldly 
 stated today, just as the near disciples heard 
 it stated by their Lord, the following words 
 of the sacred narrative seem most true: 
 
 21 
 
The Sinless, SicJdess, Deathless Life 
 
 "Many therefore of his disciples when they 
 heard this said, This is a hard saying. Who 
 can hear it." But Jesus, knowing the weak- 
 ness of their hearts to grasp a vision so 
 glorious, a vision when held up as undown- 
 able evidence seemingly so contrary to all the 
 experience of the ages, said: "Does this 
 cause you to stumble? What then if you 
 should see the son of man ascending where 
 he was before?" It is as though he had 
 said. Would you then believe that this is 
 God's glorious purpose as life's heavenly exit 
 for us all? But even this could not make 
 Christ's hearers break with the universal 
 pre-conception of death's doom for the body, 
 and that it is the door of exit for us all. 
 "Upon this many of the disciples went back 
 and walked no more with him;" till Christ 
 with heart almost broken most pathetically 
 says to the Twelve: "And will you go away 
 also," under this message of the Messiah, 
 that is God's full, final and most glorious 
 universal message for the world? 
 
 In the record as given in John 8:51, Jesus 
 again brings the great truth before them, 
 that there might break into their hearts the 
 heavenly enlightenment. Now the message 
 is very bold ; "Verily, verily I say unto you, 
 
 22 
 
Told by "The Christ of God" 
 
 if a man keep my words, he shall never see 
 death." Then came as a reply from the 
 leaders of the people what seemed to them 
 the only possible answer and the truly im- 
 downable argument: "Now we know thou 
 hast a demon. Abraham, the father of the 
 faithful, died ; and the prophets, the best 
 men God ever sent, died ; and thou sayest if 
 a man keep my \vords he shall never see 
 death. Art thou greater than Abraham who 
 is dead, and the prophets, who died also?" 
 Yes, he ivas. And because he was, he was 
 to demonstrate most divinely in his own per- 
 son later that he could not only slip out of 
 this life into the larger life eternal, as did 
 Enoch ; or be carried to the skies in a chariot 
 of fire as was Elijah ; but he could do more. 
 He could and v/ould even put himself into the 
 very hands of death, and show its utter 
 powerlessness to hold either in body or spirit 
 a life that believes that the sinless, disease- 
 less and deathless life is God's eternal and 
 crowning purpose for Ihe race; a life that 
 the whole creation is groaning and trembling 
 to bring forth as the final full creed of 
 Christendom, as its Easter Hallelujah music. 
 Christ did not die to show that the way he 
 went was the way all should go. It was to 
 
 23 
 
The Sinless, SicJcless, Deathless Life 
 
 show that he was dead to death as truly as 
 to sin, and that he defied death as he did sin, 
 and that he is calling his followers up into 
 that holy confidence and heavenly defiance 
 also. He was going to say to this last great 
 enemy of the race before whom all men 
 thought they must fall, "Thou art forever 
 powerless." Here are his all-loving and all- 
 comprehensive words as to the place of his 
 own death in the plan for the final full sal- 
 vation of the race : 
 
 "Therefore doth the Father love me be- 
 cause I lay dov/n my life, that I may take it 
 again. No man taketh it from me. I lay 
 it down of myself. I have power to lay it 
 down, I have power to take it again. This 
 commandment I received of my father." 
 
 God gave no commandment to Jesus that- 
 he did not give to every disciple. It is God's 
 command also for us all. If we ever go 
 home by the way of the tomb, it is because 
 we will not go by Jesus' more glorious way. 
 God is waiting to have his children believe 
 that he is willing and ready to glorify him- 
 self in his children, so that they will not 
 have to go by the valley of the shadow of 
 death to glory ; but by the glorious highway 
 of the Spirit that Jesus took in the great 
 
 24 
 
Told by "The Christ of God" 
 
 ascension, the exit of the final and fullest 
 triumph. Even our most conservative theo- 
 logians feel that death has no place in th€ 
 working out of the purposed plan of God for 
 mankind. Luther, in the most inspiring 
 passage of his great "Commentary on Gala- 
 tians," which John Bunyan read constantly 
 in Bedford jail, and John Wesley said was 
 the one great book that fired him with his 
 flaming zeal for God, says: "God does not 
 want to destroy our bodies, but glo7'ify them. 
 Death has no place in the plan of God for 
 man ; and we should reckon ourselves as dead 
 to death as to sin, the source of the dark, 
 dread destroyer of mankind." 
 
 Dr. A. J. Gordon, one of the most saintly, 
 yet all-round Christ-filled men that the cen- 
 tury just past gave us, puts the vision thus: 
 
 "There is a false and widespread error 
 in regard to the relation of our bodies to the 
 redemption of Christ. It is taken for 
 granted by many that this house of clay was 
 never intended either to be repaired or 
 beautified by the renewing Spirit. The 
 caged-eagle theory of man's existence is 
 widely prevalent — the notion that the soul is 
 imprisoned in the flesh, and is beating its 
 bars in eager longing to fly away and be at 
 rest — all of which may be very good poetry, 
 but is very bad divinity. The Scripture 
 
 25 
 
The Sinless, Sickless, Deathless Life 
 
 teaches indeed that we who are in this tab- 
 ernacle do groan, being burdened: but it 
 does not therefore thrust death's writ of 
 ejection into our hands as our great consola- 
 tion, and tell us that our highest felicity con- 
 sists in moving out of this house as quickly 
 as possible. 'Not for that we would be un- 
 clothed but clothed upon, that mortality 
 might be swallowed up of life,' is the in- 
 spired testimony concerning the highest hope 
 of existence. The redemption of the body, 
 not the dissolution; resurrection, not death, 
 is set before us in the gospel as the goal of 
 victory. But because that great promise of 
 the gospel 'who shall fashion anew the body 
 of our humiliation that it may be conformed 
 to the body of his glory,' has been so largely 
 supplanted by the notion of a spiritual elimi- 
 nation taking place at death, in which a 
 purified soul is forever freed from a cum- 
 bering body, all this has been changed in 
 the dread of many. The heresy of death- 
 worship has supplanted the doctrine of the 
 resurrection with a multitude of Christians." 
 Prof. James Orr, Scotland's foremost the- 
 ologian today, in his "God's Image in Man," 
 says: 
 
 "There is nothing perhaps, in which the 
 'modern' view of the world is clearer, or 
 assertion is more confident than on the uni- 
 versal reign of death over all creatures, man 
 included. The idea that physical death is 
 not a part of man's natural lot, but has en- 
 
 26 
 
Told by "The Christ of God" 
 
 tered the world through sin, is scouted at 
 as an absurdity. . . . But I would ask 
 seriously, is it so? The body in the case of 
 man is not to be regarded as the old phi- 
 losophers thought it, as a natural prison 
 house, from which he should be glad to es- 
 cape in death. It is a part of himself — an 
 integral part of his total personality. It 
 follows then that death to him is not a 
 natural process but something altogether un- 
 natural — the violent separation of two parts 
 of his being which God never meant to be 
 separated — a rupture, a mutilation, a rend- 
 ing asunder, of his personality. . . Even 
 Weisemann the biologist says 'the origin of 
 death is one of the most difficult problems in 
 the whole range of biology,' and it seems that 
 life should come that would not die at all. 
 I resist the conclusion that death is the 
 normal lot of man ; and can find only a 
 clear and consistent position of life, on the 
 hypothesis that it is not." 
 
 The great throng of the patriarchs, mar- 
 tyrs and prophets pictured so wondrously in 
 the eleventh chapter of Hebrews also saw this 
 truth "afar off," and "died in hope not yet 
 having received the promise." But the day 
 is dawning fast when there is coming into 
 the hearts of men the great conviction that 
 the reaper of our lives, as planned in the 
 purposes of God, is not to be "death with 
 its sickle keen." The reapers are the angels, 
 
 27 
 
The Sinless, Sickless, Deathless Life 
 
 sent to bear us into the life transcendent. 
 To believe this may seem like standing 
 alone against the world. It is one against 
 most of the saints and the seers and the 
 scientists of the past, and one against all 
 throng of the thoughtless. But it is one 
 with Christ and that is one on the side 
 of the heavenly majority. He who is 
 anxious to be with the crowd will not 
 take his stand here with Jesus. Are we 
 on the side of Christ, or with the jeering 
 throng of the deniers who cry out with the 
 great rabble who rebel : *'We know that God 
 spake through Moses, this fellow we know 
 not what he says"? 
 
 A little later on Jesus again took up the 
 great theme that is some time to thrill the 
 world, which was the fiual message of the 
 glad tidings for all. This time it was more 
 in the concrete and so clear that it seems 
 one who is "a fool and slow of heart" should 
 catch the truth of truths which the race 
 some time will catch with a joy unsurpassed 
 and a boundless gratitude. It was at the 
 tomb-side of Lazarus. The incident is given 
 in John 11. Oh, the wondrous words! 
 "I am the resurrection and the life. He that 
 believeth on me, though he were dead yet 
 
 28 
 
Told by "The Christ of God" 
 
 shall he live; and whosoever liveth and be- 
 lieveth on me shall never die. Believest thou 
 this?" Four days had his friend Lazarus 
 been dead. Three days, all the world half 
 blindly believed, the spirit of the departed 
 hovers round the body, as though struggling 
 to come back again and fill it with a life 
 glorious. This traditional waiting time had 
 passed. Four days had gone since the death 
 moment, and all was forever hopeless. But 
 He whose belief was so undownable that a 
 life hid in the heart of God is deathless, was 
 to give the holy evidence that such a belief 
 was never groundless. He was to show that 
 death would have no permanent power over 
 another, if one with such confidence should 
 speak the word that would call the departed 
 back to life. And that same Christ is waiting 
 for that hallowed moment when there shall 
 be children of the Father so filled with the 
 faith of the anointed that they will show that 
 death has no power in the presence of those 
 who are in deed and in truth joint heirs 
 with Jesus. But merely to call others back 
 from the dead would mean little or nothing 
 to the universal reign of the Son of the 
 Highest. Indeed it did not awaken this 
 faith in Lazarus. It would not awaken it 
 
 29 
 
The Sinless, SicJcless, Deathless Life 
 
 in others, merely to call them back from 
 death to life. What God is working for in 
 this world is such a faith in the followers of 
 his Son as to make them overcomers such as 
 he is in all things. In the presence of 
 threatened death, this victory would shine 
 forth most glorious. 
 
 Merely coming back from the dead would 
 not do this. It must come by our looking 
 into the life of him who was the resurrection 
 and the life. Only faith will awaken that 
 glorious confidence that "he that believeth in 
 me shall never die." That is the final, full 
 lesson of the Spirit. Some day it will 
 dawn upon the heart with such a wondrous 
 vision, that one will cry out with a joy like 
 the angels, "Eureka — I have found the pearl 
 of priceless value — I see the glory-goal of 
 all creation — Christ's triumph of the death- 
 less life." Thitherward you will run, never 
 weary; and walk on the journey to that 
 glory-place and never faint; for you know 
 that in the last great stand you will have to 
 take against the foe never yet conquered, 
 you will come off as victorious before it 
 as did our Lord the Christ. In this faith 
 you will walk, till by sight you will see the 
 fact wonderful. Then when the victory 
 
 30 
 
Told by "The Christ of God" 
 
 shall have become yours, you will rejoice 
 forever that you were permitted to blaze 
 the way for other souls to walk this path 
 hitherto uritrod since our Lord passed this 
 way, who is ever calling us to follow boldly 
 where he has led the way by such a wonder- 
 ful light of experience. 
 
 Now comes the last great test for Jesus. 
 Can the Christ do what he said he ivould? 
 Can he by faith throw himself into the jaws 
 of death, and come off unscathed in the con- 
 flict? Calvary was to be the great place of 
 the test. It was called Golgotha, the place 
 of the skull. "The place of the skull," the 
 whole world says is the final place of all. 
 The greatest of the Greek philosophers had 
 ever before him the skull as a constant re- 
 minder that philosophy knows no way lead- 
 ing out of life's mystery that will let us es- 
 cape this as the common goal of all. Saint 
 Francis, "the most beautiful character since 
 Saint John and Jesus," in his hermit cell, 
 had the skull ever before him, between the 
 Bible and the crucifix: "for," said he, "it is 
 the awful reminder that somehow and some- 
 where, this must be banished as the common 
 end of all. But how, only God knows how." 
 One of the greatest pictures of the modern 
 
 31 
 
The Sinless-, Sickless, Deathless Life 
 
 artist is that of the Magdalene lying pros- 
 trate, reading, before the skull. It is the 
 soul of the artist saying that the end of all, 
 with literature as your light, is the same as 
 that of the philosopher and the saint, the 
 skull. Even modern society in its merry 
 giddy-go-round has had its heart touched, 
 and for a mement has been made to come to 
 itself, by that rare etching, picturing, as it 
 were in a mirror, the skull as the last sad 
 scene of life, whether it is finished as a farce 
 or as a tragedy. On the tombstones of the 
 graves of the Puritans, this also was the ever 
 present reminder of the dark tomb with its 
 earth to earth, ashes to ashes, and dust to 
 dust. The skull and cross-bones were chis- 
 eled with every epitaph, as though life must 
 in the end fold its arms forever helpless be- 
 fore this dread enemy of the race. But on 
 Calvary, Christ once and forever wiped all 
 this out ; and it is left to the believer only to 
 appropriate to himself the glories of that 
 triumphantly finished work. The taunts of 
 the traitors and the tirades of the tribes, at 
 that awful moment flung back into the face 
 of the Saviour the "impossible" in this awful 
 conflict. "He saved others, himself he can- 
 not save." "Thou that destroyest the temple 
 
 32 
 
Told by "The Christ of God" 
 
 and buildest it in three days, come down 
 from the cross and save thyself, if thou be 
 the Son of God." Where now was his faith 
 in the deathless life? Where now is the 
 glory of the body, aglow with the glory of 
 the highest? 
 
 Yet the resurrection moment came, when 
 he did as he said he would. And Oh, how 
 glorious ! He then could say, I told you that 
 death was downed and doomed, forever. If 
 one only believes, he will also experience the 
 glory of it. A new life was Christ's after- 
 wards. He had slain the last enemy of the 
 race, and you and I are to accept this victory, 
 as much a part of our full salvation as any 
 other of the good news that the God-spell of 
 Jesus brings us. 
 
 Only one poor soul seemed to have caught 
 a glimpse of this glory that awaiteth, and 
 that was Mary of Magdala who at the last 
 feast anointed the Lord with the precious 
 ointment which she had saved for her own 
 burial. She must have felt, for the moment 
 at least, that he who saved her from her 
 awful life of sin would save her from the 
 tomb and she would not need the burial oint- 
 ment. Even the harlots, as Jesus said, catch 
 glimpses of the glory of the kingdom before 
 
 33 
 
The Sinless, SicJdess, Deathless Life 
 
 many of the wisest. When she poured the 
 ointment for her burial upon her Lord, he 
 said, "Let her alone. She hath done this 
 against the day of my burial." To her as 
 to him there was at that moment a feeling 
 that, in living contact with such a life in the 
 Father as Jesus had and ever giveth, there 
 could be no burial. 
 
 Now with a far deeper and richer mean- 
 ing, come the last words of Jesus to the 
 disciples. "When he, the Spirit, is come he 
 will convince the world of sin, of righteous- 
 ness and of judgment." "Of judgment be- 
 cause the prince of this world is judged." 
 The prince of this world is the prince of 
 darkness that has ever put the fear of death 
 into our lives. Jesus came to draw out the 
 sting of death. When thou seest him lifted 
 up triumphant over death thou mayst rest 
 assured that the Spirit that took him in 
 triumph out of the very jaws of death, will 
 do this to thee also, if thou wilt only believe. 
 Faith alone, here as everywhere, is what 
 brings the mighty triumph. Here you can 
 take your stand; God is helping you by his 
 completed work, most clearly shown for you 
 in Christ, and to be in you, if you will but 
 by faith appropriate it. How can his words 
 
 34 
 
Told hy "The Christ of God" 
 
 mean aught else : "I am the resurrection and 
 the life; whosoever liveth and believeth in 
 me shall never die. Believest thou this?" 
 Stand up, Oh redeemed soul that believest 
 that Christ is the expression of thy full and 
 complete salvation and answer him, as he 
 speaks to thee, the Everlasting Yes. Drown 
 down by a divine demonstration through 
 thyself the whole chorus of the sirens, sing- 
 ing and sighing the Everlasting No. This 
 is the way of the saved into the fullness of 
 life and light. Walk forward boldly under 
 the leading of this blessed spirit. The ec- 
 clesiastical lions, that may roar about thee, 
 are all chained by him who giveth his angels 
 charge to keep thee in this blessed way, 
 which God is opening up as the final high- 
 way by which we are to come into the inex- 
 pressible glory-light. Calvary, the place of 
 the skull, is forever passed for thee. It is 
 nailed with thy sins to the accursed tree. 
 Thou hast part in the first resurrection. 
 Death and hell are for thee cast into the lake 
 that burneth forever; they have no more 
 power over thee in the great deliverance. 
 It is the last turn in the way of life, from 
 which the New Jerusalem bursts upon thee 
 with the radiance that no man can describe. 
 
 35 
 
The Sinless, Sickless, Deathless Life 
 
 Then there is a new earth with this new 
 heaven let down from above. Sickness and 
 sighing and death are gone forever in the full 
 victory that overcometh. Now is fulfilled 
 the great prophecy of the Hebrew Targum: 
 "Nine thousand myriads of worlds receive 
 influence from, and are upheld by, that Gol- 
 gotha, the skull." 
 
 This is the thought alone that makes the 
 Holy Communion forever most heavenly and 
 sublime. "With desire have I desired to eat 
 this passover, the last passover with you be- 
 fore I suffer, for I shall eat no more of the 
 fruit of the vine till it, the passover, shall be 
 fulfilled in the kingdom of God." 
 
 The passover, as all know, got its name 
 from the most wonderful of the series of 
 God's great deliverances of his chosen people. 
 
 It was well called the passover, for the 
 Israelite by this feast recalled above all else 
 how the "death angel" passed over their 
 home that night when he brought sorrow so 
 universal to the people of Egypt. The 
 blood on the doorpost meant no death of the 
 first born in the home of the Israelite. The 
 passover was a feast memorial of this; yet 
 it was much more. It was a feast prophetic 
 of a glorious time divine, when the angel of 
 
 36 
 
Told by ''The Christ of God'' 
 
 death should be ever passed and over with 
 us. When that came the kingdom of heaven 
 would be fulfilled, fill us full of the rule of 
 the divine law and love. That time came as 
 the first fruits in Jesus. Over him the death 
 angel waved his wand, but there was no vic- 
 tory; he could not do his dark and deadly 
 work. Jesus was the great overcomer in 
 place of the overcome. The Circe wand 
 could not do for him what it had done as a 
 deed so dark and deadly for all the race. He 
 was immune to death. The life of God 
 coursed through his very being; he had 
 passed from death unto life. At the last 
 supper he took the cup "after supper," that 
 no one was allowed to drink, save on the pen- 
 alty of death. It was the Elijah's cup. It was 
 the one that could be drunk of only when 
 Elijah the deathless should return and hand 
 it to the lips of those whom God has destined 
 to become forever deathless. But a greater 
 than Elijah had come. It was the longed- 
 for Messiah of the race. It was the death- 
 less one to whose coming the passover ever 
 looked forward as the great divine event 
 toward which the whole creation longed as 
 the striking hour of the deathless life. Then 
 most staggering of all, Jesus rose, the master 
 
 37 
 
The Sinless, Sickless, Deathless Life 
 
 of the holy feast. He goes not to the open 
 door, as was the custom, nor looks out into 
 the darkness, saying, "Oh, Elijah, when wilt 
 thou come and give us to drink of the sacred 
 cup," as was the most solemn moment of the 
 great feast. He riseth from supper and 
 taketh the cup of Elijah, and said, to the 
 startled, staggering amazement of them all, 
 "Drink ye all of it." He had already drunk. 
 He had the potency of the divine so deep in 
 his soul, that the fruitage of the deathless 
 life was bound to come. But he would have 
 nothing for himself that he would not have 
 for all. So he says to them. Drink ye all of 
 it. Ye are joint heirs with me of the death- 
 less life, if ye will only by faith accept it. 
 My blood not only is upon the door posts of 
 your house, but courses by faith through 
 your very life. 7^ was fulfilled with Jesus. 
 It may be fulfilled in us, if we only believe. 
 It will be fulfilled sometime and somewhere, 
 in some life through the very divine demon- 
 stration of which there will come the blessed 
 return of the Spirit of Christ to the heart- 
 sick, heaven-homesick world. Then the 
 kingdom of heaven will be within us. Then 
 will be the day of the great Jubilee. The 
 New Jerusalem will be ours, and we shall be 
 
 38 
 
Told by ''The Christ of God'* 
 
 one in the glorious life of the passover for- 
 ever fulfilled; and the whole earth will be 
 filled with the glory of this final vision, most 
 rapturous and most sublimely divine. The 
 deathless life is God's glory goal, and earth's 
 glory goal. It is the riches that only heaven 
 can give. Beside it, all is but dust and ashes 
 to the soul. We who are of the "Church of 
 the First Born" and "whose names are writ- 
 ten in heaven," have sprinkled upon the very 
 doorposts of our being "the blood of the 
 lamb, slain from the foundation of the 
 world." The death angel will and must pass 
 over us forever, if we will only believe that 
 the deathless life is the full and final will of 
 God for all who are in Christ Jesus. 
 
 The whole thought creation is groaning and 
 trembling to bring forth the deathless life 
 as the great cardinal conviction of the heart. 
 Why the truth seen in such glory glimpses 
 has not burst forth into a clear, steady light 
 as the crowning glory of the creed of Chris- 
 tendom long ago, is one of the greatest 
 mysteries one has to face, but no greater 
 than "the existence of evil," or why the long- 
 looked-for Messiah did not appear long be- 
 fore he came, or why the church universal 
 has lived in such long expectation for his 
 
 39 
 
The Sinless, Sickless, Deathless Life 
 
 "second coming," which the first followers 
 of the Lord thought might come at any time. 
 On the other hand it solves these three great 
 mysteries, as nothing ever has. 
 
 All this is not a belief that makes a life 
 merely ecstatic. Indeed it is quite other- 
 wise. It is a faith that steadies life, and 
 makes it move on in "majestic sweetness," 
 and with "a sweet reasonableness," yet with 
 a most blessed assurance, that all things 
 work for good in this world, and all trials are 
 but goads of God or the flails of the angels 
 bringing us into the heavenly highway of 
 holiness. It is the beginning of the longed- 
 for Millenium. Out of the reign of universal 
 law you have passed into His life of everlast- 
 ing love. It is the touch that plants your 
 feet firmly on the earth ; but it lifts your 
 head far beyond the stars, and nestles your 
 heart in the bosom of God! 
 
 "Man's thought is like Antaeus, and must be 
 Touched to the ground of Nature to regain 
 Fresh force, new impulse, else it would remain 
 Dead in the grip of strong Authority. 
 But once thereon reset, 'tis like a tree 
 Sap-swolen in Spring time; bonds may not restrain 
 Nor weight repress; its rootlets rend in twain 
 Dead stones and wall and rocks resistlessly !" 
 
 40 
 
Told by "The Christ of God" 
 
 Thus Christ touched Death 
 The dread destroyer of us all. But when 
 We enter into Fellowship with him 
 Who is the resurrection and the life; 
 We know the deathless life is ours as his 
 And Faith has found its fullest, fairest victory, 
 The world its glorious Easter-tide. 
 
 41 
 
III. 
 
 SEEN BY ARTISTS AND SEERS. 
 
 The poets, the artists and the seers are 
 but God's fingerboards everywhere pointing 
 to the deathless life as the great golden 
 milestone of the ages, toward which every 
 thought-road trends. It is the final hallowed 
 rest place of all the throngs without number 
 "stepping heavenward." 
 
 One of the most wonderful of these seer 
 visions is from the Talmud. "When the 
 Messiah shall come," it says, "a million 
 hearts shall rejoice at the place of the skull." 
 There, they felt, would come deliverance 
 from death; and these mortal bodies would 
 be forever divinely glorified. To translate 
 the many words into our common thought 
 vernacular, using their own precise terms, 
 the message runs in this way: "When the 
 Macrocosm, the greater world, will come into 
 the Microcosm, the little world, then shall 
 come our full life deliverance." It means 
 when the great thought of the deathless life, 
 which is the triumphant thought of the Uni- 
 versal mind, shall have come into and taken 
 full possession of our little minds, making 
 us believe this is our heavenly inheritance; 
 
 42 
 
Seen by Artists and Seers 
 
 then the very holding of this great conviction 
 will most surely bring about that for which 
 millions upon millions have dreamed of and 
 longed for in life's great quest. Then shall 
 the whole man be glorified; and redeemed 
 in body, he shall walk in the everlasting light 
 of God. 
 
 The Jewish seer who by heavenly insight 
 wrote these most prophetic words certainly 
 caught a glimpse of what was fulfilled 
 forever on Calvary, the "place of the skull," 
 and of the glories of the resurrection and the 
 ascension afterwards. All that is left for 
 us to do is to appropriate this truth once for 
 all delivered to the world in the concrete 
 through the death and resurrection of Jesus, 
 and which is the last and greatest of "the 
 things of Christ" that the Spirit is to take 
 and make real unto us. This makes us 
 break the "bread of heaven" to men, ever 
 feeding the famishing heart of humanity, 
 lifting it out of the throngs of the mortal into 
 the countless legions of the immortal. This 
 makes us see that Calvary is the place where 
 we may be by faith as dead to death forever, 
 as was the forerunner on life's great heav- 
 enly highway, who by the glorified body has 
 entered into the rest that remaineth, into 
 
 43 
 
The Sinless, Sickless, Deathless Life 
 
 the life that is forever deathless. How the 
 scales over the eyes of the world keep it 
 from seeing this truth of truths, which, as 
 surely as tomorrow's sun, is to be the vision 
 that is to bring in the great Jubilee of the 
 world's deliverance ! The veil over the eyes 
 of Jewdom which keeps it from seeing that 
 Jesus has come as the great long looked for 
 Messiah is not greater than the veil over the 
 eyes of Christendom which keeps it form see- 
 ing that by faith we are to appropriate the 
 deathless life of Jesus to our own souls. We 
 are to rest assured that we have passed from 
 death unto life, in the same way that Jesus 
 has entered into this everlasting inheritance. 
 
 This truth, as the seer-artist Merson has 
 most graphically and prophetically pictured 
 it, is written even larger and deeper into the 
 life of the Egyptian. In the artist's "The 
 Repose in Egypt" the truth of the prophetic 
 vision of the Talmud is told with a power 
 that cannot fail to grip us. 
 
 There, as silent as the ages, lies the great 
 Sphinx, half buried in the sands of the 
 desert. It is night; a most holy night. 
 All about is breathless stillness. The 
 holy family have gone down into Egypt. 
 The virgin mother and the Christ child, the 
 
 44 
 
Seen by Artists and Seers 
 
 bringer of life and immortality to light, are 
 lying in sweet repose in the arms of the 
 great Sphinx, the enigma of history as well 
 as the mystery of Egypt. The ass which has 
 brought them on their long journey stands 
 still in sleep also. Joseph with his face 
 turned from the virgin mother and the Holy 
 Child is lying also asleep in the desert. The 
 trappings of the journey are his only pillow 
 and the starry canopy of heaven his only 
 coverlet. The little fire burns low in the 
 desert sand waste. Its smoke is ascending 
 heavenward, as straight as the arrow flies, 
 telling there is stirring not a breath of air; 
 not enough of the coming of the wind to 
 move an aspen leaf. A holy hush is all 
 about. The stars seem to look down with 
 breathless waiting upon that thrice hallowed 
 silence. Then there comes a light. It is the 
 only light. It is the light that "never shone 
 on land or sea." It is the light of heaven's 
 effulgence, breaking forth and flooding all 
 with heavenly beauty, as it comes myster- 
 iously from the Christ child's presence. It 
 is the Light of the World, which is Jesus! 
 What a prophetic fulfillment! All Egypt, 
 as no other people on the face of the earth, 
 longed for and looked most expectantly for- 
 
 45 
 
The Sinless, Sickless, Deathless Life 
 
 ward to the coming of the Osirus Nu, the 
 Spirit of the great God of Life, Osirus, into 
 the heart of humanity, that should so fill it 
 that these bodies of ours should not die, but 
 should be raised into newness of life. Then 
 we should be glorified, and death would go 
 down forever as the last race enemy we had 
 to meet, and we should all sing the song of 
 the everlasting triumph. All the Book of 
 the Dead — the Bible of Egypt — is filled with 
 the most precious passages, telling that this 
 is the great expectation that was filling the 
 heart of the Nile folks. They mummied 
 their dead and built their great temples and 
 made their tombs like the homes of holy 
 communion with the departed, all because 
 they believed that there would come a time 
 of the completest race redemption, when 
 these bodies would be glorified, and the 
 spirits of the just made perfect would walk 
 forever in the newness of life, in the com- 
 pleted purpose of Osirus, the god of ever- 
 lasting life and light. 
 
 But the hope so long deferred made the 
 heart of the nation sick, even unto death. 
 As a last and lasting monument of this 
 hopeless despair, they set up the great stone 
 Sphinx as a symbol of their hope of hopes 
 
 46 
 
Seen by A7'tists and Seers 
 
 forever unfilled; so that all the ages to 
 come might read the death of God's ideal in 
 their souls, a death that meant the wiping 
 out forever of the greatest ancient civiliza- 
 tion from the earth. How significant the 
 memorial they set up. It was the head of 
 the man and the body of the beast. It was 
 a telling that they believed that there should 
 be a transformation from the carnal into the 
 spiritual, even if they did not know how or 
 where it should be accomplished. They felt 
 the great enigma of life was "man or 
 beast"; and hoped that the time would 
 come and believed it would come when 
 mortality should put on immortality, and 
 these bodies would be glorified, and there 
 would come the race's final and full de- 
 liverance. But Egypt fell into the sleep of 
 death, because it lost faith in the fullness 
 now of the triumphant life. 
 
 But in the fullness of time, God sent the 
 long looked-for deliverer of humanity, Jesus. 
 The first thing he did was to send his child 
 into Egypt, as though he would tell to them 
 that the prophecy through them so long de- 
 ferred was to be fulfilled now forever. The 
 artist has caught the seer vision wonder- 
 fully as he makes the Christ child, born alone 
 
 47 
 
The Sinless, Sickless, Deathless Life 
 
 from above, and giving forth the heavenly 
 light that was forevermore to waken the 
 world from Egyptian darkness, lie in the 
 arms of the Sphinx. Thus he makes the 
 nations feel that the prophecy of the whole 
 wide world, regarding the coming of the 
 deathless life, was being fulfilled. This 
 glorious prophecy was blooming into actual 
 history. The dream that nations had so long 
 been dreaming was coming true. The glori- 
 fied body and the deathless life were in 
 Jesus actually to be realized, so that all the 
 world might catch the glory of the gerat 
 ideal, and be caught up into it. Christ came 
 to show that he was the fulfiller of all this 
 hope of humanity as it burned so strong and 
 bright in the heart of Egypt. Into Egypt 
 God sent his Son to tell us that the longing of 
 Egypt at her best shall be satisfied ; and that 
 the dreams that nations dream of the death- 
 less life and the glorified body that shall 
 finally accompany it shall come true. Christ 
 was the one sent of God under the guidance 
 of his Spirit to tell that this was the crown- 
 ing glory of God's universal redemptive pur- 
 pose. Egypt, the land of Misereme, the 
 land of such misery to God's chosen people, 
 was the land into which Jesus first must go 
 
 48 
 
Seen hy Artists and Seers 
 
 to tell them that their holy quest was to be 
 realized, and that the deathless life of the 
 world they longed for as no other people 
 was to be declared forever, through him 
 who was the life and light of the whole 
 world. Jesus proclaimed this good news of 
 the full redemption by faith and fact, by a 
 most practical demonstration as well as by 
 his priceless precepts. 
 
 This same truth burned as a seer vision 
 in the heart of Sargent, one of the very best 
 of our modern artists. It is brought out 
 most graphically in his last mural decora- 
 tion in the Boston Public Library, his great 
 allegorical work, "The Dogma of Redemp- 
 tion." All know how the story of the race 
 in its long development from savagery up, 
 has been told by various artist, in their 
 many decorations in symbols and forms, 
 throughout this great temple of truth. The 
 mural decorations, from the lowest hall to 
 the upmost, seem like "frozen music" in art, 
 whose strains are like a "Coronation" of 
 Him from whom all blessings flow from 
 heaven to earth. To Sargent was given the 
 great honor of decorating the topmost halls 
 of this great corridor of wisdom, through 
 which throngs are ever to pass. He was to 
 
 49 
 
The Sinless, Sickless, Deathless Life 
 
 tell in imagery and ideal the consummation 
 of the ages as learning was to lead us into 
 it. One thing only was suggested to him, 
 and that was that he was to make the theme 
 of his great message "that in Israel should 
 all the world be finally and forever blest." 
 God's chosen people should be the ones 
 through whom the last word was to be said 
 for the redemption of the race. With this 
 understanding he took up his task. On one 
 end of the great upper hall, he wrought out 
 some years ago, what was then his famous 
 masterpiece, the "Prophets." A marked 
 separation runs across the wall, dividing the 
 lunette from the frieze beneath. Above this 
 is pictured in glowing allegory, the great 
 historic religions of the land of the Tigris 
 and the Euphrates on the one side; and on 
 the other the great religion of Egypt with 
 its worship of heaven's starry host. 
 Beneath these is painted the story of God's 
 chosen people in their awful slave bondage, 
 when God gave them up to servitude, on 
 account of their resistance of his gracious 
 plan and purpose. Out from the clouds, 
 above the "other gods," is seen stretched 
 down the arm of Jehovah, touching by his 
 restraining power the slayers of his chosen 
 
 50 
 
Seen by Artists and Seers 
 
 people. It is a telling in a story most glor- 
 ious, that religion is the most real thing in 
 all the world, and God as revealed through 
 Israel is of all gods the greatest. It is a 
 telling that religion is the crowning glory of 
 all people of the earth; and that of all re- 
 ligions, that of the Jew is the full and final 
 expression of the will of God for all the race. 
 
 Beneath this mingling of myth and history 
 in master strokes of art, there runs the 
 heavy line of complete separation from the 
 wide frieze just underneath. In this is the 
 long row of the "Prophets" justly world 
 famous. Moses, the lawgiver of his people 
 — the greatest of the prophets — is brought 
 out most prominently and is the very center 
 of the group. He is holding the great stone 
 tables of the Law, given for all people for 
 all time, from the very hands of God at 
 Sinai's summit. How he seems to stand 
 out from all, in boldest relief. 
 
