Page:Miscellaneous Writings.djvu/110

84 wisdom ofttimes was shown by his forbearing to speak, as well as by speaking, the whole truth. Haply he waited for a preparation of the human heart to receive startling announcements. This wisdom, which characterized his sayings, did not prophesy his death, and thereby hasten or permit it.

The disciples and prophets thrust disputed points on minds unprepared for them. This cost them their lives, and the world's temporary esteem; but the prophecies were fulfilled, and their motives were rewarded by growth and more spiritual understanding, which dawns by degrees on mortals. The spiritual Christ was infallible; Jesus, as material manhood, was not Christ. The “man of sorrows” knew that the man of joys, his spiritual self, or Christ, was the Son of God; and that the mortal mind, not the immortal Mind, suffered. The human manifestation of the Son of God was called the Son of man, or Mary's son.

Please explain Paul's meaning in the text, “For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.”

The Science of Life, overshadowing Paul's sense of life in matter, so far extinguished the latter as forever to quench his love for it. The discipline of the flesh is designed to turn one, like a weary traveller, to the home of Love. To lose error thus, is to live in Christ, Truth. A true sense of the falsity of material joys and sorrows, pleasures and pains, takes them away, and teaches Life's lessons aright. The transition from our lower sense of Life to a new and higher sense thereof, even though it be through the door named death, yields a clearer and nearer sense of Life to those who have utilized the present,