THE WONDER CHILD
By Emmet Fox
Excerpt from “Power
Through Constructive Thinking”
First published 1932
Strange as it may seem to you there exists a mystic power
that is able to transform your life so thoroughly, so radically, so completely,
that when the process is completed your own friends would hardly recognize you,
and in fact, you would scarcely be able to recognize yourself. You would sit
down and ask yourself: “Can I really be the man or woman that I vaguely
remember, who went about under my name six months or six years ago? Was I
really that person? Could that person possible have been I? And the truth will be that while in one sense
you are indeed the same person, yet in another sense you will be someone
utterly different. The mystic but intensely real force can pick you up today, now, from the midst of failure, ruin,
misery, despair—and in the twinkling of an eye, as Paul said, solve your
problems, smooth out your difficulties, cut you free from any entanglements,
and place you clear, safe and happy upon the highroad of freedom and
opportunity.
It can lift you out of an invalid’s bed, make you sound and
well once more, and free to go out into the world and shape your life as you
will. It can throw open the prison door and liberate the captive. It has
magical healing balm for the bruised or broken heart.
This mystic Power can teach you all things that you need to
know, if only you are receptive and teachable. It can inspire you with new
thoughts and ideas, so that your work may be truly original. It can impart new
and wonderful kinds of knowledge as soon as you really want such
knowledge—glorious knowledge—strange things not taught in schools or written in
books. It can do for you that which is probably the most important thing of all
in your present stage: it can find your true place in life for you, and put you
into it too. It can find the right friends for you, kindred spirits who are
interested in the same ideas and want the same things that you do. It can
provide you with an ideal home. It can furnish you with the prosperity that
means freedom, freedom to be and to do and to go as your soul calls.
This extraordinary Power, mystic though I have rightly
called it, is nevertheless very real, no mere imaginary abstraction, but
actually the most practical thing there is. The existence of this Power is
already well know to thousands of people in the world today and has been known
to certain enlightened souls for tens of thousands of years. This Power is really
no less than the primal Power of Being, and to discover that Power is the
Divine birthright of all men (and women, my
insertion). It is your right and your privilege to make your contact with
this Power, and to allow it to work through your body, mind, and estate, so
that you need no longer grovel upon the ground amid limitations and
difficulties, but can soar up on wings like and eagle to the realm of dominion
and joy.
But where, it will naturally be asked, is this wonderful,
mystic Power to be contacted? Where may we find it? and how is it brought into
action? The answer is perfectly simple—This Power is to be found within your
own consciousness, the last place that most people would look for it. Right
within your own mentality there lies a source of energy stronger than
electricity, more potent than high explosive; unlimited and inexhaustible. You
only need to make conscious contact with this Power to set it working in your
affairs; and all the marvelous results enumerated can be yours. This is the
real meaning of such sayings in the Bible as “The Kingdom of God is within
you”; and “Seek ye first the Kingdom
of God and all the rest
shall be added.”
This indwelling Power, the Inner Light, or Spiritual Idea,
is spoken of in the Bible as a child, and throughout the Scriptures the child
symbolically always stands for this. Bible symbolism has its own beautiful
logic, and just as the soul is always spoken of as a woman, so this, the
Spiritual Idea that is born to the soul, is described as a child. The conscious
discovery by you that you have this Power within you, and your determination to
make use of it, is the birth of the child. And it is easy to see how very apt
the symbol is, for the infant that is born in consciousness is just such a weak
and feeble entity as any new-born child, and it calls for the same careful
nursing and guarding that any infant does in its earliest days. After a time,
however, as the weeks go by, the child grows stronger and bigger, until a time
comes when it can well take care of itself; and then it grows and grows in
wisdom and stature until, no longer leaning on its mother’s care, the child,
now arrived at man’s estate, turns the tables, and repays its debt by taking
care of its mother. So your ability to contact the mystic Power within
yourself, frail and feeble at first, will gradually develop until you find
yourself permitting the Power to take your whole life into its care.