 The prophets on either side of this great 
 "deliverer of his people" from Egyptian 
 bondage are all centered around him who 
 holds the Law as the great purpose of all 
 that God would speak to and through their 
 hearts. One and all of these messengers of 
 the Almighty seem to be lifted up with hope 
 
 51 
 
The Sinless, Sickless, Deathless Life 
 
 like Isaiah; or bowed down with unutter- 
 able grief like Jeremiah, the weeping, 
 "shrieking" prophet. They all felt the holy 
 fire of God burning in their hearts; and 
 spoke forth the message for their people's 
 deliverance ; saying that God was calling all 
 men out of bondage into freedom, and that 
 sin was the one sole thing that kept them 
 from the liberty of the deathless life. The 
 whole message from the brush of this great 
 artist-seer, in his mural decoration, is the 
 story of religion at its best, before the com- 
 ing of Christ. It tells how the Jew was the 
 main artery in the heart life of the world. 
 The Hebrews felt the life of the true God 
 coursing through their being as did no other 
 people. They embodied in their Book of 
 Books the more or less perfect realization of 
 the heart longings of all other folks. They 
 were the expression of religion in the super- 
 lative. Other peoples had this priceless mes- 
 sage only in a comparative degree. But 
 God was speaking to Israel that through 
 them, in the fullness of time, he might bless 
 the entire race with a universal and per- 
 petual pentecost. 
 
 The whole theme is wonderful in its con- 
 ception. As the artist has worked it out, 
 
 52 
 
Seen by Artists and Seers 
 
 it is just as wonderful in its execution. It 
 is a silent, enduring sermon to the throngs 
 that pass by and look upon it in holy won- 
 derment. But it is still a message that lies 
 imperfect in the heart of the Old Testament, 
 a message that must be unfolded into the 
 passion flower of the ages, through him who 
 bloomed and made fragrant the earth, like 
 a flower of Paradise. 
 
 The artist felt all this; hence there came 
 another moment to him in his heart awaken- 
 ing, a moment that revealed to him the 
 heavenly sequel to this thrice holy message 
 that had burned so wondrously in his heart. 
 On the opposite wall, in the long corridor, 
 he has painted the great fulfillment of this 
 mighty message which has charmed the ages 
 — the matchless story of Calvary. All who 
 asked him to take up the holy task left him 
 perfectly untrammeled as to the way he 
 would work it out. He confessed he had 
 had no experience along this line of holy art. 
 But into his mind and heart there came like 
 a vision from above the conception that sure- 
 ly flesh and blood never revealed unto him. 
 Only the Father of Light could have given 
 the art vision that seems the highest this age 
 has had of the great purpose of redemption, 
 
 53 
 
The Sinless, Sickless, Deathless Life 
 
 and the true place of the Jewish Messiah as 
 the final and complete Redeemer of the race. 
 Again there runs across the wall a great 
 line of separation between the lunette and 
 the freize beneath, as that between the 
 "Prophets" and the allegory of the old 
 heathen religions, on the wall opposite, only 
 here the separation is not complete. Above 
 in the lunette is both painted and moulded 
 with the rarest touches of art, the scene of 
 all scenes most deathless and divine, the 
 crucifixion of Jesus. There on the cross, 
 over which are written the Latin words, 
 "Dying for the sins of the world," hangs the 
 dying Saviour of the race. On the one side 
 of our dying Lord is bound up with him 
 Adam, the father of all humanity; and on 
 the other, wrapped with the common girdle, 
 is Eve, the mother of all the race. No such 
 conception of Jesus' vital place in the world 
 life has ever entered into the mind and heart 
 of an artist, ere this. The face of Adam, 
 the forebear of our humanity, is coarse and 
 cloddy, showing that he was truly the most 
 earthy of the earth. The face of Eve, the 
 world-mother, has in it the traces of the more 
 heavenly and eternal hope. Each hold out 
 in their hands golden chalices to catch the 
 
 54 
 
Seen by Artists and Seers 
 
 blood floAving from the wounds of the nail 
 prints in the hands of the crucified Christ. 
 Beneath, entwining the feet of the Saviour, 
 is the serpent that had so long bruised the 
 heel of the race. And still underneath this 
 is wrought in the foot of the cross, held by 
 the angels, the most beautiful picture in 
 symbolism, telling the purpose of Calvary for 
 all the race. It is a representation moulded 
 and wrought out in the purest gold, of the 
 pelican driving its beak into its own vitals; 
 taking of its very own life blood to be given 
 to its offspring as their only source of life. 
 Here is the whole message of redemption 
 written like "apples of gold in pictures of 
 silver." It is the story of the ages written 
 in the sign language of nature, ready to be 
 read without doubt as to its meaning, by 
 every child of humanity. Giving his life 
 blood a ransom from death for many ; that 
 is the way the Christ is dying for the race. 
 
 Fallen humanity, pictured so naively in 
 Genesis in the persons of our first parents, 
 is taking of the life blood of the great life 
 giver of humanity, who by his death has 
 forever brought life and immortality to 
 light. Eternal life, so long lost, is now for- 
 ever found. It is for all. The Christ bound 
 
 55 
 
The Sinless, Sickless, Deathless Life 
 
 up with Adam and Eve in this holy resur- 
 rection shows that with God there is neither 
 male or female, in the great restoration that 
 through Calvary he is forever bringing back, 
 Christ came to have us all drink of the 
 blood-covenant, that binds us back to the 
 life of the Eternal. This alone is to bring 
 us all into the deathless life of Jesus. It is 
 the dawning of the new day upon all hu- 
 manity. It is the coming of the "divine de- 
 mocracy" which means that whatever was 
 in the life of our Lord is to be in the life of 
 all of us. This is the "Dogma of Redemp- 
 tion," with all the halo of heaven about it. 
 
 Underneath all, the artist has placed the 
 most wondrous words which he once found 
 on the altar piece in Florence: "He came to 
 redeem our bodies and to cleanse our hearts." 
 This is the rhapsody of the redemption of 
 the ages. This is the final reality forever 
 of it. Anything short of this has missed 
 the mark of its most hallowed purpose. The 
 redeemed body as well as the stainless heart 
 is the whole round meaning of Calvary. To 
 proclaim anything less as the passion of 
 Golgotha is coming short of the crowning 
 purpose of the Cross. 
 
 In the lunette above the Crucifixion scene 
 
 56 
 
Seen by Artists and Seers 
 
 is the Trinity, with the "seven spirits around 
 the throne." It is as though the artist would 
 say that, sacred as the thought of the 
 Trinity has been to the church through all 
 the Christian centuries, even more sacred is 
 this great rounded out, complete thought of 
 the full and free redemption to be to us for- 
 ever. Nothing is so holy; nothing lifts one 
 so into the very holy of holies, as to feel that 
 this is the great divine design — That we are 
 to be fullij as well as forever one with Christ 
 Jesus. He came to redeem our bodies as 
 well as to cleanse our hearts. Calvary will 
 be always a mystery till we find this com- 
 plete message in it. Then will it cease to 
 be the place that is "dark and dreadful." 
 It will become the place bathed ever in 
 heaven's most holy light and life. 
 
 Even more remarkable than all this won- 
 drous imagery is that other conception of 
 the artist, as a result of which he allows the 
 foot of the cross, expressing the wonderful 
 truth drawn from the sybolism of the stork, 
 to break through the separation of the frieze 
 into the space beneath. In the picture on 
 the opposite wall, the separation between 
 heaven and earth was complete. There was 
 no place where God broke through, as though 
 
 57 
 
The Sinless, Sickless, Deathless Life 
 
 he came to stay. But here the foot of the 
 cross breaks into the place where the world 
 lives. About it, corresponding to the 
 prophet figures on the opposite side, are 
 eight angels, bathed in heaven's most efful- 
 gent light. Two, with their faces radiant 
 as they seem to to catch God's final, fullest 
 purpose, are holding the cross. Three 
 others, on each side, are holding the instru- 
 ments of torture at the crucifixion — the 
 nails, the hammer, the scourge and the 
 sponge, the ladder and the spear that pierced 
 the side of Jesus, from which flowed the 
 water and the blood for the cleansing and 
 the vivifying of the coming race. All of 
 these are held by angels, filled with joy, as 
 much as to say forever to the world, that 
 our greatest griefs and tortures are but the 
 flails of the angels driving us into the way 
 of the more perfect and triumphant life. 
 What a marked contrast are these to the 
 prophets on the other side, who one and all 
 seem to be saying, "Oh, if God would but 
 rend the heavens and come down." The 
 angels in their exultant joy seem to be say- 
 ing, "He has come down and tabernacled 
 among us; and is giving himself that we 
 should be taken up into the fullness of his 
 
 58 
 
Seen by Artists and Seers 
 
 glory of the redeemed body and the deathless 
 life." 
 
 If we will believe all this as God's good 
 purpose for every believer, we shall be no 
 longer among the prophets, still shut out of 
 heaven, wailing to have God rend the heav- 
 ens and come down to us, that his full glory 
 may burst upon us. We shall rather be 
 among the angels rejoicing that God has 
 come into our bodies, the very temples of his 
 presence, and given us a joy that sends forth 
 a song that no one can ever learn, save those 
 who have accepted by faith this full and 
 free salvation for all of us. Then the long 
 night of life shall have burst into the eternal 
 day; the joy of which knows no bounds; 
 and the peace of which is like a river bear- 
 ing one along from glory to glory, to the 
 final fullness of life in the full consummation 
 of the life of Jesus. 
 
 The artists and seers have also caught 
 two great corollaries of the deathless life, 
 which are the ones that will ever be to the 
 world its greatest joy. 
 
 One is that all worry and fear are to go 
 in the faith of the great deliverance from 
 death and the grave. Dante opened his 
 immortal dream by telling of the words over 
 
 59 
 
The Sinless, Sickless, Deathless Life 
 
 the entrance to the lost's dreadful abode — 
 "Abandon all hope all ye who enter here." 
 He has also told the most joyous news of 
 how we are to abandon all fear when once 
 we have entered into the great full fellow- 
 ship of the Redeemer and the redeemed. It 
 is a wonderful vision. The fire-brands are 
 falling from Hell. As they touch the bared 
 backs of the doomed they bring a torture 
 to the tormented that no language can tell. 
 But as they fall upon the backs of the saved, 
 these brands are transformed into the fairest 
 and most fragrant roses from Paradise, and 
 bring a joy supernal to the blest of God. 
 
 So is the vision of the full deliverance 
 from all our woes, that faith is alone to 
 bring. The fire-brands of hell as they fall 
 upon the hearts of the unbeliever bring tor- 
 ture untenable. But as they fall upon the 
 hearts of the full believer they are like the 
 flowers from the garden of the gods that 
 make life fragrant with the aroma of heaven 
 and bring unspeakable joy. They make us 
 realize the wonders of our great divine de- 
 liverance, and no longer the awfulness of 
 our former woe. 
 
 The other thing the seer vision brings as 
 a great life corollary is that the drudgery of 
 
 60 
 
Seen by Artists and Seers 
 
 life is turned into a thing of the greatest 
 delight. Sacrifice and service are the 
 sweetest words to be ever heard. 
 
 Mrs. Bartome, the Queen of the "King's 
 Daughters" for so many years, told how this 
 great discovery came as a great divine life 
 recovery to her own soul. She said she was 
 in the Louvre at Paris once, and saw the 
 famous picture, which she loves to call "the 
 angels of the kitchen." It is a scene where 
 in a place within the palace the food is 
 being prepared. All who are doing even 
 the most menial service are angels. Over 
 the faces of one and all plays the light of 
 heaven. In the faces of all is a delight that 
 no one can fully tell. Service and sacrifice, 
 under the full guidance of the Spirit, seem 
 like benedictions of heaven to us and are a 
 dread and drudgery no more. By them, in 
 our new-found joy, we bless and save the 
 world. 
 
 All this was the practical side of the 
 deathless message of Jesus. He showed 
 how a crown of thorns could be changed into 
 a crown of glory. He showed how service 
 and sacrifice were the most blessed experi- 
 ences of the soul. He who girded himself 
 with a towel in his last life moments, and 
 
 61 
 
The Sinless, Sickless, Deathless Life 
 
 washed the disciples' feet, said, "As I have 
 done to you so do ye ever to one another, if 
 you would joyously follow me." He poured 
 his soul out unto death, and gave himself 
 a loving ransom for many on the altar of the 
 cross, life's sin-cursed tree. 
 
 Christ seems to have dropped his life 
 down into this great world life of ours to 
 give us of his own life blood to make us 
 realize that fully in his deathless life, the 
 greatest curses of life are turned into its 
 greatest blessings. In him thus also, service 
 and sacrifice, the things most abhorred, be- 
 come the things that bring to life its most 
 heavenly delight. For he who loses his life 
 in the life and for the life of others, finds it 
 for the first time in the fullness of heaven's 
 supernal and everlasting joy. 
 
 Poets and seers and artists have ever 
 caught the foregleams of the coming of this 
 "day of the Lord." This thing that saints 
 and seers and singers dream will come true 
 as truly as did the prophecies regarding the 
 Messiah at the first coming of Jesus. 
 
 62 
 
IV. 
 
 SOUGHT BY SCIENTISTS AND PHI- 
 LOSOPHERS. 
 
 We have seen, in a former chapter, that 
 the whole trend of the Scriptures is toward 
 the deathless life, as God's full and final race 
 purpose. The words of Jesus have to be 
 wrenched most woefully out of their face 
 meaning to interpret them otherwise than 
 this. If he is truly the great message- 
 bringer of life in its fullness, we cannot help 
 but feel that triumph over death and the 
 grave is the last word of the Messiah, that 
 the Spirit is to take of the things of Jesus 
 and make real unto us. 
 
 In the chapter following, we have noticed 
 that the seer has found the same truth, the 
 vision of visions that has ravished his heart. 
 Whether the seer is the Hebrew prophet or 
 the artist under the spell of the Muse, both 
 are one in giving forth these foregleams of 
 coming humanity. Under the divine afflatus 
 each has caught the glory of the deathless 
 life, as the message above all messages, in 
 their visions of final plans and purposes of 
 the Highest. 
 
 If the universe is one mighty harmony as 
 
 63 
 
The Sinless, Sickless, Deathless Life 
 
 well as one mighty whole, one would expect 
 that science and philosophy, when mo'st un- 
 trammeled with the traditions of the past, 
 must join with theartists and seers in making 
 this great conviction the summum bonum of 
 the race. It is surprising to see how breath- 
 lessly near they are coming both to feel with 
 religion that man is not only one in body and 
 mind and heart in the life of the Spirit, but 
 that we are to come to realize that we are 
 indeed to be joint heirs with Jesus in the 
 passion and possession of the sinless, sickless 
 and deathless life of the great Wayshower, 
 who declared and demonstrated this was the 
 way of heaven for all of us. 
 
 The great storm center of science today 
 in its thinking is around the great mystery 
 of life. How we may have life, eternal life, 
 and have it more abundantly, is the one 
 great question ever uppermost. Science 
 is so intensely on the trail of immortality, 
 that the deathless life is no longer thought 
 of as a fancy or chimera. Rather is it com- 
 ing to be realized that it is in the realm of 
 the most naturally expected. 
 
 Any moment is liable to reveal this great 
 secret, hid from the ages, and by which the 
 whole wide world is to be blessed. All are 
 
 64 
 
Sought by Scientists and Philosophers 
 
 living in the great expectation that this is 
 the great good news that is to be soon sent 
 as glad tidings of gerat joy every place. 
 
 The story of this great expectancy and 
 what has already been done toward its at- 
 tainment, has been lately told in part 
 by Dr. Henry Smith Williams, one of the 
 foremost and most scholarly popularizers of 
 all that is best in scientific discovery and re- 
 search. In his magazine article in which 
 he relates this, it is clearly evident that the 
 scientists' race after the heart of reality is 
 only that they may bring us into perpetuity 
 of life. "Why not live forever" is the 
 startling caption of the article, revealing how 
 this discovery of science is already almost 
 as near to us as hands and feet. Already 
 the chemist has shown "how dead tissue has 
 been made to come back to life." Already 
 the bacteriologist is convinced that death 
 is but an overcoming of us by the disease 
 germs in the great bacteriological battle; 
 and he is finding how he can inoculate the 
 patient so as to put the opposing bacilli 
 more and more on the losing side of the great 
 conflict. 
 
 In the field of preventative medicine the 
 war against disease and death has been car- 
 
 65 
 
The Sinless, Sickless, Deathless Life 
 
 ried on with a most startling series of vic- 
 tories which have routed the disease and 
 death enemy of the race at every point of 
 the conflict. Here are the exact words of 
 Dr. Williams, telling us what has already 
 been actually accomplished: 
 
 "Today preventive medicine is wrestling 
 with these disease bacteria hosts, and seems 
 in a fair way to banish most of them. A 
 century ago smallpox claimed by death about 
 one-tenth of the entire population. Today 
 smallpox has virtually been banished. Twen- 
 ty years ago diphtheria was the scourge of 
 childhood; today it is held securely in check 
 by the antitoxine of Behring. Ten years 
 ago typhoid fever was a menace that threat- 
 ened everybody ; today the vaccine of Wright 
 offers immunity to whoever cares to use it. 
 Three years ago syphilis seemed an uncon- 
 querable pest; today the 'salvarsin' of 
 Ehrlich offers a specific that cures in a 
 single dose. A year ago cancer was the de- 
 spair of physicians; today there is at least 
 the hope that a remedy is being perfected in 
 the hands of Wassermann and Ehrlich for 
 its final banishment. The great method of 
 all today is to fight fire with fire. They in- 
 troduce into the blood the serum that over- 
 comes the germ bacilli of disease, so that 
 they are more and more fighting a losing 
 battle. And it seems there is no reason to 
 doubt that this must not be finally successful 
 in the bringing forth of the deathless life." 
 
 66 
 
Sought by Scientists and Philosophers 
 
 It is not surprising in the face of these 
 facts that specialists in the very forefront 
 of the Armageddon war of the disease germs, 
 feel that every battle is making it clearer 
 that the full and final victory against dis- 
 ease and death is not far off. Dr. Alexis 
 Carrell of the Rockefeller Institute of New 
 York, in his great joy, asks the question, "If 
 then the death-bringing agents can be over- 
 come, why should not man live indefinitely?" 
 Prof. H. S. Jennings of Johns Hopkins Uni- 
 versity waxes still bolder in his conviction, 
 when he says that "old age and death have 
 no necessary place in the life of these crea- 
 tures, the protozoa," which are the basal 
 principle of all life. If not there, why, one 
 most naturally asks, has it in man, the 
 crowning synthesis of these miniature vital 
 molecules of our total life make-up. 
 
 It is from just such visions and discoveries 
 of the scientists as these, that Dr. Williams 
 is bold to say : 
 
 "In view of all these discoveries it is evi- 
 dent that if just the right conditions could 
 be found, man need not die, except by acci- 
 dent, — including in the tragedy of accidents 
 the attack of specific diseases. Putting the 
 matter in its baldest, the question may be 
 said to be reopened as to whether the 
 
 67 
 
The Sinless, Sickless, Deathless Life 
 
 familiar phrase, 'natural death,' is not a 
 misnomer; for is any one of us made to die 
 a strictly natural death?" 
 
 Thus Science, the god of the most, has al- 
 ready clearly given forth the holy oracle at 
 the moments of its highest inspiration, that 
 makes one feel that the message of Jesus, 
 the bringer of life and immortality to light, 
 is the final, full message that, not only all 
 the world is longing for, but all the world 
 is bound to have realized. Man is not made 
 to die! This is the belief that is coming 
 fast to be realized as the rock foundation on 
 which we are to build. If we will accept by 
 faith the fullness of life as Jesus proclaimed 
 it, in his very being, as the gift of God to 
 be had freely, without money and without 
 price, by all, we will enter into the fullness 
 of our deathless inheritance as made clear 
 to us in the life of the Son of the Highest. 
 
 If we would only believe this is the will of 
 God for all humanity, with half the zeal we 
 believe it is appointed unto man once to die 
 (the dead dogma of the Old Testament 
 that Jesus came to do away with forever), 
 we would find ourselves borne upward by 
 the Spirit as on angels' wings. There would 
 come a new virility, arid such a quickening 
 
 68 
 
Sought by Scientists and Philosophers 
 
 of these mortal bodies that we could indeed 
 and in truth "riin and never be weary and 
 walk and never faint." We would know 
 that we with Jesus had passed in every sense 
 of the word from death unto life, and could 
 not help but proclaim it with him as the free 
 gift of heaven to every soul that believeth. 
 Thus believing, we would indeed find our 
 wagons "hitched to the star" above the stars 
 — the star of Bethlehem leading us through 
 Jesus into the very heart of the Eternal, and 
 into realizing the fullness of his glorious 
 purpose. Faith alone is the one thing need- 
 ful to bring the fruition of this glorious 
 incarnation of heaven that will bring forth 
 deathless man as God's most perfect product. 
 
 Philosophy is but the background, the hin- 
 ter-land, of science. It is the essence of 
 metaphysics, that is always the substratum 
 of physics. It is the connecting link between 
 the physical and the spiritual, the bridge 
 from the sense world, into the world of the 
 Spirit. 
 
 This being so, it is not surprising that in 
 the realm of philosophy, in its most perfect 
 freedom, we should find the vistas opening 
 up into the same mighty vision that is now 
 
 69 
 
The Sinless, Sickless, Deathless Life 
 
 enrapturing the heart of the scientist, and 
 has ever ravished the hearts of all those led 
 fully and forever by the Spirit. 
 
 If philosophy, "the queen of the sciences," 
 is but "theology spelled another way," as 
 Professor Palmer of Harvard puts it, one 
 would surely expect that the philosopher and 
 the theologian will find the same great glory 
 vision of the deathless life burst upon them 
 as their deathless inheritance. 
 
 The truth that burned so deeply in the 
 heart of Luther at his most soul-uplifted 
 moment; the truth which came home with 
 such undownable conviction to Dr. A. J. Gor- 
 den, one of the rarest men of spiritual in- 
 sight; the truth that has possessed Prof. 
 Orr of Edinburgh, making him feel that the 
 crowning of the great message of "God's 
 Image in Man" is the undownable conviction 
 that man was made for the deathless life, 
 and that redemption has come far short of 
 its purpose, till it brings forth this priceless 
 product — these one and all make one eager 
 to know what is the last word philosophy 
 has to say regarding this fact, as the great 
 heart longing of the race. 
 
 Without question the two men who are 
 the major prophets of the philosophical 
 
 70 
 
Sought by Scientists and Philosophers 
 
 world today are Henri Bergson of Paris and 
 Prof. Rudolph Eucken of Jena. No one has 
 taken such a grip on the thought of the hour 
 as these two men have. 
 
 The late Prof. James of Harvard, shortly 
 before he passed away, said of Bergson that 
 he was "the best world interpreter of the 
 hour." When he lectured in Oxford, throngs 
 listened to his message. No one for a 
 quarter of century got such a heart and 
 mind grip on the university. On both sides 
 of the sea he is the one man who is gripping 
 men, and opening their eyes to see that there 
 is a way out of the material maze of things 
 in which we have so long wandered. He 
 has pointed out the open door for the most 
 thoughtful, into the kingdom of the Spiritual 
 and into our Father's house, that was seem- 
 ingly closed to most. His work on Creative 
 Evolution is perhaps the best summary of 
 all he has had to say. Here is his remark- 
 able summing up of his world message, 
 which shows most clearly that philosophy 
 and science are one in their vision of the 
 coming glory-goal: 
 
 "The animal takes its stand on the plant. 
 Man bestrides animality, and the whole 
 humanity in time and space is one immense 
 army galloping beside, and before and be- 
 
 71 
 
The Sinless, Sickless, Deathless Life 
 
 hind each one of us in the overwhelming 
 charge, able to beat down every resistance, 
 and clear the most formidable obstacles, 
 perhaps even death, on the road which leads 
 to the Life of the Spirit." 
 
 Surely no words could seem clearer as to 
 what Bergson feels is the end that is inevi- 
 table. It is not toward eternal death but 
 eternal life that the great on-movement of 
 everything is sweeping us. In man the 
 majesty and the mightiness of this final mes- 
 sage is to be seen in its fullness. Bergson 
 sees that man was not made to die. He has 
 made the dirge of the Greeks as given in the 
 Antigone of Sophocles — "Over all man is 
 victorious save death" — give way to the 
 great triumphant strains of victory given us 
 by Jesus. Philosophy, like Science, is be- 
 ginning to burst forth in heavenly rapture, 
 "Oh death, where is thy sting, oh grave, 
 where is thy victory?" Bergson sees that 
 it is the height of reason, as of faith and 
 hope, to point to Jesus as the thing accom- 
 plished of God in his full race purpose. He 
 believes in his heart of hearts that the Spirit 
 of God in man is groaning through the 
 whole creation to bring forth this same per- 
 fect fruit as the crowning universal purpose. 
 Philosophy to him is to meet the last enemy, 
 
 72 
 
Sought by Scientists and Philosophers 
 
 and to meet it in victory. We are to know 
 that the divine design is life not death for 
 man — the eternal life in which these mortal 
 bodies of ours are to be quickened under the 
 spell of the Spirit, so that they shall be glori- 
 fied. Philosophy will then believe in the 
 resurrection of the body in a far larger, 
 fuller sense than the Apostles' Creed first 
 put it, and all Christendom has since that 
 time continually professed to believe it. We 
 shall find faith maturing into fact as we be- 
 lieve this; and day by day we shall find life 
 treading the "upward way." Some day 
 under such faith we will have found that 
 death will be as completely wiped out of our 
 belief as a great reality, as are the fairy 
 tales. We shall see and believe that the end 
 and aim of man is the deathless life. 
 
 As we accept this fact and go about our 
 Father's business in the great holy family 
 of God, living "each for all and all for each," 
 we shall find the day that has dawned 
 brighten into a noon-day splendor, in which 
 this is the light that lighteneth the whole 
 wide world. It "shall shine forth as the 
 sun" rising to the very heights of the 
 heavenly zenith. With one's face toward 
 this morning and his hand to the plow, never 
 
 73 
 
The Sinless, Sickless, Deathless Life 
 
 turning to look back, the old traditional be- 
 lief of the past that has enchained the ages 
 will be broken forever, and we will be freed 
 by the atonement of the ages, that makes us 
 one with Jesus in the deathless life. It is 
 the great day of Jubilee the whole wide world 
 looks forward to. Every man will go back 
 to his heavenly inheritance lost in "The Fall" 
 and found again in his joint heirship in the 
 resurrection and the ascension of Jesus. 
 
 It would seem almost like "carrying coals 
 to Newcastle" and an anti-climax to add to 
 what has been said, the testimony of another 
 equally great in the councils of philosophers. 
 But many who are not able to follow Bergson 
 have found a similar message in Eucken, 
 who has equally charmed American audi- 
 ences, and is a man whom the famous Lon- 
 don preacher Horton calls "the greatest 
 thinker of our day." 
 
 His message, in a word, in solving the 
 great "Riddle of Existence," is "back to 
 Vitalism." This he feels is the only way out 
 of our gross materialistic darkness, into 
 true spiritual light. His words ring with a 
 clearness and reality, and grip you with a 
 power like the laconic ones heard through 
 all the Christian centuries, "back to Christ" 
 
 74 
 
Sought by Scientists and Philosophers 
 
 if we would get back to God and back to life. 
 It is life that is at the heart of everything; 
 and not the imaginary pushes and pulls 
 which we have set up and have so long called 
 "laws" or force. It is not in matter, nor m 
 mind, but in life, that we are to find the 
 fountain from which all things flow forth. 
 Life is the last step from the material into 
 the spiritual, from the real into the ideal, 
 from everything that is, into the God of all 
 from which all things come forth. The 
 "Spirit of Life" is the final door of entrance 
 into the very Arcanum of the universe, as 
 we go from the outer court of world-phe- 
 nomena, into the Most Holy Place of Reality, 
 where "spirit mingles with spirit," and we 
 know we are children of the Highest. 
 
 Eucken comes by a long way, but a sure 
 way, to this. It brings him to the shrine 
 spot of God where one feels that man is the 
 temple of the Spirit of the Most Holy and 
 the Most High, where is to be revealed to us 
 the full final message of the Infinite. Some 
 place in the evolution of humanity, Eucken 
 feels, the Spirit must reveal itself complete, 
 else why this longing to meet God face to 
 face. By a way hitherto entirely untrod in 
 the philosophical world, he comes at last in 
 
 75 
 
The Sinless, Sickless, Deathless Life 
 
 the turn of the road to the place where there 
 logically bursts upon one's view, from all 
 that has gone on before, a vision indeed most 
 matchless. It is akin to that which came 
 to Browning, when suddenly he exclaims 
 with all the glow of his new-found joy, ''Lo, 
 the Christ stands !" Here are Eucken's own 
 words on the great discovery of what seemed 
 to him the only true nexus between the ma- 
 terial and the Spiritual, where man and 
 God truly meet. 
 
 "A personality like that of Jesus is not a 
 mere vehicle of doctrines or modes, but an 
 everlasting invasion of divine life, at which 
 new life can be forever kindled. . . In him 
 alone is found fully the Life of the Spirit." 
 
 What is this but a feeling that in him alone 
 is found the fire sent down from heaven to 
 kindle anew the fire of God that has so long 
 smouldered or gone out on the altar of the 
 human heart. He loves to tell how "religion 
 is the greatest thing in the world," and feels 
 as keenly as Sabatier that "we are hope- 
 lessly religious." Human life without re- 
 ligion as its crowning glory would be but 
 the torso of a man, made in the image of his 
 Maker, to be filled to overflowing with his 
 Spirit. In Christ Jesus, man who is other- 
 wise marred and incomplete is brought forth 
 as man made perfect. 
 
 76 
 
Sought by Scientists and Philosophers 
 
 Eucken does not state it in so many words 
 that man in the unfolding of God's great 
 and gracious plan is to come forth with a 
 body glorified in the life that is deathless, 
 but he comes so breathlessly near this mighty 
 vision, that we wonder how he could have 
 possibly missed it. The "Life of the Spirit" 
 which is the thought throughout all his 
 message uppermost must logically and natur- 
 ally lead to this. 
 
 These messages of Bergson and of Eucken, 
 starting from premises so diverse, and com- 
 ing to conclusions so truly one, make us feel 
 most surely that philosophy, "the queen of 
 the sciences," is bringing man to see that 
 humanity is made to be "the queen of 
 heaven" as it becomes one with Christ, as 
 "the bride of Christ" in "the marriage sup- 
 per of the Lamb," in whose spirit we become 
 kings and queens unto God throughout his 
 mighty universe. 
 
 Just as these words are written there 
 comes even a bolder testimony from philo- 
 sophical circles, from Scotland, the land 
 where philosophy has always played a most 
 powerful part in the moulding of folks. 
 They are from a series of Edinburgh lectures 
 by Judge Troward on "The Creative Process 
 
 77 
 
The Sinless, Sickless, Deathless Life 
 
 in the Individual." Here is his almost start- 
 ing conclusion, as the truth burns on the 
 altar of his own heart: 
 
 "It is impossible to reconcile the life- 
 giving conception of the Bible with the idea 
 that death at any stage or in any degree is 
 the desire of God. The whole purpose of 
 the Book is to tell most emphatically that 
 death is not the will of God. Scripture and 
 common sense alike assure us that the will 
 of God toward us is Life and not Death. In 
 the light of Paul's seer vision, 'we shall not 
 all sleep,' and of the experience of Enoch 
 'who walked with God and was not for God 
 took him'; and of Elijah who was carried 
 heavenward, 'that he did not see death'; it 
 is clear that the statement of physical re- 
 generation without passing through death 
 is not an impossibility, nor is it necessary to 
 be relegated to some far-off future. What- 
 ever any one else may say to the contrary, 
 the Bible contemplates such a denoument of 
 human evolution, as a present possibility." 
 
 In the light of such a chorus of conviction 
 of those highest in scientific and philosoph- 
 ical circles, it does seem, as Alfred Noyse has 
 lately said, that "there is an arrow at the 
 heart of Death," and that the deathless life 
 is the "lost chord" and the last chord of 
 Evolution that is waiting to be struck, as 
 the most rapturous strain of heaven's race- 
 redemptive music. 
 
 78 
 
V. 
 
 THE HIGH WATER MARK OF RE- 
 LIGION. 
 
 All the world feels that Jesus reached 
 the high water mark among the religious 
 teachers of the world. All students of the 
 Sacred Word agree that the high water mark 
 in the popularity of Jesus' career was when 
 he took the disciples up the high mountain 
 side, and was transfigured before them. It 
 was there that he revealed for the first time 
 clearly that his great, full and final purpose 
 in coming into the world was to show that 
 man w^as made to triumph over death as well 
 as all sin and every sickness. 
 
 Three of his disciples, Peter, James and 
 John, the choicest of the chosen ones, yet as 
 diverse in their make-up as the three corners 
 of a triangle, he selects from all the rest, and 
 goes with them to the highest point of the 
 mountain side, overlooking the loveliest land- 
 scape of all Palestine. It seems that all 
 nature is to join in the thrill of the great 
 truth that he is to make known to them, and 
 which is one of the most resplendent that 
 ever was revealed to the mind and heart of 
 mankind. 
 
 79 
 
The Sinless, Sickless, Deathless Life 
 
 He is going to show them the marvelous 
 message, that death is not in the natural 
 order of things. It is the unnatural process 
 of our going hence which comes from the 
 marring of the universal order, as God's 
 plan and purpose for the race is marred by 
 the tragedy of sin. 
 
 He tells the disciples that he must go up 
 to Jerusalem and be crucified and buried, but 
 that he would lise again the third day. All 
 of this was as clear as a beam of sunlight 
 to himself as a necessary factor in restoring 
 humanity to its blissful seat of the death- 
 less life. But to the desciples it was all a 
 jargon or an empty tale. "Their eyes 
 were holden that they could not see" the ne- 
 cessity of all this, and of course they pro- 
 tested most vehemently. 
 
 Then suddenly there came one of the most 
 wonderful dissolving views of history. All 
 about was aglow with a most heavenly light. 
 Jesus was transfigured before them in their 
 very midst. His garments shone as "no 
 fuller could white." His face was radiant 
 with the light of the sun behind the sun. 
 Nothing could describe, in its perfect full- 
 ness, the glory that was theirs to witness. 
 It seemed as though Jesus was lifted up and 
 
 80 
 
The High Water Mm^k of Religion 
 
 was "between two worlds." Into the midst 
 of the holy scene came Moses and Elias, the 
 prince of Israel's lawgivers, the prince of 
 all her prophets. These, too, caught the 
 glow and the glory of all about. Then Jesus 
 begins to speak to them of his going hence, 
 his heavenly exodus, and as Eidersheim says, 
 of his "earth exit." They could understand 
 something of the wonderful meaning of the 
 words. They had to a degree passed that 
 holy highway of which he spoke, and could 
 rejoice in the glory of it. Moses died on 
 Nebo. The Sacred Book says "No man 
 knoweth his grave unto this day." One of 
 the sweetest of the world's singers has said : 
 
 "The angels of God upturned the sod 
 And laid the dead man there." 
 
