LECTURE
GODS BEFORE MRh
-by-
QUARLES FILLMORE.
-at-
-I1 II 2 AUDITORIUM
illlJMjLAl^u^Kansas CltvT w.,,^
1‘ 1 A L IN G MEETING, WEDNESDAY EVENING, MARCH 27, 1^12 8:00 o *clorslr P.M.
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I will read an extract from the Fifth Chapter of Deu-
teronomy, commonly called the "First Commandment";
"Thou shalt have no other gods before me. Thou shalt not make unto thee a graven image, nor any likeness of anything that is in the heaven above, or in the earth beneath, nor that is in the waters under the earth. Thou shalt not bow down unto them, nor serve them."
This commandment was given to the Israelites, when they started out in their journey to find the Promised Land.
It was one of the safe-guards which the Lord threw about them that they might be saved from the materialism of the pagans with which they were surrounded. They had come out of the land of Egypt, where there were many gods of a material character -tiie Egyptians worshipped cats and beetles, they even worshipped the mummies of their ancestors -; they had, like the Grecians, thousands of graven images which they bowed down to and served.
These Israelites were a chosen people. We interpret the name "Israel" to being those who discern the real, as opposed to those who see the evil, the error; those who have a double mind. Interpreting the elect with this standard, we find the "Children of Israel" exist to-day; that they are everywhere - they are the people who know the Truth. And yet, the people who know the Truth must have a standard. If you know the Truth, you should know that God is Spirit, as Jesus Christ knew; and if you know that God is Spirit, why should you have any lesser gods? "Oh", but you say, "I haven't any. I know that God is Spirit, and I don't bow down, nor serve any Gods but the One. I don't carry around in my pockets little clay
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images, like some of the heathens, nor do I have those little sacred symbols on my mantle-piece. I don't, when I am walking down the street, like the old Athenians, have to stop at the various alters and make obeisance." Paul, you know, said that he found in Athens thousands of gods; and, it is said, that at that time there were two thousand various images of deities, which the Athenians made offerings to at that time.
We think that we are a progressive people. We are no longer superstitious, as Paul-accused those old Greeks of being. We knov; that these graven images have no power; aid we don't bow down to them nor serve them. 0ur teachers have told us we shouldn't do this, and we are not doing it.
Now, let us analyze that situation a little and see. God is Spirit. Are you believing in the power of anything besides Spirit? Are the people in the world to-day believing in the power of any material thing? Look about you and see.
Look at the advertisements of helps to health, of a material character. Look at the recommendations of this and that, to help you when you are sick. Are those in the waters above or upon the earth, or in the air? Why yes, of course. Our Chemists concoct essences for us out of the earth;and out of the air we get electricity to heal us; and why, there are thousands and thousands of material things that we are told will surely make us well. And I know people that really believe that Life and health comes from these material things.
Just before I came here I was reading a letter from a lady in California, who has been one of the Children of Israel,
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apparently, for a number of years, and she enclosed an advertisement from one of our Metaphysical magazines - a whole page advertisement - headed "Go to the Ant". It went on to explain that the ant was the strongest, most vital of all the animals; and with the ant in proportion to the size of man, he would have great strength - why, he would be a giant] And this, as a hint, had led certain Scientists to boil up ants and make a medicine that was a sure cure for everything. Why, it would bring back old people to youth! And this lady said that the Editor of that Magazine had told her that for one million of dollars he wouldn't admit anything in the magazine that he couldn't endorse!
And she wrote to me and said, "Now this Editor told me this, and I felt so sure of it that I have sent to New York for a bottle of this medicine, and I would like to have your opinion of it" .
This, I say, was apparently one of the Children of Israel. She was out in the Wilderness on the way, and she had read those commandments over and over and over, I suppose, a thousand times, because she is a woman of a good deal of intellect, and really striving to do the will of God.
I give you that as an example of the way that some people get. wrong in the interpretations of this "Thou shalt have no other gods before Me!" They don't realize that they are bowing down to some material thing and serving it, giving power to it; but it is a fact. It is a fact that every time we look to any form of graven image - that is what that means, a graven image is something that has been formed out of the un-
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iversal substance. We think that if a man takes a piece of marble and puts a graving tool on it and makes an image, that that is what this refers to. Well, that is a very material in-terpretat ion.
We are to interpret the Spirit. Spiritual things are spiritually discerned. Now, this first Commandment, then, is to have a spiritual rendition. If you should have asked Jesus Christ to interpret that, he would probably have said, "Well, what is God?" Why, didn't He teach God is Spirit? God is everywhere present; God is within you; God is Life; God is Substance?
