Father Divine

International Peace Mission Movement

If You Can Get Something Good in the Heart It Will Produce and Manifest in Your Whole Physical System

Excerpt of Father Divine’s Remarks made at 1887-1889 Madison Avenue, New York City, N.Y. July 11, 1939

Remarks by Archbishop William H. Francis.

The Reaction Will Give Blessings

When you get this Love in your heart, when it is once established in reality in your heart from the depths of your soul, to you, God, the reaction of such a real conviction will give desirable blessings such as you may be seeking whensoever you concentrate in that direction. Can you not see the mystery?

Then I say, it is a privilege to know, by reiteration you produce and bring into outer expression and into conscious consideration and realization that which you are reiterating:

“I feel mighty happy when I love the Lord!”

Then you feel happy when you love everybody, for it puts a ban on discord and puts a ban on prejudice, it puts a ban on every expression that would motivate the act of violence or any destructive enactment within yourself. It cause the Christ within to express and be resurrected, that you might know definitely, Christ is Risen!

You do not know Christ is risen, only theoretically, until He has risen within you. But when He has risen within you, you can say for sure, “I know that my redeemer liveth for he liveth in my soul.”

I need not say more. I had arisen merely especially to say, we have visiting friends with us and as usual we are pleased to have any stranger or visitor, regardless to your religious affiliation, regardless to your political or social affiliation. The Spirit of my presence in these, my true and faithful, is endeavoring to be, and it is really hospitable, hence you can be entertained at all times.

Now I would like to say, we also have the special honor this morning or this afternoon, whichever, of having the Archbishop Francis with us and one of his staff in the priesthood. We appreciate their presence and always do. We hope that he will have something to say as he usually does. I am sure he will if he cares to, because he knows we are accustomed to allowing everybody to speak according to the dictates of their own conscience without criticism.

If any others would like to speak, they are welcome to speak as well as he, but I am sure we all would be pleased to hear from the Archbishop Francis this afternoon. I thank you. I thank you. I thank you.

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Excerpt of an interview Granted to Dr. Peter Love by Archbishop William Henry (Father) Francis

At the Church of Christ on the Mount, Woodstock, New York on May 27, 1975 between 1:15 and 4:00 p.m.

Comment: A brief conversation had taken place outside the parish entrance, and now seated in the Archbishop’s Study, the following conversation took place, recorded in part. The whole interview can be seen in the issue of The New Day, August 25, 1979. Pages 17-18.

Father Francis asks Dr. Peter Love, “And do you know how I got to know Father Divine? I’ve never told any individual. I happen to have known Jack Lait. Jack Lait was the managing editor of all of the Hearst publications. You know William Randolph Hearst.

Dr. P. Love: Yes.

Father Francis: I knew him too – I’m ashamed of it. I knew his wife very well.

Dr. P. Love: Yes.

Father Francis: Jack Lait, I knew him in Chicago, then I came to New York – he came to New York to be the head of the whole Hearst syndicate. He heard I had been to one of Father Divine’s Meetings and he came to see me one night. I remember the room that I was in and how he misbehaved that night – Jack Lait – and he offered me a sum in five figures if I would write an expose of the Father Divine Movement for the Hearst papers. And Father Victor was with me and Father Victor is still alive in California – we correspond – and we’d often talk about Father Divine now with us, and I said, “Vicky, let’s go and find out about Father Divine. Let’s find out.” We went to the Police Department in Harlem – I said, “Let’s be perfectly fair,” I said, “five figures is a lot of money,” (to Father Victor) I said, “we could use it for a good cause.” And the Police Department, the head of the Police Department told me – this was in 1929 or thereabouts – he said, “You know, since Father Divine Movement has gotten under way our work has been reduced by one-half.” I said, “Well, that wouldn’t sound nice in Hearst’s paper, would it?” We went to the Board of Education and a woman said, “Father Divine is a nuisance, and infernal nuisance!” Why? She said, “Because He insists on all of His children having the equal to a high school education and consequently we have had to put on extra teachers.” “Oh?” And one thing after another. That’s how it all started, through a negative thing, through the Hearst people offering to pay me this vast sum of money. I went to see lack Lait and I said, “Jack, you are playing with fire. Playing with fire!” And that’s how it started.

