Science and Health

201

Chapter VIII

201:1The best sermon ever preached is Truth practised and demonstrated by the destruction of sin, sickness, 3Practical preachingand 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 6two masters.”

    We cannot build safely on false foundations. Truth makes a new creature, in whom old things pass away 9and “all things are become new.” Passions, selfishness, false appetites, hatred, fear, all sensuality, yield to spirit‐uality, and the superabundance of being is on the side 12of God, good.

    We cannot fill vessels already full. They must first be The uses of truthemptied. Let us disrobe error. Then, when 15the winds of God blow, we shall not hug our tatters close about us.

    The way to extract error from mortal mind is to pour 18in truth through flood-tides of Love. Christian perfec‐tion is won on no other basis.

    Grafting holiness upon unholiness, supposing that sin 202 202:1can be forgiven when it is not forsaken, is as foolish as straining out gnats and swallowing camels.

3    The scientific unity which exists between God and man must be wrought out in life-practice, and God’s will must be universally done.

6    If men would bring to bear upon the study of the Science of Mind half the faith they bestow upon the so-Divine studycalled pains and pleasures of material sense, 9they 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 12the merits of Christ, — through the perception and ac‐ceptance of Truth. For this glorious result Christian Science lights the torch of spiritual understanding.

15    Outside of this Science all is mutable; but immortal man, in accord with the divine Principle of his being, Harmonious life-workGod, neither sins, suffers, nor dies. The days 18of our pilgrimage will multiply instead of di‐minish, when God’s kingdom comes on earth; for the true way leads to Life instead of to death, and earthly 21experience discloses the finity of error and the infinite capacities of Truth, in which God gives man dominion over all the earth.

24    Our beliefs about a Supreme Being contradict the practice growing out of them. Error abounds where Belief and practiceTruth should “much more abound.” We 27admit 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 err‐30ing 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 203 203:1fatal pulmonary disease; as though evil could overbear Sure reward of righteousnessthe law of Love, and check the reward for do‐3ing good. In the Science of Christianity, Mind  — omnipotence — has all-power, assigns sure rewards to righteousness, and shows that matter can 6neither heal nor make sick, create nor destroy.

    If God were understood instead of being merely be‐lieved, this understanding would establish health. The 9Our belief and understandingaccusation of the rabbis, “He made himself the Son of God,” was really the justification of Jesus, for to the Christian the only true 12spirit 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 15but 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 Su‐18preme Ruler or in some power less than God. We im‐agine that Mind can be imprisoned in a sensuous body. When the material body has gone to ruin, when evil has 21overtaxed 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 24true. Death is not a stepping-stone to Life, immortality, Suicide and sinand bliss. The so-called sinner is a suicide. Sin kills the sinner and will continue to kill 27him so long as he sins. The foam and fury of illegiti‐mate living and of fearful and doleful dying should disappear on the shore of time; then the waves of sin, 30sorrow, 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 204 204:1once the centre and circumference of being. It is evil that dies; good dies not.

3    All forms of error support the false conclusions that there is more than one Life; that material history is as Spirit the only intelligence and substancereal and living as spiritual history; that mortal 6error is as conclusively mental as immortal Truth; and that there are two separate, an‐tagonistic entities and beings, two powers, — namely, 9Spirit and matter, — resulting in a third person (mortal man) who carries out the delusions of sin, sickness, and death.

12    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 15so called. The third power, mortal man, is a supposed mixture of the first and second antagonistic powers, in‐telligence and non-intelligence, of Spirit and matter.

18    Such theories are evidently erroneous. They can never stand the test of Science. Judging them by their fruits, Unscientific theoriesthey are corrupt. When will the ages under‐21stand the Ego, and realize only one God, one Mind or intelligence?

    False and self-assertive theories have given sinners the 24notion 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 27Mind; but in Science it can never be said that man has a mind of his own, distinct from God, the all Mind.

30    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 205 205:1utterances; else God will continue to be hidden from hu‐manity, and mortals will sin without knowing that they 3are sinning, will lean on matter instead of Spirit, stumble with lameness, drop with drunkenness, consume with dis‐ease, — all because of their blindness, their false sense 6concerning God and man.

    When will the error of believing that there is life in matter, and that sin, sickness, and death are creations of 9Creation perfectGod, be unmasked? When will it be under‐stood that matter has neither intelligence, life, nor sensation, and that the opposite belief is the prolific 12source of all suffering? God created all through Mind, and made all perfect and eternal. Where then is the necessity for recreation or procreation?

