If the statement of what is true from the very nature of our own mind is called to our attention, then we are able to see at once what is not true.
Is there a conviction of Good belonging to you now in your own mind? That is an omnipresent conviction. Everything and everybody believes the same way. You will notice that the instant you acknowledge that there is Good for you which you ought to have, the thought arises within your mind that you do not have the Good that belongs to you. You feel that your Good is absent from you. This is also a universal feeling. Every man, woman, child, stone, stick and snail feels that its Good is somewhere else than in it or with it. This is known as the conviction of absence. The conviction of presence is not uttered. That is, we feel the idea of the Good being for us, but we do not say so, and we feel the idea of the Good being absent and we keep saying so. We think that our Good is absent. We say aloud that our Good is absent.
Do you not see a possibility of entering upon your own beautiful inheritance of satisfying Good by looking this strong fact in the face? Does it not remind you that John, the wise disciple of Jesus Christ, said that without the Word nothing is made? How plain it is that you have been ready with the rest of the world to say that your Good is absent from you. How plain it is that you have been silent on the main idea that there is Good for you which you ought to have. Thus it seems that the silence of your mind with respect to Good is accountable for all the appearances of what is not good.
John, the Revelator, speaks of a white stone. Moses said the Spirit moved upon the face of the waters and commanded, “Let there be light.” Moses and John were lovers of God. They felt great laws and principles moving through the universe and tried to express them. Moses did not always speak in symbols. He said to the people that the “I Am that I Am” spoke through him. He felt the Good within himself speak.
The moment that the idea which has always lain so silently in the mind is uttered it begins to tell great things with respect to itself. This is why it is called the Stone of Revelation — because it reveals. It brings a feeling of light and hope to the mind, and this is why Moses said, “Let there be light”. He felt the strange darkness of the talk around him concerning the absence of Good, and instinctively understood the gloom of the silence as to Good. Good is the name of God. The Good that is for you is your God. Do you not move toward your Good? When you wish, is it not for your Good? Thus you are governed by your Good.
The metaphysical teaching calls attention to the law that if you tell the truth about your Good it will appear in your life. It is like speaking of the relation of numbers in arithmetic until you see exactly how they work. Repeat the multiplication tables, and sometime along the way, if you have taken the steps before multiplication, you will see that it is quick counting. If you simply repeat the tables at the dictation of another mind you may have to work a long time to find how to add by the tables of multiplication. But taking the adding and multiplication together it dawns upon you what the after process means.
The Science of Mind always runs by orderly steps in the same way. The first chapter of Genesis is the Science of Mind stated in the exact order of coming forth as power, as intelligence, as substance.
The idea of the absence of Good is plainly spoken enough. The idea of where the Good must be, and is, we are not talking about as a race. It is to the race mind that Moses addresses himself. John also speaks to the universal conviction of absence. I will tell you that between you and your Good which belongs to you, and which you ought to have, is your idea of the absence of Good.
The second movement of your mind, after telling what truly is, you will find to be the putting away of your ideas that interfere with the substance of what you are seeking. You put away the idea of absence the first time you speak of your idea of Good. Tell the absolute truth about your idea of Good. Is there any absence of it? Is there any mixture of evil with your highest idea of Good? Where do you keep your idea of Good? Do you hide it in your mind and never express it? How do you know how much light might break over you and brighten your life if you would let it come up from the hidden place in your mind — your perfect idea of Good?
It is like every other mind’s idea of Good. Thus we deal with the Universal Mind when we tell that in our highest idea of Good there is no evil. We say that in our idea of Good there is no absence. The Good that we are all seeking is our substance. It must be substantial to us. It must be present with us or it is illusion it deludes. Here then you see why metaphysicians of all ages have made two great denials:
1. First — There is no evil.
2. Second — There is no matter.
This is because they looked so steadfastly at the word God, or Good, in their mind that its native action began in them. The Stone of Revealing makes you say that there is no evil and no matter.
St. Augustine said, “There is no evil.” Jehosephat said, “There is no iniquity in God.” Emerson said, “Evil is negation.” They did not explain that it was their idea of Good that should have no evil mixed with it. If every man, woman and child expressed his idea of Good it would be found to be like every other person’s idea of Good.