This piece of marble isn't substance.	That is a picture of
substance. God is a great Universal Substance; and God is Intelligence - God is everything in solution here, whose expression is in the world about us.
Well now, which of these two have the power, the Cause side or the effect side? You will at once answer, "Why, the Cause, of course". The man who makes the graven, image in the marble is the powerr he is the intelligence. The marble is but an inanimate piece of clay. The man could make a million images. ihen, that man must be the power. And what is man?
Mind! The living word of God. Well, don't this bring us right back to that proposition that it is God, as Mind, that we are to worship? That we are not to give any power or serve in any way these material things, external things; that all power and all worship of every kind shall be in Spirit? to the God of
Spirit, the God of Mind; to the Cause side and not to the effect s^Lde?
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Now, we should apply this to every department of exis-tence, everything that we come in touch with. The body even is an effect, and we should not give cause potentialities to body. We should not worship our bodies. We should not lay great store by any material phase. Now, the body will make you believe that it is the real thing. It will cry out for recognition, but if you know the Truth, if you know that "You shall have no other gods before me", all at once the mind will make itself visible to you. Your mind and the one Great Mind will come into unity, just to the extent that you worship that Mind; that you believe in it; and, if there is any bowing down at all on the part of man, it should be to the Supreme Mind. Nothing less than that Mind will ever do as a God. If you have other gods in any realm of the world, you will fall short.
Now, there are paople in this day who claim to be in the front rank of spiritual progress, worshipping, - well, we will say, astrological science, the stars and the moon; certain stars. They are giving power to planetary influences, claiming that the forces at work when they were bom are now dominant. That if they were born under a certain sign,-we will say Taurus-the tendency in their minds, fixed at that time of birth, was to two opposites * and they must be constantly under the dominion of that tendency. Nothing will save than from the ojiposing forces - like two people in the same body - and everything that comes up along that line, "well", they say, "that is because I was born under the sign Taurus; and it prevails, don't you know; you canf't get away from these planetary influences".
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Well now, isn't that making a graven image of the earth and the planets, and bowing down and serving them? Well certainly! Is that following this commandment? Not at all!
It doesn't make any difference what the planetary influences were at your birth. If you serve the one God, can't Jie change your mind of these mental tendencies or these occult influences? Why certainly! Well, don't get caught in that t.rap. I am talking to you as metaphysicians. I don't expect that you are going to take some drug, because you know better. You have been educated out of that; but I find among metaphr/sicictns a great running to and fro in the world to find out about the so-called occult. They are told that there is power in this and in that.
I could name a dozen different phases of this bowing down to the images that are graven in the human body: the belief in the power of the intellect; the belief in, that the brain has a certain occult force that can send out waves, thoughts, and that telepathy is a power, and that thoughts of evil can be visited upon people; that they can become obsessed by other minds, and that other minds have power over them, and all that sort of thing. Doing that is bowing down to the graven image of personality. Personality is something that the I Am has formed. It has put the graving tool of thought on it and made a picture, and that picture has gathered together these material elements and you see another picture, called the body. It was all graven by the "Tind, the I AM; aa d the minute you see it with the eye, you say, "That is me", and you bow down and serve the picture of yourself. Now don't do it . Don't let this idea that other people can im-
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pose upon your thoughts or your "body, or interfere with your plans, have any consideration whatever. You become the servant of that thing just the moment you do it. "Thou shalt have no other gods before Me"! What is that "Me"? Why, it is Spirit, the Great I AM. Who was it talking to Moses when Moses asked who it was? He said "I Am - tell those Egyptians, those people in darkness, all these thoughts that are darkened with materialism, that I AM has sent you". I Am is a moving power; I Am is God, whether you take it in yourself or in the great Universal; and I Am is the source of everything. I Am is the source of all. that man seeks for. I Am will pull you out of every difficulty; I Am will make you well; I Am will make you wise; I Am will make you rich; I Am will make you happy; I Am will give you satisfaction. What more do you want?
We are here for the purpose of demonstrating this proposition. We are here to put to the test this commandment, whether we are worshipping God or these things that are made in the heaven above, in the earth beneath. Let us be still a moment and realize that God is Spirit; that I Am is always present. I Am Still.
We will take for our silent meditation, "I am the Lord thy God, and there is none besides Me". Mow, in holding that, put special emphasis on "Lord", that means master; and on "Me", that means Spirit of me. "I am the Lord Thy God, and there is none besides Me".
8:20 P. M.
8:40 P. M.
MR. FILLMORE:
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I am sure that I haven't covered all the points of this subject, and I would like to have some of you give further elucidation. You probably had presented to you some illustration of how men worshipped material things, thinking that fhey are getting good out of them; and I would like to have you tell us of some, in about a three-minute talk, please.
