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Science and
Health
with Key to the Scriptures
by Mary Baker Eddy
Chapter 8
— Footsteps of
Truth
Remember, Lord, the
reproach of Thy servants; how I
do bear in my bosom the reproach
of all the mighty people;
wherewith Thine enemies have
reproached, O Lord; wherewith
they have reproached the
footsteps of Thine anointed.
— PSALMS.
The best sermon ever preached
is Truth practised and
demonstrated by the destruction
of sin, sickness, and death.
Knowing this and knowing too that
one affection would be supreme in
us and take the lead in our
lives, Jesus said, "No man can
serve two masters."
We cannot build safely on
false foundations. Truth makes a
new creature, in whom old things
pass away and "all things are
become new." Passions,
selfishness, false appetites,
hatred, fear, all sensuality,
yield to spirituality, and the
superabundance of being is on the
side of God, good.
We cannot fill vessels already
full. They must first be emptied.
Let us disrobe error. Then, when
the winds of God blow, we shall
not hug our tatters close about
us.
The way to extract error from
mortal mind is to pour in truth
through flood-tides of Love.
Christian perfection is won on no
other basis.
Grafting holiness upon
unholiness, supposing that sin
can be forgiven when it is not
forsaken, is as foolish as
straining out gnats and
swallowing camels.
The scientific unity which
exists between God and man must
be wrought out in life-practice,
and God's will must be
universally done.
If men would bring to bear
upon the study of the Science of
Mind half the faith they bestow
upon the so-called pains and
pleasures of material sense, they
would not go on from bad to
worse, until disciplined by the
prison and the scaffold; but the
whole human family would be
redeemed through the merits of
Christ, — through the
perception and acceptance of
Truth. For this glorious result
Christian Science lights the
torch of spiritual
understanding.
Outside of this Science all is
mutable; but immortal man, in
accord with the divine Principle
of his being, God, neither sins,
suffers, nor dies. The days of
our pilgrimage will multiply
instead of diminish, when God's
kingdom comes on earth; for the
true way leads to Life instead of
to death, and earthly experience
discloses the finity of error and
the infinite capacities of Truth,
in which God gives man dominion
over all the earth.
Our beliefs about a Supreme
Being contradict the practice
growing out of them. Error
abounds where Truth should "much
more abound." We admit that God
has almighty power, is "a very
present help in trouble;" and yet
we rely on a drug or hypnotism to
heal disease, as if senseless
matter or erring mortal mind had
more power than omnipotent
Spirit.
Common opinion admits that a
man may take cold in the act of
doing good, and that this cold
may produce fatal pulmonary
disease; as though evil could
overbear the law of Love, and
check the reward for doing good.
In the Science of Christianity,
Mind — omnipotence —
has all-power, assigns sure
rewards to righteousness, and
shows that matter can neither
heal nor make sick, create nor
destroy.
If God were understood instead
of being merely believed, this
understanding would establish
health. The accusation of the
rabbis, "He made himself the Son
of God," was really the
justification of Jesus, for to
the Christian the only true
spirit is Godlike. This thought
incites to a more exalted worship
and self-abnegation. Spiritual
perception brings out the
possibilities of being, destroys
reliance on aught but God, and so
makes man the image of his Maker
in deed and in truth.
We are prone to believe either
in more than one Supreme Ruler or
in some power less than God. We
imagine that Mind can be
imprisoned in a sensuous body.
When the material body has gone
to ruin, when evil has overtaxed
the belief of life in matter and
destroyed it, then mortals
believe that the deathless
Principle, or Soul, escapes from
matter and lives on; but this is
not true. Death is not a
stepping-stone to Life,
immortality, and bliss. The
so-called sinner is a suicide.
Sin kills the sinner and will
continue to kill him so long as
he sins. The foam and fury of
illegitimate living and of
fearful and doleful dying should
disappear on the shore of time;
then the waves of sin, sorrow,
and death beat in vain.
God, divine good, does not
kill a man in order to give him
eternal Life, for God alone is
man's life. God is at once the
centre and circumference of
being. It is evil that dies; good
dies not.
All forms of error support the
false conclusions that there is
more than one Life; that material
history is as real and living as
spiritual history; that mortal
error is as conclusively mental
as immortal Truth; and that there
are two separate, antagonistic
entities and beings, two powers,
— namely, Spirit and matter,
— resulting in a third
person (mortal man) who carries
out the delusions of sin,
sickness, and death.
The first power is admitted to
be good, an intelligence or Mind
called God. The so-called second
power, evil, is the unlikeness of
good. It cannot therefore be
mind, though so called. The third
power, mortal man, is a supposed
mixture of the first and second
antagonistic powers, intelligence
and non-intelligence, of Spirit
and matter.
Such theories are evidently
erroneous. They can never stand
the test of Science. Judging them
by their fruits, they are
corrupt. When will the ages
understand the Ego, and realize
only one God, one Mind or
intelligence?
False and self-assertive
theories have given sinners the
notion that they can create what
God cannot, — namely, sinful
mortals in God's image, thus
usurping the name without the
nature of the image or reflection
of divine Mind; but in Science it
can never be said that man has a
mind of his own, distinct from
God, the all Mind.
The belief that God lives in
matter is pantheistic. The error,
which says that Soul is in body,
Mind is in matter, and good is in
evil, must unsay it and cease
from such utterances; else God
will continue to be hidden from
humanity, and mortals will sin
without knowing that they are
sinning, will lean on matter
instead of Spirit, stumble with
lameness, drop with drunkenness,
consume with disease, — all
because of their blindness, their
false sense concerning God and
man.
When will the error of
believing that there is life in
matter, and that sin, sickness,
and death are creations of God,
be unmasked? When will it be
understood that matter has
neither intelligence, life, nor
sensation, and that the opposite
belief is the prolific source of
all suffering? God created all
through Mind, and made all
perfect and eternal. Where then
is the necessity for recreation
or procreation?
Befogged in error (the error
of believing that matter can be
intelligent for good or evil), we
can catch clear glimpses of God
only as the mists disperse, or as
they melt into such thinness that
we perceive the divine image in
some word or deed which indicates
the true idea, — the
supremacy and reality of good,
the nothingness and unreality of
evil.
When we realize that there is
one Mind, the divine law of
loving our neighbor as ourselves
is unfolded; whereas a belief in
many ruling minds hinders man's
normal drift towards the one
Mind, one God, and leads human
thought into opposite channels
where selfishness reigns.
Selfishness tips the beam of
human existence towards the side
of error, not towards Truth.
Denial of the oneness of Mind
throws our weight into the scale,
not of Spirit, God, good, but of
matter.
When we fully understand our
relation to the Divine, we can
have no other Mind but His,
— no other Love, wisdom, or
Truth, no other sense of Life,
and no consciousness of the
existence of matter or error.
The power of the human will
should be exercised only in
subordination to Truth; else it
will misguide the judgment and
free the lower propensities. It
is the province of spiritual
sense to govern man. Material,
erring, human thought acts
injuriously both upon the body
and through it.
Will-power is capable of all
evil. It can never heal the sick,
for it is the prayer of the
unrighteous; while the exercise
of the sentiments — hope,
faith, love — is the prayer
of the righteous. This prayer,
governed by Science instead of
the senses, heals the sick.
In the scientific relation of
God to man, we find that whatever
blesses one blesses all, as Jesus
showed with the loaves and the
fishes, — Spirit, not
matter, being the source of
supply.
Does God send sickness, giving
the mother her child for the
brief space of a few years and
then taking it away by death? Is
God creating anew what He has
already created? The Scriptures
are definite on this point,
declaring that His work was
finished, nothing is new
to God, and that it was
good.
Can there be any birth or
death for man, the spiritual
image and likeness of God?
Instead of God sending sickness
and death, He destroys them, and
brings to light immortality.
Omnipotent and infinite Mind made
all and includes all. This Mind
does not make mistakes and
subsequently correct them. God
does not cause man to sin, to be
sick, or to die.
There are evil beliefs, often
called evil spirits; but these
evils are not Spirit, for there
is no evil in Spirit. Because God
is Spirit, evil becomes more
apparent and obnoxious
proportionately as we advance
spiritually, until it disappears
from our lives. This fact proves
our position, for every
scientific statement in
Christianity has its proof. Error
of statement leads to error in
action.
God is not the creator of an
evil mind. Indeed, evil is not
Mind. We must learn that evil is
the awful deception and unreality
of existence. Evil is not
supreme; good is not helpless;
nor are the so-called laws of
matter primary, and the law of
Spirit secondary. Without this
lesson, we lose sight of the
perfect Father, or the divine
Principle of man.
Body is not first and Soul
last, nor is evil mightier than
good. The Science of being
repudiates self-evident
impossibilities, such as the
amalgamation of Truth and error
in cause or effect. Science
separates the tares and wheat in
time of harvest.
There is but one primal cause.
Therefore there can be no effect
from any other cause, and there
can be no reality in aught which
does not proceed from this great
and only cause. Sin, sickness,
disease, and death belong not to
the Science of being. They are
the errors, which presuppose the
absence of Truth, Life, or
Love.
The spiritual reality is the
scientific fact in all things.
