A New Hope Through a New Way
(Outline of address given by A. C. Grier at International New Thought Congress 1920)
A famous English scientist has recently said that we may look any day for a discovery in some obscure laboratory, by an unknown scientist, that will bisect human history. I am here to proclaim to the world that the discovery has been made. This congress exists because of that fact. But it is no material substance that we have discovered - not a new material law. Humanity has waited in vain for a material discovery that will bisect human history in a vital way. Such a thing might possibly change the surface of society, but it will not make the great transition from an unhappy to a happy world.
The bisecting discovery was made over nineteen centuries ago by a humble carpenter, in an obscure country. It stopped the clocks of the world, and men began reckoning time anew from the great Discoverer’s birth. But the sense consciousness of man seized even His discovery and so paralyzed it that it has failed in its purpose to transform the world. At the end of nineteen hundred years we find upon earth a vale of tears.
Not one of His glorious promises has been fulfilled. He promised peace, but the world is still full of war. He promised health, but the race is breaking down physically. He promised welfare, but almost every nation on earth is bankrupt. He promised sovereignty, but man is still the subject instead of the beneficiary of the laws of nature. The world stands shell-shocked today, and realizes that it is on the verge of a mighty revolution. Every means that human ingenuity can devise has been tried to remedy the evils, but without avail. In the midst of this darkness, however, there has burst a mighty light. It is not a recrudescense of hope from the old way, but a new hope - aye surety, out of a new way.
All the endeavors of the past have been based upon sense-conscious foundation, and they have eventuated in man’s present condition. But a tremendous discovery has been made- the discovery of the power which the spirit of man possesses. When I found ten years ago, that I had the power in my soul to heal my broken body and the bodies of others, I knew I held in my hands the solution of the problems of the race.
That new way heals diseases; it heals insanity and evil habits; it solves in-solvable problems and washes whiter than snow the souls of men. That new way bisected my life. Hundreds of you in this audience can testify that your birthday is the day on which you saw the light of the Truth.
So in the arena of human suffering and endeavor, we bring this New Way, of which Jesus said, and we may say, "I am the way." And whether or not humanity shall receive it and go free depends upon this congress more than upon any other instrumentality on the face of the earth. If it is connected, and I believe it is, with God, we may look for the "new heaven and the new earth."