Page:The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany.djvu/188

160 Mind much out of sight. The Christian, however, strives for the spiritual; he abides in a right purpose, as in laws which it were impious to transgress, and follows Truth fearlessly. The heart that beats mostly for self is seldom alight with love. To live so as to keep human consciousness in constant relation with the divine, the spiritual, and the eternal, is to individualize infinite power; and this is Christian Science.

It is of less importance that we receive from mankind justice, than that we deserve it. Most of us willingly accept dead truisms which can be buried at will; but a live truth, even though it be a sapling within rich soil and with blossoms on its branches, frightens people. The trenchant truth that cuts its way through iron and sod, most men avoid until compelled to glance at it. Then they open their hearts to it for actual being, health, holiness, and immortality.

I am asked, “Is there a hell?” Yes, there is a hell for all who persist in breaking the Golden Rule or in disobeying the commandments of God. Physical science has sometimes argued that the internal fires of our earth will eventually consume this planet. Christian Science shows that hidden unpunished sin is this internal fire, — even the fire of a guilty conscience, waking to a true sense of itself, and burning in torture until the sinner is consumed, — his sins destroyed. This may take millions of cycles, but of the time no man knoweth. The advanced psychist knows that this hell is mental, not material, and that the Christian has no part in it. Only the makers of hell burn in their fire.

Concealed crimes, the wrongs done to others, are