The spiritual fact, repeated in
the action of man and the whole
universe, is harmonious and is
the ideal of Truth. Spiritual
facts are not inverted; the
opposite discord, which bears no
resemblance to spirituality, is
not real. The only evidence of
this inversion is obtained from
suppositional error, which
affords no proof of God, Spirit,
or of the spiritual creation.
Material sense defines all things
materially, and has a finite
sense of the infinite.
The Scriptures say, "In Him we
live, and move, and have our
being." What then is this seeming
power, independent of God, which
causes disease and cures it? What
is it but an error of belief,
— a law of mortal mind,
wrong in every sense, embracing
sin, sickness, and death? It is
the very antipode of immortal
Mind, of Truth, and of spiritual
law. It is not in accordance with
the goodness of God's character
that He should make man sick,
then leave man to heal himself;
it is absurd to suppose that
matter can both cause and cure
disease, or that Spirit, God,
produces disease and leaves the
remedy to matter.
John Young of Edinburgh
writes: "God is the father of
mind, and of nothing else." Such
an utterance is "the voice of one
crying in the wilderness" of
human beliefs and preparing the
way of Science. Let us learn of
the real and eternal, and prepare
for the reign of Spirit, the
kingdom of heaven, — the
reign and rule of universal
harmony, which cannot be lost nor
remain forever unseen.
Mind, not matter, is
causation. A material body only
expresses a material and mortal
mind. A mortal man possesses this
body, and he makes it harmonious
or discordant according to the
images of thought impressed upon
it. You embrace your body in your
thought, and you should delineate
upon it thoughts of health, not
of sickness. You should banish
all thoughts of disease and sin
and of other beliefs included in
matter. Man, being immortal, has
a perfect indestructible life. It
is the mortal belief which makes
the body discordant and diseased
in proportion as ignorance,
fear, or human will
governs mortals.
Mind, supreme over all its
formations and governing them
all, is the central sun of its
own systems of ideas, the life
and light of all its own vast
creation; and man is tributary to
divine Mind. The material and
mortal body or mind is not the
man.
The world would collapse
without Mind, without the
intelligence which holds the
winds in its grasp. Neither
philosophy nor skepticism can
hinder the march of the Science
which reveals the supremacy of
Mind. The immanent sense of
Mind-power enhances the glory of
Mind. Nearness, not distance,
lends enchantment to this
view.
The compounded minerals or
aggregated substances composing
the earth, the relations which
constituent masses hold to each
other, the magnitudes, distances,
and revolutions of the celestial
bodies, are of no real
importance, when we remember that
they all must give place to the
spiritual fact by the translation
of man and the universe back into
Spirit. In proportion as this is
done, man and the universe will
be found harmonious and
eternal.
Material substances or mundane
formations, astronomical
calculations, and all the
paraphernalia of speculative
theories, based on the hypothesis
of material law or life and
intelligence resident in matter,
will ultimately vanish, swallowed
up in the infinite calculus of
Spirit.
Spiritual sense is a
conscious, constant capacity to
understand God. It shows the
superiority of faith by works
over faith in words. Its ideas
are expressed only in "new
tongues;" and these are
interpreted by the translation of
the spiritual original into the
language which human thought can
comprehend.
The Principle and proof of
Christianity are discerned by
spiritual sense. They are set
forth in Jesus' demonstrations,
which show — by his healing
the sick, casting out evils, and
destroying death, "the last enemy
that shall be destroyed," —
his disregard of matter and its
so-called laws.
Knowing that Soul and its
attributes were forever
manifested through man, the
Master healed the sick, gave
sight to the blind, hearing to
the deaf, feet to the lame, thus
bringing to light the scientific
action of the divine Mind on
human minds and bodies and giving
a better understanding of Soul
and salvation. Jesus healed
sickness and sin by one and the
same metaphysical process.
The expression mortal
mind is really a solecism,
for Mind is immortal, and Truth
pierces the error of mortality as
a sunbeam penetrates the cloud.
Because, in obedience to the
immutable law of Spirit, this
so-called mind is
self-destructive, I name it
mortal. Error soweth the wind and
reapeth the whirlwind.
What is termed matter, being
unintelligent, cannot say, "I
suffer, I die, I am sick, or I am
well." It is the so-called mortal
mind which voices this and
appears to itself to make good
its claim. To mortal sense, sin
and suffering are real, but
immortal sense includes no evil
nor pestilence. Because immortal
sense has no error of sense, it
has no sense of error; therefore
it is without a destructive
element.
If brain, nerves, stomach, are
intelligent, — if they talk
to us, tell us their condition,
and report how they feel, —
then Spirit and matter, Truth and
error, commingle and produce
sickness and health, good and
evil, life and death; and who
shall say whether Truth or error
is the greater?
The sensations of the body
must either be the sensations of
a so-called mortal mind or of
matter. Nerves are not mind. Is
it not provable that Mind is not
mortal and that matter has
no sensation? Is it not equally
true that matter does not appear
in the spiritual understanding of
being?
The sensation of sickness and
the impulse to sin seem to obtain
in mortal mind. When a tear
starts, does not this so-called
mind produce the effect seen in
the lachrymal gland? Without
mortal mind, the tear could not
appear; and this action shows the
nature of all so-called material
cause and effect.
It should no longer be said in
Israel that "the fathers have
eaten sour grapes, and the
children's teeth are set on
edge." Sympathy with error should
disappear. The transfer of the
thoughts of one erring mind to
another, Science renders
impossible.
If it is true that nerves have
sensation, that matter has
intelligence, that the material
organism causes the eyes to see
and the ears to hear, then, when
the body is dematerialized, these
faculties must be lost, for their
immortality is not in Spirit;
whereas the fact is that only
through dematerialization and
spiritualization of thought can
these faculties be conceived of
as immortal.
Nerves are not the source of
pain or pleasure. We suffer or
enjoy in our dreams, but this
pain or pleasure is not
communicated through a nerve. A
tooth which has been extracted
sometimes aches again in belief,
and the pain seems to be in its
old place. A limb which has been
amputated has continued in belief
to pain the owner. If the
sensation of pain in the limb can
return, can be prolonged, why
cannot the limb reappear?
Why need pain, rather than
pleasure, come to this mortal
sense? Because the memory of pain
is more vivid than the memory of
pleasure. I have seen an
unwitting attempt to scratch the
end of a finger which had been
cut off for months. When the
nerve is gone, which we say was
the occasion of pain, and the
pain still remains, it proves
sensation to be in the mortal
mind, not in matter. Reverse the
process; take away this so-called
mind instead of a piece of the
flesh, and the nerves have no
sensation.
Mortals have a modus of their
own, undirected and unsustained
by God. They produce a rose
through seed and soil, and bring
the rose into contact with the
olfactory nerves that they may
smell it. In legerdemain and
credulous frenzy, mortals believe
that unseen spirits produce the
flowers. God alone makes and
clothes the lilies of the field,
and this He does by means of
Mind, not matter.
Because all the methods of
Mind are not understood, we say
the lips or hands must move in
order to convey thought, that the
undulations of the air convey
sound, and possibly that other
methods involve so-called
miracles. The realities of being,
its normal action, and the origin
of all things are unseen to
mortal sense; whereas the unreal
and imitative movements of mortal
belief, which would reverse the
immortal modus and action, are
styled the real. Whoever
contradicts this mortal mind
supposition of reality is called
a deceiver, or is said to be
deceived. Of a man it has been
said, "As he thinketh in his
heart, so is he;" hence as a man
spiritually understandeth,
so is he in truth.
Mortal mind conceives of
something as either liquid or
solid, and then classifies it
materially. Immortal and
spiritual facts exist apart from
this mortal and material
conception. God, good, is
self-existent and self-expressed,
though indefinable as a whole.
Every step towards goodness is a
departure from materiality, and
is a tendency towards God,
Spirit. Material theories
partially paralyze this
attraction towards infinite and
eternal good by an opposite
attraction towards the finite,
temporary, and discordant.
Sound is a mental impression
made on mortal belief. The ear
does not really hear. Divine
Science reveals sound as
communicated through the senses
of Soul — through spiritual
understanding.
Mozart experienced more than
he expressed. The rapture of his
grandest symphonies was never
heard. He was a musician beyond
what the world knew. This was
even more strikingly true of
Beethoven, who was so long
hopelessly deaf. Mental melodies
and strains of sweetest music
supersede conscious sound. Music
is the rhythm of head and heart.
Mortal mind is the harp of many
strings, discoursing either
discord or harmony according as
the hand, which sweeps over it,
is human or divine.
Before human knowledge dipped
to its depths into a false sense
of things, — into belief in
material origins which discard
the one Mind and true source of
being, — it is possible that
the impressions from Truth were
as distinct as sound, and that
they came as sound to the
primitive prophets. If the medium
of hearing is wholly spiritual,
it is normal and
indestructible.
If Enoch's perception had been
confined to the evidence before
his material senses, he could
never have "walked with God," nor
been guided into the
demonstration of life
eternal.
Adam, represented in the
Scriptures as formed from dust,
is an object-lesson for the human
mind. The material senses, like
Adam, originate in matter and
return to dust, — are proved
non-intelligent. They go out as
they came in, for they are still
the error, not the truth of
being. When it is learned that
the spiritual sense, and not the
material, conveys the impressions
of Mind to man, then being will
be understood and found to be
harmonious.