Spinoza said, “I choose to know Spirit rather than to imagine matter.” Channing says that since the beginning of time, in philosophical study, men have held that all is Spirit, and that matter is but an appearance, a delusion, having no reality. Thales, the Greek, thought so. Empedocles thought so. They did not explain that it was because their idea of Good was an enduring and substantial presence that could not fail and could not disappoint. They could not tell that matter is the result of thinking that Good is absent. Matter is that appearance which results from steady silence as to what and where our Good is; we might say as to where and what the Good is upon which subject all mankind are so silent. We may say “Our Good” or you may always say “My Good,” for each one of you is the unit of his own life, and all his conditions swing around himself.
Demonstration of mental science means making visible our ideas. We must make it visible that there is no evil if the idea is true. The Truth makes free. All I am expected to do to manifest the Good that is for me is to tell the truth about what and where Good is. Good is God. Thus the making of good demonstrations will surely come out into our life if we tell the truth about God.
Jesus Christ said, “The truth shall make you free.” Let us tell the truth. To say, “In my idea of Good there is no mixture of evil,” is to tell the truth. It is a truth which will work freedom from evil. It will show that all evil is delusion. Here is where the denial of matter hurries in. Say that in your idea of Good there is no delusion. Very soon all matter will appear as delusion. You cannot say that in your idea of Good there is no mixture of evil without coming straight to the realization that all matter is delusion, built by belief in the absence of Good, which is evil.
Carlyle speaks of the everlasting NO of this world, whereby the world seemed to be a charnal house and demoniacal till he faced it with the stupendous “NO” of his soul, and said to all evil, “I am free.” In the Book of the Dead we find how the soul talks after it is not afraid of the body any more. It, the soul, says, “I never committed adultery. I never stole from my neighbor. I never told a lie. I was never intoxicated.” Every known sin is pronounced NOTHING. Formerly, it was not thought safe for men to speak these ideas while walking about on this plane of existence.
Jesus Christ said that if any man would come after him he must deny himself while dealing with the world. He knew the mystic relation of boldly spoken Truth to the redemption of man from the conditions of matter. “If a man eat of the bread which I will give him, he will never die.”
“The flesh profiteth nothing.” “The words I speak unto you, they are life.” The second lesson of His life was denial, exactly as the second lesson of Moses was denial, and exactly as all profound thinkers have given denials to all claims of mortality. It all comes of putting down the idea of Good in the mind and looking at it as to a white substance or “stone,” with power of revealment in it. The highest word that we know how to express is “Good.” It is certain that for a progressed realization there must be another word to express what we seek, but “Good” is found to bring us out the most safely thus far.
If we put down the idea “first cause” as a foundation word to watch, it will not be long before we find ourselves knowing all about the causes of all things, whether good, bad, or indifferent. Gautama Buddha thought on “first cause” till he found out the causes of evil, and spent all his years seeking to combat and destroy evil. Put down the word “satisfaction” in the mind, and it will tell you what will satisfy everybody.
The idea “first cause” is very enlightening. It will take the mind back to the cause of anarchy and rebellion. We can soon see that it is caused by the idea religion has given to man, that we all owe so much to God. This is the wrong way to look at God, the Good. The Good owes itself to us.
We have only to tell the Truth. If the Truth makes free when it is told, and we are not free, then the Truth has not been told. The Truth that the Good belongs to us is greater than the idea that we might give our time, our labor, our life, and all we are to the Good, and still never satisfy it. To tell how impossible it is for us to give enough to God breeds rebellion at existing orders. To tell that the Good asks nothing of us but to receive its substance, will rest and comfort the people.
The word “satisfaction” is a great word to use, but does not show forth as quickly as the word Good. Good is the universal name of God. Satisfaction is not the universal name of God.
In all sciences we deal first with general principles, applicable to all races and conditions alike, and then later we deal with particulars as applicable to special individuals. Thus we hit upon the foundation rock of our convictions when we say, “The Good that is for me is my God.”
The denial of matter has never been made satisfactorily. Notice that all the metaphysicians have concluded that there is no reality in it. They have said that it is all the imagination of our mind; but what imagination it is they have not concluded. To persistently declare that there is no matter will dissolve material conditions. It will cause a swelling to disappear if you look at it and say that there is no matter. Whatever of matter seems most real to us is the first to disappear when we deny matter.
If money is something that you cling to, and you say that there is no matter, it will begin to disappear. If friends in the body of flesh are your idols they will get out of sight swiftly upon your putting forth the denial into your atmosphere. Such is the power of an idea held as truth. The denial of matter is the same as if you said that your omnipresent idea of God is that God is Spirit. Thus your God is Spirit.
