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.