"So is hip-disease. It’s very, very ’cruel bad,’ and because it is the
opposite of good it was not amongst the things which God ’beheld.’ Our
dear Heavenly Father did not create poor suffering little children
maimed with hip-disease, and sometimes blind. He created them in His
own image and likeness, and God could not be suffering sometimes with
one disease, sometimes with another, so that His image and likeness
could have it too, could He? See, if I hold my hand up so it casts a
shadow on the wall, that is an exact image or likeness of my hand, is it
not? Now if I just hold something--only a slip of paper between my hand
and the reflection, the reflection is deformed, isn’t it? But my hand
is not affected by it. So when we are bound by any cruel disease, there
is something between God and His image and likeness, something that was
never created by Him--was never created at all. It is only a shadowy
mist--a belief: and we have to get rid of it, by knowing its unreality.
We have to know that because we are God’s children, His spiritual
creation, we must be perfect, even as He is perfect. Jesus came to
teach people this. He said, ’Be ye therefore perfect, even as your
Father in Heaven is perfect.’ But, my cousin says, the world has been
slow to learn the lesson. Sin and disease will disappear from our midst
just as soon as we do learn it. When she came to me, and I was very
ill, she taught me that nothing was real except what God had created,
and pronounced good, and He never created hip-disease. Because she
understood this so clearly, and taught me to understand it, I soon began
to get better. I should like to help you to understand it, so that you
would lose your rheumatism. I think I have stayed as long as I had
permission to-night. Would you like me to come again next Sunday?"
"’Deed, and I would, young gentleman."
"My name is Carol," the boy said simply.
"Thank ’ee, Master Carol, you’ve given me something to think about, I
shan’t forget during the week."
"I should like to teach you the Scientific Statement of Being. It is in
that book I told you of, which explains the Bible. If you would learn
it, and try to realize it, it would help you so much.’
"My mem’ry ’s none of the best now, but I’ll try," the old man said
regretfully.
"Perhaps it will be better for me to write it for you in large writing,
so that you can read it until you know it. I will bring it with me next
week. These are the words: ’There is no life, truth, intelligence, nor
substance in matter.’ He repeated the words gravely and slowly to the
end, the old man gazing at him the while with wondering eyes. The sun
was setting; the crimson light streamed through the lattice window upon
the boy’s upturned face, so sweet, so grave, so loving, and so earnest.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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