Page:Miscellaneous Writings.djvu/34

8 is given to material illusions than to spiritual facts. If we can aid in abating suffering and diminishing sin, we shall have accomplished much; but if we can bring to the general thought this great fact that drugs do not, cannot, produce health and harmony, since “in Him [Mind] we live, and move, and have our being,” we shall have done more.

Who is thine enemy that thou shouldst love him? Is it a creature or a thing outside thine own creation?

Can you see an enemy, except you first formulate this enemy and then look upon the object of your own conception? What is it that harms you? Can height, or depth, or any other creature separate you from the Love that is omnipresent good, — that blesses infinitely one and all?

Simply count your enemy to be that which defiles, defaces, and dethrones the Christ-image that you should reflect. Whatever purifies, sanctifies, and consecrates human life, is not an enemy, however much we suffer in the process. Shakespeare writes: “Sweet are the uses of adversity.” Jesus said: “Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake;. . . for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you.”

The Hebrew law with its “Thou shalt not,” its demand and sentence, can only be fulfilled through the gospel's benediction. Then, “Blessed are ye,”