"It must, Padre," she answered.
He studied a moment. Then:
"_Chiquita_, how do you know me? What do you see that you call "me"?"
"Why, Padre, I see you as G.o.d does--at least, I try always to see you that way?" she answered earnestly. "And that is the way Jesus always saw people."
"G.o.d sees me, of course. But, does He see me as I see myself?" he mused aloud.
"You do not see yourself, Padre," was her reply. "You see only the thoughts that you call yourself. Thoughts of mind and body and all those things that go to form a human being."
"Well--yes, I must agree with you there; for, though G.o.d certainly knows me, He cannot know me as I think I know myself, sinful and discordant."
"He knows the real "you," Padre dear. And that is just as He is. He knows that the unreal "you," the "you" that you think you know, is illusion. If He knew the human, mortal "you" as real, He would have to know evil. And that can not be."
"No, for the Bible says He is of eyes too pure to behold evil."
"Well, Padre, why don"t you try to be like Him?"
But the girl needed not that he should answer her question. She knew why he had failed, for "without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to G.o.d must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him." She knew that Jose"s struggle to overcome evil had been futile, because he had first made evil real. She knew that the difficulty he had experienced in keeping his thought straight was because he persisted in looking at both the good and the evil. Lot"s wife, in the Bible allegory, had turned back to look at things material and had been transformed into a pillar of salt. Jose had turned again and again to his materialistic thoughts; and had been turned each time to salt tears. She knew that he gave up readily, that he yielded easily to evil"s strongest tool, discouragement, and fell back into self-condemnation, whereby he only rendered still more real to himself the evil which he was striving to overcome. She knew that the only obstacle that he was wrestling with in his upward progress was the universal belief in a power other than G.o.d, good, which is so firmly fixed in the human consciousness. But she likewise knew that this hindrance was but a false conviction, and that it could and would be overcome.
"Padre," she reflected, looking up at him in great seriousness, "if a lie had an origin, it would be true, wouldn"t it?"
He regarded her attentively, but without replying.
"But Jesus said that Satan was the father of lies. And Satan, since he is the father of lies, must himself be a lie. You see, Padre, we can go right back to the very first chapter in the Bible. First comes the account of the real creation. Then comes the account as the human mind looks at it. But that comes after the "mist" had gone up from the ground, from dirt, from matter. Don"t you see? That mist was error, the opposite of Good. It was evil, the opposite of G.o.d. It was the human mind and all human thought, the opposite of the infinite Mind, G.o.d, and His thought. The mist went up from matter. So every bit of evil that you can possibly think of comes from the material, physical senses. Evil is always a mist, hiding the good. Isn"t it so? The physical universe, the universe of matter, is the way the human mind sees its thoughts of the spiritual universe that was created by G.o.d. The human mind is just a bundle of these false thoughts; and you yourself have said that the human consciousness was a "thought-activity, concerned with the activity of false thought." The human mind is the lie about the infinite mind. It is the mistake, the illusion. It is like a mistake in mathematics. It has no principle, and nothing to stand on. The minute you turn the truth upon it, why, it vanishes."
"Well, then, _chiquita_, why don"t people turn the truth upon it everywhere?"
"Because they are mesmerized by the error, Padre. They sit looking at these false thoughts and believing them true. Padre, all disease, all evil, comes from the false thought in the human mind. It is that thought externalized in the human consciousness. And when the human mind turns from them, and puts them out, and lets the true thoughts in, why--why, _then we will raise the dead_!"
"But, _chiquita_, the human body--if it has died--"
"Padre," she interrupted, "the human body and human mind are one and the same. The body is in the mind. The body that you think you see is but your thought of a body, and _is in your so-called human mind_!"
"Do you really understand that, child?"
"I _know_ it!" she exclaimed. "And so would you if you read your Bible in the right way. Why--I had never seen a Bible until you gave me yours. I didn"t know what a book it was! And to think that it has been in the world for thousands of years, and yet people still kill one another, still get sick, and still die! I don"t see how they can!"
"But, _chiquita_, people are too busy to devote time to demonstrating the truths of the Bible," he offered.
"Too busy!" she e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed. "Busy with what?"
"Why--busy making money--busy socially--busy having a good time--busy acc.u.mulating things that--that they must go away and leave to somebody else!"
"Yes," she said sadly. "They are like the people Jesus spoke of, too busy with things that are of no account to see the things that are--that are--"
"That are priceless, _chiquita_--that are the most vital of all things to sinful, suffering mankind," he supplied.
Rosendo looked in at the door. Jose motioned him away. These hours with Carmen had become doubly precious to him of late. Perhaps he felt a presentiment that the net about him and his loved ones was drawing rapidly tighter. Perhaps he saw the hour swiftly approaching, even at hand, when these moments of spiritual intercourse would be rudely terminated. And perhaps he saw the clouds lowering ever darker above them, and knew that in the blackness which was soon to fall the girl would leave him and be swept out into the great world of human thoughts and events, to meet, alone with her G.o.d, the fiercest elements, the subtlest wiles, of the carnal mind. As for himself--he was in the hands of that same G.o.d.
He turned again to the girl. "_Chiquita_," he said, "you do not find mistakes in the Bible? For, out in the big world where I came from, there are many, very many, who say that it is a book of inconsistencies, of gross inaccuracies, and that its statements are directly opposed to the so-called natural sciences. They say that it doesn"t even relate historical events accurately. But, after all, the Bible is just the record of the unfoldment in the human consciousness of the concept of G.o.d. Why cavil at it when it contains, as we must see, a revelation of the full formula for salvation, which, as you say, is right-thinking."