The life story of Jesus, the central figure of the Bible,
perfectly dramatizes this truth. He is described as being born of a virgin, and
in a poor stable, and we know how he grew up to be the Savior of the world.
Now, in Bible symbolism, the virgin soul means the soul that looks to God
alone, and it is this condition of soul in which the child, or Spiritual Idea,
comes to birth. It is when we have reached that stage, the stage where, either
through wisdom or because of suffering, we are prepared to put God really
first, that the thing happens.
The Christ Child was born in a stable, though all the world
had anticipated that when He arrived it would be in a palace; and we deeply
appreciate the significance of this point as soon as the Holy Child comes to
birth in our own soul, for with the natural consciousness of our own
unworthiness we feel only too keenly that once more He is being born in a
stable. Here we have the inspired intimation that this fact will not prevent
His growing up to be the savior of our own individual world.
The Bible directly and indirectly has a good deal to say on
the subject of birth and growth of the child, and what it can mean for us. One
of the most significant pronouncements on this subject is given in the Book of
Isaiah, Chapter 9, verses 2, 6, and 7, and it will amply repay us to consider
that statement in some detail.
Isaiah says: “The people that walked in darkness have seen a
great light: they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath
the light shined.” This is a marvelous description of what happens when the
Spiritual Idea, the child, is born to the soul. Walking in darkness, moral or
physical, dwelling in the land of the shadow of death—the death of joy, or hope
or even self-respect—describes well the condition of many people before this
light shines into their weary, heartbroken lives; and the Prophet rises into a
paean of exultant joy as he contemplates the deliverance wrought by the mystic
Power; “For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government
shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor,
The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.”
This description begins by giving the gist of the whole
matter, simply and concisely—that the government is to be upon his shoulder. This really covers the
whole business. Correctly understood, this statement tells the entire story
without need of any further comment. It means that once you have contacted the
mystic Power within, and have allowed it to take over your responsibilities for
you, it will direct and govern all your affairs from the greatest to the least
without effort, and without mistakes, and without trouble to you. The government shall be upon his shoulder. You
are tired, and driven, and worried, and weak, and ill, and depressed, because
you have been trying to carry the government upon your own shoulder; the burden
is too much for you, and you have broken down under it. Now, immediately you hand
over your self-government, that is, the burden of making a living, or of
healing your body, or erasing your mistakes, to the Child. He, the Tireless
One, the All-Powerful, the All-Wise, the All-Resourceful, assumes it with joy;
and your difficulties have see the beginning of the end.
The Prophet next goes on to speak of the “Name” of the
child, and if we know something of Bible symbolism, we know that we are going
to learn something fundamental, for in the Bible, the name of anything, means the character or nature of that thing, and
so we realize that a name is not merely an arbitrary label, but actually a
hieroglyph of the soul. We are given no less than five names or qualities of
the child. Let us examine them and see what they tell us. First of all, Isaiah
says that the name of the child is Wonderful, and this in fact is the first and
the outstanding quality; this child is a Wonder Child. The word “wonderful”
here requires to be carefully scrutinized. As employed in the Bible, it implies
simply and plainly a miracle—a miracle, just that, and nothing less, because
you have to realize that the Bible teaches the miracle from the first page to
the last. The Bible repeatedly says that miracles can happen, and that they do
happen; and it gives detailed and circumstantial accounts of many specific
cases. And it says, many times, that miracles always will happen if you believe
them to be possible, and are willing to recognize the Power of God, and to call
upon it.
