with its natural body. This is all matter, and has an identity. The trouble, like sound, has no locality of itself, but can be directed to any place. Now as this intelligence is around the body, it locates its trouble in the natural body, calls it “pain” or by some other name. Now the sick person is in this prison, with the body, which body feels as though it contained life. But the life is in the spiritual body, which being ignorant of itself places its own identity in the flesh and blood. This is because the heat which arises from the body contains the identity, and the soul puts such a construction upon the pain as has been taught, and thinks its trouble is in and part of the natural body. This is the prison which Christ, not Jesus, entered, and broke the walls by His word or power and set the captive free. At this door He stands and knocks, and if we will let Him in He will explain away the error or forgive the sin, and save the soul. He will deliver us from our earthly hell made by the wisdom of the world.—March, 1860.
DO PEOPLE REALLY BELIEVE WHAT THEY THINK?
To some this may seem a strange question but it involves more of our knowledge than we think it does. Our belief involves all our religious opinions. Our opinions are the foundation of our misery, while our happiness is in the knowledge that follows the solving of the problem or error.
To illustrate, when solving a problem you have an opinion, and are in trouble about it. But when the answer comes the happiness accompanies it. Then there is no more death, or ignorance, sorrow or excitement. Error and ignorance have passed away, all has become new, and we are as though we never had been. We have all the happiness we want; the misery is gone, and the spirit returns to the Great Spirit, ready to solve another problem.
Now the problem I wish to solve is what I first named. Do we really believe in what we think we do? I answer, “No,” and shall show that we deny what we profess to believe in almost all we say and do, thereby proving ourselves either hypocritical or ignorant. We profess to believe in Christ, that He is God, that He knows all things, and is capable of hearing and answering our prayers. We also believe that man is a free agent, that he is capable of judging between right and wrong, and believe that if man does not do right he will