Comment: After telling another incident, Father Francis continued saying:

Father Francis: These are the little multiple incidents that came in the life, you see. And I often told   them publicly, I say, “Answer it if you can. Tell me, if you can, whether He is God or not. If you say HE is not, it isn’t a negative thought, you haven’t found out yet.

Dr. P. Love: Yes.

Father Francis: I said, “But is He doing God’s Work?” That’s the important thing.

Dr. P. Love: Yes.

Father Francis: And I could prove in a thousand ways that He has, you see.

Dr. P. Love: Yes.

Father Francis: That’s the thing that counts. Because I often think over the good of a wonderful Movement like that, you see, but I’m just one of the people on the outside that’s willing to…

Dr. P. Love: You are very much on the inside.

Father Francis: Well…

Dr. P. Love: You are very, very much on the inside.

(Father Francis did not finish his thought because he was interrupted and went to turn on the lights in the Church)

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A God At Hand

Father Divine’s message and radio broadcast at 20 West 115th St. New York, N.Y. (for W.H.B.I. Radio Station, Newark, N.J.) on Sunday, March 1st, 1936 at 10 – 11 p.m.

(FATHER Speaking Personally over the air:)

Peace radio audience, — ladies and gentlemen, —and Angels of the Kingdom!  We are pleased to be here once again in Person, to convey to you our daily expressions, – that which we are doing daily.  We desire others to be partakers of this great Contagion we are expressing.  It is a privilege to realize, it is not so much in words of Philosophy, neither in the words of the language of today, but the significance of all of our endeavors is to put into practice our Teaching of Religion.

A GOD At Hand

As I often Say, what need would it be to be Religious if our Religious endeavors did not cause us to do and act better.  But we are privileged to Say to-day, I have drawn the Religious fervor from the Heavenly state of expression and tangiblated it in the hearts and lives of the children of men.  We are making real and practical, all of our Religious endeavors; no longer to use it in and around ourselves as individuals, but we mean to put them so far into practice until we can universalize them and cause all mankind to realize, GOD is not a GOD afar off but GOD is a GOD at hand.

We have those of our Believers who are in New Zealand, Australia, and other far Countries, who are as devout as these here, because they realize GOD as a Living Presence, as a Principle that is Tangible or Tangiblatable, and can and will be universally tangible-ated, materialized and Personified, as we the people of this Civilization advance into the high Light of this Spiritual Civilization which I am advocating.

Body As a Living Sacrifice

It affords Me no small degree of pleasure to present My Body continuously as a Living Sacrifice for the Fundamental, to bring into action our Teaching, our Life, and our very Mind, and the Mind and the Spirit within us as a Living Factor in the hearts and lives of all humanity.

For this cause we are rejoicing!  We are rejoicing daily, to see the great unfoldment of the Spirit of My Presence.  As I transmit it to others they become to be partakers of this great Contagion.  Therefore they are changed mentally, they are changed spiritually, they are changed physically by the renewing of their minds.  You read in the Bible, in Romans Twelve, One and Two, —“I beseech ye therefore Brethren, by the Mercies of GOD, that ye present your bodies as living sacrifices.  Holy . . .which is your reasonable service, and be not conformed to this world but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind.”

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The Bodies of Men are in Reality the Temples of GOD Where HE is Hidden

A Double Determination Necessary For All Followers – says Father Divine

Father Divine’s message at the banquet table 20 west 115th St. New York on Friday, July 19, 1935 at 3:15 p.m.

Many who had studied the various Teachings of Truth for many years and found them ineffective until they discovered the materialized Fundamental, FATHER DIVINE, could bear witness with the speaker when she said she studied and practiced Christian Science faithfully for twenty-seven years, only to find that her adversities increased as time went on.
This particular testimony followed many others, praising and thanking FATHER for HIS Goodness and HIS Mercy, and at the conclusion FATHER arose Personally, singing and speaking as follows, leaving on record a mighty Message for the Ages:

Father Divine:

“You are the Temples of the Lord, You are the Temples of the Lord, says Christ, You have the Victory.”