Your idea of God must not be burdened with the transient and unreliable. Matter is transient and unreliable, because the idea of Good as absent is transient and unreliable. Sometimes the mind feels that its Good is near, and sometimes that it is far off. So matter, which is the representation of the idea of absence, must sometimes bring you great darkness or void, because of loss, or bring something that pleases you very near. The regularity of the seasons results from the periodic habit that all the race mind has of sometimes feeling that its happiness or Good is interfered with, and then feeling that its Good is near and free again.
Some people keep on the mental strain of feeling that they do not have anything that they want at all. They feel neglected, unloved, burdened nearly all the time. It is such types of mind that make an external region of barrenness and cold. Let every such mind rise and refuse to hold the idea of absence as part of the way its Good deals with it, and the cold regions would soon disappear.
The statement that in my idea of Good there is no absence of Good, compels me to say that in my idea of Good there is no evil. The statement that there is no delay in my idea of the way Good comes to me, compels me to say that there is no matter. Matter is all the hindrance we know. Spirit is free, untrammeled, unhindered, irresistible. Matter is burdened, trammeled, limited, inert. The best way is to make the two denials of unreality boldly. If you wish to help yourself you can say, In my idea of Good there is no mixture of evil, therefore there is no evil.” This is the bold first denial.
How dare you say this? Because everybody and everything feels the same about his idea of Good, but never tells it. Sit down at a certain time every day and write down on paper what your idea of Good is. Write the highest ideas of Good you have. You cannot write a stroke higher than the slave’s idea of Good, but you will find that such a practice will pin you down to the truth, and it is in Truth that there is power. All the sacred books of the earth tell that God is Truth, and that Truth is God.
The bold second denial is that “There is no matter, all is Spirit.” If you notice that you are opposed to any interference with your Good, you can write it down that in your idea of Good there is no interference and there is no matter.
If you will speak boldly that there is no matter, this will handle all your affairs on a new basis. If you say, “All is Spirit, nothing is matter,” that is making a denial of matter. Every time you refuse to believe any statement you are making a denial. Every time you say that a thing is not so you are making a denial. Negativing what is told you, or what seems to be real, but is not real, is a denial.
Looking up suddenly from their deep thoughts, metaphysicians have declared that “there is no life, substance, or intelligence in matter.” They have affirmed that all life, all substance, all intelligence is Spirit; and therefore there is no life in matter, no substance in matter, no intelligence in matter. Spirit occupies the place that matter claims to occupy, therefore life occupies the place matter claims to occupy. In the spot where matter even seems to be a dead substance the life of the Spirit is moving. Spirit is the substance where even the stones seem to be.
Spirit is pure Intelligence. There is no place where matter seems to be intelligent, is there? Yet, “there is no absence of life, substance, or intelligence.” If the metaphysicians had said this, rather than “there is no life, substance, or intelligence in matter,”they would have demonstrated life better than they have. For if life is Spirit, never absent, why speak of “no life”? And if Spirit is substance omnipotent, why speak of substance as “no substance” anywhere, and the same of intelligence?
It was subtle agreement with absence on the part of the metaphysicians to speak of intelligence as absent from anywhere. One reason why the substance of the metaphysicians has so often failed is because of saying, “There is no substance in matter.” Yet, that denial in particular cases is a very healing one. As for instance, if a tumor claims to absorb the life of the body, it will disintegrate it to tell that there is no life in matter, as well as to tell that there is no matter. If darkness seems to act with an intelligence of its own or if insanity carries on as if it had shrewdness, it is a claim of matter to be something, and to have an intelligence of its own opposed to Spirit. In such cases you can see that it is wise to say that there is no life, substance, or intelligence in matter, as well as that there is no matter whatsoever. The metaphysicians who have had their minds set upon healing disease, insanity, deformity, etc., have been successful in their work by using this denial.
In the second lesson on general principles we are speaking entirely of certain revelations of our own mind, of the Truth, as they come forth from laying down the word Good in the mind, and making it express what controls and moves us, and what we seek.
Therefore, the third denial is: “There is no absence of life, substance, or intelligence in my idea of Good. “Life will thrill along through every pore and cell and fibre of your being if you declare this. It will soon seem thrilling and vibrating every particle of your environment. Nothing can seem to you to be dead. If you speak often, “There is no absence of substance,” it will not be long till you feel how unmixed with the miseries around you is your free Spirit. No matter what people seem to be doing they cannot draw you into their network. You live your free life in Spirit as a substance of reality, quite separate from their delusions. All things take on an enduring substance in your sight. You feel supremely real. Life seems real.
