The Golden Age And The Golden Rule

The human race has cherished no tradition more persistently than that of a Golden Age, a period of primeval innocence and unclouded happiness. The annals of almost all nations and tribes contain references or recollections of this sort, dim perhaps and vague, but carefully nourished as of precious import. Such traditions have been variously colored by the peculiar temperament, environment, or need of different races, but they generally agree in depicting a state of nature wherein men have supposedly attained a condition of approximate perfection, are good and beautiful, virtuous and happy; and at the same time, free from care, fear, and want.

But, alas, it has been customary to relegate the Golden Age to prehistoric periods, to some remote “once upon a time,” and to a “somewhere or other.” The ancients referred the Golden Age to the time of the mythical reign of Saturn, while some modern reformers have projected a Golden Age into the future, when certain conditions of human justice shall have been reached. Thus the idea of a Golden Age has generally been presented to mankind either as an indistinct remembrance or as a far distant hope, and just because mankind at large has not thought of this ideal state of affairs as a present reality or possibility, the term has acquired a secondary or derived meaning, which is less exact and precise than the first and makes smaller demands upon human faith.

It is now frequently used to denote a period of exceptional brilliancy in the arts or sciences, as, for example, the Golden Age of sculpture in Greece, or of Roman literature, or the Golden Age of discovery during the reign of Queen Elizabeth, or of invention during the nineteenth century. But even when the term has been used in its original sense, the supposition has been that this age could not last forever, that man could not remain perfect indefinitely. On the contrary, he has been supposed to fall inevitably from grace, and so to dash human hopes to the ground. The Hebrew Scriptures give us what is doubtless the best-known version of this so-called fall of man and of his consequent expulsion from paradise. Mankind is, however, still craving for the Golden Age, is still watching for it, planning for it, and though frequently disappointed, is still expecting to see it realized and become an established fact.

There is something pathetic about this noble search, in which poet and philosopher, philanthropist, sociologist, and religionist vie with one another in altruistic rivalry, always in the hope of being the first to make the Golden Age a practical reality for all mankind; but the fatal flaw in all such endeavors has been uncovered by Christian Science as human ignorance of God and His creation. False concepts of the creator, material beliefs concerning His man and His universe, have confused the searchers, vitiated their conclusions, and destroyed their hopes. Mortal beliefs have ‘ produced their own mortal results. Only the correct understanding of God, the knowledge of the Truth of being; i.e., divine Science, is capable of revealing the true Golden Age, of bringing to human apprehension the reign of harmony, the presence and power of Life, Truth, and Love, and of establishing the kingdom of heaven on earth. This ideal age is no mere aspiration, it is already here and now, and has always been an established fact in the divine Mind, accessible to all; but it is not the kind of a heaven which mankind has imagined for itself, sighed for, or dreamed of, since it is not material. Heaven was described and defined by Jesus when he said, “The kingdom of God is within you,” and “My kingdom is not of this world.” Even John the Baptist, who had not attained the Master’s comprehension of Truth, declared many centuries ago, “The kingdom of heaven is at hand.” Christianity, properly understood, has always furnished evidence that heaven is a present reality, and Mrs. Eddy, in the Christian Science text-book, explains to mankind—suffering, stricken, weary, despondent, and thirsting after righteousness—how this glorious realization may now be attained and made an abiding comfort to all. Christian Science comes in the crises of human life to teach us that man, made in the image and likeness of God, has never fallen, but dwells forever in a state of consciousness which is heaven, knows no reality in any belief that can make for fear and mortality, or produce sin, sickness, or death. As for the belief which styles itself mortal, material man, it has no true existence or reality, and the belief in it must be outgrown and put off, not nurtured or perpetuated in human thought.

Thus the efforts of noble-minded men and women to create, organize, plan, and arrange the Golden Age, either for themselves or for others, on a material basis, have invariably gone awry. The kingdom of heaven needs not to be created, for it already is, and here; it cannot be manufactured through human contrivance, for it is of God. It only needs to be realized, to be apprehended mentally. Mankind need no longer be blinded by the belief that beauty, strength, or intrinsic worth are qualities of matter. Paul wrote to the Romans, “For the kingdom of God is not meat and drink; but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost.”

The kingdom of heaven is not of the flesh and matter, but is spiritual; its beauty is a thing of Life, its condition is one of true bliss, its duration is permanent, and the knowledge of this dissipates the false beliefs of mortal existence, and brings regeneration, rejuvenation, and salvation to mankind. To know God is to acknowledge good as natural and spontaneous, and evil as abnormal and fabulous.