MR. WOLF:	While	I was in Chicago, I had a client who used to
come t,o my office to have his work done. This man was always afraid of draughts, and, upon entering my office, if he would see one of the windows even slightly open, he would complain of the draught, remarking that "I am taking cold". I left Chicago on the 8th of Hecember last, and shortly after that received word from a friend of mine that this man had actually caught cold, and "it got him".
" R. FILLMORE:	I	have	heard	of	people	who took cold say, "What
a cold I have got; I don't know where I caught it". They just searched around and caught it, probably caught it just in such a way as that. And that is a good illustration that Mr. Wolf gave, of the way we bow down to these material elements. You sha'n't worship anything in the air. It is worship, serving the air, to think that the air gives colds. Now, the air never gave anybody a cold, bow could we get along without the air?
The room gets stuffy and we open a window and we gather in the air, and open ourselves out and breathe deeper, and we say, "God bless the air; God bless the man that first invented air". And yet, if a little draught blows in a certain way on us, we find we are immediately looking for a cold.
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(MR. FILLMORE) With reference to Mr. Wilson's remark that God will protect our goods from burglars. I think that God will protect our things, and again, we oughtn't to have anything that we possess as ours that is worth carrying away. If I have got anything that anybody really wants more than T, I say, "take it along". -Jesus Christ taught that if a man wants your coat, give him your cloak also. Tie probably didn't live in Kansas City during this Winter. He might have trimmed his advice a little .
Now, we are getting away from the main subject. Let us have someone give us a remedy, going back to the worship of the air, serving the air: what would be the remedy against that service? If you had been brought up by a foolish mother or father, or a foolish lot of advisors, to believe that the air would give you a cold, and you found out the truth, that God was the Source of our Life - how would you apply the antidote? That i3 the question-we are here to get understanding that, not only that God is Mind, but that God is Power. Someone tell us now?
MRS.______Make friends with the air. I heard Mr. Caldwell
say once that when he first came to this Country, he was very sensitive to cold, and being a public speaker, it affected his work greatly. He was living in Boston at the time, and the East wind was particularly fierce, and he found that every time he went out he had a cold and sore throat. So, he made up his mind that when he went out he would make friends with the wind, and say, "My good friend, East Wind, I love you, East Wind; you
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are my friend; and that after trying that two or three times, it occurred.
T,rR. FILLMORE:	Make	friends	of	thine	adversary.	That	is	good
advice; and, didn't he at the same time develop his own I AM source, that is, the Spirit, Mind. God gave man authority over all things, because man is just like God, I Am. Someone else give us an illust rat inn.
MRS.
I used to think I would take cold if I was in
a draught, and I read once in one of Calfields books, he said if you were in a draught and would put yourself in harmony with it, it wouldn't hurt you at all. You never would take cold; and very soon I had an opportunity to demonstrate it. I had walked quite a distance to church, on a very warm day in the Spring, and my clothing was very heavy. I was in a great perspiration when I got to the church, and I sat down in the corner of the church, with the windows on either side of me, and there was a strong draught. There were four or five sitting in the corner, and they all got up and left the place except a lady and myself; and I remarked"I am going to make a demonstration". I was not very long in the science, and I told her what I had read; that if we put ourselves in harmony with it it wouldn't hurt us at all. The air was pure, and I just love it; I love to breathe it; and it is doing me a great lot of good. If it is pure air, it isn't going to hurt me at all. And, though I was in a great perspiration, I didn't take cold. And I have never taken cold
since. I can lie in bed with th*» dr»anrrv>+- vi j
vvxtnxne draught blowing across over
me, and I never take cold.
MR. FILLMORE:	That shows where the authority is. I read
a story once where, in a certain meeting, all were allowed to talk, and a man got up and said "Is there a Christian Scientist here in the house?" A lady got up and said "I am a Christian Scientist". The man said,"I wish you would change seats with me. There is a draught here and I can't stand it". (Laughter).
