59/115 SPIRITUAL CONSCIOUSNESS By FRANK H. SPRAGUE
But although we have no clear or complete account of the verbal teaching of Jesus, even the meager, fragmentary outline of his public career, given in the four Gospels, furnishes unquestionable testimony regarding the spiritual aspect of his life; on that point the story leaves little to be desired.
If we seek to understand his recorded words in the light of the revelations of his life, we shall find it a sufficient commentary on them. He recognized and appealed to the Absolute or Infinite Self of every man, not its mortal semblance. “That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is Spirit.” “Who is my mother.’ and who are my brethren.’ . . .
Whosoever shall do the will of my Father which is in heaven, he is my brother, and sister, and mother.” “Be not afraid of them which kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do.” “Blessed are ye when men shall reproach you, and persecute you, and say all manner of evil against you falsely for my sake.”
The man who accepts this standpoint will feel the necessity of forming other associations. Former things will gradually pass away, and all things will become new. New ideals often demand different surroundings for their realization; in time, new ways of thinking are certain to create a new environment.
The feverish scramble for “things that perish,” will give way to simpler and less artificial methods of living. Such changes may be very radical, and involve a complete transformation of industrial, social, political, and religious relations; yet without a disposition to accept the necessary conditions, one cannot “enter the kingdom of heaven.”
“Think you that I am come to give peace in the earth? I tell you, Nay; but rather division: for there shall be from henceforth five in one house divided, three against two, and two against three. They shall be divided, father against son, and son against father, and daughter against her mother; mother in law against her daughter in law, and daughter in law against her mother in law.”
“I come not to send peace, but a sword.” “He that loveth father or mother more than me, is not worthy of me: . . . and he that doth not take his cross and follow after me, is not worthy of me.” “Leave the dead to bury their own dead.” “If thy right hand offend thee, cut it off.”
One may be called upon, like the rich young ruler, to sell all he has and give to the poor; or, like Peter and John, to leave home and previous occupation to enter some new field of activity, or, peradventure, to put into practice his new-born ideal amid the old surroundings oftentimes a more difficult undertaking than to make a radical departure.
But, however gradual may be the change in outward conditions that results from accepting this viewpoint, a new inner world comes at once into being, and grows each day more real with the increase of one’s spiritual vision.