We bow down to matter, and
entertain finite thoughts of God
like the pagan idolater. Mortals
are inclined to fear and to obey
what they consider a material
body more than they do a
spiritual God. All material
knowledge, like the original
"tree of knowledge," multiplies
their pains, for mortal illusions
would rob God, slay man, and
meanwhile would spread their
table with cannibal tidbits and
give thanks.
How transient a sense is
mortal sight, when a wound on the
retina may end the power of light
and lens! But the real sight or
sense is not lost. Neither age
nor accident can interfere with
the senses of Soul, and there are
no other real senses. It is
evident that the body as matter
has no sensation of its own, and
there is no oblivion for Soul and
its faculties. Spirit's senses
are without pain, and they are
forever at peace. Nothing can
hide from them the harmony of all
things and the might and
permanence of Truth.
If Spirit, Soul, could sin or
be lost, then being and
immortality would be lost,
together with all the faculties
of Mind; but being cannot be lost
while God exists. Soul and matter
are at variance from the very
necessity of their opposite
natures. Mortals are unacquainted
with the reality of existence,
because matter and mortality do
not reflect the facts of
Spirit.
Spiritual vision is not
subordinate to geometric
altitudes. Whatever is governed
by God, is never for an instant
deprived of the light and might
of intelligence and Life.
We are sometimes led to
believe that darkness is as real
as light; but Science affirms
darkness to be only a mortal
sense of the absence of light, at
the coming of which darkness
loses the appearance of reality.
So sin and sorrow, disease and
death, are the suppositional
absence of Life, God, and flee as
phantoms of error before truth
and love.
With its divine proof, Science
reverses the evidence of material
sense. Every quality and
condition of mortality is lost,
swallowed up in immortality.
Mortal man is the antipode of
immortal man in origin, in
existence, and in his relation to
God.
Because he understood the
superiority and immortality of
good, Socrates feared not the
hemlock poison. Even the faith of
his philosophy spurned physical
timidity. Having sought man's
spiritual state, he recognized
the immortality of man. The
ignorance and malice of the age
would have killed the venerable
philosopher because of his faith
in Soul and his indifference to
the body.
Who shall say that man is
alive to-day, but may be dead
to-morrow? What has touched Life,
God, to such strange issues? Here
theories cease, and Science
unveils the mystery and solves
the problem of man. Error bites
the heel of truth, but cannot
kill truth. Truth bruises the
head of error — destroys
error. Spirituality lays open
siege to materialism. On which
side are we fighting?
The understanding that the Ego
is Mind, and that there is but
one Mind or intelligence, begins
at once to destroy the errors of
mortal sense and to supply the
truth of immortal sense. This
understanding makes the body
harmonious; it makes the nerves,
bones, brain, etc., servants,
instead of masters. If man is
governed by the law of divine
Mind, his body is in submission
to everlasting Life and Truth and
Love. The great mistake of
mortals is to suppose that man,
God's image and likeness, is both
matter and Spirit, both good and
evil.
If the decision were left to
the corporeal senses, evil would
appear to be the master of good,
and sickness to be the rule of
existence, while health would
seem the exception, death the
inevitable, and life a paradox.
Paul asked: "What concord hath
Christ with Belial?" (2
Corinthians vi. 15.)
When you say, "Man's body is
material," I say with Paul: Be
"willing rather to be absent from
the body, and to be present with
the Lord." Give up your material
belief of mind in matter, and
have but one Mind, even God; for
this Mind forms its own likeness.
The loss of man's identity
through the understanding which
Science confers is impossible;
and the notion of such a
possibility is more absurd than
to conclude that individual
musical tones are lost in the
origin of harmony.
Medical schools may inform us
that the healing work of
Christian Science and Paul's
peculiar Christian conversion and
experience, — which prove
Mind to be scientifically
distinct from matter, — are
indications of unnatural mental
and bodily conditions, even of
catalepsy and hysteria; yet if we
turn to the Scriptures, what do
we read? Why, this: "If a man
keep my saying, he shall never
see death!" and "Henceforth know
we no man after the flesh!"
That scientific methods are
superior to others, is seen by
their effects. When you have once
conquered a diseased condition of
the body through Mind, that
condition never recurs, and you
have won a point in Science. When
mentality gives rest to the body,
the next toil will fatigue you
less, for you are working out the
problem of being in divine
metaphysics; and in proportion as
you understand the control which
Mind has over so-called matter,
you will be able to demonstrate
this control. The scientific and
permanent remedy for fatigue is
to learn the power of Mind over
the body or any illusion of
physical weariness, and so
destroy this illusion, for matter
cannot be weary and
heavy-laden.
You say, "Toil fatigues me."
But what is this me? Is it
muscle or mind? Which is tired
and so speaks? Without mind,
could the muscles be tired? Do
the muscles talk, or do you talk
for them? Matter is
nonintelligent. Mortal mind does
the false talking, and that which
affirms weariness, made that
weariness.
You do not say a wheel is
fatigued; and yet the body is as
material as the wheel. If it were
not for what the human mind says
of the body, the body, like the
inanimate wheel, would never be
weary. The consciousness of Truth
rests us more than hours of
repose in unconsciousness.
The body is supposed to say,
"I am ill." The reports of
sickness may form a coalition
with the reports of sin, and say,
"I am malice, lust, appetite,
envy, hate." What renders both
sin and sickness difficult of
cure is, that the human mind is
the sinner, disinclined to
self-correction, and believing
that the body can be sick
independently of mortal mind and
that the divine Mind has no
jurisdiction over the body.
Why pray for the recovery of
the sick, if you are without
faith in God's willingness and
ability to heal them? If you do
believe in God, why do you
substitute drugs for the
Almighty's power, and employ
means which lead only into
material ways of obtaining help,
instead of turning in time of
need to God, divine Love, who is
an ever-present help?
Treat a belief in sickness as
you would sin, with sudden
dismissal. Resist the temptation
to believe in matter as
intelligent, as having sensation
or power.
The Scriptures say, "They that
wait upon the Lord . . . shall
run, and not be weary; and they
shall walk, and not faint." The
meaning of that passage is not
perverted by applying it
literally to moments of fatigue,
for the moral and physical are as
one in their results. When we
wake to the truth of being, all
disease, pain, weakness,
weariness, sorrow, sin, death,
will be unknown, and the mortal
dream will forever cease. My
method of treating fatigue
applies to all bodily ailments,
since Mind should be, and is,
supreme, absolute, and final.
In mathematics, we do not
multiply when we should subtract,
and then say the product is
correct. No more can we say in
Science that muscles give
strength, that nerves give pain
or pleasure, or that matter
governs, and then expect that the
result will be harmony. Not
muscles, nerves, nor bones, but
mortal mind makes the whole body
"sick, and the whole heart
faint;" whereas divine Mind
heals.
When this is understood, we
shall never affirm concerning the
body what we do not wish to have
manifested. We shall not call the
body weak, if we would have it
strong; for the belief in
feebleness must obtain in the
human mind before it can be made
manifest on the body, and the
destruction of the belief will be
the removal of its effects.
Science includes no rule of
discord, but governs
harmoniously. "The wish," says
the poet, "is ever father to the
thought."
We may hear a sweet melody,
and yet misunderstand the science
that governs it. Those who are
healed through metaphysical
Science, not comprehending the
Principle of the cure, may
misunderstand it, and impute
their recovery to change of air
or diet, not rendering to God the
honor due to Him alone. Entire
immunity from the belief in sin,
suffering, and death may not be
reached at this period, but we
may look for an abatement of
these evils; and this scientific
beginning is in the right
direction.
We hear it said: "I exercise
daily in the open air. I take
cold baths, in order to overcome
a predisposition to take cold;
and yet I have continual colds,
catarrh, and cough." Such
admissions ought to open people's
eyes to the inefficacy of
material hygiene, and induce
sufferers to look in other
directions for cause and
cure.
Instinct is better than
misguided reason, as even nature
declares. The violet lifts her
blue eye to greet the early
spring. The leaves clap their
hands as nature's untired
worshippers. The snowbird sings
and soars amid the blasts; he has
no catarrh from wet feet, and
procures a summer residence with
more ease than a nabob. The
atmosphere of the earth, kinder
than the atmosphere of mortal
mind, leaves catarrh to the
latter. Colds, coughs, and
contagion are engendered solely
by human theories.
Mortal mind produces its own
phenomena, and then charges them
to something else, — like a
kitten glancing into the mirror
at itself and thinking it sees
another kitten.
A clergyman once adopted a
diet of bread and water to
increase his spirituality.
Finding his health failing, he
gave up his abstinence, and
advised others never to try
dietetics for growth in
grace.
The belief that either fasting
or feasting makes men better
morally or physically is one of
the fruits of "the tree of the
knowledge of good and evil,"
concerning which God said, "Thou
shalt not eat of it." Mortal mind
forms all conditions of the
mortal body, and controls the
stomach, bones, lungs, heart,
blood, etc., as directly as the
volition or will moves the
hand.
I knew a person who when quite
a child adopted the Graham system
to cure dyspepsia. For many
years, he ate only bread and
vegetables, and drank nothing but
water. His dyspepsia increasing,
he decided that his diet should
be more rigid, and thereafter he
partook of but one meal in
twenty-four hours, this meal
consisting of only a thin slice
of bread without water. His
physician also recommended that
he should not wet his parched
throat until three hours after
eating. He passed many weary
years in hunger and weakness,
almost in starvation, and finally
made up his mind to die, having
exhausted the skill of the
doctors, who kindly informed him
that death was indeed his only
alternative. At this point
Christian Science saved him, and
he is now in perfect health
without a vestige of the old
complaint.