MR. _______ _	:	As a rule I carry a Unity or something in my
pocket, so that when I have time I usually read a few lines in
it.	One evening I had the opportunity of giving it to a friend of mine, and not long after that I received a telephone message, and he said that his mother was suffering from a stroke of paralysis; and he asked if I couldn't come out and see what I could do for her; and at that time I couldn't do much and I notified a healer and went out to see the woman. And she was in a dreadful condition. She couldn't speak or she couldn't walk,-she didn't have the use of any of her limbs, or she didn't have any control at all. And the healer stayed with her about half an hour, and in a short time the woman opened her eyes and muttered . "Before, she couldn't even have opened her lips. The healer stayed about half an hour longer, and the woman was able to talk, and they could understand her. And the healer stayed a little while longer, and the patient got up and could walk around. And the daughter got nervous. She didn't understand the power; and in a short time she talked and got her mother nervous again. And the healer came back iiMtac and told the
daughter that she should have confidence in his power; that it was the one great underlying Power of the Universe; and he got
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the daughter so full of this great Principle that the mother seemed to get much better. And the mother said that the result was just what she thought it would he. But now the mother is strong and healthy. She has never had an attack of any kind, and the whole family seems to be understanding this principle of living and this life it is entitled to in the home, since they have recognized this One Power, where before there was sickness and sorrow.
MR. FILLMORE:	If Mr. Lynch had beena worshipper of graven
images, he probably would have recommended a bottle of medicine of some kind for that woman.
•_________.*•	Why,	I have had colds all Winter long, and
in the Summer too, but in the last four years I haven't had any at all; and during the past month I have had to be out a great deal, and, of course, you know what that means, especially the last week. I have had my feet and limbs wet sometimes almost continually, and haven't had any cold at all, and it hasn't disturbed me in the least. Yesterday afternoon I had visited the community in the North End where the streets are wet, and I got perfectly wet, and I didn't have any cold, and I feel just as well to-day as if I had stayed in the house. I was down there where we get a good many people who feel that no-one in the churches cares for them. Those people all thought they were alone and friendless and forsaken.
MR. FILLMORE:	"Thou	shalt not worship the water, nor bow down
and serve it." You would be surprised if you knew the various ways in wnich the water is worshipped. I know people who wor-
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ship the sea. Thev ni 4
y Clal,n th»t the sea ls the
aU	that a Ulife carie . 8"at S°Ur« <*
e Came out Of it A -in another direction a *	'	°thers	take	that
' and worship water as a agent; and others use It *	grSat healing
externally and some int afraid or lt . They say	Others
> II you rr of
will have a cold".	y°Ur feet Wet» why you
wow, we win v
“al healtng. let us ' ” ^	’*	"11E	«• the unirer-
-realize that "t
SPlrlt"‘ — •*. that . 3ofl ls’ »*»«- °f «n speak that word, „r	'*	Uh	°f	hls P«pl., ..
«"** earnestness or ’ ^ ^ ^	Ia	of
do	S°rr°W’	Pe°Ple	say	»In	tll
d0 so and so". Kow> t	-»	n	the	name	of	God
t-p e	a great power in +1,
you speak in that „ame _	"a”	°f	God;-
the Preeence Of the rery God	"	and	in
let us valise that.	1	3m	thS	hSalth	0f	“y	People".
:i0"- " WU1 speak to ail the
6d’ ln the naine “f the I m	86	Wn°*e	names	are	Preset-
•nja* We win
that we have here, »i _ ..	**	ln	the	consciousness
> -L am the hen+v, ^
win take the	1#t	°f	%	fer,	we
r,,t us aU Join i„ tM
li»w. for prosperity	(W*“*	glTen) •
+ ,	p	rity,	We will an 4-,
the prosperity 0f Mv n	silently	hold	"I	^
MY people"- ana	^
alization of God as Splrlt ’	"	a	strong	re-
* rit» out everv n=
" WU1 — according to his Z	^	^
0n° aCCOrd’ hold Wletly and wl	h’	,i0W’	We	wil1	»H.	With
Pr°aPority 0f My peopl>„_	great	'™ratio„,	»i	thf
" y°U Caa —tion the nantt 7	“'"tl0n	*°	^	TOUr	™n	na*.
it will come at)out.
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(Silence)
PRAYER:	We ask that all these true words he fulfilled, in
the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
The next meeting in this room will be to-morrow afternoon at half-past Two. A. lesson in Heal th & Harmony, by Mr. McClintock. Every afternoon at half-past two, except Saturday and Sunday, some of our workers will give a lesson on Health and Harmony. Sunday morning at 10:00 o'clock, Sunday School; at 11:00 o'clock, the regular service. Sunday Evening at 8:00 o'clock a lecture. These meetings are all open to the public. We would be glad to have you come and bring your friends.
May be that you have a neighbor or someone right close at hand that would like to have this instruction; like to know these truths that we are teaching, and it would be good for you to become a missionary. You can be a missionary without going to Africa or India. Heathens are on every hand.
Let us rise,please.
BENEFICTIOF:	"We	thank	Thee,	Almighty Eather, for the Spiritual
Understanding of this Commandment, "Thou Shalt have no other gods before Me'".
We are dismissed.