Thus, while in human society there is great need of reform, of curbing will-power and frustrating its attempts in the direction of oppression, tyranny, and injustice; while much is to be done in the way of establishing social, political, and economic freedom, and in breaking the bonds of human slavery, yet the way to accomplish these results is the same to-day as it was when Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” This way, as the Christian Science textbook so clearly teaches, is the truth, the understanding and wisdom “which was also in Christ Jesus;” and this truth instructs us that no material concept can ever be perfect or permanent; that mortal man, therefore, has never fallen from perfection, for he was never perfect; while immortal man cannot fall, for he is ever with God. Hence the true Golden Age, or the kingdom of heaven on earth, is a present fact only in so far as it is recognized as of spiritual import. It need not be imagined nor dreamed of, but can be mentally grasped as a metaphysical actuality by all who realize the nature of God as Mind, Spirit, and who recognize His creation, including man, as mental or spiritual and not material. In this manner the brotherhood of man can be shown to be a spiritual fact, independent of human societies or co-operative plans, and unity is found to be eternally established by God, the creator and controller of the universe.

In the true Golden Age the Golden Rule acts as the only form of government. It constitutes at once the charter, constitution, by-laws, and order of the true Golden Age. Jesus came bringing the Golden Rule to fit into the Golden Age. Of this rule individual seers among the ancients had caught faint glimpses. Not only was this true of members of the Hebrew race, but also of some among the so-called pagan or heathen nations. Yet it remained for Christian Science to uncover the full meaning of this rule, whereby all assaults of error can be frustrated, and man can learn to love his neighbor as himself.

One of the best of the Romans who lived toward the close of the century in which Jesus taught and practised on earth, was Pliny the Younger. He was the author of certain “Epistles,” highly prized for their elegance of style and refinement of thought. He was a man of great wealth, a brilliant pleader in the law courts, a friend of the famous writers, Tacitus, Suetonius, and Cornelius Nepos, and was on intimate terms with the Emperor Trajan. His acts of munificence were very marked; both privately and publicly he dispensed sums large and small, and his letters indicate a nature characterized by kindness, charity, and generosity. In one of his “Epistles” he advocates as a motto, “To pardon others, as if one daily needed pardon oneself. “This was a near approach to the sentiment of the Golden Rule, and yet, when Pliny became a public official in Asia Minor, and was brought face to face with the early Christians there, his motto did not save him from persecuting them on the assumption that they were disloyal to his emperor and patron. In a letter to the Emperor Trajan which has since become famous, Pliny wrote to inquire what should be done to Christians who refused to abjure their doctrines. He stated that “not only cities, but country towns and rural districts have been touched by the contagion of this superstition.” After obeying instructions, he again wrote: “Those who obstinately persisted that they were Christians, after being warned of the consequence, I ordered to be led off to punishment, not doubting that whatever it was that they professed, their inflexible obstinacy deserved it.” In contrast with such conduct, which was doubtless endorsed by the best official and public opinion of the day in the enlightened Roman Empire, Jesus taught the Golden Rule according to the precept—”Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy.”

To fulfil the metaphysical demands of the Golden Rule means constantly increasing spiritual growth. It means that we must learn how to respond more effectively to the demands of others for help, while resting in the consciousness of God’s power to protect all men and to prevail over every evil. To practise Christian Science by destroying sin, sickness, and sorrow, and by meeting and mastering the machinations of error in its various forms, involves also doing unto others as we would that they should do unto us. There can be no Christian healing on the basis of selfishness or Pharisaism, for the Christ-truth demands of the healer humility, denial of the false concept of self, both as regards himself and others. From the standpoint of Christian Science the Golden Rule requires that we should not only act towards others as we would have them act towards us, but that we should also think in accordance with the same rule. It bids us share the joy of every victory over evil with all mankind, and admonishes us that, if God has granted us the privilege of proving the unreality of some error for ourselves, He must of necessity, as a loving and just Father, have granted the same privilege to all His other children. It causes us to recognize that the very same power which has blotted out for us the claims of fear, limitation, perversity, and superstition has provided a way whereby this may be done for our brethren; that every joy we experience and every glimpse of beauty we delight in belongs essentially to all, as the sun shines on all, and the dew falls on noble forests and lowly weeds alike. This metaphysical interpretation of the Golden Rule causes us to apply our understanding of impartial, divine Love to human affairs, and tends to banish envy, jealousy, greed, and oppression from our midst.

The Golden Rule invites us to go yet farther in working out our own salvation and that of our brother. It clearly points out the dangers that come from self-complacency and pride of intellect. It warns us that no one can consider himself really healed by Truth, who doubts in his heart that others are thus healed. So long as we question God’s perfect plan of creation as applied to some one else, we are in danger of questioning the perfection of man as applied to ourselves, and our own door of doubt stands open to admit the hypnotic suggestion of return or relapse. We cannot be truly safe so long as we believe others to be in danger. We cannot be truly happy so long as we insist that others must be unhappy or present the conditions which lead thereto; and the reason for this is not far to seek. Christian Science uncovers and explains causation as mental. It lays bare metaphysical ways and means, and shows that the only harm error can do results from man’s belief in it, from his acceptance of it as real and effective. Then to believe in its power as regards another is to admit the possibility of its power as regards oneself, and to allow another power except God, to permit a supposed evil mind to dispute the control of man by God, is to break the First Commandment. On the other hand, to know for others the truth about man, is not only to heal them, but also to heal ourselves, and never to doubt the truth is to remain healed. Thus the Golden Rule blesses him who receives and him who gives. St. Paul went so far as to admonish the Romans to be in the mental attitude described as follows: “in honor preferring one another.”

