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By Root 647 0

feelings without their natural consequences upon the body following. This, of course, is absurd. There is no one to give such a permit, and if it could be done—if general laws could ever be set aside in special instances—we should have, not a universe, but a chaos. If you press the button, from no matter what motive, good or bad—to save a man’s life or to murder him—the electric bell will ring; because that is the law of electricity. If you drank a deadly poison inadvertently, you would die or at least seriously damage your body, because such is the law. You may have mistakenly supposed it to be a harmless fluid, but that would make no difference because the law takes no account of intentions. For the same reason, to entertain negative emotions is to order trouble—primarily physical trouble, and also trouble in general—quite independently of any seeming justification which you may suppose yourself to have.

I once came across an old sermon which was delivered in London during the French Revolution. The author, who took an extremely superficial view of the Gospel, said, referring to the Sermon on the Mount: “Surely it is justifiable to hate the Arch-Butcher, Robespierre, and to execrate the Bristol murderer.” This pronouncement perfectly illustrates the fallacy which we have been considering. To entertain hatred is ipso facto to involve yourself in certain unpleasant results and, as far as you are concerned, it will not make the faintest shadow of difference whether you are attaching the label “Robespierre,” or “Tom,” or “Dick,” or “Harry,” to the emotion concerned. The question whether the man Robespierre was, in fact, a demon or an angel of light, has nothing whatever to do with the matter.

To indulge in a sense of execration of anyone (quite irrespective of any question of deserts, or otherwise, in the object of your condemnation) is certain to bring trouble upon your own head proportionate to the intensity of the feeling you entertain, and the number of times or minutes that you devote to it. No Scientific Christian ever considers hatred or execration to be “justifiable” in any circumstances, but whatever your opinion about that may be, there is no question about its practical consequences to you. You might just as well swallow a dose of prussic acid in two gulps, and think to protect yourself by saying, “This one is for Robespierre; and this one for the Bristol murderer.” You will hardly have any doubt as to who will receive the benefit of the poison.

It is very significant that Jesus should call your consciousness the “Secret Place.” He desires, as always, to impress us with the truth that it is the inner that causes the outer, and not the outer that brings about the condition of the inner. Neither does one outer thing ever cause another outer thing. Cause and effect are from the within to the without. This all-embracing Master Law is not difficult to grasp in theory once it has been clearly enunciated. In practice, however, it is extraordinarily difficult to avoid losing sight of it in the rush and tumble of everyday life. We are so constituted that we can give our conscious attention to only one thing at a time, and when we are not deliberately attending to the observance of this law, when the interest in what we are doing or saying monopolizes our attention, our already-formed thought-habits are sure to determine the tenor of our thinking. We constantly forget the Master Law in practice until we have drilled ourselves into its observance with the utmost care. Meanwhile, as long as we go on breaking the law, even though it be in forgetfulness, we shall continue to incur punishment.

It is obvious from this that nothing is worthwhile, nothing has any real significance, but a change of policy in the Secret Place. Think rightly, and sooner or later all will be well on the outside. Rest content with change in the outer observance without also changing your thoughts and feelings, and you not only waste your time, but you may easily lull yourself into a false sense of security, and live in a fool’s paradise. You are also