 Jewish tradition tells that he was carried 
 hence without tasting the sorrows of death. 
 This groping after a great vision of life's 
 true exit found a fuller realization in the go- 
 ing hence of Elijah or Elias, as the New 
 Testament puts it. He was the prophet most 
 panoplied with the power of heaven to bring 
 the message of redemption to his nation, 
 which was going astray like lost sheep. He 
 was carried hence in "the chariot of fire," 
 so that "he did not see death." He had 
 
 81 
 
The Sinless, Sickless, Deathless Life 
 
 found that the door of exit heavenward was 
 truly a way of glory and not of grief. He 
 who was most like God found most fully the 
 way to God, as heaven had purposed it, and 
 told it once before in Enoch, who "walked 
 with God and was not for God took him." 
 To these two most beloved by all the Jewish 
 people and most honored by their race, 
 Jesus can talk understandingly of the way 
 he is to finally enter the glories of Paradise. 
 
 In the glow and glory of the heaven uplift- 
 ing moment, it seemed but a thread still held 
 him to the earth. He could have gone hence 
 like Enoch and Elijah, the best of the Jewish 
 best. Had he done so, however, he would 
 have accomplished no more for the full eman- 
 cipation of humanity than these had that 
 had gone on before him in this holy highway 
 to fullnesss of life and light. 
 
 Then there comes a change. These holy 
 visitants have passed away and Jesus is left 
 alone. And "the desciples saw Jesus only." 
 The Eternal Spirit of law and prophecy is 
 the Spirit of Jesus. That which glowed 
 dimly in Moses and Elias shone with perfect 
 splendor in him who was the perfect fulfill- 
 ment of the incarnation of the Eternal 
 Spirit, that was tabernacling among us. 
 
 82 
 
The High Water Mark of Religion 
 
 The disciples were as foolish in their de- 
 sires as they were blind of mind and heart 
 to the great purpose of the revelation that 
 was being given them in this holy moment. 
 They would make tabernacles and remain 
 there forever. But that is not life's pur- 
 pose. The voice of the Father tells the great 
 thing they are to know, "This is my beloved 
 son, hear ye him." What he says about 
 sin and disease and death; what he says 
 about the normal and natural way out of life 
 is the thing to be heeded as well as heard. 
 The Spirit of the Ages and Eternity is in- 
 carnate in him. He who is the Truth will 
 speak the final word of truth. Hear ye 
 him, if you would find the fullness of life's 
 heavenly purpose. 
 
 All has passed away. Jesus takes his 
 near ones down the mountain side. There 
 at the foot is the throng wild with excite- 
 ment. The diciples are staggered and dis- 
 couraged. They are trying to cast the evil 
 spirit out of the demon-possessed boy. But 
 they find they are utterly helpless for the 
 mighty task. Then comes Jesus upon the 
 scene, and at once rebukes the unclean spirit, 
 and it comes out of him. The sin-chained, 
 disease-bound child is made perfect through 
 the command of one truly Perfect. 
 
 83 
 
The Sinless, Sickless, Deathless Life 
 
 ■ The whole scene has been made immortal 
 by Raphael in his Transfiguration, best 
 known of all he painted, if not his best. 
 There seems to be two complete yet almost 
 independent pictures painted on the same 
 canvas. The one above is bathed in tones and 
 tints that have been impossible to reproduce 
 ever since by all artists. Heaven does indeed 
 seem to bathe the scene of glory with God's 
 golden and glory light. There is Jesus lifted 
 from the earth, with Moses on his right hand 
 and Elias on his left, in holy adoration to 
 him who was greater than all the lawgivers 
 and the prophets. The disciples lie stag- 
 gered at the scene, trying to lift themselves 
 from the earth. 
 
 Beneath is another scene painted in the 
 most dead and somber tints. All about 
 seems to be darkness of soul, while all 
 above is fullness of heavenly light. The 
 dumb, demon-possessed boy is there. The 
 disciples are helpless to give him help. Art- 
 ists, through all the centuries, have wondered 
 what the connection is between the scenes 
 which are so diverse. But there is a 
 most wonderful connection between the two. 
 It is a soul uniting, a psychological union, as 
 we today would put it. The face of the 
 
 84 
 
The High Water Mark of Religion 
 
 dumb, damned boy is gazing wildly up the 
 mountain side. Out of his weird, wild look 
 he seems to be beholding something afar off. 
 As one follows the line of strange vision, he 
 finds it falls directly upon the face of the 
 far away, heaven transfigured Christ. He 
 was not visible to the mortal eye about, but 
 the eye of the utterly helpless child seems 
 to have caught, by psychic instinct, the 
 vision of him who is afar off, as his only and 
 everlasting help. 
 
 Here is the whole summary of the great 
 vision. Jesus had already found the true 
 door of exit from this life into the fullness 
 of life. It was the door closed by sin and to be 
 opened again through his perfect righteous- 
 ness as the true exit heavenward of the race. 
 It was the door of the deathless life. Jesus 
 was the door, and through him by the power 
 of the Eternal Spirit we are made to go 
 hence this heavenly highway Godward as 
 planned in creation's morn, and as the great 
 all-loving race purpose. He came to make 
 clear that what we call natural death was 
 the most unnatural thing in the world, as 
 God had planned all nature in its perfectness. 
 This is the vision that lifts one above the 
 world, and bathes the soul in the glory of 
 
 85 
 
The Sinless, Sickless, Deathless Life 
 
 all worlds. This is "the vision glorious" 
 that will give power to touch all wrong 
 things and make them right. It was in the 
 power of his mighty vision that Christ could 
 go down from the mountain side and heal 
 the unhealed, and unhealable by any other 
 power than by a life's vision like this. The 
 disciples had never caught this glow of the 
 glory purpose, and so found their limita- 
 tions for earth help, although they had been 
 given power to heal diseases and cast out 
 demons and raise the dead, as Jesus had 
 given it. 
 
 From this high water mark in the experi- 
 ence of Jesus one finds, as nowhere else, 
 the great vision of life that will truly guide 
 the race feet aright into the perfect fullness 
 of creation's purpose. We are to see the 
 door of exit of life is not through the tomb. 
 Jesus was to clearly demonstrate this and 
 did demonstrate it. He was to enter the 
 tomb only to carry off in triumph the very 
 gates of death, and abolish it forever as a 
 power over which man was to be power- 
 less. This is the vision of the life that 
 panoplies one with the power from on high. 
 This is not the vision ecstatic we are to 
 forever dwell in, any more than the disciples 
 were to make tabernacles and dwell with 
 
 86 
 
The High Water Mark of Religion 
 
 Jesus, Moses and Elias on the mountain side. 
 It is a vision that makes us go down into 
 the very stress and strain of life, to help 
 the helpless. It is a vision to give us power 
 to cast out demons and heal the sick. All 
 this is to be done by making men feel the 
 way of Glory is the deathless life as truly as 
 the diseaseless life and the sinless life. If 
 we see Jesus only as our sole ideal of what 
 it is to be led of the Spirit; if we will be- 
 lieve that the power of the Eternal Spirit 
 is in us as it was in him, making one 
 greater than all the lawgivers and all the 
 prophets; if we believe that the spirit of 
 life is the spirit of all law and all prophecy, 
 and that we can boldly "in his name" go 
 forth, we may meet the enemy of sin and 
 sickness and death on every hand and will 
 come off more than conqueror over their 
 power. We will thus blaze the way of glory 
 through a life of darkness into the glory of 
 his marvelous sinless, sickless and deathless 
 life as God's full, free gift to humanity 
 through Jesus Christ. 
 
 So it has come to be seen in this mighty 
 mountain side experience that the message 
 to the ages is that we are not to believe in 
 the deathless life as some mere dogma. This 
 belief is to give one "power from on high" 
 
 87 
 
The Sinless, Sickless, Deathless Life 
 
 to be about God's great complete redemptive 
 world work as Jesus foregleamed it, and said 
 forever, this is the way of life, walk ye in it. 
 
 Christendom seems practically almost as 
 dead and dazed to this mighty vision of the 
 Transfiguration as the disciples that Jesus 
 led high up on the mountain side that they 
 might enter more fully into the wonders and 
 glories of life's full and final purpose. But 
 it is the vision of all visions that must 
 possess one if he walks close to him whose 
 message is to transform the earth, and trans- 
 figure all things with the glory of the High- 
 est. It is not a mere academic truth to be 
 assented to. It is the most vital truth that 
 is to grip the soul. It must become real to 
 us by faith, that we may be joint heirs with 
 Jesus in his great life program for the com- 
 plete redemption of the race. 
 
 It is the high water mark of all religion. 
 It is the crowning glory of the message of 
 the great Evangel to be proclaimed through- 
 out the whole wide earth. It is the stone 
 which the earth builders are still rejecting 
 which is bound to become "the head of the 
 corner" in the great temple of the Everlast- 
 ing Truth. It is the closing and most rap- 
 turous strain of the Oratorio of the Messiah 
 as God alone by his Spirit has written the 
 strains of the world's halleluliah music. 
 88 
 
VI. 
 THE HOLY COMMUNION REALIZED. 
 
 As the Paschal feast was the most sacred 
 symbol of Judaism, so the Lord's Supper, 
 the fulfillment of the Passover is the most 
 sacred ceremony of Christendom. "The 
 night on which he was betrayed" — the night 
 the world proved traitor to the eternal 
 Truth of God — Christ instituted a feast to 
 to be celebrated to the end of time. It was 
 to be observed in remembrance of the Re- 
 deemer's work as Saviour of men, for which 
 he poured out his life unto death for the 
 sins of the world. 
 
 The Passover, as all know, faced time both 
 ways. It was first a looking backward in 
 memory to the great Egyptian deliverance. 
 But it is much more a looking forward to 
 the universal deliverance, when the Mes- 
 siah should come to forever redeem all 
 Israel. 
 
 So the Lord's Supper is a feast that 
 Janus-like was meant to face both ways. It 
 was first to be a looking backward to that 
 dreadful night on which He was betrayed, 
 who was to offer himself a living sacrifice 
 
 89 
 
The Sinless, Sickless, Deathless Life 
 
 for the sins of the world. It was also a 
 looking forward to that holier moment when 
 somehow "he should come again," and 
 every enemy should be forever put under his 
 feet, and under the feet of every follower of 
 the Lord of Life. All should join with him 
 in the great song of deliverance, and the joy 
 of the everlasting triumph. Death and 
 Hades, as well as sin and sickness, were to 
 go down in the great conflict, when both 
 the redeemed and the Redeemer would be 
 overcomers together, and complete liberty 
 would be proclaimed throughout all the 
 world. 
 
 To most who celebrate the Lord's Supper, 
 this forward look seems the one divine 
 event so far off that the backward look is the 
 one most dwelt upon in the sacred celebra- 
 tion of the New Passover. But he that puts 
 his hand to the plow and looks back is never 
 so unfit for the kingdom of heaven as he is 
 when he thus celebrates Christendom's feast 
 of feasts. It is not so much the Lord's tragic 
 death as our deliverance from death and the 
 grave through Christ's eternal triumph that 
 is to be the thought that is to be held ever 
 uppermost. It is this which makes the Lord's 
 Supper a veritable 'Move feast." Without 
 
 90 
 
The Lord's Supper Realized 
 
 this emphasis, it becomes more and more just 
 the opposite. 
 
 We all recall the sad confession of Emer- 
 son when he celebrated the Lord's Supper 
 for the last time. The Holy Eucharist had 
 come to him to be but a hollow mockery. 
 Only the skeleton of the deep truth that once 
 filled it with glory now remained. The 
 heavenly life of the sacred service had for- 
 ever flown. So has it become to tens of 
 thousands who have kept ever "looking back- 
 ward" in place of forward at this great 
 memorial hour. If the sacred feast is to be at 
 all what it was intended to be in its institu- 
 tion, a place of joy and power; if the cere- 
 mony is to be one to thrill the heart with the 
 fire of heaven, that will count no sacrifice 
 for humanity too great a service; if it is 
 going to thrill the soul with a beauty beyond 
 an angel's dream, we must keep our face 
 toward the morning of the new day of de- 
 liverance that it ushers in. It is not in 
 turning to the past but to the future that 
 makes Calvary sublime. It is not in re- 
 counting the tragedy of the cross, though it 
 makes angels weep, but in beholding by faith 
 what the death and resurrection has be- 
 queathed to the believer's soul, that brings 
 
 91 
 
The Sinless, Sickless, Deathless Life 
 
 a Pentecostal power. Christ died for men, 
 to show us that man 7ieed never die. He 
 died for me that I might pass from death 
 into eternal life. He died that death, like 
 sin and sickness, may have no more power 
 over me forever. He nailed my death, as 
 part of all my sins, to the cross; so that I 
 may reckon myself as dead to death as to 
 sin, and alive forever in his eternal life and 
 everlasting righteousness. This is not too 
 big to be believed or too good to be true. It 
 is the truth which is the torch to light all 
 Christendom, to guide the feet of the "Pil- 
 grim Faithful," till they shall enter into the 
 full joy of their Lord in the eternal triumph. 
 Faith in this is what makes the holy feast a 
 memorial of his love and power, and a 
 thanksgiving for a day of complete deliver- 
 ance, offered without money and without 
 price to all men everywhere, if by faith they 
 will take of this priceless gift of God. 
 
 The one thought perhaps, which is a kind 
 of trigger to the soul to set free the heavenly 
 dynamic with its almighty power, is best 
 told in these words. Surely Jesus had it 
 in mind as he uttered them, when he com- 
 manded the keeping of the feast to "show 
 the Lord's death until he come." 
 
 92 
 
The Lord's Supper Realized 
 
 Doubtless Christ meant that we should 
 proclaim through this ceremony to the world 
 that we believed in the awful tragedy of 
 history that Calvary records, and that we 
 shudder for humanity that it has so missed 
 the meaning of the gift of God's Only Be- 
 gotten Son, that it put him to such an open 
 shame. This is a historic fact that we must 
 naturally ever recall. It is the concrete 
 putting of Christ's purpose for us in the 
 world. But there is something infinitely 
 more sublime than that one died such an 
 ignominious death and rose again. To catch 
 the fullness of the great communion is to 
 believe that I am in common union with him 
 by faith in the indwelling of the Eternal 
 Spirit. If I only believe this, I may realize 
 the glories of the first resurrection with 
 him, as truly as the glories of his eter- 
 nal life forevermore. The crux of the cru- 
 cifixion is that I am to reckon myself as 
 dead to death as Jesus is. The Spirit of 
 Life is given for no other purpose than 
 to make me become joint heir with Jesus 
 in his heavenly inheritance. The trinity 
 of darkness, sin, sickness and death may 
 beat upon me, but they can never overcome 
 me. In him there is fullness of the divine 
 
 93 
 
The Sinless, Sickless, Deathless Life 
 
 life forever more. My pathway henceforth 
 is not a via dolorosa, but a via gloria — a way 
 of glory. Calvary no longer is to be the 
 route of the redeemed walking heavenward. 
 Our tomb is to be as empty as was that of 
 the Resurrection morn. Earth's aches and 
 "God's Acre" are for us done away with for- 
 ever, if we will only believe that we shall 
 not come into judgment of sin and sickness 
 and death. They are downed and doomed 
 forever in the life of the believer, if he will 
 only reckon himself as dead to each and all, 
 as Jesus who triumphed over them and came 
 off more than conqueror. 
 
 Life takes on an entirely new meaning 
 when we live in a faith like this. It is the 
 faith once for all delivered unto us in Christ 
 Jesus. It is the faith that will deliver us 
 forever from sin, and sickness, and death 
 and the grave. Then there is the complete 
 redemption. The whole man in body, mind 
 and heart has been redeemed by the grace 
 of God, through faith, that Jesus has 
 taken all out of the way. As by faith I walk 
 in the power of the Eternal Spirit God does 
 this completed work of the Eternal in me. 
 
 This faith makes one wear the seamless 
 robe of Christ's perfect righteousness. The 
 
 94 
 
The Lord's Supper- Realized 
 
 outer garments of the creeds and schools are 
 as nothing in comparison with this vesture 
 of heaven with which we are "clothed upon" 
 by the faith once for all delivered by the 
 Spirit of Jesus unto all. 
 
 This is the torch-light of Christendom that 
 shines so brightly that it will lighten up the 
 whole wide earth. The whole creation is 
 waiting for it. They who sit in darkness 
 will see this great light, and will some day 
 make the whole wide world resound with its 
 halleluliah music. All men will sing the 
 song that the angels sang over Bethlehem's 
 hills, when Christ was born. This makes 
 the true glory and full glory to God in the 
 highest. This brings on earth a peace and 
 a good will to men. This makes all men see 
 how they are to be redeemed in the blood 
 and life of the great Redeemer. He was in- 
 deed the one who shows the way of God, and 
 says ever, "This is the way of faith, walk ye 
 in it." 
 
 Jesus most certainly had this vision in his 
 heart as he rose from supper and took the 
 "cup after supper," the "Elijah's cup." As 
 we saw in a former chapter, it was the cup of 
 the deathless life, which could only be drunk 
 when Elijah who never died should return 
 
 95 
 
The Sinless, Sickless, Deathless Life 
 
 and drink thereof himself ; and then give to 
 others that they too might drink of this 
 "nectar of God" and be among the deathless 
 also. 
 
 Jesus rises from supper and takes the 
 Elijah's cup and drinks thereof himself, 
 though it was at the penalty of death as his 
 people had proclaimed it. Then he hands it 
 to his disciples and says, "Drink ye all of it." 
 This is the cup of the new covenant in my 
 blood — in my deathless life — drink ye all of 
 it. This was to make them the immortals 
 also, if they would only believe the words 
 which he spake unto them, that "whosoever 
 liveth and believeth on me shall never die, 
 but is passed from death unto life." 
 
 Coming to the Holy Communion with such 
 a looking forward to the realization "of the 
 divine purpose for us as we are with Christ 
 led of the Spirit, the holy communion, the 
 holy common union of Christ with the race 
 of believers, is realized. By it we feel we 
 have already entered with him into the 
 power of his deathless life. We are tarry- 
 ing but to divinely demonstrate it, as God's 
 crowning love purpose in Jesus for the race. 
 
 96 
 
VII. 
 THE LAST RACE ENEMY OURS. 
 
 When Lincoln was first in New Orleans, 
 where he had towed a raft of goods in his 
 early days, he saw the awfulness of the 
 slave trade. Wives were being torn from 
 their husbands; little ones were being 
 snatched from their mothers' breasts to be 
 separated forever ; human beings were being 
 sold like chattels, regardless of the ties of 
 kinship and of love. The righteous indig- 
 nation of the great Messiah of liberty was 
 heated "seven times hot," at the fearful 
 sight, and he exclaimed in words the world 
 will never forget : "If I ever get a chance to 
 hit that thing, I will hit it hard." The 
 chance came and the opportunity was fear- 
 lessly grasped. In the great Emancipation 
 Proclamation he struck forever the shackels 
 from the dusky race and sounded thereby 
 a message that has resounded throughout the 
 earth in bringing liberty to all enslaved 
 folks. 
 
 Jesus, the Messiah, is the author of a far 
 larger race liberty, than the freeing of the 
 black man ever brought to us. He saw the 
 awful thralldom the whole wide world was 
 
 97 
 
The Sinless, Sickless, Deathless Life 
 
 under. He saw the depths of sin and 
 the pangs of sickness all about. Above all 
 else he saw those "who in fear of death all 
 their lives, were subject to bondage." No 
 slave driver was ever half so cruel a task- 
 master as the fear of these calamities from 
 which it was thought none could ever escape. 
 
 The Chorus in the Antigone of Sophocles 
 tells the race wide conviction of the help- 
 lessness and hopelessness of man in the face 
 of death, the last race enemy we have to 
 meet. 
 
 "Wonders are many, and none is more 
 wonderful than man ; the power that crosses 
 the white sea, driven by the stormy south 
 wind, making a path under surges that 
 threaten to engulf him ; and Earth, the eld- 
 est of the gods, the immortal and the un- 
 wearied, doth he wear, turning the soil with 
 the offspring of horses, as the plow goes to 
 and fro from year to year. And the light- 
 hearted race of birds, and the tribes of 
 savage beasts, and the sea brood of the deep, 
 he snares in the meshes of his woven toils, 
 he leads captive — man excellent in wit ! And 
 he masters by his arts the beast whose lair 
 is in the wilds, who roams the hills; he 
 tames the horse of shaggy mane; he puts 
 the yoke upon its neck, he tames the tireless 
 mountain bull. And speech, and wind-swift 
 thought, and all the moods and molds of 
 
 98 
 
The Last Race Enemy Ours 
 
 state, hath he taught himself; and how to 
 flee the arrows of the frost, when 'tis hard 
 lodging under the clear sky, and the arrows 
 of the rushing rain ; yea, he hath resource 
 for all; without resource he meets nothing 
 that must come: 07ily against Death shall 
 he call for aid in vain." 
 
 It is this creed of creation that Jesus 
 came to supplant by one that transcends it, 
 as far as the heavens are above the earth. 
 He came to wipe out death, the last great 
 race enemy forever. He did it in his own 
 person. He has purposed to do it in the lives 
 of all who enter into the fullness of his fel- 
 lowship. This he is going to do by substi- 
 tuting an indwelling spirit of life as our 
 guidance, in place of an external code of 
 duty, to direct. This is not to destroy the 
 law, but to fulfill the law, in those who walk 
 not after the Law but after the Spirit. God 
 in Jesus revealed his full purpose for all 
 humanity. We could see it in him drawn 
 out in living character. As we behold him 
 in all his beauty, we feel that he is indeed 
 "the one altogether lovely" and the one that 
 we know we are made to be like and must 
 be like, if we are ever to become holy as God 
 is holy, and perfect as the Father in heaven 
 is perfect. 
 
 99 
 
The Sinless, Sickless, Deathless Life 
 
 As men look upon Jesus they feel that 
 there must be some kind of heavenly nexus 
 possible between him and each child of 
 humanity, by which there would be some 
 heavenly dissolving view, through which sin 
 with its awful consequences would ever go 
 and in its place would come forth the full 
 beauty of holiness witnessed in him, who 
 was truly God with us. 
 
 In Deuteronomy it is said when Moses, 
 the great lawgiver, is about to go hence, he 
 gathers the people upon the mountain side. 
 He tells them the glories of the Law, and 
 that if they do these commandments of God 
 they shall forever live. If they do not, there 
 is nothing but death to follow in the wake 
 for all. Then he adds the greater words: 
 "Say not in thy heart who shall go into the 
 heavens to bring the Law down, or who 
 shall go over the sea to bring the Law unto 
 us. But what saith it, the Law is nigh 
 thee, even in thy mouth." If there should be 
 an abandonment of life in faith to the 
 Almighty as Abraham, the Father of 
 the Chosen People, walked by this blessed 
 guidance, they would do the law as instinc- 
 tively as the birds sing and the flowers 
 bloom and send forth their fragrance. The 
 
 100 
 
The Last Race Enemy Ours 
 
 key into the kingdom, Moses thus said, was 
 being led of the Spirit. 
 
 When Paul comes to make his great sum- 
 mary in Romans, which is the greatest 
 system of theology Christendom has called 
 forth, he takes up this parting message of 
 the great lawgiver, and makes it more 
 mighty as it is revealed in the life of one 
 who was "greater than Moses." Paul feels 
 that the Eternal Spirit of life that formu- 
 lated the law was the Eternal Spirit of life 
 that found its perfect expression in the 
 Christ. Then he speaks of the great Guide 
 of life who was to take the place of the 
 external law: "Say not in thy heart who 
 shall ascend into the heaven to bring Christ 
 down, or who shall descend into the depth to 
 bring Christ from the dead, but what saith 
 it. The Word — the Law incarnate — the liv- 
 ing Word that God sent as his perfect will 
 to us, revealing it in the power of the Eternal 
 Spirit — he is nigh thee even in thy mouth. 
 If thou shalt confess with thy mouth Jesus 
 as Lord — say that he is the Immanuel ac- 
 tually God with us, and believe in thy heart 
 that God raised him from the dead, thou 
 shalt be saved." What a summary is this! 
 It is a confession that the Eternal Spirit of 
 
 101 
 
The Sinless, Sickless, Deathless Life 
 
 God which was in Christ is the Spirit of God 
 in us, and that as we confess that this Spirit 
 finds its final and fullest triumph over 
 death, the last enemy of the race, we shall 
 be saved also into the fullness of salvation 
 that the Redeemer has brought to us. 
 
 But up to this time the church has been 
 simply placing the emphasis on the fact of 
 Christ's being raised from the dead, through 
 the power of the Eternal Spirit, and has al- 
 most totally failed to grasp the mighty in- 
 ference and everlasting therefore that God 
 wants us to draw from it, that the Spirit of 
 life that raised Christ from the dead dwells 
 in us to lift us into the same almighty 
 triumph also. 
 
 This was the fact that bore down hard 
 upon the heart of Paul. This is what made 
 him feel that he wanted not to speak of 
 knowing "Christ after the flesh" but after 
 the Spirit. This is what made him glory 
 in the Christ within him. The Spirit of the 
 Almighty which one possesses by his very 
 creation Paul felt could be set free and 
 bring forth its triumphant fruit through 
 faith, as it brought this forth in Jesus. This 
 made him feel that we are to have part with 
 Christ in his resurrection and that we were 
 
 102 
 
The Last Race Enemy Ours 
 
 not to be "unclothed but clothed upon with 
 our house from on high." It was a feeling 
 that if men only abandoned themselves to 
 the guidance of the Eternal Spirit of Life, 
 they would have to unfold like unto the 
 Christ, the first fruit of the perfect, heavenly 
 harvest. This made him "preach Jesus 
 and the resurrection." It made him feel 
 if we are buried with him in baptism, we 
 would be raised with him in glory; and the 
 full glory would be the glorifying of God in 
 our bodies and our spirits, as Jesus glori- 
 fied him thus by his resurrection. 
 
 With such a conception of the indwelling 
 Spirit of Jesus, one must feel that the "sweet 
 reasonableness," the all powerful "there- 
 fore" that must come as the inevitable con- 
 clusion of the plan of God in our creation is 
 that we be as triumphant over sin and sick- 
 ness and death as was Jesus, "the express 
 image of the Father's glory" and the ex- 
 press image of the Father's race purpose. 
 That is the conclusion that we must make 
 by faith. As soon as we do, then we no 
 longer will join with the Chorus of the An- 
 tigone of Sophocles — "against death shall we 
 call for aid in vain." We will join in the 
 eternal triumph song of Paul, as he caught 
 
 103 
 
The Sinless, Sickless, Deathless Life 
 
 it from the life and resurrection of his Lord, 
 "Oh death, where is thy sting, Oh grave, 
 where is thy victory?" Faith that God is 
 within us, as willing and ready and able to 
 bring this glory about in us as in Jesus, will 
 hasten the day of the great deliverance. 
 We will then enter into the fullness of our 
 purchased possessions. We will have known 
 "the power of his resurrection" and that 
 he is within us the hope of this glory to be 
 actually realized. We will live every moment 
 waiting for the adoption of the new life 
 which is ours, and we will at some moment 
 least expected enter into the fullness of it. 
 But we are to count the work done. We are 
 to believe that this is our birthright, and 
 that Jesus is the one who clearly shows us 
 that it is. This is the new day and the true 
 day that is dawning fast. The morning 
 star of it is rising already with healing in 
 its wings, proclaiming it. It is what may 
 be called the "third day" of Christendom. 
 The first day was when men lived by the 
 hope of His coming, and walked by the law 
 of Sinai, till he should reveal the perfect 
 life in the person of the Messiah to us. The 
 second day is when he came in person and 
 tabernacled among us. "We beheld his 
 
 104 
 
The Last Race Enemy Ours 
 
 glory, the glory of the Only Begotten full of 
 grace and truth." It is the day of the his- 
 toric and the objective Christ. All Chris- 
 tendom has been walking largely in the light 
 of the person of Jesus more than the Spirit 
 of Jesus ever since. We have studied the 
 story of his life more than we have walked 
 by the faith of his indwelling Spirit. To be 
 sure this latter has been tacitly professed. 
 But we have put up an external character 
 to be conformed to by the power of imitation 
 largely. As a result, we have gotten almost 
 as much in the mire and darkness of religion 
 as were the Jews before the coming of Jesus. 
 But now a new day is dawning. It is to 
 be greater by far than that of the Reforma- 
 tion or even the first coming of Jesus. It 
 is his coming by faith in the power of 
 Christ's indwelling Spirit, which is God's 
 Eternal Spirit. It is a believing that he is 
 within us thus the hope of our everlasting 
 glory. We are to be led by this Spirit, and 
 not by attempts at conformity to an exter- 
 nal code or an external character. This is 
 the glorious life of freedom. It is the 
 liberty of the Spirit. It means that we are 
 to appropriate to ourselves all the work of 
 the Spirit as it is exhibited, wrought out in 
 
 105 
 
The Sinless, Sickless, Deathless Life 
 
 Jesus. By this we are led from moment to 
 moment as by a heavenly instinct. By this 
 we shall triumph over everything we have 
 to face. Death will go down with all the 
 other race enemies. We are to be dead to 
 death in the eternal life of the deathless 
 Spirit of Christ Jesus. 
 
 Here is the heavenly nexus between Christ 
 and the believer God showed by his Son 
 in the sense-world in which we live, as his 
 eternal all-loving purpose for us. If we will 
 believe He is within us, working both to 
 will and to do this glorious purpose, he will 
 bring us off more than conquerors. We will 
 be living witnesses of the resurrection as 
 wonderfully as was our forerunner, Christ 
 Jesus. This makes death, the last race 
 enemy, ours; and we will rejoice to tell to 
 all the world that if they shall only believe 
 they shall see realized in themselves also this 
 glory of God in the life of the Spirit, 
 
 This is preaching unto men "Jesus and the 
 resurrection" in such a way that they will 
 feel the power of the endless life quickening 
 their mortal bodies. They shall feel the 
 power of the mighty overcoming of the 
 Spirit, and that they are one with the Eter- 
 nal Christ in the Eternal Life, which is the 
 gift of God to every one that believeth. 
 
 106 
 
The Last Race Enemy Ours 
 
 If one will just live by this faith, he will 
 be truly one with Christ in the just made 
 perfect. He will fulfill the works of the law 
 and be made over into the full likeness of 
 Jesus, both in his humiliation and his resur- 
 rection. 
 
 Thus we see how Christ came to hit death ; 
 and he hit it hard. Calvary was the place 
 where was read the Emancipation Proclama- 
 tion from it forever, to those who believe. 
 For twenty years after the Civil War many 
 of the colored people in the back mountain 
 districts of the South still felt that they were 
 enslaved. They could not realize that their 
 slave shackels had been broken for ever- 
 more. The great throng of God's people 
 are still living in utter ignorance of the 
 great fact that they are freed from death 
 and the grave, and that Christ on Golgotha 
 and the first Easter morning hath pro- 
 claimed their freedom from the death slavery 
 in which the race has ever been held. 
 Faith alone is the victory to overcome the 
 death delusion of the ages and make us re- 
 alize that we are to stand fast forever in 
 the liberty from death and the grave as from 
 all sin and sickness, — the liberty with which 
 Christ hath forever set us free. 
 
 107 
 
VIII. 
 "PARADISE REGAINED." 
 
 Ruskin, in speaking of Michael Angelo's 
 "Paradise," says, "It is the largest picture 
 in the world, and without question the most 
 thoughtful and most precious too. I have 
 no hesitancy in asserting this picture is by 
 far the most precious work of art of any 
 kind whatsoever, now existing in the whole 
 wide world." 
 
 Paradise is the greatest theme that has 
 ever ravished the heart of man. All peoples 
 and kindred and tribes have dreamed their 
 Paradises, which have been like a holy halo 
 around the throne of their gods, that have 
 inspired men on earth to nobler deeds, and 
 drawn them with the cords of both love and 
 fear ever heavenward. 
 
 It has also ever given to artists and seers 
 their greatest inspiration, and made them 
 sing epics and songs immortal, as nothing 
 else possibly could or has. It was music to 
 the ear of Dante, that made him write the 
 divine dream and drama of the Middle Ages 
 in the Inferno. It was the holy vision that 
 burned in the heart of Milton, that brought 
 
 108 
 
"Paradise Regained" 
 
 forth the matchless epics of Paradise Lost 
 and Paradise Regained. It has ever made 
 men feel that there must be a New Heaven 
 and a New Earth, for such dreams of nations 
 must come true. 
 
 Above all else it is the mighty glory vision 
 that opens the Bible, the book of the ages, 
 and closes the sacred pages with a rapture 
 that has surpassed all visions of heavenly 
 things that have ravished the minds and 
 hearts of men. 
 
 All peoples feel there is a glory that has 
 departed from the earth, and that the great 
 work of religion is to bring men out of their 
 Paradise Lost into a Paradise Regained. 
 
 Nothing has been so disappointing as the 
 attempts in sacred services and sacred songs 
 to tell how this return to the life celestial 
 may most surely come. When Milton had 
 finished his master poem of Paradise Lost, 
 which is one of the three literary master- 
 pieces of the world, he felt there was an 
 aching void in his heart, and that the lost 
 chord was not yet struck for the final, full 
 music of an expectant world. Then he at- 
 tempted the sequel in his Paradise Regained, 
 which was as much of a disappointment to 
 the singer as to those who heard the song. 
 
 109 
 
The Sinless, SicJdess, Deathless Life 
 
 Edwin Arnold's "Light of the World" was 
 not so much of a failure to reach the splen- 
 did heights he had climbed in his "Light of 
 Asia," as was Milton's failure to rise above 
 the glorious heights in Paradise Lost, in its 
 sequel, the Paradise Regained. 
 
 But man will never cease climbing heaven- 
 ward no matter how many times he has fal- 
 len as he has striven to scale the heights of 
 God. Humanity feels it has lost something 
 most blessed it was made to ever have. 
 Hence this quest for its lost Paradise is the 
 most deep-seated longing of the soul. We 
 will keep on fighting the holy war by faith 
 for it, and will never give up till the full 
 victory will be forever ours. Then our real 
 world will be a most heavenly dream world, 
 the divine beauty of which no Muse has half 
 told the deathless glory of. 
 
 Christ came for no other purpose than to 
 lead us back into this glory world. He 
 came to make our lives bud and bloom in 
 this desert of earth, with a far greater 
 beauty than the Rose of Sharon, or the lillies 
 of the valley of Palestine. They are to 
 bloom with the beauty and fragrance of the 
 Paradise of God. The opening words of 
 Genesis give a heavenly foregleam of the 
 
 110 
 
"Paradise Regained" 
 
 glory that is departed. Jesus came to lead 
 us back to the place where we should all 
 "eat again of the tree of life that grows 
 in the Paradise of God." This is not a 
 promise in which "man never is, but always 
 to be blest." It is a promise that He ful- 
 filled, and wants to take every race child by 
 the hand of faith and lead them into the 
 "garden of God," now "where the tree of 
 life is blooming," and there is actually the 
 rest that remaineth for the people of God. 
 
 A little social custom, milleniums old, 
 among God's chosen folks, gives a glimpse 
 of what this Paradise is when once we have 
 entered into the possession thereof. 
 