He learned that suffering and
disease were the self-imposed
beliefs of mortals, and not the
facts of being; that God never
decreed disease, — never
ordained a law that fasting
should be a means of health.
Hence semi-starvation is not
acceptable to wisdom, and it is
equally far from Science, in
which being is sustained by God,
Mind. These truths, opening his
eyes, relieved his stomach, and
he ate without suffering, "giving
God thanks;" but he never enjoyed
his food as he had imagined he
would when, still the slave of
matter, he thought of the
flesh-pots of Egypt, feeling
childhood's hunger and
undisciplined by self-denial and
divine Science.
This new-born understanding,
that neither food nor the
stomach, without the consent of
mortal mind, can make one suffer,
brings with it another lesson,
— that gluttony is a sensual
illusion, and that this phantasm
of mortal mind disappears as we
better apprehend our spiritual
existence and ascend the ladder
of life.
This person learned that food
affects the body only as mortal
mind has its material methods of
working, one of which is to
believe that proper food supplies
nutriment and strength to the
human system. He learned also
that mortal mind makes a mortal
body, whereas Truth regenerates
this fleshly mind and feeds
thought with the bread of
Life.
Food had less power to help or
to hurt him after he had availed
himself of the fact that Mind
governs man, and he also had less
faith in the so-called pleasures
and pains of matter. Taking less
thought about what he should eat
or drink, consulting the stomach
less about the economy of living
and God more, he recovered
strength and flesh rapidly. For
many years he had been kept
alive, as was believed, only by
the strictest adherence to
hygiene and drugs, and yet he
continued ill all the while. Now
he dropped drugs and material
hygiene, and was well.
He learned that a dyspeptic
was very far from being the image
and likeness of God, — far
from having "dominion over the
fish of the sea, and over the
fowl of the air, and over the
cattle," if eating a bit of
animal flesh could overpower him.
He finally concluded that God
never made a dyspeptic, while
fear, hygiene, physiology, and
physics had made him one,
contrary to His commands.
In seeking a cure for
dyspepsia consult matter not at
all, and eat what is set before
you, "asking no question for
conscience sake." We must destroy
the false belief that life and
intelligence are in matter, and
plant ourselves upon what is pure
and perfect. Paul said, "Walk in
the Spirit, and ye shall not
fulfil the lust of the flesh."
Sooner or later we shall learn
that the fetters of man's finite
capacity are forged by the
illusion that he lives in body
instead of in Soul, in matter
instead of in Spirit.
Matter does not express
Spirit. God is infinite
omnipresent Spirit. If Spirit is
all and is everywhere,
what and where is matter?
Remember that truth is greater
than error, and we cannot put the
greater into the less. Soul is
Spirit, and Spirit is greater
than body. If Spirit were once
within the body, Spirit would be
finite, and therefore could not
be Spirit.
The question, "What is Truth,"
convulses the world. Many are
ready to meet this inquiry with
the assurance which comes of
understanding; but more are
blinded by their old illusions,
and try to "give it pause." "If
the blind lead the blind, both
shall fall into the ditch."
The efforts of error to answer
this question by some
ology are vain. Spiritual
rationality and free thought
accompany approaching Science,
and cannot be put down. They will
emancipate humanity, and supplant
unscientific means and so-called
laws.
Peals that should startle the
slumbering thought from its
erroneous dream are partially
unheeded; but the last trump has
not sounded, or this would not be
so. Marvels, calamities, and sin
will much more abound as truth
urges upon mortals its resisted
claims; but the awful daring of
sin destroys sin, and foreshadows
the triumph of truth. God will
overturn, until "He come whose
right it is." Longevity is
increasing and the power of sin
diminishing, for the world feels
the alterative effect of truth
through every pore.
As the crude footprints of the
past disappear from the
dissolving paths of the present,
we shall better understand the
Science which governs these
changes, and shall plant our feet
on firmer ground. Every sensuous
pleasure or pain is
self-destroyed through suffering.
There should be painless
progress, attended by life and
peace instead of discord and
death.
In the record of nineteen
centuries, there are sects many
but not enough Christianity.
Centuries ago religionists were
ready to hail an anthropomorphic
God, and array His vicegerent
with pomp and splendor; but this
was not the manner of truth's
appearing. Of old the cross was
truth's central sign, and it is
to-day. The modern lash is less
material than the Roman scourge,
but it is equally as cutting.
Cold disdain, stubborn
resistance, opposition from
church, state laws, and the
press, are still the harbingers
of truth's full-orbed
appearing.
A higher and more practical
Christianity, demonstrating
justice and meeting the needs of
mortals in sickness and in
health, stands at the door of
this age, knocking for admission.
Will you open or close the door
upon this angel visitant, who
cometh in the quiet of meekness,
as he came of old to the
patriarch at noonday?
Truth brings the elements of
liberty. On its banner is the
Soul-inspired motto, "Slavery is
abolished." The power of God
brings deliverance to the
captive. No power can withstand
divine Love. What is this
supposed power, which opposes
itself to God? Whence cometh it?
What is it that binds man with
iron shackles to sin, sickness,
and death? Whatever enslaves man
is opposed to the divine
government. Truth makes man
free.
You may know when first Truth
leads by the fewness and
faithfulness of its followers.
Thus it is that the march of time
bears onward freedom's banner.
The powers of this world will
fight, and will command their
sentinels not to let truth pass
the guard until it subscribes to
their systems; but Science,
heeding not the pointed bayonet,
marches on. There is always some
tumult, but there is a rallying
to truth's standard.
The history of our country,
like all history, illustrates the
might of Mind, and shows human
power to be proportionate to its
embodiment of right thinking. A
few immortal sentences, breathing
the omnipotence of divine
justice, have been potent to
break despotic fetters and
abolish the whipping-post and
slave market; but oppression
neither went down in blood, nor
did the breath of freedom come
from the cannon's mouth. Love is
the liberator.
Legally to abolish unpaid
servitude in the United States
was hard; but the abolition of
mental slavery is a more
difficult task. The despotic
tendencies, inherent in mortal
mind and always germinating in
new forms of tyranny, must be
rooted out through the action of
the divine Mind.
Men and women of all climes
and races are still in bondage to
material sense, ignorant how to
obtain their freedom. The rights
of man were vindicated in a
single section and on the lowest
plane of human life, when African
slavery was abolished in our
land. That was only prophetic of
further steps towards the
banishment of a world-wide
slavery, found on higher planes
of existence and under more
subtle and depraving forms.
The voice of God in behalf of
the African slave was still
echoing in our land, when the
voice of the herald of this new
crusade sounded the keynote of
universal freedom, asking a
fuller acknowledgment of the
rights of man as a Son of God,
demanding that the fetters of
sin, sickness, and death be
stricken from the human mind and
that its freedom be won, not
through human warfare, not with
bayonet and blood, but through
Christ's divine Science.
God has built a higher
platform of human rights, and He
has built it on diviner claims.
These claims are not made through
code or creed, but in
demonstration of "on earth peace,
good-will toward men." Human
codes, scholastic theology,
material medicine and hygiene,
fetter faith and spiritual
understanding. Divine Science
rends asunder these fetters, and
man's birthright of sole
allegiance to his Maker asserts
itself.
I saw before me the sick,
wearing out years of servitude to
an unreal master in the belief
that the body governed them,
rather than Mind.
The lame, the deaf, the dumb,
the blind, the sick, the sensual,
the sinner, I wished to save from
the slavery of their own beliefs
and from the educational systems
of the Pharaohs, who to-day, as
of yore, hold the children of
Israel in bondage. I saw before
me the awful conflict, the Red
Sea and the wilderness; but I
pressed on through faith in God,
trusting Truth, the strong
deliverer, to guide me into the
land of Christian Science, where
fetters fall and the rights of
man are fully known and
acknowledged.
I saw that the law of mortal
belief included all error, and
that, even as oppressive laws are
disputed and mortals are taught
their right to freedom, so the
claims of the enslaving senses
must be denied and superseded.
The law of the divine Mind must
end human bondage, or mortals
will continue unaware of man's
inalienable rights and in
subjection to hopeless slavery,
because some public teachers
permit an ignorance of divine
power, — an ignorance that
is the foundation of continued
bondage and of human
suffering.
Discerning the rights of man,
we cannot fail to foresee the
doom of all oppression. Slavery
is not the legitimate state of
man. God made man free. Paul
said, "I was free born." All men
should be free. "Where the Spirit
of the Lord is, there is
liberty." Love and Truth make
free, but evil and error lead
into captivity.
Christian Science raises the
standard of liberty and cries:
"Follow me! Escape from the
bondage of sickness, sin, and
death!" Jesus marked out the way.
Citizens of the world, accept the
"glorious liberty of the children
of God," and be free! This is
your divine right. The illusion
of material sense, not divine
law, has bound you, entangled
your free limbs, crippled your
capacities, enfeebled your body,
and defaced the tablet of your
being.