PEACE EVERYONE! Righteousness, Justice and Truth! In these Qualities I stand, and I stand in them for you, bringing them into reality, causing them to become to be a Living Factor, and causing you to come to the conscious recognition of the actuality of that which we are expressing. It is indeed Wonderful! For this cause we can bring forth this little composition as a declaration concerning yourselves as individuals. Though you have made the affirmation, it has been confirmed ─ it is no longer an affirmation, but it is a declaration and made plain ─ you are the temples of the Lord, for GOD actually dwells in you.

By your conscious conviction and realization of GOD’S Presence, it causes you to reincarnate that identical Fundamental, the Principle that you have been so long looking for; that something that you have been praying to, thinking it so far away, but at last you realize it is here and now. Then I say, “You are the temples of the Lord.” Your bodies are the temples, as an outward expression of your spirit and your mind as the hiding place of the expression of GOD within. GOD expresses through your spirit and through your mind. Your bodies are the outward expression through which HE will hide from time to time, but at times HE will manifest HIMSELF in your Temples─as it has long since been declared, you are the reflection of GOD HIMSELF.

Thinking creates Positive or Negative Conditions

For this cause we can rejoice and we can be exceedingly glad, realizing, “As a man thinketh in his heart so is he.” If you think vividly on the Positive, you must need bring the Positive into your experience and be a partaker of it. If you think vividly on the negative, a stressful thought on the negative will cause the reaction of that thought to be a conception in your mentality, your physical bodies will reproduce and react that negative thought you have conveyed, and eventually your physical body will be the expression of it. If this is true in the negative direction of thinking, why not direct your thoughts in the positive, and produce the desirable, positive condition, and bring it forth into action?

This we can do, as scientifically as we can bring about negation and chaos among ourselves, and depressions among the people. This is accomplished by visualizing the negative. I mean the negative conditions are recreated and brought into outer expression through negative thinking and negative actions. The Positive is equally true and just as operative for you as the negative, hence I have stressed the Positive as a continued formula apparently, for your consideration, that I might establish the Positive thought in your mind, and resurrect it uppermostly in your consciousness, that you might think positively from every angle expressible, and cause the Positive condition to come forth into expression.

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Precious Gems of Wisdom Given in 1931

Message Given Sometime in 1931 A.D.F.D., Sayville, Long Island, New York

Father Divine

One of the Angels who had recently come to the Kingdom after being released from jail by FATHER testified that he came all the way out to Sayville from New York City, making two changes, and did not pay any fare as he did not have any money. He just told the conductors he was coming to FATHER. He wanted to attend a meeting in the City with us yesterday but there was not room in the cars for him to go, so FATHER told him he could go in on the train if he had the means. He testified today that he went to the station in Sayville, hoping that FATHER would open the way for him to take the train without money, and finally, I believe, asked someone for assistance, but the way did not open up. FATHER replied:

The money that I spend is always there when I need it, without soliciting, without prodding in any way. It is there and I meet the demand. That is the way MY Spirit will do, and if I have not the means that I cannot prove MY independency and MY GOD by showing independence in a time of commercialism as exists in this Country at this particular time, I AM not showing the Light of MY Life and MY Power. That is why I pay cash for everything and don’t ask anybody for anything. That is the only way of proving yourselves, or yourself, as the real child of GOD, not doing anything infringing on the rights of others, and by proving the Lordship of your authority in Righteousness and Truth, in Kindness and in rendering unto Caesar the thing that belongs unto Caesar and unto the LORD the thing that belongs unto the Lord. From henceforth MY Spirit will, in all means and all ways or phases of life, express MY mind in deeds and in actions. If it is for me to go anyplace I will have the money to go, or ways and means to go independently without any infringement of the rights or liberty of MYSELF or of others, without even the appearance of it. If I would have meant for you to go, I would have said, “You can go.” Now if you had no money to go, why then that was for you not to go, as I said, “If you have ways and means to go independently.” Then you could have reflected ME without condemnation in the act of your duty towards your appreciation of ME and MY Activities.

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