Page:The People's Idea of God.djvu/7

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THE PEOPLE'S IDEA OF GOD
5

theory and practice of medicine and religion, the apostle devoutly recommends the more spiritual Christianity, — “one Lord, one faith, one baptism.” The prophets and apostles, whose lives are the embodiment of a living faith, have not taken away our Lord, that we know not where they have laid him; they have resurrected a deathless life of love; and into the cold materialisms of dogma and doctrine we look in vain for their more spiritual ideal, the risen Christ, whose materia medica and theology were one.

The ideals of primitive Christianity are nigh, even at our door. Truth is not lost in the mists of remoteness or the barbarisms of spiritless codes. The right ideal is not buried, but has risen higher to our mortal sense, and having overcome death and the grave, wrapped in a pure winding-sheet, it sitteth beside the sepulchre in angel form, saying unto us, “Life is God; and our ideal of God has risen above the sod to declare His omnipotence.” This white-robed thought points away from matter and doctrine, or dogma, to the diviner sense of Life and Love, — yea, to the Principle that is God, and to the demonstration thereof in healing the sick. Let us then heed this heavenly visitant, and not entertain the angel unawares.

The ego is not self-existent matter animated by mind, but in itself is mind; therefore a Truth-filled mind makes a pure Christianity and a healthy mind and body. Oliver Wendell Holmes said, in a lecture before the Harvard Medical School: “I firmly believe that if the whole materia medica could be sunk to the bottom of the sea, it would be