If you should be in great trouble you could not get help from God by begging for help. You would get help at once if you would stand aside from your trouble, as above and greater than it. Then you would feel the help of the omnipotent God. Reality is the strength of your free Spirit which refuses to be mixed with evil.
The only cause for evil is the idea of absence. That is all the evil there is. The belief of apartness from Good is the foundation of the word evil. The idea of absence of Good had to be called something, so it was called evil. Ideas always make conditions. Thus the idea of absence, being named evil, finally made a host of phantoms of appearances called evils.
Ancient metaphysicians taught in their practice, “There is no apartness.” They hit upon the most perfect denial that could be spoken. It covers all the ground of evil. It touches the cause of evil at its root. If this idea is persistently adhered to it cannot fail to make a vacuum around you into which all Good must come streaming to fill you with delight.
The Truth is that Good is God, and God is omnipresent and omnipotent, thus the Good is omnipresent. If the Good is omnipresent, the evil is nowhere present, and there is no apartness. This is the reasoning. All reasoning has the effect of controlling the environment. Your whole life conditions change if you change your modes of reasoning.
Having been trained for years to reason your life out on the basis of Good being absent from you, you now begin to reason from an entirely different basis. You judge not by appearances, but by righteousness. Many conditions slip away almost instantaneously. They were built up by your false general reasonings, and with these gone they have no props. As for instance, you have poor eyesight. It became so because of some little notion you persistently held. You now give up that notion. You cannot help giving up that notion, because the new reasoning makes it impossible to think that way any more. The poor eyesight must fall away for the good eyesight to show up. Some changes occur instantly and some are more slow.
You take an entirely new basis when you say that if God is Intelligence, then Intelligence is omnipresent, for God is omnipresent. Here then you must say that there is no absence of Intelligence. Your mind may suddenly feel very clear and intelligent, or it may be startled. If there is no absence of Intelligence you are now rich with the Intelligence of God. You know all things. There, where the idiot seems to be, you must see that the Intelligence of God is present. Why does a man not seem to be intelligent? It is because of the belief the race keeps shedding over the planet that Intelligence is absent from some spots of God, or some places in God.
When the metaphysicians say there is no life, substance, or intelligence in matter, they unconsciously intimate that there is matter, but it is empty. They do not mean this, and therefore have done some very good healing and restoration of judgment by using this denial. Others have become tangled in the subtle statement and have never been able to do a single bit of healing by saying there is no life, substance, or intelligence in matter. They have believed in matter so strongly that the mention of the name made it seem present. At once it seemed to have no life, and somebody they loved caught the effect of their saying there is no life in matter, and gave up the appearance of life. So with substance and so with intelligence.
Yet, that third denial of metaphysics is perfectly correct, and in your use of it may do great works. If it tangles you at all make the third denial in a simple speech, as “There is no absence of life, substance, or intelligence in omnipresent Good.”
Carlyle felt poor and lonely and incompetent. Hardly one on the face of the earth has not had these feelings. They come from the belief of being apart from God apart from our Good. Those who have met the feeling with a strong “NO” have routed it out of their premises. Such feelings are the NO to Good. We meet them with the NO to evil. Carlyle calls the meeting of the NO to Good with the NO to evil “The Everlasting NO.” He was met so strongly that it seemed as if all nature told him that the universe was void of life, of purpose, of volition. It was one huge, dead, immeasurable steam engine, rolling on its dead indifference to grind him limb from limb. All at once he entered his protest. His whole God-created nature rose and said, “I am not thine, but free, and forever hate thee.” He felt that when he entered his protest against the power he began his spiritual birth. He then began to be a man.
“All evil is negation,” says Emerson. Negation is nothingness. The reality of being is Truth. With the Truth we set ourselves free from negations. Does it not seem as if matter were reality? Yet it is nothing. We speak the truth, and the spiritual power we have rises in its divine substantiality and every material thing becomes subject to it. Does it not seem as if there were absence of life in some things? Yet life is omnipresent. Does it not often seem as if intelligence were lacking? Yet perfect intelligence is omnipresent. Marked wonderful changes in your life begin with your reasoning along this line.
