THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT

     The text-books of today will become the ABC books of tomorrow for 
all those who have eyes to see.  What a world of good came to you out of the 
little ABC book which you have long since cast aside.  What secrets it 
contained and what mighty doors it opened to you, and yet you have cast 
it aside.  Yes, you have cast it aside, even as a reference book, though 
not a day goes by that you do not use the entire substance of the little 
ABC book.  In other words, you took the spirit of the thing and left the 
letter behind.  It was the spirit of it that opened the doors of the 
universe.  By the use of it you could explore any country and language 
and understand and read the thoughts of men long since gone from sight.  
It is a wonderful thing, and yet only valuable when it becomes part and 
parcel of you.
     As long as you are blundering over the letters from one to another, 
it is not very productive of results, but once you have grasped the 
understanding and imbibed its spirit, it starts on its magnificent 
unfoldment and has no end.  By it great avenues of contact are 
established.  And yet, I repeat, the actual book has gone; you care 
nothing for it; you do not look back upon it with regret.  So, when the 
letter of anything goes, the spirit comes.  "If I (the personal) go, the 
Comforter shall come" --- that is, the revelation of the Spirit will 
come.
     To one who never lets go of his ABC books is found to be either a 
fool or an idiot.  At least he is considered, in the parlance of the 
world, as subnormal.  
     "The letter killeth, the Spirit giveth light."  When you begin to 
see this, you will begin to understand that it is only the spirit of the 
Truth that will be anything to you, and you will begin to give up the 
dead formula.
     "It is by my Spirit, saith the Lord" --- not by might or power.  
Nor by force or effort, buy by "My Spirit."  By the Spirit which is 
hidden in the letter you shall be able to set free the new expression.  
The Spirit is like the life of a seed.  The shell must first fall away 
before the plant can be made alive.  The shell must first be destroyed 
before the life can come into manifestation.  So it is with the Word.  
The letter must drop by the way and the spirit must be released.  It is 
wonderful and glorious.  Heaven and earth are filled with the revelation 
of Almighty God.  Do you hear, you who read this page?
     Do you see back of the letter the Spirit shining through --- the 
Spirit which has wrapped up in it the means of complete expression?  
"All that the Father has is mine" is true and correct.  But gazing upon 
the letter and trying to make it so, is like expecting tropical flowers 
to grow in the northern blasts.  But cast the letter aside and release 
the Spirit, and revelation comes to you.  It is like magic.  Why?  
Because it has a way of its own.  A means of coming into manifestation 
that man-made laws cannot even put into words.  "No man knoweth the Son, 
but the Father."  It is wonderful.
     Why do you not release the letter from your life and see the glorious 
Spirit work out the expression?  The signs will follow.  Remember that 
as soon as the seed is cast into the ground, into the secret place, the 
shell or letter is broken and cast aside and the life of the seed 
allowed to appear.  The glorious promises that you repeat over and over 
are all filled with the possibility of manifestation.  It is the 
adherence to the letter that killeth.  Over and over, the same pattern, 
day after day with no results, but with the irritating knowledge that it 
is all there.
     When you stop trying and cast your burden on the I AM and actually 
are ready to let the Spirit move in and through you, then you will see 
that the Spirit giveth life and power and that you are suddenly ushered 
into a new state.  Right where you are --- right in the place you stand  
--- right in the present surrounding, the transformation takes place, 
because by the power of the Spirit are you made to see that which 
eternally is and always has been --- i.e., the Kingdom of Heaven here 
and now.  The Spirit of the Word reveals the concrete manifestation.  It 
is then that the Word becomes flesh and dwells among you.  Just as you 
may hold in your hand a dried rose-bush and talk for hours to a group of 
people about a rose.  If they had never seen one they would only have 
the vaguest idea what it looked like, even after you had described it; 
but cast it into the ground and then your very words will become flesh 
and they will see the rose which in one instant will convey more than a 
thousand lectures could.   Do you see?  It takes the faith of a child, 
for the adult cannot let go, and would rather talk about "how and why," 
and "when and where," and would rather spend hours pointing out what is 
wrong with other members of the universe than spend one moment trying to 
rid his own sight of the beam that is out-picturing everything evil.
     If I wear a pair of dark goggles, the whole world, so far as I am 
concerned, is gray or dark; but that does not make it so.  If you look 
through eyes of limitation and ugliness everything appears so to you.  