 The Palestine overseer, however cruel he 
 may be as a taskmaster to his brethren, 
 when the rest hour of the heat of the day 
 comes, or the finish hour of the day's toil is 
 over at eventide, calls out to all the weary 
 workers, "Paradise! Paradise! Paradise!" 
 It means the time has come to stop. The 
 Lord of Labor gives place to the Lord of 
 Love. The word Paradise means "along 
 with God." The overseer little realizes that 
 when he has taken his hand off" the slave he 
 works, that he has commended him to the 
 good-will of God. Henceforth the freeman 
 
 111 
 
The Sinless, Sickless, Deathless Life 
 
 is to do what he pleases till the work hour 
 begins again. This freedom is a time when 
 he is to have his life "along with God." The 
 Spirit of the Almighty is to be the guide of 
 his hours. Conscience is to be the over- 
 seer. When one follows such a law of love, 
 he cannot help but find all earth in such a 
 freedom of the Spirit, that it is like the 
 moments he longs for when he shall be de- 
 livered from the slavery of his earth breth- 
 ren, and join the redeemed from bondage 
 in the land of eternal Jubilee, where each 
 man is a freeman in the kingdom of God. 
 
 It is into this state of mind or state of 
 heart that Jesus came to call the world. He 
 is to take us out of a world of Paradise Lost, 
 and bring us into the world of Paradise 
 Regained. We are God's poems in which 
 this is to be realized, and through whom 
 this great epic of redemption is to be read 
 by all people, so that all will feel that it is 
 the "song celestial" that must charm and 
 change the world. 
 
 Daniel Webster in his great Bunker Hill 
 Monument address said that "the mind is 
 the lever which moves the world." If we 
 have within us "the mind which was in 
 Christ Jesus"; if we believe that God is 
 
 112 
 
"Paradise Regained" 
 
 most surely within us by the power of the 
 Eternal Spirit, "working to will and to do 
 of his good pleasure" ; if we believe that he 
 is able and willing to accomplish that which 
 he has planned for us, and that "we will ap- 
 prehend that for which we are apprehended 
 of God in Christ Jesus," then most surely 
 we will have the lever of heaven to pry up 
 this dark sin-crushed, sin-cursed earth till 
 will be lifted out of its slough of despond 
 and despair into the glorious life and light 
 and liberty of the Spirit of God. Then we 
 will know that we are "freed from the curse 
 of the law" with its sin and sickness and 
 death, and can cry out in joy unspeakable 
 and full of glow and glory, "Paradise ! Para- 
 dise! Paradise!" We will know indeed that 
 this liberty of the Spirit is "the sweet will 
 of God " for us ; and the day of our deliver- 
 ance has come as an everlasting year of 
 Jubilee. 
 
 This dream-stuff of the ages becomes the 
 "mind-stuff" of the full believer. Out of it 
 he builds a whole new heaven and a whole 
 new earth. He finds that he is indeed in a 
 new world in which dwelleth righteousness. 
 Heaven then is not far from any one of us. 
 Both it and God can be had for the asking, 
 
 113 
 
The Sinless, Sickless, Deathless Life 
 
 and no good thing is withheld from those 
 who thus believe. 
 
 Here is the thought-putting of the holy 
 message. As it comes into our mind, as a 
 thing actually believed, it will transform the 
 heart, as the cold winter is turned to the 
 warmth of summer at the return of the sun 
 from the winter solstice. 
 
 The great vision of Revelation, the vision 
 of Christ to us after his complete victory 
 over all things in his resurrection tells the 
 truth most graphically in an imagery that 
 is unmatched in its glory and power in all 
 the world. Christ was the "Overcomer." 
 He overcame all man is to meet, even the 
 last enemy, death. Out of this triumph, 
 from the heights of his glory he speaks a 
 yet larger message by his Spirit, in Revela- 
 tions, than he ever spake while he taber- 
 nacled with us. He seems to say, "I am 
 the world overcomer. I am the Spirit of 
 Life that overcomes all things. I came to 
 give this Spirit of overcoming to you also, 
 so that you may join with me in the triumphs 
 of my Messiahship." 
 
 The Jewish people must have found worlds 
 of meaning in a message like this. They 
 had as their most cherished adage, "the 
 
 114 
 
"Paradise Regained" 
 
 secret of man is the secret of the Messiah." 
 They felt that when the Messiah would come 
 he would have the secret of life that burns 
 all barriers away; and that he would make 
 known how this life of the Eternal Spirit 
 could be forever set free in our hearts also. 
 They felt that all men were made to be 
 perfect as the Father in heaven is perfect. 
 They felt that the words told to Abraham, 
 the father of the people, were the words 
 to be ever the voice of God to us, "Walk be- 
 fore me and be ye perfect." They felt 
 that this life was in the soul of man some- 
 how, and that there must be a way by which 
 it would be brought out. When Christ 
 should appear, who was the one who was 
 "the sent of God," the one wholly led by the 
 Spirit of God, they would see in Him what 
 each of us was meant to be. Then he came. 
 He showed sin-marred man restored. Then 
 he says as he ascends up on high, "This is 
 the way of God for man, follow me." We 
 follow him fully and finally by yielding to 
 the Spirit of the life of God within us, as he 
 surrendered to the Eternal Spirit, and was 
 led fully and forever by it. All we will 
 ever have to do to be saved is to believe that 
 God is in us working to will and to do of his 
 
 115 
 
The Sinless, Sickless, Deathless Life 
 
 good pleasure, which is nought else than 
 making us over into the full likeness of the 
 Messiah. The secret of life wrapped up in 
 us all is the secret of life unfolded perfectly 
 in the Messiah. This is what is meant by 
 the great words, "He that believeth that 
 Jesus is the Christ, — the God anointed, — 
 "is born of God." This faith, in its unfold- 
 ing, will bring forth the fullness of life as 
 revealed fully forever in the Only Begotten 
 One. 
 
 To believe this in our very heart of hearts 
 is putting our wheel to the very trolley wire 
 of heaven. The currents of the Spirit of 
 God come down into us thereby, and set in 
 motion the mechanism of our lives, so that 
 they move out along the very lines along 
 which Jesus moved, with love to God with all 
 his mind and soul and strength and love to 
 lost humanity just as much. This is the vital 
 union and the vitalizing union of the soul 
 with God, by which we grow in grace from 
 day to day till the full, ripened fruitage is 
 brought forth revealed as God's will for the 
 world in the precepts and practices of 
 Jesus. This faith is bound to make us 
 overcomers in the same way it made Jesus 
 an overcomer. Whatever he met and con- 
 
 116 
 
"Paradise Regained'* 
 
 quered we will, by his indwelling Spirit, 
 meet and conquer also. Following Jesus 
 thus, we will be led back by the Spirit of 
 the guiding, guarding angel of the Covenant 
 into the Paradise long lost to the soul. 
 Then everything we can hope or think will 
 be ours as our gracious inheritance. The 
 book of Revelation is nothing if it is not a 
 great undownable proclamation of this. 
 The hand of God therein seems to sweep 
 across the whole octave of man's hopes so 
 long deferred, and ravishes the soul by saying 
 that these are thine now. If we will only 
 believe that with Jesus we are overcomers 
 as he has overcome, v,^e will enter into the 
 glory of his life triumphant. 
 
 "To him that overcometh" is repeated, 
 like a "Sevenfold Amen," again and again 
 in the opening words of the wondrous book. 
 "To him that overcometh I will give to eat 
 of the tree of life, that grows in the midst 
 of the Paradise of God." Not in some sweet 
 bye and bye is this, but noiv, if by faith we 
 will accept the proffered gift of our full in- 
 heritance as a child of God. 
 
 "He that overcometh shall not be hurt by 
 the second death." How could it be other- 
 wise? He will not be touched by the first 
 
 117 
 
The Sinless, Sickless, Deathless Life 
 
 death, for he is already risen with Christ, 
 who has banished death and the grave for- 
 ever for us. A life thus planted and poised 
 in God will find no death of soul or body. 
 He has by his faith entered into the fullness 
 of his blessed inheritance, as joint heir with 
 Him who overcame all things for us. 
 
 "He that overcometh shall eat of the hid- 
 den manna." The bread of heaven that 
 Jesus fed upon is the angels' food that is 
 ours. One has meat to eat which the world 
 knows not of. He comes to that blessed 
 moment that is the promised one for all, 
 "when men will not live to eat or eat to live." 
 A new source of supply is opened up. It is 
 foolishness to speak of this to those who 
 have not by the guidance of the Spirit found 
 this pot of heavenly manna. But it is the 
 food that never gives out and always 
 satisfies. 
 
 "He that overcometh shall rule the na- 
 tions with a rod of iron." Iron is strength, 
 in the eyes of all. He who has caught the 
 message from heaven that he can be actually 
 one with Christ in all his triumphant power 
 has the creed that all men are bound to 
 come to. They sooner or later must leave 
 all little visions for this largest that it is 
 
 118 
 
"Paradise Regained*' 
 
 possible for the mind and heart of man to 
 possess, and which is truly the great gift of 
 God for us. 
 
 "He that overcometh is clothed in white 
 robes and his name shall not be blotted out 
 of the book of life." White robes are the 
 righteousness of saint. The book of life 
 is the calendar of the saints. The saints 
 are "the sent of God" to show God's mighty 
 plan for men. They are his full representa- 
 tives panoplied with all his power of attor- 
 neyship. This is what we are to be. We 
 are to represent God in everything or noth- 
 ing. No good thing has he withheld from 
 the child of his love that walks uprightly. 
 
 "He that overcometh shall be a pillar in 
 the temple of my God." The pillar was the 
 great post on either side of the entrance of 
 the door into the temple service. On these 
 were written the most wonderful words of 
 God to man. No one could enter the 
 temple for service or sacrifice without pass- 
 ing these and reading the wonderful words 
 of life that were written thereon, as the 
 words most needful for the worshipper, to 
 rightly worship. So one who lives in this 
 full-orbed creed of Jesus, that we are one 
 with him in all the glories of his heavenly 
 
 119 
 
The Sinless, Sickless, Deathless Life 
 
 inheritance, is the door post into the great 
 temple of truth. All who worship God 
 aright must go past him to enter the shrine 
 of heaven that the God of glory has set up 
 for all the earth. Men will read this match- 
 less message on us; and as they do, they 
 will find that their whole beings have become 
 transformed into temples of living light, 
 aglow with the glory of God, and filled with 
 the presence of God's perfect hallowedness. 
 
 And last of all, "He that overcometh shall 
 inherit all things, and I will be to him a 
 father and he shall be to me a son. He shall 
 sit down with me on my throne, even as I 
 have overcome and sat down with my Father 
 on his throne." What a climax of possession 
 is this ! Nothing greater in all the world is 
 conceivable. Yet that is the last and the 
 best of the great things which are ours in 
 the sevenfold blessing which God has pre- 
 pared for them that will by faith become 
 joint heirs with Jesus in the inheritance of 
 his eternal and all perfect and all powerful 
 life. 
 
 As one turns to the close of the book of 
 Revelation that has lifted to the seventh 
 heaven all the Christian world, we read of 
 what all this must mean to the earth in 
 
 120 
 
"Paradise Regained" 
 
 which we live. It means the foulest of civ- 
 izations shall become whiter than the snow. 
 The city, the ripened and most rotten fruit 
 of civilization, is to be redeemed, till it shall 
 be like a New Jerusalem — the city filled 
 with Jehovah's peace, let down from above 
 to us. In it the deathless life is the thing 
 first mentioned and is for all folks. The 
 picture of the City of God is that of old 
 Babylon, the city in the eyes of the Jews 
 most despised, and in the eyes of God most 
 befouled. The river runs through the midst 
 of it, as the river ran through the midst of 
 Babylon. On the one side of this river in 
 the old city of the Euphrates, the priests 
 and the families of royal blood lived. There 
 was the temple and all who were permitted 
 to be worshippers in it. On the other side 
 of the river were the people of toil; people 
 who had no standing as citizens, and no 
 standing with God. They could not enter 
 into the holy place of worship, for they were 
 without God-touched souls. But in the new 
 city which John the seer sees, this despised, 
 befouled city, that polluted the whole earth 
 with its fornications, was redeemed. On 
 each side of the river was there the tree of 
 life. All were permitted to partake of the 
 
 121 
 
The Sinless, Sickless, Deathless Life 
 
 tree of the garden of the new Eden of the 
 Paradise Regained. In the very midst of 
 the street of the city even "the tree of life 
 was blooming." God's Paradise is one re- 
 gained for all. 
 
 As one lives in the dream of the sinless, 
 sickless, deathless life, as God's free gift for 
 all, he lives in a perpetual Pentecost and 
 in God's everlasting Paradise. He is not 
 simply in the "cosmic stream of life." He 
 is in the stream of eternal life flowing from 
 the throne of God and the Lamb. Into his 
 life it comes like the sap of God, unfolding 
 life moment by moment into the full likeness 
 and stature of the Only Begotten Son of the 
 Highest. 
 
 Jesus came as the great deliverer to say 
 to sin, sickness and death, the great, cruel 
 taskmasters of the ages over us, "Let my 
 people go." By faith in his word the power 
 of the great bondage is broken forever. 
 Christ has pronounced our Emancipation 
 Proclamation. He turns to us, discouraged 
 almost to death with our bondage, and says, 
 "Paradise! Paradise! Paradise! You are 
 free now and forever, free to take freely of 
 the river of life, and possess all that I possess 
 of the eternal possessions of the living God." 
 
 122 
 
"Paradise Regained" 
 
 Such faith gives us a religion that is really 
 real. It lights up the cold ethics of the 
 world with a most heavenly emotion, and 
 puts in motion movements that are bound to 
 tell the good news by word and deed as far 
 as man is found. This is the only religion 
 that satisfies. It awakens one into a heav- 
 enly life and into a likeness that we know is 
 His image. This alone truly now and for- 
 ever satisfies. 
 
 As we believe that the Holy Ghost is to 
 take of the whole Christ — the sinless, sick- 
 less, deathless Christ — and make his life 
 over to us, there dawns a new day on which 
 the sun of his righteousness and his joy 
 never sets. This we know is the real world, 
 and all else is but an empty dream. Into 
 the heart comes the light of heaven. On 
 the altar is the fire of God. Then we cannot 
 help but sing with Tennyson, 
 
 "Death will be no longer, in the 
 Glare of the deathless fire." 
 
 123 
 
IX. 
 
 "THE PREACHING OF THE CROSS," 
 CLARIFIED AND GLORIFIED. 
 
 The one supreme desire throughout Chris- 
 tendom is that "the preaching of the cross" 
 may ever become more clarified, as it is ever 
 to become more glorified. Our minds are 
 made to see ever more clearly the place of 
 the "Cross" in the world's great redemptive 
 purpose; just as our hearts are made to 
 glow with the glory-vision of it. 
 
 If there is one place in the whole realm of 
 theology where the mind, as it climbs the 
 high and holy heights, is lost in the mist and 
 the mystery, it is on Calvary at the foot of 
 the "Cross" which the world somehow in- 
 stinctively feels is the Crux of all history and 
 the very axis and acme of existence. 
 
 Here is a fair example of the feeling of 
 the entire church, whether Greek or Roman, 
 Catholic or Protestant, about the holy mys- 
 tery which Paul felt was "the power of God 
 unto salvation," and the only thing in all life 
 worth glorying in; though the Jew found 
 it but a stumbling block, and the wisest of 
 the world once utter foolishness. 
 
 124 
 
"The Preaching of the Cross" Clarified 
 
 The words are the very heart of an epoch- 
 marking sermon of G. Campbell Morgan of 
 London, well known and well beloved the 
 world over. The mighty theme that gripped 
 him he entitled "The Cross of Christ — the 
 Heart of Religion, the Center of the Mission- 
 ary Message." He says in the glow of the 
 vision which has transformed the earth : 
 
 "The Cross of Christ lies at the very 
 heart and center of everything in life and 
 religion. There is no other subject so full 
 of value and of meaning in all its varied ap- 
 plications. In the Word of God, we have the 
 glimpse of the Cross from its beginning to 
 its end. In the inspired writings of the 
 apostles to whom was committed the work 
 of perfecting the doctrine upon which the 
 church should base its walk and conduct 
 perpetually, the cross has an ever-present 
 place; for they evidently looked to it as the 
 center of revelation and power. The more 
 closely the life of Christ is studied, the more 
 conscious do we become of the presence of 
 the Cross in his consciousness, from be- 
 ginning to end. Through all his min- 
 istry we find references that show that in 
 his mind at least there was the perpetual 
 subconsciousness of the vital importance of 
 that work accomplished in the cross, and by 
 the resurrection which followed it." 
 
 Just what this summum honiim of all re- 
 ligion is, as brought out to its full fruition 
 
 125 
 
The Sinless, Sickless, Deathless Life 
 
 on the cross, has ever been the sum and sub- 
 stance of all theologies. It is this that the 
 greatest minds have wrangled over and 
 wrought over and fought over. It is the 
 great battle-ground of the belligerants of all 
 the Christian centuries. What each saw, 
 was that alone what they thought all men 
 were meant to see. So the Cross has not 
 only been made the "hammer to break stony 
 hearts," but the battle-axe, in centuries of 
 the severest religious conflicts. 
 
 But now that there seems to be every- 
 where a lull in the battle, and the smoke of 
 the conflict has cleared away, we are be- 
 ginning to know each other better "as the 
 mists have rolled away." We begin to see 
 that there are many facets to this most 
 precious truth; and just because of this it 
 has become to all Christendom "the stone 
 most precious." In our moments of stillness 
 from the storm of intellectual conflict, we 
 are having borne in upon us by the Spirit 
 of all truth a clearer vision of the Cross as 
 the center of civilization and the soul of 
 science, as truly as the secret of the good 
 news and glad tidings of redemption that is 
 to baptise with a perpetual heart-blessing 
 the whole wide earth. 
 
 126 
 
"The Preaching of the Cross" Clarified 
 
 The little outline that the great preacher 
 draws, which he is to fill in with the fullness 
 of his love-overflowing heart, is about as all- 
 comprehensive as can be found any place. 
 Though doubtless he has not painted a per- 
 fect picture, he has drawn the outlines that 
 every soul-artist finds are the ones he will 
 love to take as his own as he mixes his 
 heart colors with brains, and tries to picture 
 the scene that ever ravishes men's souls, 
 minds and hearts. 
 
 The great truth that the sinless, sickless 
 and deathless life is the glory-goal of God 
 for all, finds its finest setting when brought 
 within this outline of the message of the 
 cross. 
 
 To quote again the exact words of the 
 great sermonizer, as with a few bold strokes 
 he gives the outline that is to be filled in 
 with his message, as the Spirit in his own 
 heart amplifies it: 
 
 "First, Jesus declares the discerning 
 power of his cross: 'Now is the judgment 
 of the world.' Secondly, he declares the 
 destructive poiver of his cross: 'Now is the 
 prince of this world cast out.' And, lastly, 
 he declares the drawing poiver of the cross: 
 'I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw 
 all men unto myself.' " 
 
 127 
 
The Sinless, Sickless, Deathless Life 
 
 The great discerning power of all the 
 world seemed to be centered in the vision of 
 the Greeks, They were the wisdom of the 
 world incarnate. They were the intellectual 
 peers in the world of letters and philosophy. 
 Their poetry also has ever been the great- 
 est music that has sung its way into the 
 hearts of folks. The Acropolis was the 
 Calvary of learning, as truly as Golgotha 
 was the place at which all the world was to 
 learn the way of the new heart. What 
 Greece did not know, the world has often 
 thought, was not worth knowing, along the 
 lines in which she so clearly thought. Greece 
 felt, above all others, that "the highest study 
 of mankind is man." Over her temple en- 
 trance were chiseled the lasting and laconic 
 words, "Know thyself." This she felt, as 
 does all the world, is the keystone in the 
 arch of all truth. Greek wisdom exhibited 
 the discerning power of the whole wide 
 earth. But she still felt that there was hid- 
 den wisdom she had not found, and an aching 
 void in the heart that was not yet filled, and 
 a lost chord in life that was still untouched. 
 So it is most wondrously significant that at 
 "the last great feast" some of the Greeks 
 which were at Jerusalem, when they heard 
 
 128 
 
''The Preaching of the Cross" Clarified 
 
 of the wonderful wonder-works of Jesus, the 
 wonder of men, came to his disciples, to see 
 if there was possibly in his message the key 
 to unlock the secrets of the Sibyl that they 
 had not yet been able to bring out into 
 the clear light. As soon as Jesus heard it 
 he said, "Now is the son of man to be glori- 
 fied." The Greeks, the wise of the earth, 
 come like the wise men to the right one to 
 find the hidden wisdom which alone makes 
 wise unto the salvation of the whole man, 
 and brings forth the true discernment, so 
 that men will know themselves as they are 
 known of heaven; and they will see clearly 
 God's great purpose for them. Then Jesus 
 tells of his death and burial and resurrec- 
 tion, and how like a grain of wheat he must 
 give his life up thus, that other lives may 
 be caught up into his fullness of life. He 
 could not tell the Greeks in words that man 
 was made for the deathless life. They would 
 have laughed him to scorn. Their greatest 
 poet formulated their creed, which was to 
 be a closed issue forever in their thought. 
 We have seen it in the Antigone. "Against 
 all man has fought successfully. He has 
 tamed the wild beast and conquered the 
 elements. Only against Death has he fought 
 
 129 
 
The Sinless, Sickless, Deathless Life 
 
 in vain." That was the unconquerable. 
 When Paul preached on Mars Hill to the 
 Greeks, as soon as he came to the mighty 
 climax of his message and preached unto 
 them "Jesus and the resurrection," his power 
 over their attention was finished. They 
 turned away. Some mocked; others said 
 they would hear him again, and only a few 
 believed; and these were not the wise, but 
 the simple-minded and the women. To 
 Jesus the resurrection from the dead, the 
 glorifying of the body, so that it should not 
 be sloughed off, but taken up into the glory 
 of the deathless life, was the crowning pur- 
 pose of creation. He felt we would never 
 know ourselves till we come to know this. 
 Words would not make it believeable. Ar- 
 gument could not bring it home so as to 
 become a creed of the heart. He must go 
 and demonstrate the truth so men could see 
 before their very eyes the glory of the divine 
 purpose. So most naturally when the 
 Greeks, the wisest of the earth, came to him 
 wanting to know the truth that burned like a 
 fire of heaven on the altar of his own heart, 
 he felt the time had come to make this great 
 divine demonstration for the discernment 
 of the wisest of the earth. And he did it. 
 
 130 
 
*'The Preaching of the Cross" Clarified 
 
 Calvary was the place where the truth was 
 forever made clear by actual evidence. The 
 Cross ivas where the world discerned clearly 
 God's great purpose for every one of us. It 
 there discerned that man was not made to 
 die, and that faith to believe that the life of 
 God was in us to accomplish this glorious 
 purpose would most surely bring it all about. 
 Jesus proclaimed it to the people over 
 and over again as we saw in the second 
 chapter. But their eyes were holden that 
 they could not see it. Our eyes are just as 
 much holden today so that we cannot, or do 
 not, or will not see the deathless life is our 
 inheritance. The sacred hymn tells the 
 sweet story, as it came from the inspired 
 heart of Phillips Brooks, "Though Christ be 
 born in Bethlehem a thousand times, what is 
 that to thee unless he is born in you?" 
 Christ must "be horn in us, the hope of 
 Glory." That is the power of the message 
 that brings salvation with it. Just as truly 
 must he be the hope of the resurrection in 
 us. Unless the Christ which is born in us 
 unfolds till he reproduces the triumph of the 
 resurrection and the complete resolution and 
 not dissolution of the body, we have missed 
 the purpose of the incarnation. He must 
 
 131 
 
The Sinless, Sickless, Deathless Life 
 
 be risen in us the hope of the glorious glory, 
 as well as born in us, or we shall not at all 
 discern the purpose of the death and resur- 
 rection of Jesus. When, however, we be- 
 lieve that the Spirit of life in us will do for 
 us what it did for Jesus in the glorifying of 
 the body, then will we discern the meaning 
 — the very first meaning — of the Cross, and 
 the mist shall have rolled away from the 
 mystery, and we shall see clearly the glory 
 of the Cross as we never before beheld the 
 glory of it. Then you know yourself as you 
 are known of God. Holding firmly to that 
 truth, all things become new and clear in 
 life, and you begin to see the wisdom hid 
 from the ages flashed before you with its 
 wonderful panorama of heavenly beauty, so 
 that you sit in wonder, that the marvels that 
 have been hid from the ages are now being 
 revealed to you in these last times of crea- 
 tion's unfolding purpose. You say, if I only 
 could see this done, then I would believe. 
 That puts you in the company of Thomas, 
 the doubter. He said if he saw the risen 
 Lord he would believe. Then he did, but 
 the Saviour said to him, "Because thou hast 
 seen thou hast believed ; blessed are those 
 who have not seen, and yet believe." If you 
 
 132 
 
"The Preaching of the Cross" Clarified 
 
 see the first fruits of this glorious purpose, 
 doubtless you will believe. But you will be 
 a thousand-fold more blessed if you believe 
 ivitjiout seeing; for your faith ivill make 
 possible the great fact. And nothing but our 
 unbelief keeps us from discerning the death 
 and resurrection of Jesus, as God has pur- 
 posed it. It is that the Spirit of life may 
 do in us and for us, in the triumph over 
 death and the glorifying here and now of 
 these bodies like unto his glorious body, who 
 felt that man was not made to die, but to be 
 the great overcomer of death, the foe that 
 was thought unconquerable; and by this 
 demonstration bring the glory of the new 
 heaven and the new earth to us. This belief 
 makes us discern the first great purpose of 
 God for us in the revelation of the cross. 
 The next step that this truth clarifies is 
 the destructive power of the cross. "The 
 Prince of this world is judged." Every 
 principle and practice of this world con- 
 trary to the divine design must be consumed 
 like dross in the flame of the deathless fire. 
 Sweeping aside all minor things that are to 
 be put down in life before we come off fully 
 and forever triumphant, these three great 
 race enemies that stand out in fierce de- 
 
 133 
 
The Sinless, Sickless, Deathless Life 
 
 fiance must go. Sin is all about, making us 
 ever wretched and wrecking throngs with- 
 out number every place. Whatever else 
 sin is, it is a mighty power unto destruction 
 of all our joy and peace, taking love out of 
 hearts for each other and blotting out all 
 sense of God and all vestiges of love for the 
 creator in his creatures every place. Sick- 
 ness, too, is all about. What a hospital hu- 
 manity is! It is a veritable Lazzereto. 
 Everybody is sick, as everybody is sinning. 
 If not, he is living in momentary expecta- 
 tion of it, and is spending his strength 
 mostly in guarding against it with laws of 
 health and laws about "meat and drink" that 
 are longer than those of Lycurgus. We 
 have codes set up far worse than those that 
 ever trammeled the Jewish folks. We are 
 afraid to eat this, and afraid to eat that. 
 We are afraid to drink this, and afraid to 
 drink that. We are afraid to go here, and 
 afraid to go there. We are fearful to do 
 this, lest we ought to have done that. 
 
 We are caged in a dungeon ch^ear by these 
 legal enactments. We are but Jews under 
 another name, and far worse than Jews, for 
 our codes of conduct and laws of diet are no 
 better than those of Deuteronomy or Exodus. 
 
 134 
 
*'The Preaching of the Cross*' Clarified 
 
 But Christ came to show us that what the 
 law that we have put up cannot do, in that 
 it is so weak through the fear-struck self, 
 God sending his Son in the likeness of sin- 
 less man, condemned sin in the flesh. He 
 who was fearless as he walked life triumph- 
 ant in the fullness of his faith, condemned 
 sin in the flesh, that the righteousness of 
 the laws we have put up might be fulfilled 
 in us who walk not after the flesh with its 
 codes of laws but after the Spirit which 
 possessed Christ Jesus. He condemned sin 
 and sickness and death forever in the flesh 
 on Calvary and the cross was the crowning 
 glory of this truth triumphant. All these 
 were doomed and downed forever in him. 
 They are to be just as much so in us who 
 believe that the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus 
 was but the Spirit of life of the first fruit 
 of the heavenly harvest of all humanity. 
 God wants to do for us, who believe, just 
 what he did for Jesus as he walked by this 
 unerring and deathless faith. 
 
 Death, the last race-enemy, Christ there 
 met, and came off in everlasting triumph. 
 Sin and sickness and death had no more 
 power over him after the resurrection. 
 They need have no more power over us. 
 
 135 
 
The Sinless, Sickless, Deathless Life 
 
 Christ came, and on Calvary made clear this 
 fact to us, so that the wayfarer, though a 
 fool, need not say it had not been demon- 
 strated to humanity beyond a shadow of a 
 doubt. What a light breaks into the heart 
 that sees this! The mists go and the clear 
 light of the divine power and the divine pur- 
 pose of faith stands out with unmistakable 
 clearness. If thou wilt only believe this, 
 thou wilt see and know in thine own life 
 the everlasting glory of it. This makes us 
 see the all destructive power of the cross of 
 everything that keeps any soul from bloom- 
 ing forth into the fullness of the perfect 
 righteousness. We need fear no evil. To 
 one and all are we impervious, immune by 
 such faith in the power and purpose of the 
 Spirit in us, that is the same Spirit that was 
 in Christ Jesus. The world is longing to 
 have this great triple problem of the power 
 of darkness cleared up. Calvary is the 
 place where the destructive power of the 
 Spirit of God is demonstrated so no one need 
 ever fear that it is not able to destroy for us 
 all it did in the life of Jesus. 
 
 The third power of the Cross is the draw- 
 ing power. All Christendom has never 
 wavered a moment in the conviction that 
 
 186 
 
"The Preaching of the Cross" Clarified 
 
 the power of its great proclamation lay in 
 the great drawing power of the cross. It 
 draws men out of the pits of sin and sets 
 them upon the pinnacles of glory in heaven- 
 ly places. That is the great mystery of 
 Godliness, that has ever been hid from the 
 wise, but revealed to babes in Christ with a 
 power that holds men everywhere as noth- 
 ing in all the universe. This is the stone 
 that the builders of earth-wisdom often 
 neglect, but is the one that has always be- 
 come the head of the corner in every civil- 
 ization that has moved upward and onward 
 in the mighty race-march. We have always 
 said it was a great mystery. This it is, 
 and one may well stand before it in holy 
 reverence. But it is a mystery that be- 
 comes most gloriously clarified if we but 
 take the two steps previous. To tell men 
 that they can see in the Cross the one clear 
 thing that all men want to see, how they 
 may overcome sin and sickness and death 
 and become perfect as the Father in heaven 
 is perfect, is a mighty drawing power every 
 place. Men feel nothing so much as their 
 moral limitations. There is nothing draws 
 them so much as to tell them that there is a 
 way that these may be broken forever and 
 
 137 
 
The Sinless, Sickless, Deathless Life 
 
 they may stand forth with all the power of 
 the triumphant Christ. This is something to 
 draw all the ends of the earth. Experience 
 shows it can be done. It is the call to the age 
 and the ages for all men to come and be par- 
 takers of this all-power of heaven and earth 
 that filled the life of Christ. 
 
 It shows that the wisdom of all the world 
 was brought forth in all its crowning beauty 
 at the cross and the resurrection. Say 
 what we please, all the world feels that there 
 is no man like Jesus. "He is the greatest 
 man that ever trod the earth." In him 
 dwelt all the wisdom of the Godhead bodily. 
 "His name shall be above every name the 
 richest legacy of time to the ages." Thus 
 the heart of humanity is ever bursting out 
 in holy adoration of him who came to take 
 mankind into the Arcanum of the Holy of 
 Holies, so that his heart should be ravished 
 with its joy, and his mind delighted in its 
 beauty, as all heaven and earth are at best 
 but a dim reflection of it. He solved the 
 riddle of existence. He conquered all that 
 is to be conquered. He loved the world and 
 set free a love in the human heart that 
 brings in the universal brotherhood, and not 
 merely tells that it is a thing to be brought 
 
 138 
 
"The Preaching of the Cross" Clarified 
 
 about. He is the King of kings, and Lord 
 of lords. All fall down before him and 
 cry aloud as they adore him for the glory of 
 his goodness and greatness, his wisdom and 
 his love. He was the one who was so in- 
 filled by the presence of the Spirit that he 
 was lifted up and up in the great surging, 
 seething sea of humanity till he came to the 
 surface of it, and rose above the turmoil 
 and the maelstrom. Calvary was the place 
 at the moment of the great resurrection 
 over the power of death where he showed 
 that he could be thus lifted up, and was thus 
 lifted up to lift us up to the heights of glory 
 by the same Spirit and the same way he 
 was borne heavenward in the unfolding of 
 the power of the endless life of the Spirit. 
 One little illustration, most vivid to a Jew 
 and most impressive to all the ages since, 
 was the one that Jesus used to tell this 
 mighty drawing power of his cross and the 
 resurrection triumph that followed it. "As 
 Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilder- 
 ness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, 
 that whosoever believeth on him should not 
 perish but have everlasting life." They all 
 knew the mystery and the practical meaning 
 of it, Why a brazen serpent was used 
 
 139 
 
The Sinless, Sickless, Deathless Life 
 
 (the image of the thing that was destroy- 
 ing) to have men look to, to live in the 
 camp of the serpent-stung host, need not 
 bother us. It was to the Jew a most veri- 
 table fact. So man, that brings all the 
 trouble to the world that seems to come, was 
 to be the one to lift the race out of its dark- 
 ness. It could only be done by man being 
 so filled with the Spirit of the Almighty that 
 he would be transformed from glory to glory 
 in the unfolding of the power of the Spirit, 
 that everything should be overcome in the 
 mighty unfolding triumph. This is what 
 Calvary was. It saw man made perfect. 
 It saw him bud and bloom and bring forth 
 the fruit of deathless life. It saw 
 the Prince of Death go down under the 
 power of the Prince of Life. It saw hu- 
 manity crowned with its inherent divine- 
 ness. It saw the crown of sorrow, so long 
 pressed down on the head of humanity, lifted 
 and transformed into a crown of the most 
 triumphant joy, so that all could now join 
 in the great shout of victory, "Oh death, 
 where is thy sting, oh grave, where is thy 
 victory?" He who was lifted up in such a 
 glory out of such shame said, "Look unto 
 me, all ye ends of the earth, and be ye saved." 
 
 140 
 
"The Preaching of the Cross" Clarified 
 
 If you will believe that the life of God that 
 has done all this glory-work of God in me 
 is the eternal life in you to bring forth 
 the same mighty and almighty triumph, ye 
 shall not die, ye shall live. Life and immor- 
 tality was brought to light. The leader of 
 the world had come. It was clearly seen 
 that he who was led of God is ever to show 
 us the only true way to God. It was clear 
 now as a beam of sunlight that if we could 
 only have his Spirit, we would have all his 
 glorious triumph. Then, that none might 
 doubt, he says God is more willing to give 
 the Holy Spirit — the Spirit which he calls 
 the Spirit of Truth, and the Spirit of Christ 
 — to you, than parents are willing to give 
 the gifts of love to their dear ones. This 
 Spirit can be had for the asking. It is the 
 Spirit that will lift us up into all the tri- 
 umphs of Jesus. 
 
