The New Order

The desire of all nations has been for the betterment of human conditions. When this desire has been interpreted selfishly and the few have sought their welfare at the expense of the many there has followed the overthrow of the nation. The world is full of graves where plutocracies and oligarchies lie buried. Not by separating men, but by lifting the low to union with the best can humanity be saved from its perpetual dying, which made the poet question,” Assyria, Greece, Rome, Carthage, where are they?”

The desire for a better condition has shown itself in monarchy and hierarchy, but here, also, by separating man. It has been assumed that humanity was represented by men only, and women have been deprived in various ways of human rights because of sex-distinction. Where the English tongue, the language of liberty, is spoken, it is becoming gradually understood that true humanhood must include womanhood and manhood as one. The efforts to-day to secure cessation of injustice to women, and the proclamation of their human rights are evidences of this thought. A recent writer made one of his characters indicate the union of thought-elements necessary in righteous judgment when he said; ‘Thou shalt judge with the mind of twelve men, and the heart of one woman.” Justice alone may punish crime; Mercy alone may be sentimental over the criminal but Justice and Mercy united will destroy the evil and reform the doer of it.

The regeneration of the world, the revelation of godlikeness through man, cannot come without completed understanding of Truth. Only in the Christ-consciousness can we be complete, and therein male and female are one. It has often been noted how Jesus manifested the tenderness and holiness of womanhood as well as the righteousness and strength of manhood. Yet his revelation to us was only of the Fatherhood of God. This day has come to us the counterpart revelation of the Motherhood of God, so that the vision of the singer is realized; and, in our understanding,

Mercy and Truth are met together;
Righteousness and Peace have kissed each other.”

Ages of misconception are over; less and less will men believe that by hating the brother they see they can glorify the unseen God, for the knowledge of the one true Spirit, the infinite Father and Mother God, has begun to “cover the earth.” The type of this “good understanding” is the uniting of man and woman in the conduct of services in Christian Science.

Our Leader followed the “heavenly vision,” and sought out the science of Christianity that we might learn to demonstrate the Christ-Truth. Now is the “lost element” restored to Christianity— the power to prove that God is Love by demonstrating the unreality of iniquity, sorrow, sickness, death— that is by destroying all consciousness of them, that God may be All, and reign “without a rival.”

The rival, or better, the rebel, is found in human selfhood when exalted by pride. The unprincipled will works only evil. It may be deified and “wade through slaughter to a throne” as king, or, as priest, enslave the consciences of men. Nevertheless, it is the “man of sin” wherever manifested. The lesson from this mental condition is vividly taught in the Bible. When Nebuchadnezzar proudly called himself a creator and separated himself from God by vainglory, the animal mind of the grazing ox was shown to be all the mind he had, and, like a beast, shaggy-haired, he fed with the beasts. The deification of his own imperious will made Saul of Israel cease to be a man and become a sullen, vindictive brute. Herod set himself on high till the people called him a god, but lie was humbled in the dust by “the conqueror worm.”

Does this rival appear in the church? Verily, in the church the condition of thought named the “man of sin” is manifested. Pride makes distinctions there of caste; pride glorifies denomination; pride despises man and so despises God. The priest is often set apart in office, and clothed with prerogatives like a king. lie may wear vestments and insignia of authority. He requires deference in any case, and wishes to be an oracle. If he be successful and popular his followers have pride in him. They invite strangers to hear him, and they congratulate themselves if he be eloquent, as if he were a hired musician. Just so did Israel pride itself in Saul the kins;, who stood head and shoulders above other men. They asked for him because they wanted to be like the nations round about them.

In Christian Science hitherto, congregations have been like the congregations round about them, they have had pastors and leaders. In such conditions the evils of ecclesiasticism were liable to infect the new movement; pride, self-congratulation, love of power, desire for distinction, had a chance to crush the impulse of spirit into the petty channel of sectarianism. Israel under a king was merely a nation among others; Israel under God was a power in the earth. The new order has redeemed Christian Science from the dangers of human method and leadership, by making Truth the only leader; the movement will be a power felt throughout the whole earth for Truth is itself omnipotent.

Through the new order, the Revelator and Teacher of Christian Science speaks to the world the message of God’s Fatherhood and Motherhood; and that one message is made to declare its character by coming through the voice of man and woman in the words of the Bible and Science and Health. Think what evils are annulled. Neither sex is exalted the one above the other. Class distinctions disappear, for every student becomes the demonstrator of Truth. The errors of human leadership and ecclesiastical monopoly are avoided, for divine Principle alone is exalted and the freedom of the Truth is established. The changing opinions of men or women are not proclaimed, nor can there be the mesmerism of human eloquence. Ignorant zeal, party heat, sectarian pride, false moral standards, and the money power, are driven from the house of prayer. Only the higher sentiments are encouraged by the quiet proclamation of revealed Truth and its power is known according to the demonstration of the hearer. Listening to sermons as of old, I men felt gratified, or displeased with the speaker hearing the Truth as it comes now with power in Christian Science services, people are healed of their sickness and sin.

The glories of Truth’s demonstration bring to our knowledge hidden sin, and make apparent the mystery of iniquity. “With utmost vigilance must we watch lest we “sleep as do others,” for in the night of drowsiness the thief comes to kill brotherly love. If love be changing to indifference, therein must the devil be resisted earnestly; indifference causes the forth-going of love to cease. “Love one another as I have loved you” commanded Jesus. He illustrated divine Love in meekness. Such love our Leader and Guide hath shown us and her word to us ever is, “Guard humility.”

Only in the silence of humility can the voice of God be heard. Those who hear have understanding and know what the will of God is. They announce the coming of the kingdom of heaven. The announcement for this age has come and men knew it not because there has been no fanfare of trumpets, no processions, no shoutings of the multitude. But it has come, “without observation;” and when the history of these times is written, the most significant event since the Christian era began will be discerned— the new order and the whole thought of which it is significant.