Even God becomes a God of wrath, and Jesus becomes a hard task-master, 
regardless of the regaling statement and promise: "I came that your joy 
might be full," and "I came not to destroy but to fulfill."  Do you see?  
The Power is here, not to destroy, but to fulfill the Law, to fulfill
the glorious promises.  All these little points of 
evil that seem to be giving you so much trouble will be picked up into 
the positive expression of Good --- Here and Now.  It is wonderful and 
it is glorious.  God is everywhere, and beside Him there is naught else.
     "Let not your heart be troubled; ye believe in God, believe also in 
ME."  Where is the ME?  "Believe, and ye shall be saved."  Do you see 
the power of the word believe?  It is pure Acceptance of the Word, in 
the face of the most adverse testimony.  When the appearances are as far 
removed as the rose-bush is from the rose, the "belief" --- acceptance -
-- will cause the holy promise to be released.
     Do you see why "Then went He in and shut the door" has its 
importance to you as never before?  Argument and talk about these 
precious things will only bring the ugly futility of the letter.  The 
letter without the Spirit is DEAD.  Do you hear? --- it is dead, of no 
use.
     The books that we are reading today on Truth will be the ABC books 
of tomorrow - we will have imbibed the spirit of them and dropped the 
letter aside.  Why?  Because the textbooks of the future will have to do 
with things that we only casually mention at this time.  From time to 
time we hear of levitation, of Fourth Dimensional expression, of the 
Superman, and of many things that could not be told us back in 
Jerusalem.  These will form the basis of the textbooks of the future, 
for the spirit of the present teaching will be released to such an 
extent that sickness, sin and unhappiness will be unknown: it will be so 
generally understood that no one will stop to marvel at the working of 
the law of the Absolute.  There was a time when a man who knew how to 
read was outstanding in a community, but today it would be an exception 
to come upon one who could not.  So is it with the Word.  Just so soon 
as you release the Spirit from the letter, the things that take place 
from the standpoint of Spirit are bound to appear.  "Glory to God in the 
highest, peace on earth, goodwill toward men."
     "Be still  --- I have many things to say to you."  When we learn to 
be still and not talk constantly to the Divine, we are beginning to 
experience the deep hidden things of the Spirit.  New doors are opened 
to us.  New avenues of expression, and the unafraid state of 
consciousness becomes manifest to us.
     "The former things shall pass away, they shall not be remembered 
nor come into mind any more."  The shell that releases the living plant 
shall be forgotten.  It shall not be remembered nor come into mind any 
more.  You could not put the flower back into the seed, nor can you put 
man back into the limitations of a state of consciousness from which he 
has freed himself.  When you are freed from a certain state of 
consciousness you are not subject to any of the laws which formerly 
operated therein --- just as the flower which has released itself from 
the seed is not under any of the laws that applied to the seed.  For 
example, a bird or animal might have carried the seed away or it might 
have been left upon the shelf and destroyed by insects.  As the flower 
comes under the care of the gardener it has protection and a new set of 
laws and environment.  This illustration, as all illustrations, is 
inadequate to convey the idea of the wonderful change that goes on when 
the "shell" of the letter is cracked and the new idea --- the Spirit --- 
is released.  "The Lord, He it is that doth go before thee: He will be 
with thee: He will not fail thee."  Fear not --- when you cast your 
burden on the Lord He will sustain thee.
          "For eyes have not seen and ears have not heard, and it hath 
not entered into the hearts of man."
     "Be still --- be still --- be still," and listen for the revelation 
to be made.  Close the material eyes that are hypnotized by the serpent 
of appearances and see the revelation that is coming into manifestation, 
"Casting all your care upon Him; for He careth for you."
     "He that abideth in Me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much 
fruit."  If you abide in this consciousness --- this "believing" 
consciousness --- then you shall bring forth much manifestation.  It is 
the following of a natural law.  A law which is stated in terms of Grace 
--- Divine intervention, Divine influence.  All knees shall bend at the 
name (nature) of Christ.  Every temporal power shall come tumbling to 
the ground.  Every Golden Calf shall be brought low and the Kingdom 
shall be established Here and Now.
     The New Dimension of life enters only from a point within and never 
from without.  The oak tree proceeds from the Center which is in reality 
only a point where the already finished thing makes itself visible.  
Through our limited thought it seems to grow but when we can "Look 
again" we will see the "flower before the seed."  What we see as growth 
is "reality" appearing.  "Before you ask" tells this revelation.  It is.