The Higher Powers of Mind and SpiritTrine, Ralph Waldo
Religion
The Higher Powers of Mind and Spirit
Trine, Ralph Waldo
Mind and body; New Thought
It is this Kingdom idea, the Divine rule, the rule of God in all of the
relations and affairs of men on earth that is gripping earnest men and
women in great numbers among us today. Under the leadership of these
thinking, God-impelled men and women, many of our churches are pushing
their endeavours out into social service activities along many different
lines; and the result is they are calling into their ranks many able men
and women, especially younger men and women, who are intensely
religious, but to whom formal, inactive religion never made any appeal.
When the Church begins actually to throw the Golden Rule onto its
banner, not in theory but in actual practice, actually forgetting self
in the Master's service, careless even of her own interests, her
membership, she thereby calls into her ranks vast numbers of the best of
the race, especially among the young, so that the actual result is a
membership not only larger than she could ever hope to have otherwise,
but a membership that commands such respect and that exercises such
power, that she is astounded at her former stupidity in being shackled
so long by the traditions of the past. A new life is engendered. There
is the joy of real accomplishment.
We are in an age of great changes. Advancing knowledge necessitates
changes. And may I say a word here to our Christian ministry, that
splendid body of men for whom I have such supreme admiration? One of the
most significant facts of our time is this widespread inclination and
determination on the part of such great numbers of thinking men and
women to go directly to Jesus for their information of, and their
inspiration from him. The beliefs and the voice of the laymen, those in
our churches and those out of our churches, must be taken into account
and reckoned with. Jesus is too large and too universal a character to
be longer the sole possession, the property of any organisation.
There is a splendid body of young men and young women numbering into
untold thousands, who are being captured by the personality and the
simple direct message of Jesus. Many of these have caught his spirit and
are going off into other lines of the Master's service. They are doing
effective and telling work there. Remember that when the spirit of the
Christ seizes a man, it is through the channel of present-day forms and
present-day terms, not in those of fifteen hundred, or sixteen hundred,
or even three hundred years ago.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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