DIVINE PROVIDENCE I. DIVINE PROVIDENCE IS GOVERNMENT BY THE LORD'S DIVINE LOVE AND WISDOM 1. To understand what divine providence is—namely, government by the Lord's divine love and wisdom—one needs to know what was said and shown earlier about divine love and wisdom in the treatise about them: "In the Lord divine love is of divine wisdom, and divine wisdom of divine love" (nn.... more...

A PARABLE I am today twenty-five hundred years old. I have been dead for nearly as many years. My place of birth was Athens; my grave was not far from those of Xenophon and Plato, within view of the white glory of Athens and the shimmering waters of the Aegean sea. After sleeping in my grave for many centuries I awoke suddenly—I cannot tell how nor why—and was transported by a force beyond my... more...

SOME FRIGHTENED FRIENDS “There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear.”—1 John 4:18 “It seems to me that the church has lost its influence. Nobody pays much attention to it any more, except some of its own members; and they don’t seem to be interested in anything except their own activities. The time was when the word of the minister carried weight. Some may not have agreed, but... more...

INTRODUCTORY THOUGHTS If the official churches have had no other merit but that they have preserved Christ as the treasury of the world, yet they are justified thereby. Even if they have solely repeated through all the past centuries "Lord! Lord!" still they stand above the secular world. For they know at least who the Lord is, whereas the world does not know. Churches may disappear, but The... more...

SECTION I.—ITS EVIDENCES UNRELIABLE. The origin of all religions, and the ignorance which is the root of the God-idea, having been dealt with in Part I. of this Text-Book, it now becomes our duty to investigate the evidences of the origin and of the growth of Christianity, to examine its morality and its dogmas, to study the history of its supposed founder, to trace out its symbols and its... more...

THE FAITHFUL STEWARD. PART I. "GOD IS LOVE." Perfectly blessed in Himself, he desired that other intelligences should participate in his own holy felicity. This was his primary motive in creating moral beings. They were made in his own image—framed to resemble him in their intellectual and moral capacities, and to imitate him in the spirit of their deportment. Whatever good they enjoyed, like... more...

(AUGUST, 1919) The Essays in this volume were written at various times before and during the Great War. In reading them through for republication, I have to ask myself whether my opinions on social science and on the state of religion, the two subjects which are mainly dealt with in this collection, have been modified by the greatest calamity which has ever befallen the civilised world, or by the issue... more...

Caution in the Truth Perhaps no doctrine of Christian Science rouses so much natural doubt and questioning as this, that God knows no such thing as sin. Indeed, this may be set down as one of the "things hard to be understood," such as the apostle Peter declared were taught by his fellow-apostle Paul, "which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest ... unto their own destruction." (2... more...

FOREWORD N these little plays I have tried to bring before the public the two dominant characteristics of the ideal Christmas season, kindness, expressed by "good will toward men," and the inward joy wrought by kind acts, and suggested by "peace on earth." As Yuletide draws near we like to think of the swell of Christmas feeling, kindness, peace and good will, that rises like a mighty... more...

1. The Lord, speaking in the presence of His disciples of the consummation of the age, which is the final period of the church,{1} says, near the end of what He foretells about its successive states in respect to love and faith:{2} Immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun shall be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the... more...