The fourth protest we make against the claims of matter is to deny that sensation is a physical or material experience. Sensation is a faculty of Soul. Soul is God. God is Spirit, Mind. Thus sensation is a mental process. As God is omnipresent, sensation is omnipresent Good. For ages metaphysicians have called the fourth denial of metaphysics the denial of sensation. But sensation is sight, hearing, tasting, smelling, touching. God is your sight, therefore you cannot lose your sight. God is your hearing, therefore you cannot lose your hearing. God is your skill in every faculty, therefore you cannot lose any faculty or the skill of any faculty.
The main idea of denying sensation was to get rid of the sensations of pain to which mankind are subject. Grief, pain, horror, indignation, are hateful sensations. Had life been all delight, all pleasure, nobody would have chosen to deny sensation. Many, with their minds set upon sensation as painful, or ending in pain, have cured pain in patients by repeating over and over the statement, “There is no sensation in matter.”
If they had trained their mind to the high truth that there is nothing to hate, they would never have come to the position where they met pain or grief or indignation, or any of the hateful sensations which all stand for the universal claim that Good in the way of sensation is absent. If Good is not absent, then the sensation of Good is never absent. “At thy right hand are pleasures forevermore.” “With thee is fullness of joy.” Thus the protests against the absence of Good as joy should not be that there is no sensation, but that there is nothing to hate.
The race mind is exactly like your mind in its willingness to make all the protests of metaphysics. It is ready to see that a course of good reasoning will bring out a happy life if a course of wrong reasoning will bring out sickness and misery.
The Roman Emperor, Claudius, kept exclaiming continually, “What do you take me for, a fool?” The idea that others were not regarding him well finally affected him so that he lost his memory, and did indeed appear foolish. People often speak of how little they know, and finally others think so too.
Socrates said that men act wrongly because they form erroneous judgments. When they learn right judgments they will act wisely and well. Nothing straightens out the mind like looking all the claims of evil boldly in the face with the uplifted conviction that there is nothing but Good, telling all things that there is one substance, and that is Spirit, only one life and that is God, only one mind and that is God.
There are five denials, corresponding to the five senses. All five might be used faithfully and not bring to pass the right state of mind. Then there are two particular denials corresponding to the sentiments and moral sense. The five which belong to the race open up great avenues of reasoning which delight the Mind, the Soul and the Spirit. The two which delight the life and love of the heart are the two which relate to your own disposition and will.
Plato’s five denials did not touch his character. He rejected matter. He rejected evil. He rejected all that we reason against, very nearly on our own basis but he did not refuse his own prejudices. He had spoken of One Life, One Mind, One Good, then spoke of woman as the failure of blind nature. He could not seem to catch the principle that there is no failure in One Life, One Mind, One Good, therefore there is no distinction of sex in God. He could not rid his mind of some special characteristics. He did not seem to know that it was as necessary to free himself from prejudice as from the belief in matter. So he was always speaking of failure including failure on his own part. He worked over the ellipse to discover its significance and confessed himself baffled by the problem.
Socrates told his pupil, Alcebiades, “It is therefore necessary to wait until some one may teach us how it behooves us to conduct ourselves, both toward the gods and men.” And Alcebiades asked, “When shall that time arrive, O Socrates, and who shall that teacher be, for most eagerly do I wish to see such a man?”
Jesus Christ had no prejudices. He condemned nobody and nothing. He felt that all things were under the care and protection of the loving Father. This made his life easy for him to handle. He could lay it down and take it up at will.
There were two schools of theology in Elisha’s time. At one of them he found the water very brackish, so much so that the students, who were all men, complained. He put into the water some salt, and the water was instantly healed. Many a student of the highest theology, even on to the five denials of metaphysics, has failed to drink of the healing waters of the Science of Christ, because his moral sentiments were subject to what he believed to be his physical senses. There is no moral chord which must lie mute in the nature. If you are careless about paying your debts your moral chord is not vibrating to some word which you ought to hear. If you use other people’s property roughly you do not catch the word which vibrates the chord of honor. If you do the things which inconvenience or weary others your sentiment of justice is not salted.
Often we see people who yield to some trivial temptation while thinking and talking high Science. It is plain that the water of their character is brackish. Hence, like Plato, we all need to meet some special claim of the absence of Good in our life; some claim so subtle that we may not appreciate its presence. A habit of running people down will run some healthy part of our body down into disease. We must indeed think and speak of all people from the standpoint of their God in them as life and substance, instead of from the standpoint of their appearance to us, before our sickness will be cured.