 So we see that the secret of the solution of 
 sin is the secret of the possession of the life 
 of the Son. The secret of being healed of 
 every disease is to be possessed with the 
 spirit of the Great Physician, which immunes 
 one forever to every sickness. The secret of 
 the overcoming of death and the grave, and 
 of hell with all its long-feared wretchedness 
 
 141 
 
The Sinless, Sickless, Deathless Life 
 
 is the Spirit of life of him who put death and 
 hell beneath his feet forever, that we by the 
 guidance of the Spirit can by faith put them 
 beneath ours also. This is the good news 
 and the glad tidings of salvation. To be- 
 lieve the life of the Spirit is the sinless, 
 sickless and the deathless life, and is the 
 design of God for all, clarifies the meaning 
 of the Cross, and glorifies a thousand-fold 
 more the Cross, for with our minds and 
 hearts we enter into fellowship with him 
 who is the world's soul, and first fruits of 
 the Spirit in the harvest of humanity where 
 the fruit is ripening on the great tree of life. 
 
 Now we can say with a clearer and more 
 glorious witness, "God forbid that I should 
 glory save in the cross of my Lord Jesus 
 Christ." There I discerned God's gracious 
 purpose for me. There I saw destroyed 
 every enemy I have ever to meet; there I 
 am drawn to be lifted up in glory forever by 
 the Spirit of him that made Calvary sublime 
 with humanity's greatest triumph, as by 
 faith in God it was declared and demon- 
 strated so that no one need ever doubt the 
 will of God in Christ Jesus for every one 
 of us. 
 
 One of the sublimest passages in Bunyan's 
 
 142 
 
"The Preaching of the Cross" Clarified 
 
 Pilgrim's Progress is where Christian as- 
 cends the mountain side bearing the heavy 
 burden of sin upon his back. Then sud- 
 denly he comes to the cross, at the foot of 
 which is the open sepulcher. Almost at 
 once the heavenly pilgrim finds his great 
 burden roll away and into the open sepulcher 
 where it vanishes forevermore. Then he ex- 
 claims in his new-found joy, "He hath given 
 me rest by His sorrow and life by His death." 
 In this larger, clearer, more glorious vision 
 of the cross, under the guidance of the 
 Spirit, one feels he comes to it up the holy 
 mount of God's holy highway. Suddenly the 
 great burden of sin and sickness and death 
 that he has borne all the years as the in- 
 heritance of all the centuries rolls away. 
 They all seem to be buried in the empty 
 tomb of the risen, reigning Lord. As he 
 feels the oneness of his life forever with the 
 risen, all-triumphant Redeemer, and his in- 
 heritance in him and with him of all things, 
 he cannot help but say in the vision of the 
 ever all-triumphant life, "He has given me 
 rest forever by His sorrow, and life tri- 
 umphant by his deathless life." 
 
 143 
 
X. 
 
 THE TRIUMPH OF THE TRINITY. 
 
 Professor Wm. T. Harris, the late U. S. 
 Commissioner of Education, and America's 
 greatest Hegelian, once said to a group of 
 friends that the "Trinity was a metaphysi- 
 cal necessity." Much more truly can it be 
 said to be a practical as well as a historic 
 and theological necessity. It is the great 
 "rule of three" that runs as the web into 
 which is woven the woof of all human life 
 everywhere. Triads and trinities are to be 
 found in the life and thought of all peoples 
 and times. These all realize their holy and 
 heavenly culmination in "the Most Holy 
 Trinity," that has its bud in the New Testa- 
 ment and the bloom more and more perfect 
 in the unfolding thought of the Christian 
 centuries. 
 
 Just as the "Preaching of the Cross" is 
 clarified and glorified in the thought of the 
 sinless, sickless and deathless life, as God's 
 glory-goal for all, so also, only to an even 
 greater degree, does the triumphant truth 
 of the trinity stand out with a clearness and 
 glory when seen in the light of this truth as 
 the final and full revelation of God to all. 
 
 God has always been thought to be "all 
 
 144 
 
The Triumph of the Trinity 
 
 and in all blessed forevermore." We have 
 always felt that "from him and through 
 him and to him are all things; that "he 
 is above all and through all and in us 
 all;" and that we cannot escape him if we 
 would and we would not if we could. The 
 great stream of the divine life flows through 
 all and floods and flushes all things. What- 
 ever is, is the expression of the Almighty, 
 who is the Alpha and Omega of the "Perfect 
 Whole." 
 
 But all this thought of the immanence of 
 God does not in itself satisfy. The heart 
 hungers and thirsts after the true and living 
 God in a far more righteous way. We feel 
 that he must come as some Immanuel-God, 
 — one with us. We want some express 
 image of the Godhead bodily. We want to 
 see his purpose in the life of man, revealed 
 fully through the life of man. We feel there 
 is a divinity within us shaping our ends, 
 rough hew them though we will. But we 
 do long for some clear-cut revelation of what 
 this divine purpose wrought out in living 
 character is. That came to us clearly once 
 and forever in Jesus. He was one in es- 
 sence and in spirit, one in power and prin- 
 ciple, one in love and truth and life with the 
 
 145 
 
The Sinless, Sickless, Deathless Life 
 
 Father. He was the Immanuel God with 
 us. "He that hath seen me hath seen the 
 Father" is what Jesus felt, and all the world 
 realizes that only such a conviction will 
 satisfy the heart; hold life true to its mis- 
 sion, and bring it to realize its divine destiny 
 as revealed once for all in Jesus. He was 
 the Son of God. He and the Father were 
 one in every sense of oneness that it is pos- 
 sible for the mind and heart of man to con- 
 ceive. This is the rock on which the 
 church is to be built for the redemption of 
 the world. Jesus felt it profoundly as he 
 proclaimed it. It is the only vision that has 
 the power to give the uplift that is to trans- 
 figure and transform the earth. All cre- 
 ation is made to make us come to see this. 
 It was the great pass-word into the kingdom 
 of heaven, in the first days of Christendom. 
 It has been the great dogma of redemption 
 of historic Christendom from that day to 
 this. It has been the sheet anchor and the 
 shibboleth of the church through all its trials 
 and tribulations. It is the only door through 
 which one can ever enter into the full- 
 ness of the divine love and light and life. 
 All the gospels were written to make men 
 firm in this foundation fact and fundamen- 
 
 146 
 
The Triumph of the Trinity 
 
 tal faith. The gospel of John — the gospel 
 universal — closes its matchless words with 
 the great conviction: ''These things are 
 written that ye might believe that Jesus is 
 the Son of God, and believing ye might have 
 life through his name." The heart craves 
 humanity deified, as truly as it craves for a 
 revelation of deity. This instinct of our 
 nature is only satisfied in Jesus, and is fully 
 satisfied in Jesus. This is the Rock Gibe- 
 ralter of Christendom, that can never be 
 blasted away save at the eternal peril of one 
 who does so. A fish does not more truly 
 famish for lack of water, when out of the 
 stream, or the flowers wither and die when 
 torn from the soil, than a soul famishes, and 
 dies an unspeakable death, when this thought 
 is no longer the ground conviction of its be- 
 lief. Souls flash and flounder for a moment 
 when they make Jesus anything less than 
 this. They think that they are living a 
 life of liberty in the great denial. But 
 sooner or later the last end of life is far 
 worse than the first, and the soul goes out 
 into its outer darkness, for it has betrayed 
 its Lord of Glory and crucified the Son of 
 God afresh. No one wonders that Browning 
 could sing: 
 
 147 
 
The Sinless, Sickless, Deathless Life 
 
 I tell thee the belief of God in Christ, accepted with 
 
 the reason, 
 Solves for thee all problems in this world and the 
 
 next 
 And so far enables thee to be heavenly wise. 
 
 The truth that makes life come forth into 
 a most glorious triumph, is not only a belief 
 in God the Father, but a belief that God has 
 fully and forever revealed himself as the 
 Immanuel God with us, in Jesus Christ, the 
 express image of the Father's glory, the 
 fullness of the true race-purpose. The soul 
 can only grow into its divineness when it 
 plants itself in the soil of God by such a 
 living, undownable faith. 
 
 But the third step is the charm step, the 
 belief in the Holy Ghost. The great ques- 
 tion of the scholastics was, "Why did God 
 become man ?" And the only answer is 
 that "Man may become God — holy as God 
 is holy and perfect as the Father in heaven 
 is perfect." We are born to be gods, "why 
 will we die like men." The spark of divinity 
 is within us. David, the great singer and seer 
 of the Old Testament, felt it, when in one of 
 his most heavenly visions he sings, "Ye are 
 all gods." Jesus, the "greater David," felt 
 it far more fully when he said, "It is writ- 
 
 148 
 
The Triumph of the Tr^inity 
 
 ten in your law ye are all gods, and the 
 scripture can not be broken." Why do ye 
 kill me for proclaiming to you, in the con- 
 crete, what you all are purposed of heaven 
 to be? The greatest question that the race 
 has ever had to face is how it can set the 
 divine dynamic free in life and allow the 
 divine life potential within us to become the 
 divine life possible. This is the greatest de- 
 sire of heaven also that we shall fully know. 
 Heaven yearns far more to bring us forth in 
 our divineness, than we can possibly desire 
 to come forth in the divine likeness. We 
 are made to be like Jesus. We long to be 
 like Jesus. There is a way by which this 
 purpose and this desire shall be most fully 
 brought about. The race is made to realize 
 this. The great aim of all humanity is to 
 see and be this. 
 
 All the world more or less fully feels that 
 the great adjustment between man and God 
 must somehow be brought about through 
 Jesus. The great Atonement must some- 
 how come through him. He is the medium 
 and the mediator. He came to set us free 
 from all the bondage of the flesh and give 
 us the liberty of the Spirit of the Almighty 
 by which we might realize our divine son- 
 
 149 
 
The Sinless, Sickless, Deathless Life 
 
 ships and be sons of God like himself, lead 
 of the Spirit. The Jew felt that this was 
 the message and the mission of the Messiah. 
 "The secret of man is the secret of the Mes- 
 siah" is the way their "greater than Moses" 
 put it. How can we be taken up into the 
 Spirit of life that is in Christ Jesus? 
 That is the question of all questions we have 
 to face. 
 
 If "the mind is the measure of the man," 
 most surely the mind that is in Christ is the 
 measure of the divine man for every one of 
 us. He found life in abandonment to the 
 Spirit. He felt that he was dead to self 
 and alive to God, as God was guiding him 
 moment by moment by the Spirit, He was 
 buried to every other life than this, and was 
 raised into a newness of life, with this 
 singleness of purpose. Born of the Spirit — 
 borne along by the Spirit — borne off in tri- 
 umph over everything that will enthrall, by 
 the leading of the Spirit. He was one with 
 God in the life of the Spirit. He says that 
 we are all made to be this also. As we are 
 willing to believe in our minds that Christ 
 is Lord and that God raised him triumphant 
 over everything, even death and hell, we 
 will find the Spirit of life do the same thing 
 
 150 
 
The Triumph of the Trinity 
 
 for us moment by moment. That is vital 
 belief in Jesus. It is a conviction undown- 
 able as death that whatever the Spirit of 
 life, the divine life, within us did for Jesus 
 it is bound to do for us. We know that this 
 is a race spirit; that God is no respecter of 
 persons; that he will have all men come to 
 this fullness of life. It is the call of God to 
 all, and we are the "called of God" if we will 
 but by faith hear and heed the wondrous 
 call. We are to be buried to every other 
 source of life save that source of life that 
 Jesus had. It is the life of God within us, 
 carrying us to the same triumph that it 
 carried Jesus. We will find that day by day 
 this life of the Spirit will take of the things 
 of Christ in all of his precious experience 
 and reveal them unto us. It means that we 
 are to take the whole work of God in the life 
 of Christ as the whole of the work of God 
 which is to be done by the gracious unfold- 
 ing of the Spirit in each of us. Sin must 
 go down under the presence of God. "He 
 that is begotten of God cannot sin, for his 
 seed remaineth in him and he cannot sin." 
 No matter how startling and staggering 
 the statement, we must by humble faith 
 and thankfulness accept this as God's great 
 
 151 
 
The Sinless, Sickless, Deathless Life 
 
 purpose of Grace for us which he is able 
 and willing to most graciously accomplish. 
 We are to reckon ourselves dead unto sin 
 and alive unto God, and he will, as in the 
 great faith of Abraham, reckon this unto us 
 in a most glorious righteousness. 
 
 We are to feel that all sickness, like all sin, 
 goes down forever in this great faith conflict. 
 "He forgiveth all our sins and healeth 
 all our diseases." We are to cast all our 
 diseases on the same Lord we cast all our 
 sins upon. His Spirit coming in must banish 
 all as far as the East is from the West. The 
 life of God in the soul of man must mean 
 that the diseases of men go like sins of men 
 in the fire of the divine life and the divine 
 love. As I look to the sickless, as the sin- 
 less Christ as God's promised purpose for 
 me, as he is working to will and to do within 
 me of his good pleasure, I shall find that I 
 am immune to the battalion of bacilli that 
 are playing the sad havoc with the race of 
 those who see not themselves as God sees 
 them and reveals his vision to us in Christ 
 Jesus. "Keep your eye on Jesus" as the 
 glory-goal. Believe in thy heart that God 
 will most surely accomplish that which he 
 has promised to those who believe, and thou 
 
 152 
 
The Triumph of the Trinity 
 
 shalt be gloriously saved from all the disease 
 that man falls heir to. 
 
 But you say, "We must all die." No — a 
 thousand times No ! Man was not made to 
 die. Death and hell are beneath the feet of 
 the Son of God. Death and hell are beneath 
 the feet of those who are led of the Spirit 
 and thus, like Jesus, sons of God. We are 
 joint heirs with Jesus in the full inheritance. 
 We are by faith to reckon ourselves thus, 
 and we will find that we are as dead to death 
 as to sin and sickness. They are to have no 
 more power over us forever. The trinity 
 of darkness goes down forever before the 
 trinity of life and light. This is not too big 
 to be believed, or too good to be true. The 
 Kingdom of Heaven, where sin and sickness 
 and death are doomed and downed forever, is 
 at hand. It is now. Only believe this and 
 thou wilt see the glory of God in thy life by 
 this belief. This brings the triumph of the 
 Trinity. God! God in Jesus perfectly re- 
 flected to us. God in us by his Spirit doing 
 for us what he did in Jesus. It is the Spirit 
 for the race. It is the law of God for all the 
 race. It is the love of God for all the race. All 
 are under this law of life. All are to accept 
 of this gracious love of his life. Our wills 
 
 163 
 
The Sinless, SicJcless, Deathless Life 
 
 are given us for this supreme purpose, 
 to believe this from our heart of hearts. 
 We have wills to believe and this is the 
 crowning faith that we are to make ours, 
 that the crown of thorns we have worn all 
 these years may be changed to "the crown 
 of life that fadeth not away." "Let no man 
 take thy crown." The crowning glory of 
 the whole creation is the sinless, sickless, 
 deathless life of God in the soul of man to 
 make the deathless love of God in the lives 
 of men. This gift of God's life can be had 
 for the asking. This heaven right here and 
 now is to be given away. God is more will- 
 ing to give this Spirit than anything we 
 know — even than a parent to give good 
 things to the child of its love. Faith alone 
 is the faculty that God has given us for ac- 
 cepting this proffered gift. If thou wilt only 
 believe this, thou shalt see the glorious glory 
 of it, and find in the Holy Trinity the 
 triumph of thy faith as nowhere in all the 
 ages or the sages to be found. The way is 
 so simple that a fool need not miss the 
 heavenly road. If you try to save your life 
 in any other faith you will most surely lose 
 it. If you lose your life in this faith you 
 will for the first time in all the years have 
 
 154 
 
The Triumph of the Trinity 
 
 found it. Then all the riches heaven has 
 purposed in the gift of the Son of his love, 
 with this good news and glad tidings for all 
 the world will be yours. 
 
 He who thus believes will find himself 
 "practicing the presence of God" in the most 
 Holy Trinity. Then he can say with Thomas 
 a Kempis, "This doctrine of Christ exceedeth 
 all the doctrines of holy men; and he that 
 hath this Spirit will find therein the hidden 
 manna." He will also find answered the 
 great prayer of this one who was one of the 
 greatest saints of the centuries: "Oh, that 
 with thy presence thou wouldst wholly in- 
 flame, consume and transform me into thy- 
 self; that I might be made one spirit with 
 thee, by the grace of the inward union, and 
 by the melting of ardent love." 
 
 Then will Christ's last great prayer also 
 be answered, and we will be one with him 
 as he was one with the Father; and the 
 love wherewith God loved the Son will be 
 the passion of our heart for the Christ. He 
 will be within us the hope of the everlasting 
 glory of the sinless, sickless and deathless 
 life. 
 
 "To be without Jesus thus is a grevious 
 hell; to be with him thus is a joyous 
 Paradise." 
 
 165 
 
XI. 
 
 "IN THE LIKENESS OF HIS RESUR- 
 RECTION." 
 
 Prof. Everett, for many years Dean of 
 the Theological School of Harvard, and per- 
 haps one of its strongest professors, was 
 asked near the close of his life whether 
 he believed in miracles. 
 
 After a moment of the most reverential 
 quietness, he replied in words that all who 
 heard him said they could never forget: 
 "Believe in miracles! Why, it seems to me 
 I believe in them more than anything else." 
 Then he went on to say why this convic- 
 tion deepened with the years rather than 
 grew less. He said that once he was cross- 
 ing the ocean and a great sea gull fell upon 
 the steamer's deck. The poor bird tried to 
 fly but could not raise itself with its long 
 wings into the air. Seeing its helplessness, 
 an old sailor in pity lifted it up so its wings 
 could find their sweep. Instantly the bird 
 regained its power, and soared into the 
 heaven singing, and was soon far away. 
 Then Professor Everett said there came to 
 him instantly what the real place of miracles 
 was in the thought-life of the race. He 
 
 166 
 
''In the Likeness of His Resurrection" 
 
 said we are so cloddy and materialistic in 
 our thinking that we have lost the power of 
 soul wings for spiritual flight. We lie help- 
 less on life's deck. The miracle comes and 
 has something in it always of the spiritual 
 to lift us above the material. We find that 
 it is to us like the help of the old sailor to 
 the helpless bird. Soon we can find the 
 sweep of our soul wings and soar into God's 
 great heaven singing the song that is the 
 spiritual redemption of the race. 
 
 So it is intended that we are always to be 
 helped, as we come to the miracles of the 
 Bible. The best of all is that those miracles 
 which are least thought of, on deeper study, 
 prove to be the ones freighted with the rich- 
 est spiritual significance. The by-products 
 of the miracles, in the end, often prove to be 
 the very best products. This is especially 
 true in regard to the miracles which throw 
 greater light on the great truth of the resur- 
 rection and our part in the deathless life of 
 Jesus. 
 
 When Elisha who had a double portion of 
 Elijah's spirit, came, he did more than twice 
 as many miracles as did his forerunner who 
 was carried to heaven in a way so mirac- 
 ulous. In his death he taught even a greater 
 
 157 
 
The Sinless, Sickless, Deathless Life 
 
 lesson about the power over death than did 
 Elijah, who was carried hence without 
 seeing death. As the bodies of the dead 
 were let down into his tomb, and touched 
 the body of the dead prophet, immediately 
 they were brought back to life. It seemed 
 that God was going to tell to the world that 
 it was not merely how to become deathless 
 that he wants to make clear, but that the 
 power over death is the great final and full 
 power that we are ever to communicate. 
 So Elisha declared the power of the death- 
 less life for all more in his death than in his 
 life. He showed it was the power to bestow 
 more than merely to possess. 
 
 When Jesus came, who was the fulfillment 
 of the great messages of both Elijah and 
 Elisha, the double star of Israel's heavens, 
 opening up the message of immortality to us, 
 one of the most deeply significant miracles 
 of Jesus was the coming out of the tombs of 
 the saints at the time that Jesus was cruci- 
 fied and gave up the ghost, and then came 
 off over all the powers of death forever 
 triumphant. When Jesus died, the veil of 
 the temple was rent in twain, to show that 
 we were all to have full access to God by 
 entering boldly into the Most Holy Place of 
 
 158 
 
"In the Likeness of His Resurrection" 
 
 the Most High. But in the very same con- 
 nection it is said that "the graves were 
 opened ; and many of the bodies of the saints 
 that slept arose, and came out of the graves 
 after his resurrection, and went into the city 
 and appeared unto many." 
 
 The touch of the dead body of Elisha 
 brought some to life. The touch of the 
 resurrected Christ brought many with him 
 of the saints out of their graves in the glory 
 of the resurrection. It was to indicate that 
 it is God's clear purpose that the saints are 
 noiv to have part ivith Christ in the glories 
 of his resurrection. We have no more right 
 to enter boldly with Christ into the Most 
 Holy Place than we have the right to enter 
 boldly with him now into the glories of his 
 resurrection. This minor miracle of the 
 risen saints, scarcely ever mentioned, is to 
 become one of the main miracles making 
 more clear the great triumphant work of 
 Jesus. It is to reveal to us the glory of our 
 joint inheritance in the resurrection, which 
 once for all he has accomplished for all of us. 
 
 This great truth hovered like a heavenly 
 angel over the first followers of the risen 
 Christ. It must have been the common hope 
 that filled the whole horizon of their life. 
 
 159 
 
The Sinless, Sickless, Deathless Life 
 
 This is the only way of accounting for the 
 "Gospel of Nicodemus." possibly one of the 
 early accounts of Jesus' work, which Luke 
 tells there were many in circulation, when 
 he wrote the one that has found its place in 
 the permanent canon of the church. This 
 is certainly one of the most beautiful and 
 soul inspiring of all these so-called pseudo 
 gospel messages now obsolete, but which 
 were so widely read and greatly loved by 
 the early church. 
 
 The most significant thing about the 
 Gospel of Nicodemus is that it enlarges upon 
 the very things in regard to which the 
 hearts of men hunger to receive fuller 
 light. A large portion is given up to the 
 telling of the story of those who had come 
 forth from their graves at the death and 
 resurrection of Jesus. 
 
 Joseph of Arimathea loved the crucified 
 Lord, and could not help but testify before 
 his people that he felt he was the one sent 
 of God for the redemption of Israel. For 
 this the very night that Jesus died he was 
 condemned and placed in a dungeon cell. 
 But in the dark hours of the night, as he 
 tells with a straightforward artlessness, 
 Christ appeared to him. It was as clear 
 
 160 
 
"In the Likeness of His Resurrection" 
 
 as that of his appearance to Saul on his way 
 to Damascus; and the appearance was 
 bathed in the same glow and glory of heav- 
 enly light. Then he continues to relate how 
 Christ took him by the hand and led him 
 forth from the prison in the same miraculous 
 way that the angel afterward appeared to 
 Peter when imprisoned and gave the mirac- 
 ulous deliverance. After relating all this, 
 he further tells how Christ's death touched 
 those who were dead and they arose from 
 their graves and were now living in the 
 earth. He tells where these can be found, 
 and that they should be sought for and 
 brought before the wise ones of Israel, to 
 tell for themselves of their wonderful de- 
 liverance, and how Jesus came to them to let 
 them have part in the great resurrection of 
 which Christ was the true first fruits. 
 
 Here are part of the wonderful words. 
 The whole story should be read by all. It 
 certainly carries one to the "third heaven" 
 and leaves the impression of the genuine 
 sincerity of the writer, and that the author 
 is not writing fiction or fancy, but is telling 
 the straightforward facts that he had at 
 first hand. They are facts that make one 
 wiser by far in regard to our part in the 
 
 161 
 
The Sinless, Sickless, Deathless Life 
 
 first resurrection and what the glorious 
 possibility is for all to be who are "risen 
 with Christ." 
 
 "Joseph said: And why do you wonder 
 that Jesus has risen. But it is wonderful 
 that he has not risen alone, but that he has 
 raised many others of the dead, who have 
 appeared in Jerusalem unto many. And if 
 you do not know the others, Symeon, at least, 
 who received Jesus, and his two sons whom 
 he raised up — them at least you know. For 
 we buried them not long ago ; but now their 
 tombs are seen open and empty, and they 
 are alive and dwelling in Arimathea. They 
 therefore sent men, and they found their 
 tombs open and empty. Joseph said, Let us 
 go to Arimathea and find them. Then arose 
 the chief priests, Annas and Caiphas, and 
 Joseph and Nicodemus and Gamaliel and 
 others with them, and went to Arimathea, 
 and found those whom Joseph spoke of. 
 They made prayer therefore and saluted 
 each other. Then they came with them to 
 Jerusalem, and brought them into the syna- 
 gogue, and secured the doors, and placed 
 them in the midst of the old covenant of the 
 Jews; and the chief priests said to them: 
 We wish you to swear by the God of Israel 
 and Adonai, and so that you tell the truth, 
 how you have risen, and who raised you 
 from the dead. 
 
 The men who had risen, having heard 
 this, made upon their faces the sign of the 
 
 162 
 
"In the Likeness of His Resurrection" 
 
 cross, and said to the chief priests : Give us 
 paper and ink and pen. These therefore 
 they brought, and sitting down they wrote 
 thus — O Lord Jesus Christ, the resurrection 
 and the life of the world, grant us grace 
 that we may give an account of thy resur- 
 rection and thy miracles which thou didst 
 in Hades. We then were in Hades, and all 
 who had fallen asleep since the beginning of 
 the world. And at the hour of midnight 
 there arose a light as if of the sun, and 
 shone into these dark regions; and we were 
 all lighted up and saw each other. And 
 straightway our father Abraham was united 
 with the patriarch and the prophets, and at 
 the same time they were filled with joy and 
 said to each other : The light is from a great 
 source of light. The prophet Hesaias who 
 was there present said, The light is from 
 the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, 
 about whom I prophesied when yet above, 
 saying. The land of Zabulon and the land of 
 Nephthalim, the people that sat in darkness, 
 have seen a great light." 
 
 Then continues the long description of the 
 touch of Christ upon Adam, the father of 
 the race, and all the people who have fallen 
 in death, as he leads them forth to see the 
 glory of the new day that is to be upon the 
 earth. Then the prophets cry out: 
 
 "O Redeemer of the world, as thou hast 
 foretold by thy law and thy prophets, so 
 
 163 
 
The Sinless, Sickless, Deathless Life 
 
 thou hast fulfilled by thy deeds. Thou hast 
 redeemed the living by thy cross, and by thy 
 death on the cross thou hast come down to 
 us to rescue us from the power below and 
 from death by thy majesty. O Lord, as 
 thou hast set the title of thy glory in heaven, 
 and hast erected as the sign of redemption 
 the cross upon the earth, so, Lord, set in 
 Hades the sign of the victory of thy cross, 
 that death may have no more dominion." 
 
 Then the Lord stretched forth his hand 
 and placed upon Adam and all the saints the 
 sign of his cross, and tells them that as they 
 go back to Paradise and are met by the 
 guarding angel, they will be refused en- 
 trance. But when they point to this sign 
 the gates of glory will be thrown wide open 
 to them and they shall have their final and 
 full deliverance. 
 
 Then these who were raised from the 
 dead tell the story of the great deliverance 
 and how that the dying thief on the cross 
 was with them in this great all-joyful eman- 
 cipation. When all was finished of the won- 
 derful story that reads like a glimpse of 
 John the seer on Patmos, the messages were 
 handed over to the wise men who called 
 them for this great witness : 
 
 "And after they had finished all the 
 writing on separate sheets of paper, they 
 
 164 
 
"In the Likeness of His Resurrection" 
 
 arose. And Karinus gave what he wrote 
 into the hands of Annas and Caiphus and 
 Gamaliel; in like manner also Leucius gave 
 what he wrote into the hands of Nicodemus 
 and Joseph. And being suddenly trans- 
 figured, they became exceedingly white and 
 were seen no more. And their writings 
 were found exactly the same, not one letter 
 more or less." 
 
 All of this wondrous message points out 
 most clearly that the preaching of "Jesus 
 and the resurrection" was the mighty point 
 of power in the first followers of Jesus. 
 All Jerusalem was aglow with the fact that 
 there were eye-witnesses to this. All the 
 followers of Jesus hoped that what took place 
 among the saints that rose out of the graves, 
 would be the great way that the whole 
 wide world was to be soon harvested, when 
 the seed of the kingdom would bring forth 
 the great harvest of righteousness. They 
 felt that Christ touched in his death the 
 dead in prison, as he went to preach to them, 
 and that somehow he was liable at any 
 moment to speak the word so that "all which 
 are in their graves" should, like the first 
 fruits in the miracle witness of the risen 
 saints, come forth to join with them in the 
 eternal and the deathless life. 
 
 165 
 
The Sinless, Sickless, Deathless Life 
 
 The Spirit of the living God is coming 
 into the hearts of men today to make us feel 
 that Christendom has lost its power because 
 it has lost confidence in this very cardinal 
 conviction which should be the very "yea 
 and amen" to every one of us. We are to 
 accept the fact that we are nojv one with 
 Christ in the likeness of his resurrection, 
 even more so than the ones risen from the 
 dead with him, as the Gospel of Nicodemus 
 tells it. God is waiting to declare his glory 
 in a much larger faith than he ever 
 declared it in the facts of these thus risen, 
 as the pseudo gospel tells it. It seems to be 
 a mighty fact that the lamp of life began to 
 burn dim in Christendom simply because 
 the mighty demonstrable power of the resur- 
 rection became less than they had so in- 
 tensely longed for and confidently hoped for 
 it. Did not the sad words, "since the fathers 
 have fallen asleep, all things have con- 
 tinued as they were since the beginning" 
 become necessary because the church failed 
 to enter into the fullness of its heavenly in- 
 heritance, in taking part with Jesus in the 
 fullness of his resurrection which God has 
 purposed for us? If Christendom is to 
 waken out of its long sleep, and enter boldly 
 
 166 
 
"In the Likeness of His Resurrection*' 
 
 with Jesus into the glories of his resurrec- 
 tion, as truly as into the glories of the Most 
 Holy Place, it is necessary for us to count 
 the belief in death and the tomb for us as 
 done, and done forever. It is this heathen 
 belief that keeps us from all the glory of 
 God that will fill the life to overflowing as it 
 glowed in and glorified Jesus after the 
 resurrection experience. 
 
 When Paul, on Mars Hill, preached his 
 marvelous sermon, all listened to hear what 
 this babbler would say, till he came to 
 "Christ and the resurrection." Then there 
 was the breaking up of the group of the 
 listeners. Some mocked; some said they 
 would hear him again, and only a few be- 
 lieved. The Greek had no place in his world 
 theory for such a fact. That he put be- 
 yond the pale of the possible. So precisely 
 it must be today. As one preaches Christ 
 and his resurrection in this larger inter- 
 pretation — that we are to be like him now, 
 "in the likeness of his resurrection" — the 
 whole throng of the schools, theological and 
 otherwise have lost interest. They feel the 
 message is out of the realm of the real, and 
 in that of only the fanciful or fanatical. 
 Most mock. Some may say "We will hear 
 
 167 
 
The Sinless, Sickless, Deathless Life 
 
 thee again." Only a few believe. But it 
 is the message that is the full and final 
 message of redemption. As the few who be- 
 lieved "the God-intoxicated man of Tarsus" 
 have gathered around them the world 
 throngs who listen to the tale of Calvary as 
 their redemption and not the wisdom of the 
 Acropolis, so the few who believe that the 
 deathless life is ours noio and forever, and 
 that we are to boldly proclaim that we have 
 part with Jesus "in the fullness of his 
 resurrection" and can enter now boldly 
 into this, our rightful inheritance, we will 
 find that the schools, whether of philosophy 
 or theology, which believe not this will pass 
 away. The places which now know them 
 will know them no more forever. 
 
 Thomas Jefferson's last wish was that 
 there might be chiseled upon his tomb these 
 simple words, "Author of the Declaration of 
 Independence and the founder and rector of 
 the University of Virginia." 
 
 But he who is above "the Parliaments of 
 mankind in the federation of the world," and 
 who is the author of a Declaration of Inde- 
 pendence from all sin and sickness and 
 death, is also the founder and the rector of 
 the college of Galilean Fishermen, which 
 
 168 
 
"In the Likeness of His Resurrection" 
 
 moulded and will mould the learning of all 
 the universities of the world. The crown- 
 ing truth it is to proclaim, and God is wait- 
 ing to make clear to us that we might tell 
 the matchless tale is that we are to here 
 and noiv to be imited ivith Christ in the full 
 last article in the great creed of redemp- 
 tion. This is the one that sets the soul free 
 in its native liberty. This will make it stand 
 up at the entrance of all lands of the free 
 and homes of the brave, and bear high the 
 torch light that is to lighten fully and freely 
 and forever every one that comes into the 
 world. 
 
 It may be said by some in answer to all 
 this, that the vision is a larger one than Paul 
 realized, or the church through all the 
 Christian centuries has formulated. Doubt- 
 less this is a fact. But under the guidance 
 of the Spirit one must be always greater than 
 his spiritual ancestors, or he will never be 
 as great. 
 
 The Spirit of Jesus is always saying to 
 men, I have greater things to say to you, 
 than I have yet been able to reveal to the 
 race. This is one of these greater things. 
 We are to be partakers of Christ in his resur- 
 rection and power over death like all of his 
 
 169 
 
The Sinless, SicJcless, Deathless Life 
 
 gracious attributes. This is entering boldly 
 with him not only into the Holy of Holies, 
 but into the glories of his heavenly in- 
 heritance. This is not presumption. It is 
 presumption on our part to believe that 
 there is any good thing revealed in Christ 
 Jesus that God is willfully withholding from 
 us. With him he freely offers us all things. 
 All things are ours and we are Christ's, as 
 Christ was God's. 
 
 170 
 
XII. 
 THE RETURN OF THE CHRIST. 
 
 There is nothing that Christendom has 
 so reverently and yearningly looked forward 
 to as the return of the Christ. It was the 
 great expectation of the early church, at 
 any moment. For this they waited like the 
 wise virgins for the coming of the bride- 
 groom at the marriage feast. It filled the 
 mind of Paul, the great formulator of the 
 doctrine of the Christ, and the great sys- 
 temizer of the truths of the world's salva- 
 tion. No one doubts but what he joined 
 with his fellow followers of Jesus the world 
 over in looking for the coming of the Lord 
 at any moment. His sure and speedy return 
 is the last great promise of the risen Lord, 
 as he gives the closing message of the 
 Revelation vision, that closes the canon of 
 the historic church. "He that testifieth 
 these things saith. Surely I come quickly." 
 It is the great prayer that closes the sacred 
 pages of the world's Book of Life, "Even so 
 come, Lord Jesus." 
 