"Yes, Padre. And it even tells us what to think about. Paul said, you know, that we should think about whatsoever things are true, honest, just, pure, lovely, and of good report. Well, he told us that there was no law--not even any human law--against those things. And don"t you know, he wrote about bringing into captivity every thought to Christ? What did he mean by that?"
"Just what you have been telling me, I guess, _chiquita_: that every thought must be measured by the Christ-principle. And if it doesn"t conform to that standard, it must be rejected."
"Yes. And then he said that he died daily. He did die daily to evil, to all evil thought--"
"And to the testimony of the physical senses, think you?"
"He must have! For, in proving G.o.d to be real, he had to prove the reports of the five physical senses to be only human beliefs."
"You are right, _chiquita_. He must have known that the corporeal senses were the only source from which evil came. He must have known that unless G.o.d testified in regard to things, any other testimony was but carnal belief. This must be so, for G.o.d, being infinite mind, is also infinite intelligence. He knows all things, and knows them aright--not as the human mind thinks it knows them, twisted and deformed, but right."
"Of course, Padre. You know now that you see it right. And can"t you _stick_ to it, and prove it?"
"_Chiquita_," he answered, shaking his head again, his words still voicing a lingering note of doubt, "it may be--the "I" that I call myself may be entirely human, unreal, mortal. I make no doubt it is, for it seems filled to the brim with discordant thoughts. And it will pa.s.s away. And then--then what will be left?"
"Oh, Padre!" she cried, with a trace of exasperation. "Empty yourself of the wrong thoughts--shut the door against them--don"t let them in any more! Then fill yourself with G.o.d"s thoughts. Then when the mortal part fades away, why, the good will be left. And it will be the right "you.""
"But how shall I empty myself, and then fill myself again?"
"Padre!" cried the girl, springing from her chair and stamping her foot with each word to give it emphasis. "It is love, love, love, nothing but love! Forget yourself, and love everything and everybody, the real things and the real bodies! Love G.o.d, and good, and good thoughts! Turn from the bad and the unreal--forget it! Why--"
"Wait, _chiquita_," he interrupted. "A great war is threatening our country at this very minute. Shall I turn from it and let come what may?"
She hesitated not. "No! But you can know that war comes only from the human mind; that it is bad thought externalized; and that G.o.d is peace, and is infinitely greater than such bad thought; and He will take care of you--if you will let Him!"
"And how do I let Him? By sitting back and folding my hands and saying, Here am I, Lord, protect me--"
"Oh, Padre dear, you make me ashamed of your foolish thought--which isn"t your thought at all, but just thought that seems to be calling itself "you." Jesus said, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do likewise. But that did not mean sitting back with folded hands. It meant _understanding_ him; and knowing that there is no power apart from the Christ-principle; and using that principle, using it every moment, _hard_; and with it overcoming every thought that doesn"t come from G.o.d, every thought of the human mind, whether it is called war, or sickness, or death!"
"Then evil can be thought away, _chiquita_?" He knew not why he pursued her so relentlessly.
"No, Padre," she replied with a gentle patience that smote him. "No, Padre. But it can be destroyed in the human mind. And when you have overcome the habit of thinking the wrong way, evil will disappear.
That is the whole thing. That is what Jesus tried to make the people see."
But Jose knew it. Yet he had not put it to the proof. He had gone through life, worrying himself loose from one human belief, only to become enslaved to another equally insidious. He knew that the cause of whatever came to him was within his own mentality. And yet he knew, likewise, that he would have to demonstrate this--that he would be called upon to "prove" G.o.d. His faith without the works following was dead. He felt that he did not really believe in power opposed to G.o.d; and yet he did constantly yield to such belief. And such yielding was the chief of sins. The unique Son of G.o.d had said so. He knew that when the Master had said, "Behold, I give you power over all the enemy," he meant that the Christ-principle would overcome every false claim of the human mentality, whether that claim be one of physical condition or action, or a claim of environment and event. He knew that all things were possible to G.o.d, and likewise to the one who understood and faithfully applied the Christ-principle. Carmen believed that good alone was real and present. She applied this knowledge to every-day affairs. And in so doing she denied reality to evil. He must let go. He must turn upon the claims of evil to life and intelligence. His false sense of righteousness _must_ give place to the spiritual sense of G.o.d as immanent good. He knew that Carmen"s great love was an impervious armor, which turned aside the darts of the evil one, the one lie. He knew that his reasoning from the premise of mixed good and evil was false, and the results chaotic. And knowing all this, he knew that he had touched the hem of the garment of the Christ-understanding. There remained, then, the test of fire. And it had come. Would he stand?
"Padre," said Carmen, going to him and putting her arms about his neck, "you say that you think a great war is coming. But you needn"t be afraid. Don"t you remember what it says in the book of Isaiah? "No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper, and every tongue that shall rise against thee in judgment thou shalt condemn. This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord, and their righteousness is of me, saith the Lord." No weapon of evil can touch you, if you understand G.o.d. Every tongue of the human mind that rises to judge you, to sentence you, shall be condemned. You will condemn it--you _must_! This is your heritage, given you by G.o.d. And your righteousness, your right-thinking, must come from G.o.d. Your thoughts must be His. Then--"
"Yes, yes, _chiquita_," he said, drawing her to him.
"And now, Padre, you will promise me that you will know every day that Anita"s babe is not blind--that it sees, because G.o.d sees?"
"Yes, _chiquita_, I promise."