There have been many efforts during the last two generations
to divorce the Bible teaching from the belief in miracles. Attempts have been
made to show that in some unexplained way the Bible can be true and useful, and
yet mistaken in its teaching of the miracle, in other words, that it can in
some mysterious manner be an edifying conglomeration of truth and lies. Indeed,
one famous Bible critic said blandly: “Miracles do not happen”—thus dismissing
the whole matter with a wave of his hand. The obvious rejoinder to this is that
if it were true that miracles do not happen, the Bible would be a mere
meaningless jumble of pointless fables. But they do happen and even as Galileo
terminated the other controversy by saying, “nevertheless it revolves,” so when
all controversy finishes, we may say of miracles, “nevertheless, they happen.”
Well now, just recollect the first quality that Isaiah gives
for the child. It is a wonder child;
that is to say, it is a miraculous child; it is a worker of miracles. This
means that as soon as the Wonder Child is born in your consciousness, the
miracle will come into your life—a real miracle, remember. This does not mean
simply that you will become resigned to your present circumstances, or merely
that you will then be enabled to meet the same difficulties with a higher
courage or a clearer brain. It means the miracle.
It means that the Wonder Child, not
in any figurative or metaphorical sense, but plainly and literally, in the most
matter of fact meaning of the term, will work miracles in your life. It will do
these things absolutely, irrespective of what your present conditions are. It
is in no way constrained or constricted by your present circumstances. The
whole point is that the Wonder Child can lift you out of those very
circumstances, and set you down in different circumstances. The Wonder Child is
the Miracle Child.
Now let us take the second point that the Prophet gives us
concerning this Wonder Child. He calls it the “Counselor,” and a counselor, you
know, is one that gives advice or guidance; and so you see that once the Child
has been born, you need never again lack either of these things. The Child will
be your infallible counselor. If you are worried because you do not know
whether or not to take some important step, to accept or reject a business
offer, to sign or not to sign and important document, to enter upon or to
dissolve a partnership, to resign your position or not, to go abroad or to stay
at home, to trust someone or not trust him, to say something or to leave it
unsaid, the Wonder Child will be your counselor, and the Wonder Child is never
mistaken.
It is in the third point that the Prophet reveals to us who
the Wonder Child really is. It is no less than God Himself. “The Mighty God,”
as Isaiah reminds us, and truly the mystic Power that transforms, and
transmutes, and transfigures, is God
Himself, always present with you, and always available, once you have
understood and accepted the Spiritual Idea. And it is because He is God, that
the work of the Child is independent of all conditions.
The fourth name that the Prophet attributes to the Child is
that of Everlasting Father. This point establishes our relationship to God in
unmistakable terms. As Jesus so clearly pointed out, God is our Father, not
merely our Creator, and we as the children of a good Father may expect to find
ourselves provided with everything that we need for our body or soul. But since
we have to establish for ourselves our own consciousness of this fact, and as
our demonstration is just the measure of our understanding of it, our concept
of the Divine fact is the fruit of our own soul, and may be mystically called
our child.
Finally, in the fifth point, we receive what is perhaps the
greatest name of all. Here the Child is called “The Prince of Peace.” Just try
to realize what this title must mean for you in practice—nothing less that that
the Wonder Child, the Spiritual Idea, born to your own soul, is the Prince of
Peace. Now think what perfect peace of soul, if you could attain it, would actually
mean to you. If your soul were truly at peace, what in your life could go
wrong? If only you had real peace of soul, do you suppose that your body could
be ill? Given real peace of soul, how easy it would be to find your true place
in the world, which would mean prosperity as well as happiness. How easily, how
quickly and efficiently you could perform your work, work such as you have
never done yet, and in less than half the usual time. Of course, everybody
knows that this is what would follow the attainment of soul peace, but there is
still much more in it than that. What you perhaps do not know is that once you
have attained true peace of soul, you have made it possible for the Mystic
Power, the Wonder Child, to teach you new things, utterly beyond the compass of
your present understanding, enabling you to do things in the world, if you
should wish to, that nobody would have deemed it possible that you could do.
Well, it is in the very nature of the Wonder Child to give you just that very
soul peace, and it is because of this function that it is called the “The
Prince of Peace.”
government shall be upon his shoulder.
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