 This truth has ever been the great truth 
 that has kept the fire burning brightly on 
 the heart-altar of Christendom. It has 
 
 171 
 
The Sinless, Sickless, Deathless Life 
 
 purified the springs of life from which has 
 flowed the river of life to bless the earth. 
 Harnack, the greatest of modern church 
 historians, has said that the one supreme 
 thought that has ever kept the church pure, 
 and given it ever its great missionay power 
 has been the thought of the speedy return of 
 her Lord. All the way down the Christian 
 ages the people who have dwelt most upon 
 the sacred theme have been those most de- 
 voted to heralding the good news as the only 
 salvation under heaven, for the redemption 
 of the entire world. The great missionary 
 enterprises that have again and again arisen 
 through the Christian centuries to bless the 
 church and spread the gospel to the heathen 
 lands of the earth have been very largely, if 
 not wholly, inspired by those who have been 
 fired with the thought of the speedy return 
 of the Lord, when he will gather "his 
 loved ones home." All longed for this 
 glory that was Enoch's and Elijah's, 
 and which, Paul says, is the moment when 
 we will no more see death, but be caught 
 up in the air to be forever with the Lord. 
 All Christendom has made the subject of its 
 great intercessory prayer, the hastening of 
 the day of the coming of the Lord. Prayer, 
 they felt, had power to move things toward 
 
 172 
 
The Retu7"n of the Christ 
 
 this great consummation, that was the glory 
 of the gospel dispensation, and the one thing 
 for which all nations were to ever pray 
 believingly. 
 
 Along with this great fact, with its 
 strange historic experience and centuries of 
 unfilfullment, has grown up another thing 
 that is one of the strangest, saddest ones 
 that has to be recorded in the history of the 
 Christian church. 
 
 In face of the fact that Jesus emphatically 
 said that we are to know not the day or the 
 hour of his coming, and that we are not to 
 spend our thought in searching to find out 
 the detailed will of God regarding it, men 
 have wrestled and worried, thought and 
 wrought more over trying to find this secret, 
 known not even by the angels or the Son of 
 the Almighty. They have searched the 
 scriptures to see if prophecy would not name 
 the hour and the day and the place that 
 the "Lord should return from heaven with 
 a shout." The omens of his coming have 
 become to many, in their ecstatic enthusi- 
 asm, the very "yea and amen" of the gospel 
 which they had to preach. In the face of 
 the words of the Lord, "It is not for you to 
 know the times and the seasons, which the 
 
 173 
 
The Sinless, Sickless, Deathless Life 
 
 Lord hath put in his own hands," they have 
 insisted on knowing these very things and 
 knowing them to the jot and tittle of the 
 letter of the message which Jesus felt was 
 to be hidden as a holy mystery from all 
 everywhere. 
 
 The method of Christ's second coming has 
 been as much a "bone of contention" and a 
 source of disturbance among the people of 
 God through the Christian centuries, as the 
 time and the place when he who ascended to 
 heaven would return once more. Daniel, 
 Ezekiel and Revelation have been sources of 
 prophetical interpretations that have be- 
 wildered many of God's best people, even 
 turning insane some of the best of the best. 
 The bitter fruit of too much thinking along 
 this line has shown us the hollow mockery 
 to the soul that must come to those who 
 would presume to enter where the very Lord 
 of Glory himself said he dare not tread; 
 and warns us not to enter the Holy Place, 
 even though we take off our shoes in the 
 utmost reverence, as we enter the hallowed 
 spot. 
 
 One thing certainly stands out very clearly 
 in regard to the whole matter of the 
 "Parousia," the appearing again of the 
 
 174 
 
The Retwn of the Christ 
 
 Christ. It seems that the church of Chris- 
 tendom is in all probability to he as fully 
 mistaken as to the "manner of his coming" 
 again as were the Jeivs as to the manner of 
 the first coming of the Messiah and the 
 Christ. That he will come again we are 
 absolutely certain; and should be absolutely 
 certain. That we are to pray earnestly for 
 this appearing of our Lord is a fact that is 
 one of the basal ones of the Christian's faith. 
 But as to the time and the place and the ivay 
 of his coming, "knoweth no man, no, not 
 even the angels of God." What God has 
 hid from the heavenly hosts and his Only 
 Begotten Son is surely not ours to demand 
 an answer to with a presumption that is 
 often like storming the gates of Paradise. 
 
 In the vision of the sinless, sickless and 
 deathless life, as God's desire for all, the 
 thought of the return of the Lord takes on a 
 far higher and holier, a far sounder and 
 saner meaning than we could otherwise pos- 
 sibly have of it. It "harmonizes Scripture" 
 and makes happy and most hopeful the ex- 
 pectant heart. 
 
 I am to pray expectantly for God's will 
 to be done. I know his will is that I should 
 become like Jesus, that I should be as holy 
 
 175 
 
The Si7ilc8s, SicJdcss, Deathless Life 
 
 as he is holy, as sickless as he is sickless, 
 and as deathless as he is deathless. The 
 Holy Spirit is given to men now and 
 here for taking the whole of Christ and 
 making him wholly ours that we may be- 
 come holy like his blessed self. This is 
 not to be in some far away age. The 
 time is at hand for the bringing forth of 
 this precious product. Nothing but un- 
 belief in this prevents our believing 
 prayers going up for its accomplishment. 
 It would be as foolish to pray that I be kept 
 from stealing and think this is to be brought 
 about in the far away bye and bye, as to 
 pray that I may be brought into the fullness 
 of life in Christ Jesus and expect that this 
 can only be and will only be in some far 
 distant age when the Lord descends from 
 heaven to judge the quick and the dead and 
 bring in the reign of the deathless life. Now 
 is the beginning of the reign of the sinless, 
 sickless, deathless life. I am to be delivered 
 now, if I only believe the great deliverer is 
 able and willing to do his promised work. 
 Unless a man lengthens the cords and 
 strengthens the stakes of his faith to take 
 in a vision like this, he has come far short 
 of the will of God so clearly reveaeld in 
 
 176 
 
The Return of the Christ 
 
 Christ Jesus for every one of us. We are to 
 hasten the day of our Lord's coming by be- 
 lieving that he has come in us. We are to 
 hasten the day of the great universal resur- 
 rection by saying "He is risen in me." In 
 the far off Alps every Easter-tide the 
 throngs go up the mountain sides, for a 
 beautiful antiphonal service. Those on the 
 one side sing their Easter joy, "The Lord is 
 risen." From far across the valley on the 
 hillside opposite comes the sweet response, 
 "He is risen indeed, He is risen in me." 
 From the heights of the eternal glory, the 
 angels of God and the choirs of heaven are 
 ever singing, "The Lord is risen." From 
 across the "valley of death," as the world 
 has so long and so deeply made it, there is 
 to come forth from the heart of the believer, 
 as his everlasting Easter Joy, "He is risen 
 indeed, he is risen in me." This makes the 
 great triumph song of Jesus' resurrection 
 ours now. As we sing it by faith, we shall 
 hasten the coming of that day of days into 
 the lives of men, when all shall know "the 
 days of the Son of Man," the sinless, sickless 
 and deathless Christ, from the one end of 
 heaven and earth to the other end of it. 
 When or where or how Christ shall come 
 
 177 
 
The Sinless, Sickless, Deathless Life 
 
 again will give us little or no concern, as we 
 are admonished in the scriptures not to do. 
 We know that when he does come it can be 
 for nought else than to awaken the glorious 
 conviction and the more glorious realization 
 in the hearts of God's people that the power 
 and curse of sin and sickness and death have 
 been forever wiped away. Under such a 
 universal reign of the Spirit, the reign of 
 Universal Law will ripen into that of Uni- 
 versal Love. Then will be ushered in the 
 universal Easter-tide by the coming of the 
 universal resurrection, and there will be the 
 complete fulfillment of this most glorious 
 and most prophetic ceremonial service of 
 Christendom. 
 
 The second coming of the Lord has already 
 begun in me the moment I have accepted by 
 faith that by his indwelling and outworking 
 Spirit I will, by God's Spirit, be over all the 
 great race foes forever triumphant. This 
 will make me a torch-bearer of Christendom, 
 lighting the earth for the speedy coming 
 again of Christ the Lord. 
 
 This will hasten the completion of the 
 "program of the ages" that so many have 
 tried to read rightly as God has planned it. 
 His plan, as I am to know it, is that I enter 
 
 178 
 
The Return of the Christ 
 
 into the fullness of the Redeemer's life. By 
 my full acceptance by prayer and faith I 
 shall hasten the coming of the Lord, and the 
 blessing of the world with the fulfilled re- 
 demption that Jesus revealed in himself as 
 God's purpose for each and all. 
 
 Such a faith will make burn more brightly 
 the great fire of heavenly expectancy that 
 will make life purer. It will make the 
 church more of a power to make the wrong 
 earth right. It will give us all the power, 
 as Harhack has said, that the vision of the 
 "second, coming" gave to the early church 
 and has given to the followers of Jesus ever 
 since. It will take Christ at his word when 
 he says, "I come quickly." He will come as 
 quickly into us with his deathless presence, 
 as we will by faith admit his whole all- 
 powerful and full redemptive life. This 
 faith makes us follow his command in not 
 worrying or trying to pry into the future as 
 to when and how the final consummation of 
 things will be brought about. We will have 
 power to witness what we have taken by 
 faith as our full and rightful inheritance. 
 This power will melt hearts to penitence, and 
 mould them into righteousness. It is the 
 light of the world that is, and is to come. 
 
 179 
 
The Sinless, Sickless, Deathless Life 
 
 At this holy flame of the Light of the World, 
 we are to light our life tapers to carry the 
 good news from hilltop to hilltop, till every 
 high place of the earth will be a most holy 
 place, aflame with the true and full light 
 of God. 
 
 This will give us a preaching of the 
 "second coming of Christ" that is with 
 soundness and sanity. It will be a mighty 
 power of God unto the tearing down of the 
 strongest holds of sin and Satan. We will 
 thus carry the Holy War to the very gates 
 of hell and Hades. 
 
 We can storm the citadel of sin, by such 
 a faith, and take every stronghold of the 
 enemy, bringing about the unconditional 
 surrender of every foe, and bring forth the 
 joy unspeakable of the universal and the 
 everlasting triumph. This kind of faith 
 keeps us from the senseless thing of "search- 
 ing the scripture" for the times and the 
 seasons which the Lord hath put in his own 
 hand. All such searching will seem to us 
 as futile as the work of the Augers of the 
 old heathen religions as they tried to read 
 in the entrails of the birds and beasts of the 
 sacred sacrifices, the destiny of men, as the 
 gods were designing it. 
 
 180 
 
The Return of the Christ 
 
 Whatsoever is not of such a larger, truer 
 faith in the return of the Christ is indeed 
 sin. It is a sin against the Holy Ghost who 
 spoke through the Holy Child Jesus, that 
 this is the thing that is ours, as he came 
 and suffered and died and rose again to 
 give us as our divine inheritance. This is 
 not a faith that is a fool's folly. A man 
 must be a "fool and slow of heart" that can 
 not or will not see this is the will of God for 
 all in Christ Jesus. This is the faith that 
 makes faithful, not merely "unto death," but 
 "triumphant over death." This is the faith 
 that will hasten the day of the coming of 
 the Lord. For this faith we are fashioned 
 of God. We have missed the mark of our 
 high calling in God, if we come short of 
 believing it. This is the victory that over- 
 comes the world — even this victory of the 
 sinless, sickless, deathless life, which is ours 
 now and forever, as the priceless gift of God 
 to all in Jesus. 
 
 God, by his Eternal Spirit, was born in 
 Jesus, lifting him up into the fullness of life, 
 triumphant over all sin, disease and death. 
 Into all humanity he wants to come with 
 the same almighty power of triumph. We 
 are to believe that he is in us for such an 
 
 181 
 
The Sinless, Sickless, Deathless Life 
 
 eternal weight and witness of glory. In 
 each of us is this second coming of God in 
 Christ to be completed if we will only believe 
 it. This confidence will hasten the day of 
 the race's universal deliverance. Sometime, 
 somehow and somewhere, known only to the 
 Father, the great harvest of souls will ripen 
 into this triumphant faith. Then we will 
 be "caught up to be forever with the Lord." 
 Living thus with "Christ within us the 
 hope of glory," the chief shepherd of our 
 souls hath indeed to us already appeared. 
 From his hands we have received our crown 
 of the sinless, sickless, deathless life by 
 faith in his name. It is a crown of life no 
 man can take from us, and which fadeth not 
 away. This faith with its wondrous fruition 
 will make us living witnesses, demonstrat- 
 ing both the first and second coming of our 
 blessed Lord, and our part with him now 
 and forever, in both his first and second 
 resurrection. 
 
 182 
 
XIII. 
 THE TAP-ROOT OF SIN REMOVED. 
 
 At a ministerial retreat of the clergy of 
 Chicago, a few years ago, some one asked, 
 "What, in a word, is the great message of 
 redemption, as it fell from the lips of Jesus?" 
 Almost instantly came the reply, "Have 
 faith in God." It seemed there was at once 
 by common consent a "loud Amen" from 
 all present in that sacred gathering, where 
 men were closeted for a closer walk with 
 one another and with God, that they might 
 become better instruments through which 
 the "power from on high" might be brought 
 to bear more mightily upon the lives of men, 
 to make them realize their divine inheri- 
 tance as sons of the Highest. 
 
 What Jesus thus said, all the wisest in 
 heavenly things feel the all-power of also. 
 It was this that made the great Scotch 
 theologian, Marcus Dods, say, "If a man 
 only believe in God, I cannot see what more 
 he needs." The tap-root of all 02ir sins is 
 that ive have not faith in God. Paul, the 
 great formulator of the message that has 
 transformed the entire world, puts it most 
 pungently and powerfully "Whatsoever is 
 
 183 
 
The Sinless, Sickless, Deathless Life 
 
 not of faith is sin." If any man believes 
 anything is too hard for the Lord, that 
 moment he sins in his heart; and it will not 
 be long till the seed sown in the soil of his 
 soul brings forth most bitter fruit, for the 
 wrecking of the joy of the Lord that may 
 be in his heart. All power in heaven and 
 earth is given unto God. He wants to be- 
 stow upon his children this unspeakable 
 possession also, so that nothing will ever 
 stand between a wish and a possession, a 
 desire and a deed. This was the last and 
 crowning revelation he made to humanity 
 through Jesus, as his one great final and 
 full desire for us all. 
 
 Just as Jesus was about to ascend up on 
 high, the last great word that fell from his 
 lips to the waiting ears of humanity was: 
 "All power is given unto me in heaven and 
 in earth. Go and tell this good news to all 
 the world. The Holy Spirit of the living 
 God was to come and take this thing of Jesus, 
 as it does all things of his blessed experience, 
 and make it real to us also. The last 
 great thing that the Spirit is to take and 
 make real in us is that all things are possible 
 to those ivho believe, as truly as all things 
 are possible to God. 
 
 184 
 
The Tap-Root of Sin Removed 
 
 Abraham, "the father of the faithful," 
 once heard the words of the angel visitant, 
 that he was to have in his old age a son by 
 Sarah, who was long past the years of 
 possible motherhood. He laughed at the un- 
 reasonableness of the revelation. Though 
 he was one who walked by faith as none had 
 done before, here his faith faltered. He 
 staggered in his religious life by unbelief; 
 and this sin sowed the seed of the Satanic 
 in his heart. Again the same message was 
 made known by the heavenly messenger to 
 Sarah. Although a woman, and one who 
 naturally would walk far more by faith 
 than a man, she too laughed in the face of the 
 heavenly visitant at the impossible announce- 
 ment. Then rang out the words which 
 have sounded like a clarion call down the 
 ages, "Is anything too hard for the Lord?" 
 And Abraham believed God in this specific 
 promise, though it was in the face of all 
 past experience, and his heart was made glad 
 thereby with the ring of righteousness. 
 
 There has come another messenger to 
 earth who is greater by far in his faith than 
 Abraham, the faith-father of the race. It 
 is Jesus, the angel of the everlasting cove- 
 nant of God to men. He is the one who 
 
 185 
 
The Sinless, Sickless, Deathless Life 
 
 came to tell us that God wants to take all 
 men up into blood-covenant with himself. 
 The Orient knows the divineness of this holy- 
 compact. It means that as members of this 
 blessed covenant, each will do for the other 
 all he would for himself. It means that 
 those thus united are one in the possession 
 of all power either may possess. God, 
 through Jesus, thus wants to join himself to 
 the race. He did this most truly in Jesus; 
 so that the "Only Begotten" felt that all that 
 God was, he possessed, by the grace of the 
 Highest. He felt the holy unity, and all the 
 power of heaven and earth that flowed from 
 it. He walked by this faith that grew more 
 and more marvelous every moment, until at 
 last it leaped to the "everlasting therefore" 
 that fell from his lips at his last moments — 
 "All power in heaven and earth is given unto 
 me." All that I desire I shall have. God 
 withholds nothing from the child of his like- 
 ness and the child of his love. "Heaven 
 can be had for the asking, and God himself 
 is given away." This was Jesus' great dis- 
 covery for the recovery of the race. To 
 doubt this was the greatest disloyalty. To 
 doubt it was to be downed and damned. 
 This faith was the victory by which Jesus 
 
 186 
 
The Tap-Root of Sin Removed 
 
 overcame the world. So this faith is the 
 victory by which we will become the great 
 victors also. This, in a word, was the sum 
 and substance of all Christ came from 
 heaven to say to men. "Have this faith in 
 God!" "Whatsoever- is not of this faith is 
 sin." Have the faith of "our Lord Jesus 
 Christ," which is faith that all things are 
 possible to God, and "in him" all things are 
 possible to those who believe. It is the good 
 news and the glad tidings to be heralded the 
 world over, as far as there is sin and sorrow 
 and as far as man is found. Beyond what 
 ye are able to ask or think, is the power of 
 God to do. And it is the desire of God to 
 do, for his glory and your good. Every 
 wish is a step of the soul heavenward. It 
 is a shutting life out from its divine power 
 and glory with a dome more vast — from the 
 mighty canopy of God studded with the 
 stars of innumerable and exhaustless hopes. 
 When you can count the stars of the heavens, 
 you can count the desires that are to come 
 into the human heart. These all are made 
 to be fulfilled. Faith is the way by which 
 this is to be brought about. God is within 
 thee, thou child of his likeness and his love. 
 "Ask of me and I will give the heathen for 
 
 187 
 
The Sinless, Sickless, Deathless Life 
 
 thy inheritance, and the uttermost parts of 
 the earth for thy possession." And even 
 more is the will of God toward us. "Before 
 you call upon me will I answer you." Prayer 
 is the heart reaching for its divine all-power. 
 Desire is the design of God to have you turn 
 on faith at this very point, and then stand 
 still in holy confidence, resting assured 
 that as truly as there is a God that made all 
 heaven and earth, and revealed himself to 
 thee in Jesus, he will grant the desire of 
 every heart, as by our faith he takes of the 
 all-power of Jesus and makes it very real 
 to us. 
 
 Faith that God sent Jesus into the world 
 with all the power that he possessed, only 
 to show us how we might inherit with him 
 and the Father all the power of heaven and 
 earth, is the faith that will save the sinner, 
 make truly wise the scientist, and set one 
 at liberty with the freedom the heart yearns 
 for and will never be satisfied till it actually 
 possesses it. 
 
 Now to the great life task, as Jesus went 
 about it, revealing the message and mission 
 of heaven for men, so that the wayfaring 
 fool need not miss it. He showed it; 
 showed how it could be done; and then said 
 
 188 
 
The Tap-Root of Sin Removed 
 
 that we are to do it, and demonstrate it as 
 he has, and in even greater demonstations 
 than he had been able to make manifest, as 
 the glory of the Father for every one of us. 
 
 We are to get busy on this, our Father's 
 business. We are sent into the world to 
 demonstrate the all-power of heaven and 
 earth, by faith. We are to show that noth- 
 ing is too hard for the Lord, and nothing is 
 too hard for his children to accomplish. 
 We are to show that the wish is not only 
 the father of the thought, but that the wish 
 will bring forth the desire of the heart, if 
 by faith we turn on the currents of God to 
 bring it forth. Every test of this glorious 
 truth must make us ever a more powerful 
 living witness of the power of God unto the 
 perfect salvation, through faith. We are 
 sent into the kingdom to show this. It is 
 the unfinished work Jesus left us to do; to 
 fill up the unfinished task that will make all 
 the earth happy with joy of the sons of light. 
 We are to face every foe that man ever can 
 meet, and to do it in faith. The walls that 
 have shut us out from anything we may 
 desire will go down under this faith test, 
 as truly as Jericho's walls fell before the 
 encircling armies of the faithful Israelite. 
 
 189 
 
The Sinless, Sickless, Deathless Life 
 
 We live little, cribbed and cabined lives, 
 beating them out against the bars of our 
 little being, simply because we do not believe 
 that all things are possible with God, and 
 all things are possible with us, if we only 
 believe it. If we will ask, believing, that 
 the life of God will do the things we ask for 
 his glory and our good, he will do it. The 
 Spirit of life within us, as truly as in Jesus, 
 is to grow such Christ-like faith. The root 
 of all our sins is in the simple fact that we 
 will not believe, and will not put faith to 
 test along the lines that Jesus so clearly 
 marked out, as the lines of God's great faith- 
 work for us. 
 
 Jesus, by precept and practice, most 
 clearly pointed out the lines along which we 
 are to grow in our faith tests. 
 
 First, in the presence of all sins we are to 
 believe that God is greater than all sin, and 
 that he is in the sinner by the power of "the 
 Eternal Spirit," to banish all sins forever. 
 He wants to "put them behind his back," to 
 "bury them in the depths of the sea," and 
 "to banish them forever as far as the east 
 is from the west." As we believe his in- 
 dwelling presence will do this heaven-trans- 
 forming work, we will see this gracious 
 
 190 
 
The Tap-Root of Sin Removed 
 
 change brought about as by some magic 
 wand of glory. Oh, the wonders of his 
 redemptive grace. The vilest sinner is 
 changed into the most heavenly saint. And 
 to see this wondrous change take place right 
 under one's own eyes, as by faith we hold 
 the sinner up to God, for the Spirit of his 
 divine life within him to do this marvelous 
 work — this is the world's greatest miracle 
 of grace. 
 
 One of the greatest bishops in the Metho- 
 dist church has recently said that early 
 Christendom began to lose its spiritual 
 power just when it lost a living faith in the 
 divine democracy of our High Priestly office. 
 Christendom will only come to itself and 
 come to its own, when awakened anew, and 
 with even greater power, to the fact that 
 we are indeed all priests unto God, and joint 
 heirs with Jesus in this sin absolving office. 
 It is in the declaration and demonstration 
 of our power in this, our first and greatest 
 inheritance in Christ Jesus, that we will be 
 panoplied with "power from on high." This 
 will quicken the dead world into wondrous 
 newness of life, by thus messaging the won- 
 derful power of the universal salvation to 
 it. Simply because the Romish church has 
 
 191 
 
The Sinless, Sickless, Deathless Life 
 
 often made a trade and travesty of this al- 
 mighty truth is no reason that Protestantism 
 should practically ignore and abandon it. 
 "Whosoever sins ye forgive they shall be 
 forgiven them" is as truly Christ's com- 
 mand for all and forever, as that we should 
 "go into all the world and preach the gospel," 
 with these signs following as the evidence 
 of the new birth of the believer. 
 
 Then along the lines of healing broken 
 bodies as in cleansing sin-stained hearts, we 
 will be followers of Jesus in this holy task. 
 We will sit in the presence of the sick ones, 
 confident that nothing is too hard for the 
 Lord to do, in the restoration to health of 
 every phase of sickness, as truly as there is 
 no sin that he cannot forever banish. As 
 we thus believe, we will see the glory of God 
 in the marvelous transformation that is 
 brought about. Oh, what a mystery and 
 what a message is this! It is indeed good 
 news and glad tidings for all the earth. 
 Our faith, like the faith of our "Lord and 
 Saviour Jesus Christ," restores the sick ones 
 as truly as redeems the sinner. We see 
 health, like holiness, coming forth before 
 our very eyes. Wonderful is this mystery 
 of Godliness. Wonderful is the power of 
 
 192 
 
The Tap-Root of Sin Removed 
 
 God through faith unto the perfect and com- 
 plete salvation from every sickness. This 
 is the way God wants us to be living wit- 
 nesses of him who is "the Great Physician" 
 as well as the almighty sin-saviour. This 
 makes us the salt of the earth to save, and 
 the light of the world to make men see that 
 faith in God is the key to solve every prob- 
 lem that perplexes and every riddle of 
 existence. 
 
 There is a third thing that God wants us 
 to do by faith that is away beyond the 
 specific acts of restoring sinners to right- 
 eousness and heaing the wretched, wrecked 
 in health. It is to reproduce the spirit of 
 this faith-life in others, that fills the life of 
 Jesus, and is his great bestowal of the Holy 
 Spirit upon us. 
 
 The last function in our physical creation 
 which is awakened and developed is that of 
 reproduction. It is the highest and the 
 holiest, in spite of the fact that Satan has 
 torn it from its heavenly pedestal, and 
 trailed its divine glory in the dust. So in 
 the spiritual life, the greatest work of the 
 "twice born" ones is the reproduction of the 
 spiritual life. We are to give to others the 
 life of faith that has been given to us. This 
 
 193 
 
The Sinless, Sickless, Deathless Life 
 
 is what is meant by the imparting of the 
 Holy Spirit. This is what is meant by the 
 gift of the Holy Ghost. The greatest 
 question that can be asked of the "twice 
 born" ones is, "Have ye received the Holy 
 Ghost?" It was the password into the early 
 church ; it is meant of heaven to be the pass- 
 word into God's great kingdom of heaven 
 and power every place. If you have become 
 the great possessor of this richest of all 
 heaven's gifts, you will want to impart the 
 life to others. The desire for reproduction 
 in the spiritual realm is greater by far than 
 the desire for reproduction in the realm of 
 the physical life. "Have ye received the 
 Holy Ghost?" If so, some soul will want 
 you to impart it to him ; and you will breathe 
 upon others the Spirit that Jesus breathed 
 upon his disciples, when he said at the last 
 meeting after the resurrection, "Receive ye 
 the Holy Ghost." We can have and can im- 
 part this most priceless gift of heaven to 
 earth. It is ours to have and ours to impart. 
 And we are far from the kingdom in its 
 power till we are about our Father's busi- 
 ness in this third and highest and most 
 blessed work. 
 
 Here is the faith in the Father that takes 
 
 194 
 
The Tap-Root of Sin Removed 
 
 the tap-root of sin out of the soul and makes 
 us feel our God-oneness with Christ Jesus. 
 It is a faith by which we are "justified in 
 Christ Jesus." We can just defy sin, when- 
 ever and wherever it may most satanically 
 attack us. It is a faith by which we are "al- 
 so sanctified in Christ Jesus." We are made 
 perfect by the indwelling and the outwork- 
 ing of the truth of God that abideth with 
 and within us forever. And best of all it is 
 a faith in which we "are glorified in Christ 
 Jesus." By it we are changed from "glory 
 unto glory" or from "character unto char- 
 acter," as Henry Drummond, the great 
 "Scotch Apollo of righteousness," so loved 
 to put it. All of this great work of grace 
 will go on till we are come in the unity of 
 the Spirit into the stature of the perfect 
 man Christ Jesus, which is the express image 
 of God's perfect likeness. 
 
 All the world is waiting for a more divine 
 demonstration of this great work of God, 
 heaven is asking the God-children of earth 
 to take up and carry to the completion as 
 their great world-task. All who will taste 
 and see may test and see that it is the sole 
 solvent of all the world's sorrows, and the 
 solution of all its problems, and the com- 
 
 195 
 
The Sinless, Sickless, Deathless Life 
 
 plete overcoming in an everlasting triumph 
 of every difficulty we will ever have to face ; 
 and will give us wisdom and power from on 
 high to complete every task we are called 
 upon to accomplish. 
 
 196 
 
XIV. 
 
 HOW THE LIGHT CAME AND THE 
 FIRE FELL. 
 
 There was nothing that Paul looked back 
 to with greater wonder and delight, than the 
 great turning point in his spiritual career 
 when, on his way to Damascus, "God's glory 
 smote him on the face," and he was turned 
 right about face, toward humanity and the 
 risen Lord ever afterward. 
 
 Three times in the book of Acts the story 
 of the great transformation is told, at the 
 greatest length. Twice the tale falls from 
 his own lips, and once again from the nar- 
 rator who must have heard it from the lips 
 of the "God-intoxicated man of Tarsus," 
 with a most telling power. 
 
 When God gives a heavenly message to 
 anyone, he cannot help but want to tell "how 
 the light came that never shone on land or 
 sea," and how "the fire fell" that has lighted 
 up a flame on his heart-altar that grows 
 brighter and brighter unto the coming of 
 the perfect day. 
 
 The glory of such a message is not to 
 one's self but unto God, by whose grace such 
 a message was given, to be given out to 
 
 197 
 
The Sinless, Sickless, Deathless Life 
 
 others, that they too might be partakers of 
 the heavenly joy. 
 
 Inasmuch as the message of these pages 
 seems "almost too big to be believed and too 
 good to be true," as a dear friend has writ- 
 ten, perhaps the writer will be pardoned, 
 and the reader helped, to know how the 
 "open vision" came that has brought the 
 great conviction which is as fundamental to 
 him as the axioms of mathematics, and as 
 undownable and as undeniable as the fact 
 that "he thinks and therefore he is." 
 
 Through all my college days, and es- 
 pecially during the last week of my college 
 life, there was a great burden on my heart 
 to know "the truth, the whole truth, and 
 nothing but the truth" about one's personal 
 relationship to Jesus and to God. Ever 
 since a child I had been nominally connected 
 with the church. But this meant little more 
 than a sense of blind bondage, which brought 
 far more fear than joy. Three days before 
 graduating I asked my professor in Phi- 
 losophy and Ethics if we could not talk the 
 whole matter over. I thought surely this 
 would bring "surcease of sorrow," and light 
 into the depths of darkness that filled my 
 soul. This we did, as we walked over the 
 
 198 
 
How the Light Came and the Fire Fell 
 
 hills for three hours. He tried to tell me 
 what "faith in the Lord Jesus Christ" was. 
 When it was all over I must confess there 
 was nothing left but deeper soul darkness 
 and a heartache that was sadder and deeper 
 than words can tell. When we parted and 
 I returned to my room, it did indeed seem 
 as though the day of doom had come. I had 
 hungered for the bread of heaven and had 
 not gotten in return even a stone. Then 
 I said to myself, "It is finished." Chris- 
 tianity as I had known it from experience 
 or from the lips of another means nothing 
 more to me. 
 
 Of course there came a sense of great re- 
 lief when, Pilate-like, I had washed my 
 hands, and said I would have nothing more 
 to do "with this just man." Fear of God 
 gave place to confidence in myself. I felt 
 I was to go out into life and make my own 
 mark in the world. Our destiny, I thought, 
 is to be found in ourselves and not "in our 
 stars." From teaching I soon found my- 
 self drifting into business. 
 
 One hot afternoon in July, in far-off North 
 Dakota, I was standing on a high lumber 
 pile. Many wagons were waiting in the 
 large lumber yard to be loaded. The yard 
 
 199 
 
The Sinless, Sickless, Deathless Life 
 
 was a great distributing center for lumber 
 throughout the whole Northwest, in those 
 days. While I was standing there, half 
 musing, I incidentally or accidentally heard 
 someone say, "I want as much lumber as 
 this will buy." There was something in the 
 ring of the voice that attracted me instantly. 
 I stopped and looked in the direction from 
 whence the words came. There stood an 
 Indian dressed in citizen's clothes, I got 
 down from the high lumber pile I was on at 
 once. I said to the salesman who was wait- 
 ing on the Indian, "Let me 'tend to this 
 man." Then I said to the Indian, "What is 
 it you want, my friend?" He looked at me 
 with an expression on his face which seemed 
 one of the sweetest and most heavenly I 
 ever saw. Then he held out in his hand 
 two silver dollars, saying, "I want as much 
 lumber as this will buy." At once I replied, 
 "Well, friend, two dollars won't buy much 
 lumber in this country. What do you want 
 the lumber for?" He then went on to tell 
 how he had come down from Fort Totten, 
 sixty-nine miles away. He came thinking 
 that he could get enough lumber perhaps to 
 build a little building where he could teach 
 his people something of what he had learned 
 
 200 
 
How the Light Came and the Fire Fell 
 
 at the Indian School at Carlyle; and also 
 could preach to them the story of Jesus on 
 the Sabbath day. Almost instantly my heart 
 was touched to the quick, by his words. 
 There was such a ring of righteousness and 
 the real in them, that I would have given 
 him, then and there, the whole lumber yard, 
 had it been mine to give away. 
 
 I got for him the lumber which he wanted, 
 and saw that his wagon was loaded as it 
 should be for the long journey to his far-off 
 home. As he drove away, I felt I was part- 
 ing with a friend I had known forever. 
 There was such an emptiness in my heart 
 at the leaving of this man of God. 
 
 As he was departing I asked him where 
 he was stopping; for I felt I must see him 
 again. He told me he was going to camp 
 over Sunday on the hill just above the town. 
 This being Saturday, he did not wish to re- 
 turn home at once, for by so doing he would 
 have to travel on the Sabbath day. 
 
 The next afternoon I found myself going 
 as soon as I could up to where the little 
 Indian camp was. There the "good Indian" 
 was lying on his blankets in his Indian 
 tepee. His little boy of seven was at his 
 side. Before him, squaw-like, was seated 
 
 201 
 
The Sinless, Sickless, Deathless Life 
 
 his wife, near by. He was reading to them 
 out of the Gospel of John. It seemed to 
 me I never had seen a face lighted up with 
 such a glow of God's glory as was his. I 
 felt it must have been like that of the apostle 
 who leaned on Jesus' bosom, and whose 
 words he was reading to his dear ones. As 
 I looked upon him, it seemed the very fire of 
 heaven began to burn in my own heart, 
 when I heard him opening up to them the 
 scriptures by the way. I felt, then and 
 there, I would sooner by far have in my heart 
 the peace and joy of God that poor Indian 
 had, than be the richest man in the world. 
 Surely, I thought, he had found the pearl of 
 great price. How gladly would I have sold 
 all and bought it, if only I could have, what 
 he most surely had. 
 
 That night I felt that I must know more 
 of God, and of his Christ, who was surely 
 the world's only light and life. I had seen 
 the living light in a moment least expected, 
 as it was reflected from the Light of the 
 World into the heart of an untutored savage. 
 What my college and my college professor 
 had, for some reason or other, utterly failed 
 to do, this poor Indian did do. He had led 
 
 202 
 
Hoiv the Light Came ayid the Fire Fell 
 
 me to the living Christ and "the well of 
 water springing up unto everlasting life." 
 
 As soon as I could, I arranged my business 
 interests, and went straight to the Theologi- 
 cal Seminary. I felt 1 must prepare myself 
 to preach this good news and glad tidings, 
 which I had felt so powerfully, yet so in- 
 completely, was the only power given under 
 the whole heaven to redeem the whole wide 
 world. Nothing in all the world could have 
 kept me from taking this step. 
 