15    Befogged in error (the error of believing that matter can be intelligent for good or evil), we can catch clear Perceiving the divine imageglimpses of God only as the mists disperse, 18or as they melt into such thinness that we per‐ceive the divine image in some word or deed which indicates the true idea, — the supremacy and real‐21ity of good, the nothingness and unreality of evil.

    When we realize that there is one Mind, the divine law Redemption from selfishnessof loving our neighbor as ourselves is unfolded; 24whereas a belief in many ruling minds hinders man’s normal drift towards the one Mind, one God, and leads human thought into opposite channels 27where selfishness reigns.

    Selfishness tips the beam of human existence towards the side of error, not towards Truth. Denial of the one‐30ness 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, 206 206:1we can have no other Mind but His, — no other Love, wisdom, or Truth, no other sense of Life, and no con‐3sciousness 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 judg‐6Will-power unrighteousment and free the lower propensities. It is the province of spiritual sense to govern man. Material, erring, human thought acts injuriously both 9upon 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 12the 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.

15    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 18source of supply.

    Does God send sickness, giving the mother her child for the brief space of a few years and then taking it away 21Birth and death unrealby death? Is God creating anew what He has already created? The Scriptures are defi‐nite on this point, declaring that His work was finished, 24 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 27sickness 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 30and 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 207 207:1these evils are not Spirit, for there is no evil in Spirit. Because God is Spirit, evil becomes more apparent and 3No evil in Spiritobnoxious proportionately as we advance spir‐itually, until it disappears from our lives. This fact proves our position, for every scientific state‐6ment in Christianity has its proof. Error of statement leads to error in action.

    God is not the creator of an evil mind. Indeed, evil 9is not Mind. We must learn that evil is the awful decep‐Subordination of eviltion and unreality of existence. Evil is not supreme; good is not helpless; nor are the 12so-called laws of matter primary, and the law of Spirit secondary. Without this lesson, we lose sight of the per‐fect Father, or the divine Principle of man.

15    Body is not first and Soul last, nor is evil mightier than Evident impossibilitiesgood. The Science of being repudiates self-evident impossibilities, such as the amalgama‐18tion of Truth and error in cause or effect. Science sepa‐rates the tares and wheat in time of harvest.

    There is but one primal cause. Therefore there can 21be no effect from any other cause, and there can be no One primal causereality in aught which does not proceed from this great and only cause. Sin, sickness, dis‐24ease, and death belong not to the Science of being. They are the errors, which presuppose the absence of Truth, Life, or Love.

27    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. 30Spiritual 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 208 208:1suppositional error, which affords no proof of God, Spirit, or of the spiritual creation. Material sense de‐3fines all things materially, and has a finite sense of the infinite.

    The Scriptures say, “In Him we live, and move, and 6have our being.” What then is this seeming power, in‐Seemingly independent authoritydependent of God, which causes disease and cures it? What is it but an error of belief, — 9a law of mortal mind, wrong in every sense, embracing sin, sickness, and death? It is the very anti‐pode of immortal Mind, of Truth, and of spiritual law. 12It is not in accordance with the goodness of God’s char‐acter that He should make man sick, then leave man to heal himself; it is absurd to suppose that matter can both 15cause and cure disease, or that Spirit, God, produces disease and leaves the remedy to matter.

    John Young of Edinburgh writes: “God is the father 18of 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 21of 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 24forever unseen.

    Mind, not matter, is causation. A material body only expresses a material and mortal mind. A mortal 27Sickness as only thoughtman possesses this body, and he makes it harmonious or discordant according to the images of thought impressed upon it. You embrace 30your 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 209 209:1included in matter. Man, being immortal, has a perfect indestructible life. It is the mortal belief which makes 3the body discordant and diseased in proportion as igno‐rance, fear, or human will governs mortals.

    Mind, supreme over all its formations and governing 6them all, is the central sun of its own systems of ideas, Allness of Truththe life and light of all its own vast creation; and man is tributary to divine Mind. The 9material and mortal body or mind is not the man.

    The world would collapse without Mind, without the in‐telligence which holds the winds in its grasp. Neither 12philosophy nor skepticism can hinder the march of the Science which reveals the supremacy of Mind. The im‐manent sense of Mind-power enhances the glory of Mind. 15Nearness, not distance, lends enchantment to this view.

    The compounded minerals or aggregated substances composing the earth, the relations which constituent 18Spiritual translationmasses hold to each other, the magnitudes, distances, and revolutions of the celestial bodies, are of no real importance, when we remember 21that 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 24found harmonious and eternal.

