They upon whom the second death, of which we read in the Apocalypse (Revelation xx. 6), hath no power, are those who have obeyed God’s commands, and have washed their robes white through the sufferings of the flesh and the triumphs of Spirit.  Thus they have reached the goal in divine Science, by knowing Him in whom they have believed.  This knowledge is not the forbidden fruit of sin, sickness, and death, but it is the fruit which grows on the “tree of life.”  This is the understanding of God, whereby man is found in the image and likeness of good, not of evil; of health, not of sickness; of Life, not of death.

God is All-in-all.  Hence He is in Himself only, in His own nature and character, and is perfect being, or consciousness.  He is all the Life and Mind there is or can be.  Within Himself is every embodiment of Life and Mind.

If He is All, He can have no consciousness of anything unlike Himself; because, if He is omnipresent, there can be nothing outside of Himself.

Now this self-same God is our helper.  He pities us.  He has mercy upon us, and guides every event of our careers.  He is near to them who adore Him.  To understand Him, without a single taint of our mortal, finite sense of sin, sickness, or death, is to approach Him and become like Him.

Truth is God, and in God’s law.  This law declares that Truth is All, and there is no error.  This law of Truth destroys every phase of error.  To gain a temporary consciousness of God’s law is to feel, in a certain finite human sense, that God comes to us and pities us; but the attainment of the understanding of His presence, through the Science of God, destroys our sense of imperfection, or of His absence, through a diviner sense that God is all true consciousness; and this convinces us that, as we get still nearer Him, we must forever lose our own consciousness of error.

But how could we lose all consciousness of error, if God be conscious of it?  God has not forbidden man to know Him; on the contrary, the Father bids man have the same Mind “which was also in Christ Jesus,”—­which was certainly the divine Mind; but God does forbid man’s acquaintance with evil.  Why?  Because evil is no part of the divine knowledge.

John’s Gospel declares (xvii. 3) that “life eternal” consists in the knowledge of the only true God, and of Jesus Christ, whom He has sent.  Surely from such an understanding of Science, such knowing, the vision of sin is wholly excluded.

Nevertheless, at the present crude hour, no wise men or women will rudely or prematurely agitate a theme involving the All of infinity.

Rather will they rejoice in the small understanding they have already gained of the wholeness of Deity, and work gradually and gently up toward the perfect thought divine.  This meekness will increase their apprehension of God, because their mental struggles and pride of opinion will proportionately diminish.