 When I wrote the good news of my great 
 discovery and my great life recovery to my 
 dear father, he was filled with joy and grati- 
 tude beyond measure. At once he replied 
 that he felt sure the day would come when 
 this great experience would be mine. He 
 told me how he had given me to God in holy 
 baptism and prayed then and there and ever 
 afterward, that when I should see Christ, I 
 should long to proclaim him, and might en- 
 ter the ministry for this blessed service. 
 He further said he never doubted but what 
 this would come true. 
 
 The first seven years of my ministry were 
 given to preaching this only power of sal- 
 vation from sin. God gave abundant evi- 
 dence that it was indeed the only power 
 given under heaven to save. 
 
 203 
 
The Sinless, Sickless, Deathless Life 
 
 Then came a new day of darkness. Over- 
 work, "burning the candle at both ends"; 
 doing all kinds of literary work in addition 
 to the cares of the pastorate, sent me past 
 the tension point. The crisis and the crash 
 came. I was left almost a complete physi- 
 cal wreck, with little or no hope of ever 
 again being restored to health. The best 
 physicians of both Chicago and Cleveland 
 had no word of encouragement to give. As 
 a last resort, after going up and down the 
 earth seeking health and finding none, I de- 
 cided to go to a sanatorium. The heavenly 
 hospice was located at one of the most 
 beautiful spots on the face of the earth. 
 Many say Switzerland has no more lovely 
 scenery than one finds all about this "Home 
 on the Hillside." There I remained for 
 five days, with no evidence that the place 
 would be to me a place of help. I then de- 
 cided to go home to die. The night before 
 I was to leave, I read a little leaflet written 
 by the founder of the institution, who had 
 then been dead for some years. It was 
 placed in my hands, most incidentally I 
 thought, by a missionary who was stopping 
 there. I do not recall now much of anything 
 that was in the little pamphlet, save these 
 
 204 
 
How the Light Came and the Fire Fell 
 
 burning, blessed words: "Ther^e is no more 
 reason for a man being sick than a sinner." 
 They pierced my heart like an arrow feath- 
 ered of heaven, and sent by the bow of 
 promise drawn by the hand of God. The 
 words were even more impressive and life- 
 awakening to me than was the meeting with 
 the Indian in the far-off Northwest years 
 before. 
 
 I read them again and again. Every 
 time they seemed to be surcharged with more 
 heavenly power. Then there came to my 
 mind a host of Bible passages emphasizing 
 the truth of this good news. Above all was 
 the great passage which is the middle verse 
 of all the Bible, "Who forgiveth all thy sins 
 and healeth all thy diseases." It seemed to 
 me as clear as a beam of sunlight, and came 
 home to my heart for the first time with 
 power, that there was indeed "a fountain 
 opened up in the house of David for all sin 
 and uncleanness." I saw that sickness, like 
 sin, is to go by faith in God's power to heal, 
 as truly as God's potver to save. Sick bodies 
 like "sick souls" were to be made whole by 
 the incoming Spirit of the same blessed 
 Saviour, who was "the Great Physician" as 
 well as the Great Redeemer of the world. 
 
 205 
 
The Sinless, Sickless, Deathless Life 
 
 Why had I not seen this long before! Why 
 had my eyes been so long holden that they 
 could not "see the scriptures" on this point 
 which now were ablaze with this light of 
 God. 
 
 Then came into my heart words that 
 seemed just for me, "If thou wilt thou canst 
 make me whole." I could not help but re- 
 peat them over and over again. God who 
 gave them, gave the conviction that they 
 were words that any sick one could take and 
 appropriate as his own. Surely God was 
 no respecter of persons in the giving of the 
 life of heaven in his promises of love. I 
 felt that God did not desire the death of any 
 sick one, any more than any sinner. All 
 that is left for us to do to be healed is to 
 accept this as his gracious purpose for all, 
 and as our own rightful inheritance. We 
 are simply to believe he is willing and able 
 to do this great healing work that he sent 
 his Son to reveal is ever the will of God for 
 all. No language can tell the new-found 
 joy that came with the great discovery. I 
 had truly learned that God was a help in 
 every time of need, and that sickness, like 
 sin, was no barrier to his all-restoring power. 
 I could not help but rise from my knees and 
 
 206 
 
How the Light Came and the Fire Fell 
 
 pace the floor in thanksgiving. / counted 
 the work done. By faith I had taken God 
 at his word, as it seemed clear to me, and I 
 was sure he would witness to the power of 
 his healing help in his own good time and 
 way. I said again and again, "I am luell. 
 By the grace of God I am well, and I will 
 henceforth reckon myself ever as dead to 
 disease as to sin." And it ivas done. No 
 one could have had a more clear evidence of 
 the touch of the Great Physician with 
 "healing in his wings" than I did then and 
 there. There was such a quickening of the 
 mortal diseased body under the Spirit's 
 power that no one could have doubted that 
 he is ready to heal as truly as he is ever 
 ready to save. His great redemptive work 
 is as truly a cure of bodies as a "cure of 
 souls." The restoration was doubtless what 
 psychologists might well call "the explosive 
 type of healing." It was like the sudden 
 soul-awakenings at "the mourner's bench" 
 and "penitent forms," which Prof. James has 
 so felicitously called "the explosive types of 
 conversion" in the sudden "new birth" of 
 souls. 
 
 This sudden healing help did not remain, 
 just as sudden changes in heart conversions 
 
 207 
 
The Sinless, Sickless, Deathless Life 
 
 are almost invariably attended with their 
 "ups and downs" till the final full light of 
 God burns steady, as it leads along life's holy 
 highway. But the vision did come and go, 
 till health came that seems an ever-living 
 miracle of grace, that comes and abides for- 
 ever, from trust in God. 
 
 The day after this great "healing ex- 
 perience," I was out for a morning drive 
 with a banker, who had for thirty years 
 been a most prominent elder in the denomi- 
 nation of which I was a minister. I told 
 him of the wonderful vision of the night be- 
 fore, and the transformation which had 
 come. He seemed staggered and dumb- 
 founded. Then he said, in utter bewilder- 
 ment, "Do you actually mean to say this 
 thing is true!" I replied that I could not 
 disbelieve the very thing I had experienced 
 and seen with my own eyes. "Oh, how I 
 wish this experience could be mine also," 
 was his quick reply. Then he continued: 
 "Give me the little leaflet. Maybe God has 
 such a message of health for me too." 
 
 After our drive, he retired at once to his 
 room. There alone with God he read and 
 pondered over the words which had been to 
 me of such miraculous power. Then there 
 
 208 
 
How the Light Came and the Fire Fell 
 
 came also to him the same mighty message 
 of healing and help and soul-uplifting power, 
 that had come the night before to me. 
 When I went into his room later to see him, 
 his face was beaming with the most heav- 
 enly light. Down his cheeks were stream- 
 ing tears of inexpressible joy. He had in- 
 deed also passed the heavenly highway 
 from sickness to health, which he said was 
 more wonderful to him than from sin to 
 salvation. He too had taken God at his 
 word, as the great physician, just as he 
 took him for the great Saviour of men 
 years before. The faith had brought to 
 him the priceless witness of the Spirit that 
 God was willing and able to instantly heal 
 if we will only believe. 
 
 This perhaps is not the place to tell the 
 joy of my own soul, from the great dis- 
 covery of the power of God here and now 
 to do what he did in the days when his 
 Son walked the earth, as the great Saviour 
 of men and the healer of all their disesases. 
 It is needless to say that this thing that 
 was revealed in secret seemed to me so won- 
 derful and such a blessing for all men, that 
 I could scarcely keep from "proclaiming it 
 on the housetops." I wondered why it was 
 
 209 
 
The Sinless, Sickless, Deathless Life 
 
 not even mentioned in the pulpits. I 
 searched in the great commentaries to see 
 what the wisdom of the schools had to say 
 about this "lost art" or this lost article in 
 the most vital creed of Jesus. All I could 
 find was that it was a special gift bestowed 
 upon the early church to attract the atten- 
 tion of men to the great work of salvation, 
 alone through Christ as the world's Saviour. 
 When this truth was once thoroughly estab- 
 lished, "the gift of healing" naturally 
 dropped off the stock of the growing church 
 life, like the cotyledons when the shoot has 
 come sufficiently above the soil. But this 
 explanation did anything but satisfactorily 
 explain the absence of the lost message to 
 my own heart. I felt as long as men had 
 sickness, just so long as they had sin, one 
 would expect that the restoring help of the 
 Christ should come. Did not Jesus say, 
 at the moment of his final departure, 
 "These signs shall follow those who be- 
 lieve"? Did not the disciples go forth pro- 
 claiming the word with boldness, and al- 
 ways with "signs following"? When this 
 law of the Christ was outlawed by any com- 
 mand from on high, either direct or im- 
 plied, I have never been able to see, 
 
 210 
 
How the Light Came and the Fire Fell 
 
 although I have asked many and many of 
 God's wisest why they believed such was so. 
 None have been able to give a reason that 
 seemed reasonable, that this part of the 
 universal command of the Christ was ever 
 done away with, this blessed law was out- 
 lawed. 
 
 On the other hand, I can most truthfully 
 say that, since the time of the great dis- 
 covery of "the healing presence of the 
 seamless robe" of Him who is robed with 
 all health and holiness and power, / have 
 seen absohitely every kind of disease yield 
 to the faith touch. Cancers have been 
 cured; consumptives restored; paralytics 
 made whole; nervous wrecks, wretchedly 
 wretched, absolutely cured; little ones born 
 without the birth pangs of motherhood. 
 These have not been mild cases, that "would 
 have gotten well anyhow." They have 
 nearly all been cases where the best spec- 
 ialists had given them up as utterly hope- 
 less. They had declared that absolutely 
 nothing more, that they knew of, could be 
 done to bring about a cure. The most 
 malignant diseases have yielded as readily 
 to the touch of faith as those of the mildest 
 forms. The cures have been at times as 
 
 211 
 
The Sinless, Sickless, Deathless Life 
 
 immediate as under the touch of the 
 Saviour and his disciples, and as miraculous 
 seemingly as was manifested in the re- 
 corded healings of the New Testament 
 days. When one puts "faith to the test," 
 along these lines, he stands utterly dumb- 
 founded, when he beholds what God has 
 wrought, under the power of faith in those 
 who really and absolutely believe. 
 
 After some years there came a third 
 moment in my life experience which seemed 
 to me even more wondrous and necessary 
 to round out the full-orbed message of our 
 Lord. It was like a "third day" experi- 
 ence in the revelation of the full and com- 
 plete salvation, as Jesus through the Spirit 
 would reveal the wondrous word. 
 
 As one reads the Bible, it seems that it 
 was never intended that one should have 
 a flitting experience of the Spirit's joyous 
 presence. When He, the Comforter, should 
 come, he would abide with us forever, and 
 we should have the abiding witness of his 
 presence in the joy of Jesus, which would 
 make our joy ever full. This, most Chris- 
 tians must sadly confess, is anything but 
 what they have. Life is such an up and 
 down, such a tick-tock, tick-tock from light 
 
 212 
 
How the Light Came and the Fire Fell 
 
 to darkness, and darkness to light, that 
 the world's sorrow is far more to them than 
 Christ's abundant, abiding joy. 
 
 As I saw this, there came a deeper long- 
 ing for what the Bible calls the "baptism 
 of the Spirit," which would do away for- 
 ever with this checkered heart-career, 
 which was anything but a joyous career. I 
 began to read all the devotional works I 
 could lay my hands upon; especially those 
 the historic church held to be almost clas- 
 sics, in this heavenly literature. I was 
 charmed with Madame Guyon, and Fene- 
 lon, and William Law. The books of 
 Murry and Meyer were of the greatest help- 
 fulness, and freighted with peace and joy. 
 One thing only I tried to ever avoid, and 
 that was books upon "Holiness." I had 
 seen so many "Holiness people" whose lives 
 were so unholy, it made me feel I did not 
 want to get entangled with such a travesty 
 of truth as was everywhere evident in such 
 lives of inconsistency. One little book on 
 "Holy in Christ" by Murry I most studi- 
 ously avoided even opening, lest it might 
 lead me into the meshes of the fallacy I 
 thought had led so many astray. 
 
 One day, however, in the depths of de- 
 
 213 
 
The Sinless, Sickless, Deathless Life 
 
 spair of ever finding "the rest that re- 
 maineth for the people of God," I picked 
 up on the street a little circular announcing 
 the coming to the city of a Colonel Brengle, 
 styled "The Apostle of Holiness," in the 
 Salvation Army world. There was some- 
 thing in the very picture of the face of the 
 man on the little dodger that touched my 
 soul. I thought I must go and see if there 
 was really anything in this man's message 
 that my heart was so hungry for, and which 
 I felt I would die, if I did not have. 
 
 I went to the summer camp by the lake- 
 side, where the Colonel was speaking daily. 
 As soon as my eyes fell upon his face, there 
 came to me instantly, as when I met the 
 Indian in the far west years before, that 
 he did indeed possess what my heart so 
 yearned for. His face was beaming with 
 joy and baptised with a peace that showed 
 that truly he was one led marvelously of the 
 Spirit of God. I talked to him, and told 
 him of the hunger of my heart for the peace 
 of God. He told me how he had passed 
 that same holy yet horrible way; and of 
 the heart hunger that came to him, which 
 seemingly never would be satisfied. He 
 told me how during these moments of 
 
 214 
 
How the Light Came a7id the Fire Fell 
 
 reaching after a fuller presence of God, 
 he was pastor of one of the leading churches 
 in Boston. "But God does fill the hungry 
 heart with himself," he said, "else why 
 does he say 'Blessed are those who hunger 
 and thirst after righteousness, for they 
 shall be filled'." He went on to tell how 
 he had sought the Lord most earnestly and 
 that he had indeed revealed to him most 
 blessedly that the joy of our salvation was 
 a perpetual blessing, and that the power of 
 Pentecost was something that God does not 
 want to have pass away. 
 
 What followed was to me the greatest 
 moment in the history of my soul. This 
 is no place to tell just how the light came 
 and the fire fell. All I need to say is, that 
 on that night I said to God, as I retired, 
 "I know that Thy promise is that the Com- 
 forter whom Christ will send is to remain 
 with us always, and that Jesus said he 
 will come into our lives so that His joy 
 shall remain with us, and our joy shall be 
 full." Hitherto I had struggled and striven 
 for the presence of the Holy Spirit, as 
 Jacob wrestled with the angel until the 
 morning. I found myself instantly stop- 
 ping all this. I said also "I have asked 
 
 215 
 
The Sinless, Sickless, Deathless Life 
 
 thee, O God, for what thou hast said thou 
 art more willing and ready to give than 
 parents to give good things unto their chil- 
 dren. / will take by faith what you have 
 offered and what I most desire." Faith 
 seemed to me then, as never before, to be 
 the faculty for us "to have and to hold" 
 this gift of all gifts of God for the soul. 
 I simply accepted, then and there, the gift 
 of the Holy Ghost as mine; and believed I 
 would have all the witness of the presence 
 of the Spirit that I wanted, and more than 
 I was able to wish or think I could ever 
 have. I counted the whole transaction 
 forever done, as I had in my salvation from 
 sin, and restoration to health from disease. 
 God had promised this as surely as he has 
 promised anything in his world or Word. 
 And I believed that he would surely fulfill 
 his promise in me. 
 
 The next morning as I awoke it seemed 
 as though I were in Paradise! There was 
 borne in upon my heart, by a most wonder- 
 ful witness of the Spirit, a new discovery. 
 It was that there was indeed such a thing 
 as being "baptised of the Holy Ghost"; 
 and that He would abide with us forever, and 
 give us the joy and power and peace that 
 
 216 
 
How the Light Came and the Fire Fell 
 
 Jesus said he would. Moment by moment 
 the Spirit was indeed taking of the 
 things of Jesus, the words of Jesus, and mak- 
 ing them full of the richest, rarest meaning 
 to my soul. I never dreamed it was possible 
 to be one with such a heavenly interpreter. 
 I saw now what Jesus meant when he said 
 there were many things he could not say 
 to his disciples, but the Comforter, when 
 he would come, would make them clear. 
 He would take all the dark words of Jesus 
 and make them light and life to the soul, 
 and would also show the new heart things 
 to come. This he was actually doing 
 moment by moment to me; till I felt like 
 saying with Finney, when he had his bap- 
 tism from on high in the grove, where he 
 went to be alone with God, for the out- 
 pouring of the Spirit from on high: — 
 "O Lord, I can't receive more now !" 
 
 Then I understood the great words of 
 John Robinson, the great spiritual forebear 
 of the folks of the Mayflower: "There are 
 more things to be revealed to men by the 
 Spirit of God than the greatest theologians 
 and commentators have ever dreamed of." 
 Every day seemed to bring more beautiful 
 revelations of the wonders and beauties of 
 
 217 
 
The Sinless, Sickless, Deathless Life 
 
 God's World and Word. It seemed that 
 the great teacher sent from God, who 
 walked the earth and taught truth "beauti- 
 ful as the light, sublime as heaven and true 
 as God," was indeed by his Spirit dwelling 
 in the heart, as he had promised, teaching 
 one all things. 
 
 I saw then the meaning of the wondrous 
 words: "Ye need not that any man shall 
 teach you ; for the anointing which ye shall 
 receive of the Father, who dwelleth in you, 
 shall teach you all things, and show you 
 things to come." The new experience 
 makes one feel he is indeed "born of the 
 Spirit," and borne along by the Spirit, not 
 merely down the stream of time, but along 
 the "river of Life." It makes you know 
 that wherever this Spirit carried Jesus, it 
 is bound to carry you ; for we are truly one 
 with him in the Spirit. One thus knows 
 that the end of life can be nothing but one 
 inexpressible, all-glorious triumph. This 
 makes us joint heirs with the Lord of 
 Glory, in the love and the life of the Father. 
 This makes us children of the day and 
 sons of light. Thus led one no longer walks 
 in darkness; for he has not only seen, but 
 there is within him a great light, which is 
 
 218 
 
How the Light Came and the Fire Fell 
 
 the world's only true lamp of life. The 
 world then is one holy family to him. It 
 is a most holy brotherhood, and a thrice 
 holy fellowship. It makes one feel that 
 down in the great subconscious self some- 
 where, the race is all spiritually one in its 
 true life as revealed from God through 
 Jesus. It is a "unity of the Spirit" that 
 makes one feel he is bound up with all the 
 world in the bonds of peace. It is the spirit 
 that makes one know that we are one with 
 God and one with one another, in the way 
 that Jesus so wondrously proclaimed this 
 blessed unity and more wondrously and 
 fervently prayed for it. Love thus seemed 
 indeed to be the cement of heaven that 
 binds all people of the earth as "living 
 stones" into the temple of God — a temple 
 not made with hands, but as eternal as the 
 heavens, to be filled with the glory of the 
 Lord, which is to be the eternal light and 
 life of all. 
 
 Borne along from day to day by such a 
 Spirit, there came another moment of still 
 greater revelation to my heart. It was a 
 glimpse of a glory that no one had ever 
 told me, nor as far as I knew had been 
 found elsewhere. It was so great as it 
 
 219 
 
The Sinless, SicJcless, Deathless Life 
 
 came that it seemed that indeed flesh and 
 blood did not reveal it unto me; but it was 
 revealed by the Father in heaven. It came 
 as a most natural fulfillment of all that had 
 gone before. It was like the flower follow- 
 ing the opening of the bud; or the coming 
 of the autumn fruit, when the summer 
 flowers have gone. It came about in this 
 wise: 
 
 I was walking through the parlor of a 
 friend one day. On the wall was hanging 
 a beautiful steel engraving of Merson's 
 "The Repose in Egypt," referred to in the 
 chapter on the vision of artists and seers. 
 Instantly as I looked upon the picture there 
 flashed into my heart the conviction, with 
 a joy more real and more blessed than 
 came at the moment of my heart-awaken- 
 ing by the old Indian, or at the moment 
 when I first saw and felt the healing power 
 of God; or even the glory glimpse with 
 the "baptism of the Spirit," which told of 
 the coming and abiding forever of the 
 Spirit's promised peace and joy. The great 
 revelation seemed to formulate itself in 
 some such words as these : Man is not made 
 to die. "Ye shall not die." The deathless 
 life that all Egypt longed for and could not 
 
 220 
 
How the Light Came and the Fire Fell 
 
 find, is found and fulfilled forever in 
 Jesus. He was sent into Egypt in his 
 child moments to tell that the riddle of the 
 Sphinx and the riddle of life as Egypt 
 thereby embodied it is solved forever by him 
 who brought the deathless life to light for- 
 ever, and for all who are by faith united to 
 his own blessed self. This seemed like one of 
 the "many things" that Jesus said he could 
 not reveal to us in his earth years; but the 
 Comforter would come and make clear to us. 
 It seemed a revelation direct from heaven. 
 I was sure it was the everlasting truth 
 of the everlasting life that was to be re- 
 vealed to the world in Christ Jesus; and 
 is what the Spirit is to bear home as the 
 great conviction to all of us. No words 
 can tell the joy of the great revelation. It 
 seemed at once as though it was the "lost 
 chord" of Evolution. All creation, as we 
 have been interpreting it, seemed little more 
 than a great torso without this. It was 
 the one thing absolutely needed to bring 
 out the full realization of the divine race 
 purpose God was striving through his Spirit 
 to make clear to folks. All creation seemed 
 groaning and trembling to bring forth this 
 as the crown and glory of creation's pur- 
 
 221 
 
The Sinless, Sickless, Deathless Life 
 
 pose. It seemed that human life unfolding 
 in its perfectly natural way, as purposed of 
 God, must overcome all sin and sickness and 
 death. Death was but the place where the 
 tragedy, from the wrecking of the divine 
 plan, seemed so terrible; that the whole 
 rich meaning of life, as God meant it, went 
 down in the crash. Christ came to bring 
 life and immortality to light again. He 
 came to restore the deathless life and man 
 to his blissful seat, where he would reign 
 over all triumphant. And he did it. Then 
 there flashed through my mind many of the 
 wonderful words of Jesus, that seemed to 
 point to this as God's crowning purpose. 
 There came the rich, hidden meaning of the 
 Passover, especially as it was fulfilled in 
 the drinking of the "Elijah's Cup," when 
 the deathless life for all, that was looked 
 forward to, would be actually accomplished. 
 Then there came crowding in the great 
 words of the seers, both of the Old Testa- 
 ment and the wide world outside. They 
 seemed but the foregleams of the coming of 
 this wondrous divine time. Sages and phi- 
 losophers also seemed to find in this great 
 truth the glory-goal of all. All life took 
 on a newer and richer meaning from this 
 
 222 
 
How the Light Came and the Fire Fell 
 
 holy Light. One could see the great 
 "Whither," everything was trending toward. 
 He could see how Jesus was indeed the good 
 shepherd leading the race upward and on- 
 ward along this heavenly way. Not by lip 
 only but by life, did he proclaim and demon- 
 strate this great truth, so no one could deny 
 it. He was the "perfect human" doing 
 God's perfect work; so that all could see it 
 was heaven's task and purpose for every 
 one of us. We could see in him that man 
 was not made to die. These bodies of ours 
 were to be so quickened by the Spirit, they 
 should enter glorified into the life eternal. 
 Death, the last enemy we have to meet, nnust 
 go down in the great conflict which will 
 bring us off triumphant in the glories of the 
 deathless life. Now one could see the 
 heavenly nexus between Jesus and the race. 
 He showed the way of the Spirit, so that 
 we would tread in his every footstep, as 
 we followed him in being forever led of the 
 Spirit. We find that the "decisive battle 
 of the world" was indeed at Calvary. There 
 Jesus met by the power of the Eternal 
 Spirit the race enemy of death, and came 
 off more than conqueror in the resurrection 
 and the ascension that followed it. The 
 
 223 
 
The Sinless, SicJcless, Deathless Life 
 
 whole Old Testament is moving most ma- 
 jestically toward the coming of this truth 
 of truths. But Jesus, the greatest of the 
 prophets, whose life was the unfolding of 
 all the world's prophecy, pressed on in the 
 battle against the demons of destruction to 
 the very finish. In the battle against death, 
 he raised the "standard of the cross" in 
 such a way that we must feel that it is the 
 standard of everlasting and deathless life. 
 The Spirit of the living God was working 
 within him to will and to do of the pleasure 
 and plan of all heaven. What he brought 
 forth as the triumph there forever, is but 
 the first fruits of what is for all who will 
 but believe this is most truly the will of God 
 for all of us. This is the victory that is to 
 be proclaimed as far as man is found. 
 
 The full final purpose of God for every 
 one of us in Christ Jesus is the sinless, 
 sickless, deathless life, here, now and for- 
 ever. It is the last article of the creed of 
 Christendom, that makes it a joy to all 
 people, and a perpetual benediction to all 
 the race. It girds up the loins of men, as 
 they "press forward to the mark of their 
 high calling of God in Christ Jesus," and 
 restores unto them their long-lost birth- 
 right and heavenly inheritance. 
 
 224 
 
How the Light Came and the Fire Fell 
 
 Paul was the great formulator of the 
 truth Jesus once for all delivered, as the one 
 to bring into perfect unity the whole wide 
 race under the complete guidance of the 
 Spirit. To him, "the just shall live by 
 faith" is the one simple key that is to unlock 
 all the mysteries of heaven and earth and 
 solve for all the riddles of the universe. Just 
 what this faith would fully and finally lead 
 to he did not grasp with all its fullness. He 
 placed the emphasis, under the guidance of 
 the Spirit, just where it was most needed 
 for the world-moment. He caught only a 
 dim glimpse of the fuller faith that one is 
 to take for the final full unfolding of life in 
 the complete richness of the great heavenly 
 purpose. He saw that we were not all to 
 sleep, but sometime there was to be a taking 
 up of those who remain to be forever with 
 the Lord. He longed for this, as all in the 
 early church longed for it as nothing else. 
 "Come, Lord, come quickly," was their daily 
 prayer, as the Lord himself taught them to 
 pray it. But just as truly as the Jewish 
 church failed to realize the manner and the 
 moments of the Messiah's first coming, as 
 we have seen; so doubtless both Paul and 
 Christendom have failed to grasp the full 
 
 225 
 
The Sinless, Sickless, Deathless Life 
 
 truth of Christ's coming again, in the power 
 of the Eternal Spirit. The awakening of 
 the consciousness and confidence of the 
 deathless life in men's soids is yet to come. 
 But the day is dawning fast. Faith in God, 
 so that we believe His spirit is within us 
 to do for us all it did for Jesus, lifts one 
 into this faith and into the very heaven of 
 heavens, and makes for one indeed a new 
 heaven and a new earth. Under this vision 
 you cannot help but feel we are living in 
 such joint heirship with Jesus that we 
 must reckon ourselves as dead to death as to 
 sin and disease. This gives life such a ring 
 of the real, and religion such a power within 
 us making for righteousness, that we wonder 
 why the scales over the eyes of Christendom 
 through all the centuries have not dropped 
 long ago. This makes one see Him, whom 
 to know thus aright is the eternal life with 
 all its promised power for all of us. This 
 is faith which brings the substance of all 
 things the world has ever hoped for, and 
 also gives evidence of most glorious things 
 never yet seen. If we have the "will to be- 
 lieve" this, we will soon behold a glory that 
 surpasses all things that the sages or the 
 ages have proclaimed or prophesied. It 
 
 226 
 
How the Light Came and the Fire Fell 
 
 will bring us here and now into "Immanuel's 
 land," where the glory of God is forever 
 within and with us. Earth then is indeed 
 changed from a desert drear, into an Eden 
 of bliss and a perpetual Paradise. 
 
 Everywhere cries are being heard 
 throughout Christendom which are like 
 "voices in the wilderness," saying this is the 
 day of the Lord that is dawning, this is the 
 highway of holiness that is thrown up in 
 life's desert for our God ; this is the way of 
 the life of heaven on earth ; walk ye all in it. 
 
 Here are some such words as they come 
 from one who is in the very forefront of 
 the strife. They are from a recent article 
 by Rev. Edgar P. Hill, D. D., professor in 
 one of our best Theological Seminaries, and 
 Superintendent of the Church Extension 
 work of the Presbyterian church in the city 
 of Chicago. He feels keenly that the 
 Protestant church, with its present methods, 
 is fighting a losing battle in the great down- 
 town districts of our large cities everywhere. 
 He feels that much that is done in our 
 churches is but a poor substitute for the 
 real message of salvation that rang from 
 the lips and life of Jesus of Nazareth, till 
 it has resounded down the twenty centuries, 
 
 227 
 
The Sinless, Sickless, Deathless Life 
 
 making it of all real things the most real 
 to men still today. Here are part of his 
 wise words: 
 
 "Some church advertising seems more 
 like the frantic efforts of a discouraged shop- 
 keeper trying to dispose of shelf-worn stock 
 than that of a confident merchant whose 
 superior goods are their own commendation. 
 It is a question whether snappy newspaper 
 articles and brilliant electric signs are 
 special evidences of religious vitality and 
 alertness. The owners of genuine gold 
 mines do not advertise largely. The greater 
 the surgeon the less the need of exploita- 
 tion. Long ago cities were emptied as 
 crowds hurried into the desert to listen to 
 a man with a real message. Jesus needed 
 no publicity bureau. When at a wellside 
 a solitary woman had her heart laid bare be- 
 fore him, she hurried excitedly back to the 
 village and soon the prophet was address- 
 ing a crowd. When the Great Physician 
 opened the eyes of two blind men the twain 
 ran forth with grateful enthusiasm to 
 spread abroad his fame in all that country. 
 This was advertising worth while when men 
 who owed to Jesus the priceless gift of 
 sight hurried everywhere to share with 
 others their glorious secret. And in our 
 great cities when the men who stand in the 
 pulpits shall be men of profound conviction, 
 living in intimate fellowship with the un- 
 seen world, expert in declaring the deep 
 
 228 
 
How the Light Came and the Fire Fell 
 
 things of God, then the churches shall be 
 real sanctuaries where the bewildered mul- 
 titudes may find genuine fellowship and 
 peace, inspiration and power." 
 
 In the face of such a great conviction 
 what better news can be heralded as glad 
 tidings to all men than that there is a sal- 
 vation full and free; and that it saves the 
 ivhole man. It means a salvation from sin, 
 a salvation from sickness; a complete 
 triumph over death and the grave; and a 
 filling the heart with a joy like the angels 
 and a peace like that which filled the heart 
 of the Prince of Peace who ever liveth to 
 breathe out his "Pax Vobiscum" upon men 
 everywhere. When men hear the good news 
 and glad tidings of such a Saviour, how can 
 they help but burst out in joy most raptur- 
 ous, "He is the Saviour for me!" All will 
 find in such a Christ, the anointed of heaven, 
 who is to baptize all his full followers with 
 his almighty and everlasting grace and 
 power. 
 
 If the church that is cannot or will not 
 catch the glow and glory of such a Redeemer, 
 then God will raise up another church, made 
 up of those who truly are of "the church of 
 the first-born" who will tell that this is 
 
 229 
 
The Sinless, Sickless, Deathless Life 
 
 indeed he who has come to redeem all God's 
 spiritual Israel. Jew and Gentile, Catholic 
 and Protestant, saint and Socialist, laborer 
 and capitalist, rich and poor, unlearned and 
 wise will all find themselves flocking to hear 
 of him who comes again through the hearts 
 of men with a message mightier than he 
 gave in the years of his flesh. It is the 
 message which he gives through the fullness 
 of the Eternal Spirit of his eternal and ever- 
 lasting power. It is a message the same 
 yesterday, today and forever ; long hid from 
 men, but now coming into their lives for 
 their final and full salvation, and the com- 
 plete redemption of the world. 
 
 230 
 
XV. 
 
 THE TRIUMPHANT TRUTH PRACTI- 
 CALLY APPLIED. 
 
 Every religion under the sun has used as 
 the best means of imparting its holy mes- 
 sage, some kind of a catechism. The word 
 catechism means "an imparting of the truth 
 by sound." It is an echoing into the heart 
 of the inquirer from the heart of the be- 
 liever, the truth that heaven has revealed as 
 the great rock foundation of the believer's 
 own soul. A life all on fire with the vision 
 from on high cannot help but want to impart 
 this heavenly knowledge to others. He feels 
 he is indeed for this very purpose come into 
 the world as a "teacher sent from God." 
 
 The great, all-important questions which 
 are called forth from those who know not, 
 to those who truly know the way and the 
 truth and the life of God, are surprisingly 
 similar the world over. The answers of the 
 truly baptized of God, to the ones in quest 
 of the Pentecostal fire, make up the great 
 world catechism, which by questions and 
 answers strive to make clear what one should 
 know and do that they may be fullly and 
 
 231 
 
The Sinless, Sickless, Deathless Life 
 
 forever saved. They aim to give clearly 
 the essence of religion "pure and undefiled" 
 and tell one what they must do that they 
 may know the living and true God aright, 
 and thus knowing have revealed in their 
 hearts by blessed experience the glow and 
 glories of the kingdom of God. 
 
 Herewith are given some such series of 
 questions and answers, which aim to reveal 
 for most practical use the power of God for 
 the full and free salvation, given by Jesus, 
 for the sole redemption of the entire man. 
 
 It brings down from the clouds the power 
 from on high with which, if a man be bap- 
 tized, he will find the liberty that all the 
 world is longing for, and the love that over- 
 flows in his heart like a well of life, and 
 which makes the desert about bud and bloom 
 like the rose. 
 
 It shows how one may test and see that 
 all that has been said in these pages can be 
 most practically demonstrated and men will 
 know whether it is a message sent of heaven 
 or is merely man's message that fails to 
 fulfill the longings of the heart that God has 
 implanted, and which he is bound to gratify 
 and satisfy. 
 
 The little catechetical putting of the glad, 
 
 232 
 
The Triumphant Truth Practically Applied 
 
 good news does not by any means ask or 
 answer all the questions that any hungry 
 heart will ask of one whom it knows has the 
 bread of life. But the fundamental and all- 
 important ones are asked and answered ; and 
 it is hoped in such a way as to make any 
 one that reads ask a thousand more. He 
 will find that with every sincere inquiry 
 there will be found somewhere and from 
 someone an answer, that will ravish the 
 soul with a new-found revelation and a new- 
 found joy. 
 
 Soon one will find that whenever a ques- 
 tion comes into the heart he can ask of God 
 the giver thereof, and he by his Spirit will 
 as surely furnish the answer, either direct 
 or through the lips and life of another, as 
 he supplies the food for the new-born babe 
 with a mother's life and a mother's love. 
 
 Oh, what a catechism God is writing in 
 the heart of hungering, thirsting humanity! 
 Oh, what answers he has ready from the lips 
 and lives of those who are born of the 
 Spirit into the eternal life, the free gift of 
 God for all. 
 
 The following questions are such as come 
 alike from all the race, and are the ones 
 that are attempted to be answered by every 
 
 233 
 
The Sinless, Sickless, Deathless Life 
 
 creed. It is Christendom's Catechism, for 
 it is the answer that Christ gave to the uni- 
 versal questions, which are the pivotal ones 
 of all people forever and everywhere. No 
 man can pick up the Book that has trans- 
 formed the world and read it, without asking 
 these questions. No one will be satisfied 
 in his heart and life till he can practically 
 answer them as Jesus said they should be 
 answered by every follower of the Light 
 of all heaven for all. 
 