While the two denials we ourselves need are often very subtle, the fifth regular denial suited to the race often leads one into his own needed cleansing. Notice the fifth regular denial. It is this: “There is no sin, sickness, or death.” Where is there no sin, sickness, or death? In God, of course. Where is God? Everywhere. This removes the sins out of our sight which were put there by our belief in the absence of goodness in people. We shall certainly see people more honorable and chaste for being where we are when we have spoken of sin, sickness, and death as not possible in a world occupied by Goodness. We shall certainly see less sickness if the idea of the people, as being of undivided wholeness of Spirit is real to our mind. We shall be utterly free from seeing death in any form, or under any circumstances, if we appreciate that in omnipresent Life there is no death. If we are not set free from ever coming in contact with sin, sickness, and death by these five denials we may be sure we have some special prejudices of mind to get rid of. Hence it is well to devote one morning every week to reasoning out why we are, in Spirit and in Truth, free from these errors.
Carlyle dates his new birth from such a denial of all that held him in bondage. You must know that sin, sickness, and death had been very real to him, that therefore he went through all these pains of consequences of believing that the Good that belonged to him was absent from him. We can generally point to the very strong ideas of men that certain Good is absent from them when we see how miserably sick or poor they are. It is the same with ourselves.
Let us reason with the Almighty as Job did. He was accused of wickedness as the reason for his bodily ills. He made the grandest protest that had ever been made in the world — “Thou knowest that I am not wicked, Thine hands have made me and fashioned me.” This healed him. It restored his good.
Paul said that we should have a reason for the hope that is in us. There is a reason why we ought to be well, intelligent, blessedly happy always. Using that reasoning we come into close touch with our health, wisdom, and prosperity.
John the Revelator saw the second stone of the Temple as sapphire. This is wisdom. It is peace and health. Moses saw the second state of mind as light, brought to us by the Spirit of God. The Spirit of God is the Word of Truth. We are building the temple of our own character. If we take the first lesson of Truth according to Spirit, we lay in Zion the foundation of jasper, which is the diamond, irresistible in beauty and brightness of purity. If we take the second lesson of spiritual Truth we lay the sapphire stone of our character. Our peace and wisdom are set free.
The second lesson of Truth gives the reasons why:
1. There is no evil.
2. There is no matter.
3. There is no absence of life, substance, or intelligence.
4. There is nothing to hate.
5. There is no sin, sickness, or death.
The reasonings of Job cover all the ground of why we may declare against those personal characteristics which make up our hardships in life — “Thou knowest that I am not wicked. Thine hands have made me and fashioned me.”
Because of this, you may take your habit of scolding at people in a manner far worse than their offenses, and proclaim that as a son or daughter of Spirit you do not chide or condemn anybody. On this plan of reasoning you may set yourself free from the poverty that troubles you, or the sickness that discourages you. On this plan of reasoning also take up the other traits you are willing to name. As a child of God you cannot have a habit of hurting or torturing people by your speeches or actions. You cannot have a habit of being jealous. You cannot feel easily offended. You cannot resent the way people act with you. You are not envious of anybody. You are not filled with eagerness to be praised. You are not cowardly about being blamed. You are not penurious. You are not glad to know that your enemies are unfortunate. You do not feel discouraged when you have tried and do not succeed.
Take some two evil tendencies you have, as a consequence of believing in the absence of Good, and tell God that they are in truth no part of you, because God himself fashioned you in the spirit of his own nature.
It is one duty we seem to have laid out before us as a race, that we reject the idea of the absence of Good by the word of truth boldly spoken concerning Good as omnipresent. This teaching goes forth from the mind in a mysterious influence. Sickness falls away from the people we meet. Death comes and looks into our homes, but hurries away like a dream. Sin falls from the character of our neighbors and they do not seem the same to us anymore. Our own sickness soon sinks into the sands of nowhere.
Try the denials of metaphysical reasoning and see if you do not feel a new freedom. Light on your pathway will break the deepest gloom. You will find something to live for. You can take these denials and dissolve your hardest trial. Take one of your own trials and say that in Truth it has no reality whatsoever. Say that as God fashioned you out of his own Goodness you have never had any trait of character which could result in absence of Good. Tell now that you reject the common feeling of the absence of Good. As God is not absent, Good must be here.
We do not need to wait to be free. As God is free now, so we are free now.