almost universally accepted Principle of Evolution. The century was pre-eminently a philosophical and scientific one, and all tendencies of these were toward materialism. Herbert Spencer was its highest product in these lines. In him the philosophy of the past culminated. He perceived Unity, but reasoned from duality. It was with him, Energy and something unknowable. He declares that he cannot think of Spirit in terms of matter nor of Consciousness in terms of energy. Life and Intelligence is something added to his Unity. Thus while his philosophy is materialistic to the mass, it is noncommittal to himself. He represents the fruit of the scientific and materialistic tendencies of the nineteenth century. He is the last of a long line, and distinguished line, that through the study of objective phenomena have at last brought the human mind to the understanding of Unity. From this we have given us the Affirmation—All is Mind. Spencer will have no successor, for out of the old the New is born. The last student of Duality has given his volume and closed the discussion. The New Century calls for new men and new themes. The First century of our era began with the recognition of Universal Life, as evolved in the Human Soul to Love. "God is Love." "Love God and Love your Brother." The NEW COMMANDMENT is this: "That ye Love one another." Twenty centuries are a brief period for the race to learn that Force has yielded to Love; that Thor's hammer lies at the foot of the Cross of Christ. But it is learned. Never before was Love the ruling principle as even now when the sounds of tremendous battles reverberate across the Pacific and echoed, along our California coast. They once took the echo—"Revenge;" now they sing—"Arbitration and Peace."
In the Evolution of God's thought, from the Universal, the individual must be from the Absolute, the Special; from the Unconscious, the Self-conscious. Truth is the individualization of God. God is Love, but Truth is Man. Each century has been and will be religious. But Fear that "peoples the dark inane with spectral lies" departs as Love penetrates the systems man makes for his worship. Some of the old terror us, its duality, the diverse, the divided making good and evil remain to plague mankind.
But truth is a unit. False or true, is the decision of Man concerning all propositions. Truth is the Human expression of Unity. The Self-conscious expression of God. Power evolves to Life, Life to Emotion, Love, the out-motion from the Soul center is still homogeneous. Love is the same in all individuals. Love evolves into Self-consciousness and Man says: I AM; IT IS. The Individual, the Personal, are the only possible Human expressions. They come through God's method of evolution. Man comes "as a son of God," to his own. In the past Love and Truth have been divorced; each had its organizations and votaries; the areas of each have constantly been encroaching; each has been swallowing the other.
Religion has been lost in a philosophy called theology, and science has been struggling through philosophy to prove religion non-existent. Love IS; Truth IS; but both are one. Science has dealt with effects and religion with cause, but Cause and Effect are inseparable. On the threshold of the New century these two expressions of Life are wed, no more to separate. It is no longer Science and religion, philosophy and worship, physics and metaphysics, for there is no line dividing God and man, cause and effect, love and Truth. Coming generations will know only Unity, and will name it God Power, Life, Love, Truth; and man will say of these–I AM IT.
The field of theology has pre-empted only its study of the future. Man has studied the Effects of God, and surmised the Cause; now he is to study Cause, and know that all is God–Mind.
New Thought people are but a little ahead of the specialists along the old thought of matter. But the miss on their part is the difference between life and death; between time and eternity. Elmer Gates and Dr. Anderson are pioneers, beckoning to the great College forces to "Come up higher." The president of the scientific Congress, whom I met in this city, said there was but one science greater than all those they were discussing, namely, "mentology." God epitomizes himself in a Human Soul. When we study Him there we know all. "Flower in the crannied wall when I know you root and all, and all in all, I shall know what God and Man is," not because the flower tells me, but because I find in it only that which I am, and which I carry to it. I am ALL! "Know Thyself!" is the command of Unity to the Individual Soul.
I am an Unfolding Soul. In that unfoldment I have begun to know myself and I call that knowledge "New Thought." New Thought is neither a science nor a religion; for Priest of God, the New Century, has wed the two and the One is named Life. I AM, means, I live, I love, I think.
New Thought is the recognition that All that was, is, or shall be, is now, and is in the Human Soul. Unity needs expression through the Conscious just as there has been from all eternity, expression through the Unconscious. The one command of God to man is, LET YOUR LIGHT SHINE. The New Thought is the shining through expression, of "the Light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world." New Thought is not a discussion, a speculation, a theory an hypothesis, it is demonstration through living Life, of Truth. It is doing, and not thinking; it is being and not seeming. "Doing the will of the Father," and thus demonstrating that we are indeed children of God.
New Thought is neither the science nor the religion of Life. It is the Conscious living above the limitations of sense, and partaking of the eternal life here and now. Man limitless, may live above the so called Laws of Nature, by becoming a Law unto himself, and realize Emerson's wisest expression, "Conscious Law, is King of Kings!"
The last step the school-men have to take, in this welding of science, and religion, is the recognition of the Unity of the Universe. The nineteenth century saw the Unity of Energy. Light, heat and electricity, are one. Spencer says he cannot think of the Ultimate as Life. He cannot think of Life as something imported into the unit of protoplasm, and yet he cannot think of it as coexistent with the atom. His real foundation is The Universe plus something. His dynamic element of life is the one essential of Unity and he leaves that out. The Call of the twentieth century is a Unity that is Unity. Life is to be demonstrated as a form of Universal Energy. Life must be demonstrated to be one in origin, essence, and all its essentials, with electricity, heat, gravity, chemical affinity, and whatever other form of energy Man recognizes. In Him is all as Life He is all.
The remnant of the special creation theory is found in the separation of Life, Love, and Thought, from other forms of energy. Not till these are all one, as God is one, will man find secure foundation for eternal life.
Great as are the discovery of the Law of Conservation of Energy, and the principle of Evolution, a still greater discovery was made at the close of the last century, and was its greatest gift. A discovery that marks the beginning of a new era is not the era of electricity, but the era of Thought. That Greatest discovery is expressed in three words–Thought is Energy; Thought is Power.
Telepathy is a common fact. No longer is there organic, and inorganic no longer matter and spirit no longer is there space and time for Thought is God manifest in Flesh, and to Him all these are naught. Thought was made flesh and dwelt in man. I have no less authority than Prof. Drummond for translating Word in John's Gospel as: "In the beginning was Thought and Thought was with God" Read it thus, and see how it illuminates Life. Man is materialized thought.
The century was born like Minerva, full grown, and for the first time in the history of the human intellect, the dual manifestations of human life find common ground. The Meditation of the Orient and the scientific spirit of the Occident are one in a common Affirmation—Thought is power.
The Twentieth century calls us to complete the work begun by Jesus in the first. "I and my Father are one," is the Realization of Unity. It is the blending of Father and Child in conscious expression, as from all eternity they have been one in unconscious expression. We are called to the fulfillment of the prophecy in an angel's song: "Peace on earth among men of good will." "Come up higher," cries the Universal to the Individual. "Come up and through Conscious Thought be master of disease and death." The call is heard. Millions are responding. This convention is a union of those who have heard. Nineteen centuries ago there was a meeting in a small upper room. The Spirit was outpoured. Realization was there! From that meeting so insignificant whence baptized and illumined ones called Christians, went forth, through