 Question 1 — What is God's full purpose 
 for me? 
 
 Answer — God's full purpose for me is to 
 free me forever from all sin, sickness and 
 death, that I may become "holy as God is 
 holy" and "perfect as the Father in heaven 
 is perfect." 
 
 Q. 2 — What must I do that I may realize 
 this glorious purpose? 
 
 A. — That I may realize this glorious pur- 
 pose, I must simply believe that God is in 
 me by the spirit of his own life to bring 
 forth this glorious result. If I only believe 
 this is God's good pleasure for me, and 
 that he is willing and able to accomplish 
 what he has planned for me in my very ex- 
 
 234 
 
The Ti'iiimphayit Truth Practically Applied 
 
 istence, I will see the glory of it. For we 
 are saved by faith that God will accomplish 
 within us that whereunto we are sent. We 
 will thus "apprehend that for which we are 
 apprehended of God in Christ Jesus." 
 
 Q. 3 — What ground have I for believing 
 such a stupendous and all-glorious purpose 
 for my life? 
 
 A. — The ground I have for such a blessed 
 belief is that Jesus is the Word of God tell- 
 ing of his purposed work for us. He is the 
 express image of the Father's glorious pur- 
 pose for all of the race. What the Spirit 
 of the life of God in humanity expressed in 
 Jesus, God wills to express in all of us. He 
 was but the "sample sheaf," "the first fruits" 
 of the harvest of the kingdom of heaven 
 that all humanity is made to exhibit. 
 
 Q. 4 — What evidence will I have that this 
 is the truth? 
 
 A. — The evidence that I will have that 
 this is the truth is that I will want to be 
 about the Father's business as Jesus, our 
 elder brother, was in his earth-work. Like 
 him I will ever look upon others as I believe 
 God looks upon me in His redemptive 
 purpose. 
 
 Q. 5 — What are the three cardinal things 
 
 235 
 
The Sinless, Sickless, Deathless Life 
 
 that thou wilt ever he doing as a full fol- 
 lower of Jesus? 
 
 A. — The three cardinal things I will be 
 doing as a full follower of Jesus will be to 
 forgive sins, heal all manner of diseases and 
 bestow upon others, through God's grace, 
 the gift of the Holy Ghost. 
 
 Q. 6 — Why ivilt thou make forgiving all 
 manner of sins thy first work? 
 
 A. — I will make the forgiving of sins my 
 first and foremost work, because to forgive 
 sins was the first and foremost work of 
 Jesus. His name tells this as the great and 
 gracious nature of his work: "They shall 
 call his name Jesus, for he shall save his 
 people from their sins." Our high-priestly 
 work, like Jesus', must ever be our first and 
 foremost work. To the taunts of the world, 
 "Who can forgive sins but God only," we 
 must answer by a life of demonstration that 
 we have received from God, through the 
 grace of the Spirit, the power of absolution 
 in joint possession with Jesus. To a sinner 
 in penitence seeking fogiveness, we are to 
 say in faith, "Thy sins be forgiven thee." 
 Thus believing we will see before our 
 very eyes, the sins vanishing like the dark- 
 ness before the light. "Whosoever sins ye 
 
 236 
 
The Triumphant Truth Practically Applied 
 
 forgive they shall be forgiven them." For- 
 giveness of sins is our heaven-given perog- 
 ative. As we test, we will see this is the 
 glorious purpose of God in making us High 
 Priests unto himself, with Jesus, in the re- 
 demptive work of the world. 
 
 Q. 7 — What is the second work I am to do ? 
 
 A. — The second work I am to do is to heal 
 all manner of diseases. As truly as Jesus 
 made it the mission of his life to go about 
 healing all manner of diseases, I am to make 
 this my mission also. "These signs shall 
 follow those who believe. In my name 
 they shall cast out devils and heal all manner 
 of diseases." It is even said "If ye eat 
 any deadly thing it shall not harm you." 
 
 Q. 8 — Why has this not been done in the 
 past by the folloiuers of Jesus? 
 
 A. — This has not been done simply be- 
 cause we have lost faith in the fact that we 
 could; and no one has come to make men 
 realize this was the priceless possession for 
 all who were followers of Jesus as Saviour 
 and Lord. 
 
 Q. 9 — Hoiv can I do this? 
 
 A. — I can do this by sitting beside one 
 who is sick, and in my heart believe that the 
 power of the Spirit of God is present to do 
 
 237 
 
The Sinless, SicJdess, Deathless Life 
 
 unto the sick one what he is doing in my 
 own life — to make one perfect as the Father 
 in heaven is perfect. By thus believing we 
 shall see the glory of God, in the restora- 
 tion to health of the one that is sick through 
 lack of faith in the fullness of the divine 
 purpose for us, to be both healthy and holy 
 in God. 
 
 Q. 10 — Why do we sometimes fail to bring 
 about the healing help? 
 
 A. — We sometimes fail in our healing help 
 because of our unbelief in the fact that God 
 is willing and ready as he is able to do this. 
 "Oh, ye of little faith" is the rebuke that 
 heaven gives yesterday, today and forever 
 to every failure that we face. 
 
 Q. 11 — Can others' unbelief hinder the 
 healing help? 
 
 A. — Yes, others' unbelief can hinder the 
 healing help, for Jesus said he could do no 
 mighty works at places, on account of their 
 unbelief. The unbelief of the patient is 
 often as great a barrier, that needs to be 
 burned away, as the unbelief of the practi- 
 tioner, for the restoration of the sick ones to 
 health. 
 
 Q. 12 — What should one do under such 
 circumstances ? 
 
 288 
 
The Triumphant Truth Practically Applied 
 
 A. — Under such circumstances one should 
 sit in quiet confidence that God is able and 
 willing to remove the sin of unbelief from 
 patient as well as practitioner, and in that 
 faith the glory of the Lord shall be manifest 
 in the bringing of the sick ones back to per- 
 fect life. 
 
 Q. 13. — What is the third and last of the 
 cardinal functions of the true child of the 
 highest ? 
 
 A. — The third and last of the cardinal 
 functions of the Christian life is to give to 
 others the "gift of the Holy Ghost." "Have 
 ye received the gift of the Holy Ghost?" 
 was the pass-word into the privilege of dis- 
 cipleship into the early church. It must be 
 the pass-word into the place of power to 
 every true follower of Jesus. Jesus made 
 this the last and greatest of his gifts to 
 men. He breathed upon them and said 
 "Receive ye the Holy Ghost." Pentecost 
 was the place where the possession of this 
 power of God unto salvation was manifested 
 as the world's mighty spiritual dynamic. 
 
 Q. 14 — Can this baptism of the Spirit fall 
 upon people today? 
 
 A. — This baptism of the Spirit can fall 
 upon people today, just as surely as in the 
 
 239 
 
The Siriless, Sickless, Deathless Life 
 
 days of the first apostles and in the earth- 
 days of Jesus. 
 
 Q. 15 — How can it be received? 
 
 A. — It can be received by faith alone. We 
 may lay our hands upon the heads of those 
 who hunger for the "outpouring of the 
 Spirit" upon their lives, and we may say 
 "In the name of Jesus receive ye the Holy 
 Ghost." Faith that this will be granted 
 us will bring the marvelous manifestation 
 about, and we will see changes wrought be- 
 fore our very eyes as wonderful as on the 
 "Day of Pentecost." As our faith is so it 
 shall be unto us. 
 
 Q. 16 — What is needed to keep the witness 
 of the Spirit? 
 
 A. — The thing needed to keep the abiding 
 of the witness of the Spirit is that the re- 
 generated believe that he is "born again" 
 for no other purpose than to become a re- 
 generator. As generation is the highest 
 and final function in the unfolding of the 
 natural life, so regeneration is the highest 
 and final gift of the regenerated life — one 
 born again of the Spirit. We are begotten 
 of God to beget for God. We are forgiven 
 to forgive, healed to heal, and baptized of 
 the Spirit to breathe upon others by faith 
 
 240 
 
The T7'iumphant Truth Practically Applied 
 
 the baptism of the Holy Ghost. The cardi- 
 nal life purposes of Jesus must ever be the 
 cardinal life purposes of every one of us. 
 
 Q. 17 — How can I be prepared for this 
 glorious world-redeeming ivork? 
 
 A. — I can be prepared for this world-re- 
 deeming work by believing that the life of 
 God that was in Jesus is the life of God 
 ever in us to accomplish these very things 
 for which it is given. We are sent into the 
 world to glorify God in the saving from 
 sin and sickness and death, all who will 
 come believing that this is the will of God 
 revealed in Christ Jesus for every one of us. 
 
 Q. 18 — What is life's mission and com- 
 mission as heaven reveals it? 
 
 A. — Life's mission and commission as re- 
 vealed of heaven is to go into all the world 
 and proclaim this as the good news of 
 heaven and demonstrate this by our daily 
 life among those with whom God throws us 
 in living contact. This service is our only 
 salvation. We are to work it out with fear 
 and trembling, for God is within us, work- 
 ing to will and to do of his good pleasure 
 in day by day making our message and 
 mission "by signs following" more clearly 
 manifest. By such fruits men will know 
 
 241 
 
The Sinless, Sickless, Deathless Life 
 
 we are children of God, joint heirs with our 
 elder brother, and the only begotten of the 
 Father, to reveal to us what we are begotten 
 unto by the gift of the Spirit. 
 
 Q. 19 — What does such a life-work mean 
 to one? 
 
 A. — Such a life-work means to one that 
 all life's ways are easy and all life's burdens 
 become light. It is a joy that only angels 
 can tell, to be thus joined with Jesus in God's 
 world-work. It is a peace that passeth all 
 understanding to be such a messenger of 
 peace. We are at peace with all heaven 
 and earth by the power of the Spirit of the 
 "Prince of Peace." We are saved and be- 
 come saviours so that all the world may 
 know that the chief end of man is indeed to 
 glorify God and enjoy him forever, as we 
 are thus ever saved to the utmost to serve 
 and save to the uttermost. 
 
 Q. 20 — What place should this great mes- 
 sage have in all organized Christendom? 
 
 A. — It should be the very spirit of it. 
 Without this, we have only the letter which 
 killeth and have lost the spirit which giveth 
 the fullness of Christ's heavenly life. 
 
 242 
 
XVI. 
 
 THE SIMPLE SUMMARY OF "GOD'S 
 PERFECT WHOLE." 
 
 Hear then the conclusion of the whole 
 matter, of how one may know and keep "the 
 whole duty of man" — how we may truly and 
 fully "love God and keep his command- 
 ments." It is to believe that God is within 
 us, working to will and to do of his good 
 pleasure, which is nought less than the 
 bringing forth of the perfect expression of 
 his power and glory as manifested in Jesus 
 Christ. God is willing and able and ready 
 to do this. When we are willing and ready 
 to believe his ability to do this crowning 
 work of grace in us, in the sinless, sickless 
 and deathless life as revealed in Jesus, we 
 shall be satisfied as we waken into the glor- 
 ious realization of this, our long longed for 
 likeness. We shall be glorified as God is 
 glowing within us while he is glorifying 
 himself in the bringing forth this priceless 
 product of creation's purpose. 
 
 Materlink says "A hidden truth is what 
 makes us live. We are its unconscious 
 slaves as long as it has not appeared." The 
 
 243 
 
The Sinless, Sickless, Deathless Life 
 
 hidden truth hid from the ages, fully re- 
 vealed in Christ and to be just as fully re- 
 vealed in us, is most that the sinless, sickless, 
 deathless life is the glory-goal of God, 
 designed for all. It is the truth hidden in 
 the very heart of humanity, struggling to 
 be perfect as the Father in heaven is per- 
 fect. It is the truth which burned like a 
 holy fire in the heart of Novalis and Emer- 
 son, which they called the "Transcendental 
 Soul." It is the same truth which Paul 
 called "Christ within us, the hope of Glory." 
 It is the truth which Swedenborg loved to 
 call the "Perfect Human," which made him 
 the seer of his century as he tried to make 
 it more clear unto the minds and hearts of 
 folks. 
 
 Living under the spell of this "open 
 vision" of heaven for all men, one is led like 
 Joan of Arc by her "Voices." It is the 
 voice of God, clear as the bells of heaven, 
 sweet as the love of Christ to us. As 
 we listen to its wooing, winning message, 
 we will lead the hosts of the unredeemed to 
 their full and most blessed redemption. We 
 will be able to storm the very Gates of Hell 
 and Hades, and bring into their liberty the 
 captives of the ages under the bondage of 
 
 244 
 
The Summary of "God's Perfect Whole** 
 
 sin, disease and death. We will be clothed 
 with white raiment indeed, and ride with 
 the victorious army of the Redeemer upon 
 "white horses," having upon our foreheads 
 the name that only the Spirit will make 
 known. This we will do, with a vision that 
 will ever ravish the soul, and make us feel 
 that upon our girdles of righteousness are 
 written indeed the words upon Christ's, 
 "King of kings and Lord of lords." 
 
 This was the vision of the Christ that is 
 to light up all the world. It filled the holy 
 temple of his being with a glory that cometh 
 down from on high. It lifted him heaven- 
 ward as he was borne from the grave by 
 the Eternal Spirit. His words of promise 
 and purpose for men cannot then help but 
 make us say with Ruysbrock, the greatest 
 Mystic of the Middle Ages, "There is but 
 one temple in the world, and that is the body 
 of man. Nothing is holier than this on 
 this side of the gates of God." We know 
 that we are the living temples of the Most 
 Holy and Most High as surely as was Jesus 
 the Christ. If we will only believe that 
 God is within us to do for us what he did 
 for ^he great world Messenger and the 
 Messiah, we too shall enter into the full glory 
 
 245 
 
The Sinless, Sickless, Deathless Life 
 
 of our purposed inheritance, as sons of his 
 love and sons of his everlasting light. 
 
 Truly it is the dream of the ages that has 
 filled the minds of artists and seers with a 
 message that carried them to the very 
 presence of God. The veil over their eyes 
 has often been so thin that the very linea- 
 ments of the divine in man has shown 
 through as revealed in the divine man. It 
 revealed him as God's pattern for every 
 temple he is trying to build in the heart of 
 his children that he has brought forth from 
 the womb of time, for the glory of eternity, 
 to show forth the wonders of his grace and 
 love. 
 
 Philosophers and scientists have felt that 
 there is within all men a power not them- 
 selves making for matchless righteousness. 
 A new day is upon the world in these great 
 realms of profoundest thinking. The wisest 
 feel that they are beginning for the first 
 time to really see "what God is up to" as in 
 "the roaring loom of time, the endless web 
 of events is woven." We are seeing that 
 he is weaving the garments of the perfect 
 salvation for humanity. We are seeing 
 that the whole man is to be saved by grace. 
 God is demonstrating before our very eyes, 
 
 246 
 
The Summary of ''God's Perfect Whole'* 
 
 as never before, that he is actually within 
 us to forgive all our sins, heal all our dis- 
 eases, and put death and hell as fully and 
 forever beneath our feet, as he did in the 
 triumphs of his revelation in Jesus Christ, 
 the Son of Man and Son of God — God's 
 rare pattern drawn out in living character 
 for us. 
 
 This is the high water mark of religion 
 indeed. Victor Hngo, when in his dungeon 
 cell, found himself musing on the wonders 
 of the cathedral at Seville. He saw it all 
 in its matchless beauty and almost perfect 
 design. Then suddenly it seemed to him 
 that every stone from the foundation up, 
 past pillars and all to the very dome, even 
 to the last last stone laid upon its summit, 
 was for nought else than to bring out the 
 glory of the angel crowning all with its out- 
 stretched wings, looking upward as though 
 it were to instantly take its heavenly flight. 
 So religion, "which is the greatest thing in 
 the world," "to bear our spirits up," is the 
 crowning truth of the very temple of our 
 beings. These bodies of ours, temples made 
 without hands, made to be as eternal as the 
 heavens, find their high water mark of pur- 
 pose, and their crowning message in the 
 
 247 
 
The Sinless, Sickless, Deathless Life 
 
 great transfiguration moments, like that 
 which came to Jesus. It is the thought of 
 thoughts that our bodies as well as our 
 spirits are to be glorified. With these eyes 
 we are to see God. We are to realize that 
 the sinless, sickless, deathless life is our 
 divine inheritance, our long-lost birthright, 
 which God came in his Only Begotten, to 
 again restore to us. It is ours now and for- 
 ever if we will only believe it. 
 
 One never sees the beauties of the cathed- 
 ral windows till he is within the holy shrine 
 and looks through the master work of art 
 in colors, to the light outside. So one must 
 enter the temple of his own being, by faith 
 alone, and believe that the deathless life is 
 the will of God for us in Christ Jesus. Then 
 every opening window heavenward will 
 have told in its cathedral glass painted by 
 God's Spirit some phase of this matchless 
 truth which is to grip and grapple with 
 fallen humanity till it will restore it to its 
 blissful seat. It is the story sung by the 
 Spirit of the Almighty God's most holy and 
 heavenly Muse that alone brings forth the 
 holiest music. Here, as nowhere else, is 
 seen the great cardinal truth about religion 
 that Anslem formulated, and which is as 
 
 248 
 
The Summary of "God's Perfect Whole" 
 
 universal in its heart sweep as the law of 
 gravity is in the sweep of spheres. "Credo 
 ut intellegam no7i intellego ut credem." — 
 "I must believe that I may know, not know 
 that I may believe." 
 
 This holy vision makes the Holy Supper 
 the most hallowed feast in all the world. 
 We are to be made partakers of the life of 
 the one deathless and immortal of all the 
 ages till we shall be full partakers of all 
 his benefits and all his experiences. We 
 may bless the whole wide world by drinking 
 this "Elijah's Cup" of blessing with others, 
 and taking them into the full blood covenant 
 of heaven in the perfect and complete sal- 
 vation of God for all. 
 
 This makes us meet death, the last great 
 enemy, in open combat, and as confident 
 that we will win in the encounter as David, 
 the shepherd lad, met Goliath that had 
 taunted the armies of Israel. Already if 
 we only believe we have met this enemy of 
 enemies, and it is ours. We are but to 
 show to the world that this faith is not to 
 put us to shame when the great time comes 
 for the demonstration that will glorify God. 
 This faith which is scarcely to be found in 
 all God's spiritual Israel is to be ours. This 
 
 249 
 
The Sinless, SicJcless, Deathless Life 
 
 is the conquest for which the army of 
 heaven is being led on by the great captain 
 of the world's complete salvation. No 
 soldier of the cross need fear that He will 
 lead us to defeat, who has all power in 
 heaven and earth and asks us to line up by 
 faith with his promises of a complete salva- 
 tion from everthing that he met and over- 
 came in perfect triumph. 
 
 This leads also into a Paradise Regained. 
 What all the ages lost in its soul power 
 somehow it has found again. We know 
 that it is nought but doubt of this great 
 truth that dooms and damns a man, and 
 keeps him from the glory that is heaven's, 
 and the triumphs which are ours. This 
 sets one free in the liberty that has broken 
 the last shackel of the enslaved soul and 
 body. It is the liberty that was shown in 
 the risen Lord. It is the liberty that God 
 desires to give to lighten the burdens and 
 enlighten the mind and heart of all the 
 world. 
 
 Such a vision of life's glory-goal is what 
 gives "the preaching of the cross" clearness 
 and glory and power. It is preaching it 
 with understanding, which is the thing that 
 Paul felt must ever be the secret of the 
 
 250 
 
The Summary of "GocVs Perfect Whole" 
 
 power of the cross to transform the world. 
 An old legend of the cross is expressed in 
 the words, "Tenio, tenior," "I hold, and I am 
 held by." Such a vision of what the cross 
 does through Christ for men, is the mightiest 
 power that ever entered into the heart 
 and mind of men. It has come to us only 
 from above. I am to hold to the simple 
 truth that the supreme purpose of God for 
 me is the sinless, sickless and deathless life. 
 Nothing in all the world is to separate me 
 from this faith in Christ Jesus as God's 
 gracious plan. I am held by this. It up- 
 holds one under the most trying circum- 
 stances. Nothing can darken the soul that 
 has seen this great light, that is to light 
 every man that cometh into the earth. In 
 the times when the battle is the fiercest, 
 one can stand still in holy confidence and 
 say "The Lord rebuke thee." The very 
 sun and moon stand still for such a Joshua. 
 He will find that every conflict must end in 
 the same great victory. He who upholds 
 the world upholds souls by this faith, and 
 daily makes more clear and more wonderful 
 the holding and upholding power of the 
 cross. One finds every burden roll away 
 and every battle end in victory. It brings 
 
 251 
 
The Sinless, Sickless, Deathless Life 
 
 the shout of triumph that rings throughout 
 all heaven and earth, so as to make all men 
 want to line up forever on the side of the 
 Lord of Hosts. 
 
 How holy and hallowed is the Triune and 
 most holy God viewed thus. God ! That is 
 the beginning and end of all things. "God 
 in Christ," that is the way He desired to be 
 fully and forever revealed to us. God is 
 in us, by his blessed Spirit desiring to ever 
 be what he was and is in Jesus. This is the 
 truth that settles the end and aim of life 
 forever. This is the truth that makes one 
 apprehend that for which he was appre- 
 hended of God. We are made to be brought 
 forth into the image of his Son. That pur- 
 pose will not miscarry, if we only give God 
 the full right of way, and will not grieve or 
 resist or quench the Spirit of his power as 
 he is maturing us into the perfect manhood 
 which is in Christ Jesus. 
 
 This sends one about life with a message 
 and a mission that is as clear as the sun- 
 light, and as world blessed as this light of 
 heaven is to all folks. We will want to be 
 high priests with the Great High Priest, in 
 the great absolution of the world which will 
 be everywhere our blessed privilege to re- 
 
 252 
 
The Summary of "God's Perfect Whole" 
 
 veal as we are led by his Spirit. We will 
 want to go about "healing all manner of 
 diseases," "in his name," and tell to men 
 that there is no more reason for a man 
 being sick than a sinner. We will burst 
 forth often in ecstacy at such a vision, and 
 can even say, in the words of President 
 Finney of Oberlin — "The only reason that 
 Paul did not get rid of his 'thorn in the 
 flesh' was that he did not have faith enough 
 to believe that God wanted him to be wholly 
 whole and be rid of it." We will feel that 
 the Spirit of life, and the vision of life that 
 we will want men to have is this one that is 
 the only one that will satisfy a world grop- 
 ing after the full light and life of God. 
 We will want all men to be one with God 
 and with one another as Jesus was, and 
 prayed this for us in his last great inter- 
 cessory prayer. Old creeds that bind one 
 to any lesser vision than this must go. 
 We will cry out in the words which were 
 emblazoned on the banners of one of the 
 bands of strikers at the recent Lawrence 
 labor troubles : "We strike for a better life !" 
 One strikes out every article in his past 
 creed of life that will not allow him to live 
 in the full liberty of belief that the sinless, 
 
 253 
 
The Sinless, Sickless, Deathless Life 
 
 sickless and deathless life is the design of 
 God for all. This alone will bring a broader 
 and better life, and give one his native 
 freedom of body, mind and heart. 
 
 You cannot help but attempt great things 
 for God and experience great things in 
 this belief. You will be compelled to wit- 
 ness to wondrous things that the Lord hath 
 done for you, and you will want to do for 
 others. It will make you a living witness 
 of the power of God unto the great salva- 
 tion. Both by precept and by practice you 
 will have a message with the ring of the 
 real and the ring of heaven in it. It will 
 draw men to the mighty Truth as the bees 
 are drawn to the flowers; for there is 
 something "sweeter than honey and the 
 honeycomb" within and with it. 
 
 You will find that you will love to sum 
 up in a word what you thus truly believe. 
 You will find that the great questions of the 
 age and the ages are all answered in the 
 light of such a vision of God's purpose for 
 the world of sinners lost, as they can be 
 answered in no other way. You will find 
 that the simplest and the sublimest creed of 
 Christendom will be made by the questions 
 and answers the soul asks, and heaven ans- 
 
 254 
 
The Summary of "God's Perfect Whole" 
 
 wers. You will say when all these lessons 
 of life have been learned, that now you see 
 clearly what was so long "seen only through 
 a glass darkly." Now you see that the chief 
 end of man is the sinless, sickless and the 
 deathless life. In answer to the first ques- 
 tion of the Heidleburg catcheism, "What is 
 thy only comfort in life and death," you will 
 ring out the answer; "That I am not my 
 own but am bought with a price, and that 
 I believe that the Spirit of God is within me, 
 as in Jesus, so I shall inherit with him his 
 sinless, sickless and deathless life." This 
 I will clearly see is the crowning purpose of 
 creation, the crown of life that is reserved 
 for all who will by faith take it from the 
 great angel of the New Covenant. This 
 he is holding out for each of us to take and 
 wear, making us kings and priests with him 
 unto our God forever and ever. 
 
 The alchemists, through the ages, have 
 tried to find the way by which lead could be 
 transformed into pure gold. This faith 
 finds for us far more. It shows how there 
 can be a great transmutation of the most 
 sordid and most leaden, sin-laden, sick- 
 ridden and hope-lost life. It can be changed 
 into the perfect life of the perfect man, in 
 
 256 
 
The Sinless, Sickless, Deathless Life 
 
 Christ Jesus. Faith alone is the means by 
 which we can be thus changed into the 
 "Second Adam," this "New Man in Christ 
 Jesus." It shows how the old man of the 
 flesh can be forever put off, and the new 
 man of the spirit renewed day by day in 
 holiness till we find that all old things have 
 actually passed away forever and all things 
 have become new in the vision of the life 
 complete and eternally triumphant in Christ 
 Jesus. 
 
 This is the glorious liberty of the sons of 
 God, that is to enlighten the world. It is 
 said that when Bertholdi, the giver of the 
 statue of liberty to our nation, was dying 
 he rose in his very last moments and said 
 in half bewilderment: — "Listen! listen! 
 Tell them that it is not in the letter but the 
 spirit of liberty that they will enlighten the 
 world." Then he sank back on his pillow 
 and was no more. It is not in the letter of 
 this message but the spirit of it that one will 
 find the final, full liberty promised by God 
 in Jesus to men everywhere. The letter 
 ever killeth, just as the Spirit ever giveth 
 light and life. One is to believe this is the 
 one clear call of heaven to all, — the call not 
 to the wild but to the glorious race vision 
 
 256 
 
The Summary of "God's Perfect Whole" 
 
 that a life without sin, and without sickness, 
 and power over all death is the one great 
 thing toward which the whole creation 
 moves and is a possibility that is now ours. 
 These are the plans made clear to us by the 
 Great Architect. As thou wilt believe that 
 he will build for thee this more stately 
 mansion, O my soul, thou shalt see him 
 within thee day by day working out this 
 glorious shrine of heaven. The very tap- 
 root of all thy sin will have been pulled out 
 of thy soul. Thou wilt just defy sin, and 
 grow into Christ's perfect righteousness. 
 Thou wilt be set free from worry and care 
 and will day by day work out thy salvation 
 with fear and trembling, realizing that God 
 is within thee working to will and to do of 
 this, his good pleasure. Some day he will 
 have put on the corner stone, and the house 
 of the Lord will be dedicated. It will be 
 filled with the fire that comes down from 
 heaven. The song of thy life will have been 
 changed from "all of self and none of Thee," 
 to "none of self and all of Thee." Then the 
 glory of the Lord will fill the house not made 
 with hands, but made by the power of the 
 Eternal Spirit like unto the temple of the 
 Christ, that abideth forever. 
 
 257 
 
The Sinless, Sickless, Deathless Life 
 
 All this is the simple, sublime summary 
 of "God's Perfect Whole." It is the great 
 correlary of creation, which enables us to 
 lovingly correlate all things, and sing the 
 great Coronation, in which "We crown Him 
 Lord of All." 
 
 In the experimental light of this great 
 truth we all will see for the first time clearly 
 how the intellectual and the intuitional in 
 our make-up are most truly one. The intel- 
 lectual, as the face of the world reveals it, 
 means "seeing one's end." In the deathless 
 truth of the triumphant life of Jesus over 
 sin, disease and death, we see our truest 
 end. With our own mind-eyes we behold 
 our destined purpose as designed of God. 
 Jesus was the concrete putting of it, so 
 clearly that all might fully comprehend God's 
 perfect plan. 
 
 But we also see in him, how the intui- 
 tional has the fullest sweep and sway. Jesus 
 felt that back of all his life there was the 
 Eternal Spirit's guidance, that he could not 
 and would not for a moment resist, grieve 
 or destroy. It always had the right of way. 
 Where it led he would follow, "he would 
 follow all the way." This made him the 
 first true Quaker and the best Quaker that 
 
 258 
 
The Summary of "God's Perfect Whole" 
 
 ever lived. Only as the Spirit moved him 
 would he move. He spoke only as the 
 Spirit led. Often he did not know where it 
 would guide him the next moment. Once 
 he was urged by his disciples to go with 
 them up to Jerusalem. His only answer 
 was "Go ye up. I go not up, for mine hour 
 is not yet come." Their time was always 
 ready, for they followed only their own 
 sweet will. But he who was led wholly of 
 the Spirit had no voice from within telling 
 whither he should go next for fulfilling 
 best the great work God had given him to 
 do. But his disciples had scarcely left him, 
 till the Spirit must have moved him to see 
 that "now must the Son of Man be glorified," 
 by his great death-deliverance. So at once 
 he followed them up to Jerusalem to be 
 crucified through the sin-blindness of men 
 that he might open the eyes of all "people 
 that on earth do dwell" to the sinless, sick- 
 less and deathless life he was so soon to 
 fully and forever reveal. 
 
 One who abandons himself to the intui- 
 tional may always rest assured it can lead 
 him nowhere save where it led the Lord of 
 Glory. It will show him more clearly the 
 great end of his life from the beginning as 
 
 259 
 
The Sinless, Sickless, Deathless Life 
 
 the Father by his indwelling spirit is un- 
 folding it in the beauty of holiness. Noth- 
 ing can then separate us from the blessed 
 realization of this divine all-loving purpose 
 of the giver of life with all of its fullness, 
 as revealed in Christ Jesus, the universal 
 Lord of all. One can always say in con- 
 fidence, "He leadeth me, blessed thought." 
 He can always most joyously sing, "Where 
 he leads me 1 will follow, I will follow all 
 the way." When we come to the moment, 
 in treading this upward way, that we do not 
 know "what in the world to do next," we 
 can always "stand still and see the glory of 
 the Lord." In quietness and confidence we 
 will always find the divine strength made 
 manifest. For is not the Eternal ever 
 saying to us, "Be still and know that I am 
 God"? 
 
 "The gospel of non-resistence" we will 
 thus know, in our heart of hearts, is the only 
 true gospel of Jesus, which he marvelously 
 proclaimed by precept and more marvelously 
 showed by practice. "The Lord rebuke 
 thee," one will know is the weapon of heaven 
 indeed. By it we will slay every foe we 
 will ever face, and turn our enemies into 
 friends of God and loving brothers of Jesus. 
 
 260 
 
The Summary of "God's Perfect Whole" 
 
 In the light of all this truth of God within 
 us working out this glorious, triumphant 
 race-destiny, we will also come to see the 
 great thought of God's Immanence, and 
 God's Transcendence are but hemispheres 
 of the perfect sphere of life in which we 
 live and move and have our most perfect 
 being. It steers one most safely past the 
 great Scylla of mystical Pantheism on the 
 one hand; and the Charybdis of Carlyle's 
 "great God outside of the universe, winding 
 it up and seeing it go," on the other. We 
 feel that God, by his indwelling presence, is 
 indeed "above all," as well as "through all 
 and within us all." This life finds in man 
 the fullest expression of the divine Spirit in 
 awakening in us the great filial fullness of 
 our life in God as exhibited in Jesus, who 
 felt that he and the Father were one in their 
 person, power and purpose. This makes 
 God "nearer than breath and breathing, 
 nearer than hands and feet." Yet he is the 
 one who heareth us always as we call upon 
 him in spirit and truth, and one who loveth 
 us more than with a mother's love ; and is one 
 we can talk with as friend and father, face 
 to face. 
 
 The late Dr. Clarke, who gave us the 
 greatest work on Systematic Theology of our 
 
 261 
 
The Sinless, Sickless, Deathless Life 
 
 generation, concludes all he has to say in 
 these words: "When we shall discover the 
 real keythought that will let us into the 
 fullness of the Kingdom of Heaven Christ 
 came to reveal, we will be surprised at 
 nothing so much as the utmost simplicity of 
 it." What can this key to the kingdom be 
 but that the sinless, sickless and deathless 
 life is the loving design and desire of God 
 for all. Nothing is so surprising as its 
 utter simplicity; and that faith is the only 
 faculty needed to make this full free gift 
 of the Eternal Life of the Spirit forever ours. 
 If this great truth could voice itself in 
 words, telling how it is struggling in every 
 heart to take full possession of the soul, to 
 reveal to us the whole will and love of God, 
 it could perhaps find no better or more 
 burning words to tell its heavenly yearning, 
 than these uttered recently by one of our 
 greatest seers: 
 
 "Alone I climb the steep ascending path, 
 
 Which leads to knowledge. In the babbling throng 
 
 That hurry after, shouting to the world 
 
 Small fragments of large truth, there is not one 
 
 Who comprehends my purpose, or who sees 
 
 The ultimate great goal. Why even she, 
 
 My heaven intended spouse, my other self. 
 
 Religion, turns her beauteous face on me 
 
 262 
 
The Summary of "God's Perfect Whole" 
 
 With hatred in her eyes, where love should dwell, 
 While others, who call me Master, blindly run, 
 Wounding the ear of Faith with blasphemies, 
 And making useless slaughter in my name. 
 
 Mine is the difficult task to blaze 
 
 A road to Facts, through labyrinths of dreams. 
 
 To tear down Maybe and establish IS, 
 
 And substitute "I Know" for "I Believe." 
 
 I follow closely where the seers have led; 
 
 And that intangible dim path of theirs, 
 
 Which may be trodden but by other seers, 
 
 I seek to render solid for the feet 
 
 Of all mankind. With reverent hands I lift 
 
 The mask from Mystery, and show the face 
 
 Of Reason smiling, smiling bravely on the world. 
 
 The visions of the prophets, one by one. 
 
 Grow visible beneath my tireless touch; 
 
 And the white secrets of the prophets' stars, 
 
 I tell aloud to listening multitudes. 
 
 Mine is the work to fashion step by step 
 
 The shining way that leads from man to God. 
 
 Though I demolish obstacles of creeds. 
 
 And blast tradition from the face of earth, 
 
 My hand shall open wide the door of Truth, 
 
 Whose other name is Faith; and at the end 
 
 Of this most holy labor, I shall turn 
 
 To see Religion with enlightened eyes 
 
 Seeking the welcome of my outstretched arms. 
 
 While all the world stands hushed and awed before 
 
 The proven splendor of the Fact Supreme!" 
 
 The sinless, sickless, deathless life of Christ, 
 
 Is God's free gift for each and all. 
 
 The glory-goal of God for all the world. 
 
 263 
 
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