If God had instituted material
laws to govern man, disobedience
to which would have made man ill,
Jesus would not have disregarded
those laws by healing in direct
opposition to them and in
defiance of all material
conditions.
The transmission of disease or
of certain idiosyncrasies of
mortal mind would be impossible
if this great fact of being were
learned, — namely, that
nothing inharmonious can enter
being, for Life is God.
Heredity is a prolific subject
for mortal belief to pin theories
upon; but if we learn that
nothing is real but the right, we
shall have no dangerous
inheritances, and fleshly ills
will disappear.
The enslavement of man is not
legitimate. It will cease when
man enters into his heritage of
freedom, his God-given dominion
over the material senses. Mortals
will some day assert their
freedom in the name of Almighty
God. Then they will control their
own bodies through the
understanding of divine Science.
Dropping their present beliefs,
they will recognize harmony as
the spiritual reality and discord
as the material unreality.
If we follow the command of
our Master, "Take no thought for
your life," we shall never depend
on bodily conditions, structure,
or economy, but we shall be
masters of the body, dictate its
terms, and form and control it
with Truth.
There is no power apart from
God. Omnipotence has all-power,
and to acknowledge any other
power is to dishonor God. The
humble Nazarene overthrew the
supposition that sin, sickness,
and death have power. He proved
them powerless. It should have
humbled the pride of the priests,
when they saw the demonstration
of Christianity excel the
influence of their dead faith and
ceremonies.
If Mind is not the master of
sin, sickness, and death, they
are immortal, for it is already
proved that matter has not
destroyed them, but is their
basis and support.
We should hesitate to say that
Jehovah sins or suffers; but if
sin and suffering are realities
of being, whence did they
emanate? God made all that was
made, and Mind signifies God,
— infinity, not finity. Not
far removed from infidelity is
the belief which unites such
opposites as sickness and health,
holiness and unholiness, calls
both the offspring of spirit, and
at the same time admits that
Spirit is God, — virtually
declaring Him good in one
instance and evil in another.
By universal consent, mortal
belief has constituted itself a
law to bind mortals to sickness,
sin, and death. This customary
belief is misnamed material law,
and the individual who upholds it
is mistaken in theory and in
practice. The so-called law of
mortal mind, conjectural and
speculative, is made void by the
law of immortal Mind, and false
law should be trampled under
foot.
If God causes man to be sick,
sickness must be good, and its
opposite, health, must be evil,
for all that He makes is good and
will stand forever. If the
transgression of God's law
produces sickness, it is right to
be sick; and we cannot if we
would, and should not if we
could, annul the decrees of
wisdom. It is the transgression
of a belief of mortal mind, not
of a law of matter nor of divine
Mind, which causes the belief of
sickness. The remedy is Truth,
not matter, — the truth that
disease is unreal.
If sickness is real, it
belongs to immortality; if true,
it is a part of Truth. Would you
attempt with drugs, or without,
to destroy a quality or condition
of Truth? But if sickness and sin
are illusions, the awakening from
this mortal dream, or illusion,
will bring us into health,
holiness, and immortality. This
awakening is the forever coming
of Christ, the advanced appearing
of Truth, which casts out error
and heals the sick. This is the
salvation which comes through
God, the divine Principle, Love,
as demonstrated by Jesus.
It would be contrary to our
highest ideas of God to suppose
Him capable of first arranging
law and causation so as to bring
about certain evil results, and
then punishing the helpless
victims of His volition for doing
what they could not avoid doing.
Good is not, cannot be, the
author of experimental sins. God,
good, can no more produce
sickness than goodness can cause
evil and health occasion
disease.
Does wisdom make blunders
which must afterwards be
rectified by man? Does a law of
God produce sickness, and can man
put that law under his feet by
healing sickness? According to
Holy Writ, the sick are never
really healed by drugs, hygiene,
or any material method. These
merely evade the question. They
are soothing syrups to put
children to sleep, satisfy mortal
belief, and quiet fear.
We think that we are healed
when a disease disappears, though
it is liable to reappear; but we
are never thoroughly healed until
the liability to be ill is
removed. So-called mortal mind or
the mind of mortals being the
remote, predisposing, and the
exciting cause of all suffering,
the cause of disease must be
obliterated through Christ in
divine Science, or the so-called
physical senses will get the
victory.
Unless an ill is rightly met
and fairly overcome by Truth, the
ill is never conquered. If God
destroys not sin, sickness, and
death, they are not destroyed in
the mind of mortals, but seem to
this so-called mind to be
immortal. What God cannot do, man
need not attempt. If God heals
not the sick, they are not
healed, for no lesser power
equals the infinite All-power;
but God, Truth, Life, Love, does
heal the sick through the prayer
of the righteous.
If God makes sin, if good
produces evil, if truth results
in error, then Science and
Christianity are helpless; but
there are no antagonistic powers
nor laws, spiritual or material,
creating and governing man
through perpetual warfare. God is
not the author of mortal
discords. Therefore we accept the
conclusion that discords have
only a fabulous existence, are
mortal beliefs which divine Truth
and Love destroy.
To hold yourself superior to
sin, because God made you
superior to it and governs man,
is true wisdom. To fear sin is to
misunderstand the power of Love
and the divine Science of being
in man's relation to God, —
to doubt His government and
distrust His omnipotent care. To
hold yourself superior to
sickness and death is equally
wise, and is in accordance with
divine Science. To fear them is
impossible, when you fully
apprehend God and know that they
are no part of His creation.
Man, governed by his Maker,
having no other Mind, —
planted on the Evangelist's
statement that "all things were
made by Him [the Word of
God]; and without Him was not
anything made that was made,"
— can triumph over sin,
sickness, and death.
Many theories relative to God
and man neither make man
harmonious nor God lovable. The
beliefs we commonly entertain
about happiness and life afford
no scatheless and permanent
evidence of either. Security for
the claims of harmonious and
eternal being is found only in
divine Science.
Scripture informs us that
"with God all things are
possible," — all good is
possible to Spirit; but our
prevalent theories practically
deny this, and make healing
possible only through matter.
These theories must be untrue,
for the Scripture is true.
Christianity is not false, but
religions which contradict its
Principle are false.
In our age Christianity is
again demonstrating the power of
divine Principle, as it did over
nineteen hundred years ago, by
healing the sick and triumphing
over death. Jesus never taught
that drugs, food, air, and
exercise could make a man
healthy, or that they could
destroy human life; nor did he
illustrate these errors by his
practice. He referred man's
harmony to Mind, not to matter,
and never tried to make of none
effect the sentence of God, which
sealed God's condemnation of sin,
sickness, and death.
In the sacred sanctuary of
Truth are voices of solemn
import, but we heed them not. It
is only when the so-called
pleasures and pains of sense pass
away in our lives, that we find
unquestionable signs of the
burial of error and the
resurrection to spiritual
life.
There is neither place nor
opportunity in Science for error
of any sort. Every day makes its
demands upon us for higher proofs
rather than professions of
Christian power. These proofs
consist solely in the destruction
of sin, sickness, and death by
the power of Spirit, as Jesus
destroyed them. This is an
element of progress, and progress
is the law of God, whose law
demands of us only what we can
certainly fulfil.
In the midst of imperfection,
perfection is seen and
acknowledged only by degrees. The
ages must slowly work up to
perfection. How long it must be
before we arrive at the
demonstration of scientific
being, no man knoweth, — not
even "the Son but the Father;"
but the false claim of error
continues its delusions until the
goal of goodness is assiduously
earned and won.
Already the shadow of His
right hand rests upon the hour.
Ye who can discern the face of
the sky, — the sign
material, — how much more
should ye discern the sign
mental, and compass the
destruction of sin and sickness
by overcoming the thoughts which
produce them, and by
understanding the spiritual idea
which corrects and destroys them.
To reveal this truth was our
Master's mission to all mankind,
including the hearts which
rejected him.
When numbers have been divided
according to a fixed rule, the
quotient is not more
unquestionable than the
scientific tests I have made of
the effects of truth upon the
sick. The counter fact relative
to any disease is required to
cure it. The utterance of truth
is designed to rebuke and destroy
error. Why should truth not be
efficient in sickness, which is
solely the result of
inharmony?
Spiritual draughts heal, while
material lotions interfere with
truth, even as ritualism and
creed hamper spirituality. If we
trust matter, we distrust
Spirit.
Whatever inspires with wisdom,
Truth, or Love — be it song,
sermon, or Science — blesses
the human family with crumbs of
comfort from Christ's table,
feeding the hungry and giving
living waters to the thirsty.
We should become more familiar
with good than with evil, and
guard against false beliefs as
watchfully as we bar our doors
against the approach of thieves
and murderers. We should love our
enemies and help them on the
basis of the Golden Rule; but
avoid casting pearls before those
who trample them under foot,
thereby robbing both themselves
and others.
If mortals would keep proper
ward over mortal mind, the brood
of evils which infest it would be
cleared out. We must begin with
this so-called mind and empty it
of sin and sickness, or sin and
sickness will never cease. The
present codes of human systems
disappoint the weary searcher
after a divine theology, adequate
to the right education of human
thought.
Sin and disease must be
thought before they can be
manifested. You must control evil
thoughts in the first instance,
or they will control you in the
second. Jesus declared that to
look with desire on forbidden
objects was to break a moral
precept. He laid great stress on
the action of the human mind,
unseen to the senses.
