The Power of Oneself. Charles Fillmore
in the truth."
12. Professor Drummond, in his address on this chapter to Mr. Moody's students gathered at Northfield, Massachusetts, said: "How many of you will join me in reading this chapter once a week for the next three months? A man did that once and it changed his whole life. Will you do it? Will you?"
13. Love is more than mere affection, and all our words protesting our love are not of value unless we have this inner current, which is real substance. Though we have the eloquence of men and of angels, and have not this deeper feeling, it profits us nothing. We should deny the mere conventional, surface affection, and should set our mind on the very substance of love.
14. Charity is not love. You may be kindhearted, and give to the poor and needy until you are impoverished, yet not acquire love. You may be a martyr to the cause of Truth and consume your vitality in good works, yet be far from love. Love is a force that runs in the mind and body like molten gold in a furnace. It does not mix with the baser metals--it has no affinity for anything less than itself. Love is patient; it never gets weary or discouraged. Love is always kind and gentle. It does not envy; jealousy has no place in its world. Love never becomes puffed up with human pride, and does not brag about itself. It is love that makes the refinement of the natural gentleman or lady, although he or she may be ignorant of the world's standards of culture. Love does not seek its own--its own comes to it without being sought.
15. Jesus came proclaiming the spiritual inter-relationship of the human family. His teaching was always of gentleness, nonresistance, love. "I say unto you, Love your enemies, and pray for them that persecute you." To do this, one must be established in the consciousness of divine love, and there must be discipline of the mental nature to preserve such a high standard. The divine law is founded in the eternal unity of all things, and "love therefore is the fulfillment of the law." Physical science has discovered that everything can be reduced to a few primal elements, and that if the universe were destroyed it could be built up again from a single cell. So this law of harmony, which has its origin in love, is established in the midst of every individual. "I will put my law in their inward parts, and in their heart will I write it." But before this fixed inward principle can be brought to the surface, man must open the way by having faith in the power of love to accomplish all that Jesus claimed for it.
16. "The love of money is a root of all kinds of evil." The love of money, not money itself, is the root of all kinds of evil. Money is a convenience that saves men many burdens in the exchange of values. Primitive civilization used the cumbersome method of trading products without a money measure of value, while modern progress uses money continually as a medium of exchange. Money is therefore good to the man of sense perception; but when he allows himself to become enamored of it and hoards it, he makes it his god. The erasure of this idea from human consciousness is part of the metaphysician's work. Trusting in God, we have faith in Him as our resource, and He becomes a perpetual spiritual supply and support; but when we put our faith in the power of material riches, we wean our trust from God and establish it in this transitory substance of rust and corruption. This point is not clearly understood by those who are hypnotized by the money idea. When the metaphysician affirms God to be his opulent supply and support and declares that he has money in abundance, the assumption is that he loves money and depends upon it in the same way that the devotees of Mammon do. The difference is that one trusts in the law of God, while the other trusts in the power of Mammon. The man who blindly gives himself up to money getting acquires a love for it and finally becomes its slave. The wise metaphysician deals with the money idea and masters it.
17. When Jesus said, "I have overcome the world," He meant that by the use of certain words He had dissolved all adverse states of consciousness in materiality, appetite, and selfishness. Christ is the Word, the Logos. Because the word is the mind seed from which springs every condition, great stress is laid on the power of the word, both in the Scriptures and in metaphysical interpretations of the Scriptures. The word is the most enduring thing in existence. "Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away." All metaphysicians recognize that certain words, used persistently, mold and transform conditions in mind, body, and affairs. The word love overcomes hate, resistance, opposition, obstinacy, anger, jealousy, and all states of consciousness where there is mental or physical friction. Words make cells, and these cells are adjusted one to the other through associated ideas. When divine love enters into man's thought process, every cell is poised and balanced in space, in right mathematical order as to weight and relative distance. Law and order rule in the molecules of the body with the exactness that characterizes their action in the worlds of a planetary system.
18. Divine love and human love should not be confounded, because one is as broad as the universe and is always governed by undeviating laws, while the other is fickle, selfish, and lawless. It was to this personal aspect of the love center in man that Jesus referred when He said: "Out of the heart of men, evil thoughts proceed." But in the regeneration all this is changed; the heart is cleansed and becomes the standard of right relation among all men. "By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another." We cannot enter fully into the Christ consciousness so long as we have a grudge against anyone. The mind is so constituted that a single thought of a discordant character tinges the whole consciousness; so we must cast out all evil and resisting thoughts before we can know the love of God in its fullness. "If therefore thou art offering thy gift at the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath aught against thee, leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way, first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift."
19. Divine love in the heart establishes one in fearlessness and indomitable courage. "God gave us not a spirit of fearfulness; but of power and love and discipline." A woman who understands this law was waylaid by a tramp. She looked him steadily in the eye and said, "God loves you." He released his hold upon her and slunk away. Another woman saw a man beating a horse that could not pull a load up a hill. She silently said to the man: "The love of God fills your heart and you are tender and kind." He unhitched the horse; the grateful animal walked directly over to the house where the woman was, and put his nose against the window behind which she stood. A young girl sang "Jesus, Lover of My Soul," to a calloused criminal; the man's heart was softened, and he was reformed.
20. The new heaven and the new earth that are now being established among men and nations the world over are based on love. When men understand each other, love increases. This is true not only among men, but between man and the animal world, and even between man and the vegetable world. In Yellowstone Park, where animals are protected by our government, grizzly bears come to the house doors and eat scraps from the table, and wild animals of all kinds are tame and friendly. "The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them. . . . They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain; for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of Jehovah, as the waters cover the sea."
21. Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is begotten of God; and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love. Herein was the love of God manifested in us, that God hath sent his only begotten Son into the world that we might live through him. Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No man hath beheld God at any time: if we love one another, God abideth in us, and his love is perfected in us: hereby we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he hath given us of his Spirit. And we have beheld and bear witness that the Father hath sent the Son to be the Savior of the world. Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God abideth in him, and he in God. And we know and have believed the love which God hath in us. God is love; and he that abideth in love abideth in God, and God abideth in him. Herein is love made perfect with us, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment; because as he is, even so are we in this world. There is no fear in love: but perfect love casteth out fear, because fear hath punishment; and he that feareth is not made perfect in love. We love, because he first loved us. If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, cannot love God whom he hath not seen. And this commandment have we from him,