It is evident that if men actually lived together on the plane of the Golden Rule, they would need no other form of government, and peace and prosperity would reign undisturbed. But this grand result has never been attained among mortals. It must first be worked out in the individual consciousness by the overcoming of the belief of life in matter, the belief of hate, of want, and selfishness. The true Golden Age will be more readily found by the publican than the Pharisee, by the meek and merciful than by those who pride themselves on human power and trust in the letter of the law. Only in proportion as the individual purification, according to Science, goes on, can any real benefit accrue to human society; only as reforms have first been accomplished privately can they be made manifest publicly, for the evil concepts which have their birth in the general human consciousness and work therein secretly, must be extirpated, else they will undermine, corrode, and cause to tumble every structure men may erect as a joint enterprise. The brotherhood of man must remain an empty name, unless it be founded upon a right apprehension of God and the real man, an apprehension which leads to individual renunciation of wrong and individual growth in righteousness, in accordance with the divine pattern.

If we take the history of any nation, we discover that constant attempts to disrupt the brotherhood of man have been made, and have only too often succeeded. In the Bible narrative we find that human brotherhood had no sooner been established in the first family than it was violently disrupted by jealousy on the part of Cain. We are told that when his offering received no respect, he “was very wroth, and his countenance fell.” If we follow the history of the Jewish race as depicted in the Bible, this same disruption will be recognized as constantly reappearing, and that it was due, in every instance, to some form of sin. We find Jacob and Esau separating; the sons of Jacob ridding themselves of Joseph by reason of envy; we find the kingdom of Israel rent apart, and many coming into captivity. Many similar illustrations might be cited from the histories of all nations and peoples.

Upon closer study, then, the prerequisite to any practical scheme for expressing the brotherhood of man is found to be knowledge of God and His creation, leading to humility and love, and to the overcoming of evil in the individual consciousness.

Suppose that two persons should agree never to hate again, no matter what the provocation, no matter whether they were seemingly justified by the customary codes of mankind; suppose a third person should join these two; a fourth; a fifth; ten persons; a hundred; a thousand; suppose a million persons should agree never to hate again; and suppose this process to be extended, by degrees, to the whole human race; would not hatred be as completely eliminated from our midst as though it had never been? Suppose all the other sins to which flesh is heir were eliminated one by one, from human consciousness in the same manner; is it not evident that by degrees the sinless man would make his appearance, and also the complete unity for which we so greatly long? The human race has been too prone to put the cart before the horse in all these problems, to look at material conditions and manifestations as cause, and to relegate a man’s mental attitude to the realm of consequence and effect.

That enormous changes for good are going on in the thought of individuals to-day, is proven by the fact that the idea of unity and comity among the nations of the earth is advancing by leaps and bounds. If there ever was a time when the real interests of certain classes or nations, or of certain aggregations of individuals might seem to have conflicted with each other, that time is even now seen to be passing rapidly away from human history. Every department of activity in every quarter of the globe is tending to be brought into practical unity with others elsewhere, in an interlacement of mutual interests. Thus it is being more than ever realized, both theoretically and practically, that the good of one nation means the good of all, and that injury to one leads eventually to injury to all. Nevertheless, the mistake of the ancients must be guarded against, and the belief that the Golden Age is material in its nature must not prevail, else heaven on earth will continue to elude our search and remain but a dream. The Jews looked for a Jewish kingdom of material greatness, and when Jesus shattered this false hope he not only raised against himself the resentment of the multitude but probably also shattered the secret expectations of some of his own disciples. When it is understood that the works of Jesus and his followers were not supernatural, illegal, or illegitimate in the sight of God, but were supremely natural, lawful, and normal, and when it is perceived that God’s laws hold good for all men, at all times, then Jesus the Christ becomes an elder brother, showing the way by actual demonstration, and proving every step that is to be taken, while his words of advice, such as his Sermon in the Mount and the parables he related, acquire a fraternal meaning which they could never have had so long as Jesus was looked upon as a mere exhibitor of miracles.

Viewed from this standpoint of the brotherhood of man, there is nothing more touching in the whole career of Jesus than his words to Mary Magdalene after his resurrection, when he bade her, “Go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and to my God,’ and your God.” Here Jesus, having just triumphed over the “last enemy that shall be destroyed,” as St. Paul denominates death, fresh from this culminating climax of his career, from the demonstration of the omnipotence of Spirit and the powerlessness of matter’s most stubborn belief,—at this very moment he enunciated the doctrine of the true brotherhood of man by designating as “brethren” those who seemed to be his weak disciples, but who were known to him in reality as God’s children, having one Father, his Father, their Father, his God, their God. If this was said so many centuries ago by the one who knew most of Science, we of to-day may count ourselves his “brethren,” and should watch that the true Golden Age of our spiritual consciousness, shown to us by the author of Science and Health, may never be invaded by any false concept which would break the law of Love, the Golden Rule. All have received the assurance, “Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.”