Evil thoughts and aims reach
no farther and do no more harm
than one's belief permits. Evil
thoughts, lusts, and malicious
purposes cannot go forth, like
wandering pollen, from one human
mind to another, finding
unsuspected lodgment, if virtue
and truth build a strong defence.
Better suffer a doctor infected
with smallpox to attend you than
to be treated mentally by one who
does not obey the requirements of
divine Science.
The teachers of schools and
the readers in churches should be
selected with as direct reference
to their morals as to their
learning or their correct
reading. Nurseries of character
should be strongly garrisoned
with virtue. School-examinations
are one-sided; it is not so much
academic education, as a moral
and spiritual culture, which
lifts one higher. The pure and
uplifting thoughts of the
teacher, constantly imparted to
pupils, will reach higher than
the heavens of astronomy; while
the debased and unscrupulous
mind, though adorned with gems of
scholarly attainment, will
degrade the characters it should
inform and elevate.
Physicians, whom the sick
employ in their helplessness,
should be models of virtue. They
should be wise spiritual guides
to health and hope. To the
tremblers on the brink of death,
who understand not the divine
Truth which is Life and
perpetuates being, physicians
should be able to teach it. Then
when the soul is willing and the
flesh weak, the patient's feet
may be planted on the rock Christ
Jesus, the true idea of spiritual
power.
Clergymen, occupying the
watchtowers of the world, should
uplift the standard of Truth.
They should so raise their
hearers spiritually, that their
listeners will love to grapple
with a new, right idea and
broaden their concepts. Love of
Christianity, rather than love of
popularity, should stimulate
clerical labor and progress.
Truth should emanate from the
pulpit, but never be strangled
there. A special privilege is
vested in the ministry. How shall
it be used? Sacredly, in the
interests of humanity, not of
sect.
Is it not professional
reputation and emolument rather
than the dignity of God's laws,
which many leaders seek? Do not
inferior motives induce the
infuriated attacks on
individuals, who reiterate
Christ's teachings in support of
his proof by example that the
divine Mind heals sickness as
well as sin?
A mother is the strongest
educator, either for or against
crime. Her thoughts form the
embryo of another mortal mind,
and unconsciously mould it,
either after a model odious to
herself or through divine
influence, "according to the
pattern showed to thee in the
mount." Hence the importance of
Christian Science, from which we
learn of the one Mind and of the
availability of good as the
remedy for every woe.
Children should obey their
parents; insubordination is an
evil, blighting the buddings of
self-government. Parents should
teach their children at the
earliest possible period the
truths of health and holiness.
Children are more tractable than
adults, and learn more readily to
love the simple verities that
will make them happy and
good.
Jesus loved little children
because of their freedom from
wrong and their receptiveness of
right. While age is halting
between two opinions or battling
with false beliefs, youth makes
easy and rapid strides towards
Truth.
A little girl, who had
occasionally listened to my
explanations, badly wounded her
finger. She seemed not to notice
it. On being questioned about it
she answered ingenuously, "There
is no sensation in matter."
Bounding off with laughing eyes,
she presently added, "Mamma, my
finger is not a bit sore."
It might have been months or
years before her parents would
have laid aside their drugs, or
reached the mental height their
little daughter so naturally
attained. The more stubborn
beliefs and theories of parents
often choke the good seed in the
minds of themselves and their
offspring. Superstition, like
"the fowls of the air," snatches
away the good seed before it has
sprouted.
Children should be taught the
Truth-cure, Christian Science,
among their first lessons, and
kept from discussing or
entertaining theories or thoughts
about sickness. To prevent the
experience of error and its
sufferings, keep out of the minds
of your children either sinful or
diseased thoughts. The latter
should be excluded on the same
principle as the former. This
makes Christian Science early
available.
Some invalids are unwilling to
know the facts or to hear about
the fallacy of matter and its
supposed laws. They devote
themselves a little longer to
their material gods, cling to a
belief in the life and
intelligence of matter, and
expect this error to do more for
them than they are willing to
admit the only living and true
God can do. Impatient at your
explanation, unwilling to
investigate the Science of Mind
which would rid them of their
complaints, they hug false
beliefs and suffer the delusive
consequences.
Motives and acts are not
rightly valued before they are
understood. It is well to wait
till those whom you would benefit
are ready for the blessing, for
Science is working changes in
personal character as well as in
the material universe.
To obey the Scriptural
command, "Come out from among
them, and be ye separate," is to
incur society's frown; but this
frown, more than flatteries,
enables one to be Christian.
Losing her crucifix, the Roman
Catholic girl said, "I have
nothing left but Christ." "If God
be for us, who can be against
us?"
To fall away from Truth in
times of persecution, shows that
we never understood Truth. From
out the bridal chamber of wisdom
there will come the warning, "I
know you not." Unimproved
opportunities will rebuke us when
we attempt to claim the benefits
of an experience we have not made
our own, try to reap the harvest
we have not sown, and wish to
enter unlawfully into the labors
of others. Truth often remains
unsought, until we seek this
remedy for human woe because we
suffer severely from error.
Attempts to conciliate society
and so gain dominion over
mankind, arise from worldly
weakness. He who leaves all for
Christ forsakes popularity and
gains Christianity.
Society is a foolish juror,
listening only to one side of the
case. Justice often comes too
late to secure a verdict. People
with mental work before them have
no time for gossip about false
law or testimony. To reconstruct
timid justice and place the fact
above the falsehood, is the work
of time.
The cross is the central
emblem of history. It is the
lodestar in the demonstration of
Christian healing, — the
demonstration by which sin and
sickness are destroyed. The
sects, which endured the lash of
their predecessors, in their turn
lay it upon those who are in
advance of creeds.
Take away wealth, fame, and
social organizations, which weigh
not one jot in the balance of
God, and we get clearer views of
Principle. Break up cliques,
level wealth with honesty, let
worth be judged according to
wisdom, and we get better views
of humanity.
The wicked man is not the
ruler of his upright neighbor.
Let it be understood that success
in error is defeat in Truth. The
watchword of Christian Science is
Scriptural: "Let the wicked
forsake his way, and the
unrighteous man his
thoughts."
To ascertain our progress, we
must learn where our affections
are placed and whom we
acknowledge and obey as God. If
divine Love is becoming nearer,
dearer, and more real to us,
matter is then submitting to
Spirit. The objects we pursue and
the spirit we manifest reveal our
standpoint, and show what we are
winning.
Mortal mind is the
acknowledged seat of human
motives. It forms material
concepts and produces every
discordant action of the body. If
action proceeds from the divine
Mind, action is harmonious. If it
comes from erring mortal mind, it
is discordant and ends in sin,
sickness, death. Those two
opposite sources never mingle in
fount or stream. The perfect Mind
sends forth perfection, for God
is Mind. Imperfect mortal mind
sends forth its own resemblances,
of which the wise man said, "All
is vanity."
Nature voices natural,
spiritual law and divine Love,
but human belief misinterprets
nature. Arctic regions, sunny
tropics, giant hills, winged
winds, mighty billows, verdant
vales, festive flowers, and
glorious heavens, — all
point to Mind, the spiritual
intelligence they reflect. The
floral apostles are hieroglyphs
of Deity. Suns and planets teach
grand lessons. The stars make
night beautiful, and the leaflet
turns naturally towards the
light.
In the order of Science, in
which the Principle is above what
it reflects, all is one grand
concord. Change this statement,
suppose Mind to be governed by
matter or Soul in body, and you
lose the keynote of being, and
there is continual discord. Mind
is perpetual motion. Its symbol
is the sphere. The rotations and
revolutions of the universe of
Mind go on eternally.
Mortals move onward towards
good or evil as time glides on.
If mortals are not progressive,
past failures will be repeated
until all wrong work is effaced
or rectified. If at present
satisfied with wrong-doing, we
must learn to loathe it. If at
present content with idleness, we
must become dissatisfied with it.
Remember that mankind must sooner
or later, either by suffering or
by Science, be convinced of the
error that is to be overcome.
In trying to undo the errors
of sense one must pay fully and
fairly the utmost farthing, until
all error is finally brought into
subjection to Truth. The divine
method of paying sin's wages
involves unwinding one's snarls,
and learning from experience how
to divide between sense and
Soul.
"Whom the Lord loveth He
chasteneth." He, who knows God's
will or the demands of divine
Science and obeys them, incurs
the hostility of envy; and he who
refuses obedience to God, is
chastened by Love.
Sensual treasures are laid up
"where moth and rust doth
corrupt." Mortality is their
doom. Sin breaks in upon them,
and carries off their fleeting
joys. The sensualist's affections
are as imaginary, whimsical, and
unreal as his pleasures.
Falsehood, envy, hypocrisy,
malice, hate, revenge, and so
forth, steal away the treasures
of Truth. Stripped of its
coverings, what a mocking
spectacle is sin!
The Bible teaches
transformation of the body by the
renewal of Spirit. Take away the
spiritual signification of
Scripture, and that compilation
can do no more for mortals than
can moonbeams to melt a river of
ice. The error of the ages is
preaching without practice.
The substance of all devotion
is the reflection and
demonstration of divine Love,
healing sickness and destroying
sin. Our Master said, "If ye love
me, keep my commandments."
One's aim, a point beyond
faith, should be to find the
footsteps of Truth, the way to
health and holiness. We should
strive to reach the Horeb height
where God is revealed; and the
corner-stone of all spiritual
building is purity. The baptism
of Spirit, washing the body of
all the impurities of flesh,
signifies that the pure in heart
see God and are approaching
spiritual Life and its
demonstration.
It is "easier for a camel to
go through the eye of a needle,"
than for sinful beliefs to enter
the kingdom of heaven, eternal
harmony. Through repentance,
spiritual baptism, and
regeneration, mortals put off
their material beliefs and false
individuality. It is only a
question of time when "they shall
all know Me [God], from
the least of them unto the
greatest." Denial of the claims
of matter is a great step towards
the joys of Spirit, towards human
freedom and the final triumph
over the body.
There is but one way to
heaven, harmony, and Christ in
divine Science shows us this way.
It is to know no other reality
— to have no other
consciousness of life — than
good, God and His reflection, and
to rise superior to the so-called
pain and pleasure of the
senses.
Self-love is more opaque than
a solid body. In patient
obedience to a patient God, let
us labor to dissolve with the
universal solvent of Love the
adamant of error, —
self-will, self-justification,
and self-love, — which wars
against spirituality and is the
law of sin and death.
The vesture of Life is Truth.
According to the Bible, the facts
of being are commonly
misconstrued, for it is written:
"They parted my raiment among
them, and for my vesture they did
cast lots." The divine Science of
man is woven into one web of
consistency without seam or rent.
Mere speculation or superstition
appropriates no part of the
divine vesture, while inspiration
restores every part of the
Christly garment of
righteousness.
The finger-posts of divine
Science show the way our Master
trod, and require of Christians
the proof which he gave, instead
of mere profession. We may hide
spiritual ignorance from the
world, but we can never succeed
in the Science and demonstration
of spiritual good through
ignorance or hypocrisy.
The divine Love, which made
harmless the poisonous viper,
which delivered men from the
boiling oil, from the fiery
furnace, from the jaws of the
lion, can heal the sick in every
age and triumph over sin and
death. It crowned the
demonstrations of Jesus with
unsurpassed power and love. But
the same "Mind . . . which was
also in Christ Jesus" must always
accompany the letter of Science
in order to confirm and repeat
the ancient demonstrations of
prophets and apostles. That those
wonders are not more commonly
repeated to-day, arises not so
much from lack of desire as from
lack of spiritual growth.
The clay cannot reply to the
potter. The head, heart, lungs,
and limbs do not inform us that
they are dizzy, diseased,
consumptive, or lame. If this
information is conveyed, mortal
mind conveys it. Neither immortal
and unerring Mind nor matter, the
inanimate substratum of mortal
mind, can carry on such
telegraphy; for God is "of purer
eyes than to behold evil," and
matter has neither intelligence
nor sensation.
Truth has no consciousness of
error. Love has no sense of
hatred. Life has no partnership
with death. Truth, Life, and Love
are a law of annihilation to
everything unlike themselves,
because they declare nothing
except God.
Sickness, sin, and death are
not the fruits of Life. They are
inharmonies which Truth destroys.
Perfection does not animate
imperfection. Inasmuch as God is
good and the fount of all being,
He does not produce moral or
physical deformity; therefore
such deformity is not real, but
is illusion, the mirage of error.
Divine Science reveals these
grand facts. On their basis Jesus
demonstrated Life, never fearing
nor obeying error in any
form.
If we were to derive all our
conceptions of man from what is
seen between the cradle and the
grave, happiness and goodness
would have no abiding-place in
man, and the worms would rob him
of the flesh; but Paul writes:
"The law of the Spirit of life in
Christ Jesus hath made me free
from the law of sin and
death."
Man undergoing birth,
maturity, and decay is like the
beasts and vegetables, —
subject to laws of decay. If man
were dust in his earliest stage
of existence, we might admit the
hypothesis that he returns
eventually to his primitive
condition; but man was never more
nor less than man.
If man flickers out in death
or springs from matter into
being, there must be an instant
when God is without His entire
manifestation, — when there
is no full reflection of the
infinite Mind.
Man in Science is neither
young nor old. He has neither
birth nor death. He is not a
beast, a vegetable, nor a
migratory mind. He does not pass
from matter to Mind, from the
mortal to the immortal, from evil
to good, or from good to evil.
Such admissions cast us headlong
into darkness and dogma. Even
Shakespeare's poetry pictures age
as infancy, as helplessness and
decadence, instead of assigning
to man the everlasting grandeur
and immortality of development,
power, and prestige.
The error of thinking that we
are growing old, and the benefits
of destroying that illusion, are
illustrated in a sketch from the
history of an English woman,
published in the London medical
magazine called The Lancet.
Disappointed in love in her
early years, she became insane
and lost all account of time.
Believing that she was still
living in the same hour which
parted her from her lover, taking
no note of years, she stood daily
before the window watching for
her lover's coming. In this
mental state she remained young.
Having no consciousness of time,
she literally grew no older. Some
American travellers saw her when
she was seventy-four, and
supposed her to be a young woman.
She had no care-lined face, no
wrinkles nor gray hair, but youth
sat gently on cheek and brow.
Asked to guess her age, those
unacquainted with her history
conjectured that she must be
under twenty.
This instance of youth
preserved furnishes a useful
hint, upon which a Franklin might
work with more certainty than
when he coaxed the enamoured
lightning from the clouds. Years
had not made her old, because she
had taken no cognizance of
passing time nor thought of
herself as growing old. The
bodily results of her belief that
she was young manifested the
influence of such a belief. She
could not age while believing
herself young, for the mental
state governed the physical.
Impossibilities never occur.
One instance like the foregoing
proves it possible to be young at
seventy-four; and the primary of
that illustration makes it plain
that decrepitude is not according
to law, nor is it a necessity of
nature, but an illusion.
The infinite never began nor
will it ever end. Mind and its
formations can never be
annihilated. Man is not a
pendulum, swinging between evil
and good, joy and sorrow,
sickness and health, life and
death. Life and its faculties are
not measured by calendars. The
perfect and immortal are the
eternal likeness of their Maker.
Man is by no means a material
germ rising from the imperfect
and endeavoring to reach Spirit
above his origin. The stream
rises no higher than its
source.
The measurement of life by
solar years robs youth and gives
ugliness to age. The radiant sun
of virtue and truth coexists with
being. Manhood is its eternal
noon, undimmed by a declining
sun. As the physical and
material, the transient sense of
beauty fades, the radiance of
Spirit should dawn upon the
enraptured sense with bright and
imperishable glories.
Never record ages.
Chronological data are no part of
the vast forever. Time-tables of
birth and death are so many
conspiracies against manhood and
womanhood. Except for the error
of measuring and limiting all
that is good and beautiful, man
would enjoy more than threescore
years and ten and still maintain
his vigor, freshness, and
promise. Man, governed by
immortal Mind, is always
beautiful and grand. Each
succeeding year unfolds wisdom,
beauty, and holiness.
Life is eternal. We should
find this out, and begin the
demonstration thereof. Life and
goodness are immortal. Let us
then shape our views of existence
into loveliness, freshness, and
continuity, rather than into age
and blight.
Acute and chronic beliefs
reproduce their own types. The
acute belief of physical life
comes on at a remote period, and
is not so disastrous as the
chronic belief.
I have seen age regain two of
the elements it had lost, sight
and teeth. A woman of
eighty-five, whom I knew, had a
return of sight. Another woman at
ninety had new teeth, incisors,
cuspids, bicuspids, and one
molar. One man at sixty had
retained his full set of upper
and lower teeth without a
decaying cavity.
Beauty, as well as truth, is
eternal; but the beauty of
material things passes away,
fading and fleeting as mortal
belief. Custom, education, and
fashion form the transient
standards of mortals.
Immortality, exempt from age or
decay, has a glory of its own,
— the radiance of Soul.
Immortal men and women are models
of spiritual sense, drawn by
perfect Mind and reflecting those
higher conceptions of loveliness
which transcend all material
sense.
Comeliness and grace are
independent of matter. Being
possesses its qualities before
they are perceived humanly.
Beauty is a thing of life, which
dwells forever in the eternal
Mind and reflects the charms of
His goodness in expression, form,
outline, and color. It is Love
which paints the petal with
myriad hues, glances in the warm
sunbeam, arches the cloud with
the bow of beauty, blazons the
night with starry gems, and
covers earth with loveliness.
The embellishments of the
person are poor substitutes for
the charms of being, shining
resplendent and eternal over age
and decay.
The recipe for beauty is to
have less illusion and more Soul,
to retreat from the belief of
pain or pleasure in the body into
the unchanging calm and glorious
freedom of spiritual harmony.
Love never loses sight of
loveliness. Its halo rests upon
its object. One marvels that a
friend can ever seem less than
beautiful. Men and women of riper
years and larger lessons ought to
ripen into health and
immortality, instead of lapsing
into darkness or gloom. Immortal
Mind feeds the body with supernal
freshness and fairness, supplying
it with beautiful images of
thought and destroying the woes
of sense which each day brings to
a nearer tomb.
The sculptor turns from the
marble to his model in order to
perfect his conception. We are
all sculptors, working at various
forms, moulding and chiseling
thought. What is the model before
mortal mind? Is it imperfection,
joy, sorrow, sin, suffering? Have
you accepted the mortal model?
Are you reproducing it? Then you
are haunted in your work by
vicious sculptors and hideous
forms. Do you not hear from all
mankind of the imperfect model?
The world is holding it before
your gaze continually. The result
is that you are liable to follow
those lower patterns, limit your
life-work, and adopt into your
experience the angular outline
and deformity of matter
models.
To remedy this, we must first
turn our gaze in the right
direction, and then walk that
way. We must form perfect models
in thought and look at them
continually, or we shall never
carve them out in grand and noble
lives. Let unselfishness,
goodness, mercy, justice, health,
holiness, love — the kingdom
of heaven — reign within us,
and sin, disease, and death will
diminish until they finally
disappear.
Let us accept Science,
relinquish all theories based on
sense-testimony, give up
imperfect models and illusive
ideals; and so let us have one
God, one Mind, and that one
perfect, producing His own models
of excellence.
Let the "male and female" of
God's creating appear. Let us
feel the divine energy of Spirit,
bringing us into newness of life
and recognizing no mortal nor
material power as able to
destroy. Let us rejoice that we
are subject to the divine "powers
that be." Such is the true
Science of being. Any other
theory of Life, or God, is
delusive and mythological.
Mind is not the author of
matter, and the creator of ideas
is not the creator of illusions.
Either there is no omnipotence,
or omnipotence is the only power.
God is the infinite, and infinity
never began, will never end, and
includes nothing unlike God.
Whence then is soulless
matter?
Life is, like Christ, "the
same yesterday, and to-day, and
forever." Organization and time
have nothing to do with Life. You
say, "I dreamed last night." What
a mistake is that! The I is
Spirit. God never slumbers, and
His likeness never dreams.
Mortals are the Adam
dreamers.
Sleep and apathy are phases of
the dream that life, substance,
and intelligence are material.
The mortal nightdream is
sometimes nearer the fact of
being than are the thoughts of
mortals when awake. The
night-dream has less matter as
its accompaniment. It throws off
some material fetters. It falls
short of the skies, but makes its
mundane flights quite
ethereal.
Man is the reflection of Soul.
He is the direct opposite of
material sensation, and there is
but one Ego. We run into error
when we divide Soul into souls,
multiply Mind into minds and
suppose error to be mind, then
mind to be in matter and matter
to be a lawgiver, unintelligence
to act like intelligence, and
mortality to be the matrix of
immortality.
Mortal existence is a dream;
mortal existence has no real
entity, but saith "It is I."
Spirit is the Ego which never
dreams, but understands all
things; which never errs, and is
ever conscious; which never
believes, but knows; which is
never born and never dies.
Spiritual man is the likeness of
this Ego. Man is not God, but
like a ray of light which comes
from the sun, man, the outcome of
God, reflects God.
Mortal body and mind are one,
and that one is called man; but a
mortal is not man, for man is
immortal. A mortal may be weary
or pained, enjoy or suffer,
according to the dream he
entertains in sleep. When that
dream vanishes, the mortal finds
himself experiencing none of
these dream-sensations. To the
observer, the body lies listless,
undisturbed, and sensationless,
and the mind seems to be
absent.
Now I ask, Is there any more
reality in the waking dream of
mortal existence than in the
sleeping dream? There cannot be,
since whatever appears to be a
mortal man is a mortal dream.
Take away the mortal mind, and
matter has no more sense as a man
than it has as a tree. But the
spiritual, real man is
immortal.
Upon this stage of existence
goes on the dance of mortal mind.
Mortal thoughts chase one another
like snowflakes, and drift to the
ground. Science reveals Life as
not being at the mercy of death,
nor will Science admit that
happiness is ever the sport of
circumstance.
Error is not real, hence it is
not more imperative as it hastens
towards self-destruction. The
so-called belief of mortal mind
apparent as an abscess should not
grow more painful before it
suppurates, neither should a
fever become more severe before
it ends.
Fright is so great at certain
stages of mortal belief as to
drive belief into new paths. In
the illusion of death, mortals
wake to the knowledge of two
facts: (1) that they are not
dead; (2) that they have but
passed the portals of a new
belief. Truth works out the
nothingness of error in just
these ways. Sickness, as well as
sin, is an error that Christ,
Truth, alone can destroy.
We must learn how mankind
govern the body, — whether
through faith in hygiene, in
drugs, or in will-power. We
should learn whether they govern
the body through a belief in the
necessity of sickness and death,
sin and pardon, or govern it from
the higher understanding that the
divine Mind makes perfect, acts
upon the so-called human mind
through truth, leads the human
mind to relinquish all error, to
find the divine Mind to be the
only Mind, and the healer of sin,
disease, death. This process of
higher spiritual understanding
improves mankind until error
disappears, and nothing is left
which deserves to perish or to be
punished.
Ignorance, like intentional
wrong, is not Science. Ignorance
must be seen and corrected before
we can attain harmony.
Inharmonious beliefs, which rob
Mind, calling it matter, and
deify their own notions, imprison
themselves in what they create.
They are at war with Science, and
as our Master said, "If a kingdom
be divided against itself, that
kingdom cannot stand."
Human ignorance of Mind and of
the recuperative energies of
Truth occasions the only
skepticism regarding the
pathology and theology of
Christian Science.
When false human beliefs learn
even a little of their own
falsity, they begin to disappear.
A knowledge of error and of its
operations must precede that
understanding of Truth which
destroys error, until the entire
mortal, material error finally
disappears, and the eternal
verity, man created by and of
Spirit, is understood and
recognized as the true likeness
of his Maker.
The false evidence of material
sense contrasts strikingly with
the testimony of Spirit. Material
sense lifts its voice with the
arrogance of reality and
says:
I am wholly dishonest, and no
man knoweth it. I can cheat, lie,
commit adultery, rob, murder, and
I elude detection by
smooth-tongued villainy. Animal
in propensity, deceitful in
sentiment, fraudulent in purpose,
I mean to make my short span of
life one gala day. What a nice
thing is sin! How sin succeeds,
where the good purpose waits! The
world is my kingdom. I am
enthroned in the gorgeousness of
matter. But a touch, an accident,
the law of God, may at any moment
annihilate my peace, for all my
fancied joys are fatal. Like
bursting lava, I expand but to my
own despair, and shine with the
resplendency of consuming
fire.
Spirit, bearing opposite
testimony, saith:
I am Spirit. Man, whose senses
are spiritual, is my likeness. He
reflects the infinite
understanding, for I am Infinity.
The beauty of holiness, the
perfection of being, imperishable
glory, — all are Mine, for I
am God. I give immortality to
man, for I am Truth. I include
and impart all bliss, for I am
Love. I give life, without
beginning and without end, for I
am Life. I am supreme and give
all, for I am Mind. I am the
substance of all, because I AM
THAT I AM.
I hope, dear reader, I am
leading you into the
understanding of your divine
rights, your heaven-bestowed
harmony, — that, as you
read, you see there is no cause
(outside of erring, mortal,
material sense which is not
power) able to make you sick or
sinful; and I hope that you are
conquering this false sense.
Knowing the falsity of so-called
material sense, you can assert
your prerogative to overcome the
belief in sin, disease, or
death.
If you believe in and practise
wrong knowingly, you can at once
change your course and do right.
Matter can make no opposition to
right endeavors against sin or
sickness, for matter is inert,
mindless. Also, if you believe
yourself diseased, you can alter
this wrong belief and action
without hindrance from the
body.
Do not believe in any supposed
necessity for sin, disease, or
death, knowing (as you ought to
know) that God never requires
obedience to a so-called material
law, for no such law exists. The
belief in sin and death is
destroyed by the law of God,
which is the law of Life instead
of death, of harmony instead of
discord, of Spirit instead of the
flesh.
The divine demand, "Be ye
therefore perfect," is
scientific, and the human
footsteps leading to perfection
are indispensable. Individuals
are consistent who, watching and
praying, can "run, and not be
weary; . . . walk, and not
faint," who gain good rapidly and
hold their position, or attain
slowly and yield not to
discouragement. God requires
perfection, but not until the
battle between Spirit and flesh
is fought and the victory won. To
stop eating, drinking, or being
clothed materially before the
spiritual facts of existence are
gained step by step, is not
legitimate. When we wait
patiently on God and seek Truth
righteously, He directs our path.
Imperfect mortals grasp the
ultimate of spiritual perfection
slowly; but to begin
aright and to continue the strife
of demonstrating the great
problem of being, is doing
much.
During the sensual ages,
absolute Christian Science may
not be achieved prior to the
change called death, for we have
not the power to demonstrate what
we do not understand. But the
human self must be evangelized.
This task God demands us to
accept lovingly to-day, and to
abandon so fast as practical the
material, and to work out the
spiritual which determines the
outward and actual.
If you venture upon the quiet
surface of error and are in
sympathy with error, what is
there to disturb the waters? What
is there to strip off error's
disguise?
If you launch your bark upon
the ever-agitated but healthful
waters of truth, you will
encounter storms. Your good will
be evil spoken of. This is the
cross. Take it up and bear it,
for through it you win and wear
the crown. Pilgrim on earth, thy
home is heaven; stranger, thou
art the guest of God.
Go
to Chapter 9:
Creation
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