    Material substances or mundane formations, astro‐nomical calculations, and all the paraphernalia of specu‐27lative theories, based on the hypothesis of material law or life and intelligence resident in matter, will ulti‐mately vanish, swallowed up in the infinite calculus of 30Spirit.

    Spiritual sense is a conscious, constant capacity to un‐derstand God. It shows the superiority of faith by works 210 210:1over faith in words. Its ideas are expressed only in “new tongues;” and these are interpreted by the translation of 3the spiritual original into the language which human thought can comprehend.

    The Principle and proof of Christianity are discerned 6by spiritual sense. They are set forth in Jesus’ demon‐Jesus’ disregard of matterstrations, which show — by his healing the sick, casting out evils, and destroying death, 9“the last enemy that shall be destroyed,” — his disregard of matter and its so-called laws.

    Knowing that Soul and its attributes were forever 12manifested 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 15divine 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 18process.

    The expression mortal mind is really a solecism, for Mind is immortal, and Truth pierces the error of mortality 21Mind not mortalas 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. 24Error 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-27Matter mindlesscalled mortal mind which voices this and ap‐pears to itself to make good its claim. To mortal sense, sin and suffering are real, but immortal 30sense includes no evil nor pestilence. Because immortal sense has no error of sense, it has no sense of error; there‐fore it is without a destructive element.

211

211:1    If brain, nerves, stomach, are intelligent, — if they talk to us, tell us their condition, and report how they feel, — 3then 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 6greater?

    The sensations of the body must either be the sensa‐tions of a so-called mortal mind or of matter. Nerves 9Matter sensationlessare 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 12spiritual understanding of being?

    The sensation of sickness and the impulse to sin seem to obtain in mortal mind. When a tear starts, does not 15this so-called mind produce the effect seen in the lachry‐mal gland? Without mortal mind, the tear could not appear; and this action shows the nature of all so-called 18material 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 21on edge.” Sympathy with error should disappear. The transfer of the thoughts of one erring mind to another, Science renders impossible.

24    If it is true that nerves have sensation, that matter has intelligence, that the material organism causes the eyes to Nerves painlesssee and the ears to hear, then, when the body 27is dematerialized, these faculties must be lost, for their immortality is not in Spirit; whereas the fact is that only through dematerialization and spiritualiza‐30tion of thought can these faculties be conceived of as immortal.

    Nerves are not the source of pain or pleasure. We 212 212:1suffer or enjoy in our dreams, but this pain or pleasure is not communicated through a nerve. A tooth which has 3been 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 6the sensation of pain in the limb can return, can be pro‐longed, why cannot the limb reappear?

    Why need pain, rather than pleasure, come to this mor‐9tal 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 12off 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. 15Reverse 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 un‐18sustained by God. They produce a rose through seed and Human falsitiessoil, and bring the rose into contact with the olfactory nerves that they may smell it. In 21legerdemain 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 24means 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 27No miracles in Mind-methods thought, that the undulations of the air convey sound, and possibly that other methods involve so-called miracles. The realities of being, its 30normal action, and the origin of all things are unseen to mortal sense; whereas the unreal and imitative move‐ments of mortal belief, which would reverse the immortal 213 213:1modus and action, are styled the real. Whoever con‐tradicts this mortal mind supposition of reality is called 3a 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.

6    Mortal mind conceives of something as either liquid or solid, and then classifies it materially. Immortal and Good indefinablespiritual facts exist apart from this mortal and 9material conception. God, good, is self-exist‐ent and self-expressed, though indefinable as a whole. Every step towards goodness is a departure from materi‐12ality, and is a tendency towards God, Spirit. Material theories partially paralyze this attraction towards infinite and eternal good by an opposite attraction towards the 15finite, temporary, and discordant.

    Sound is a mental impression made on mortal belief. The ear does not really hear. Divine Science reveals 18sound as communicated through the senses of Soul — through spiritual understanding.

    Mozart experienced more than he expressed. The 21rapture of his grandest symphonies was never heard. He Music, rhythm of head and heartwas a musician beyond what the world knew. This was even more strikingly true of Bee‐24thoven, who was so long hopelessly deaf. Men‐tal melodies and strains of sweetest music supersede con‐scious sound. Music is the rhythm of head and heart. 27Mortal mind is the harp of many strings, discoursing either discord or harmony according as the hand, which sweeps over it, is human or divine.

30    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, — 214 214:1it is possible that the impressions from Truth were as distinct as sound, and that they came as sound to the 3primitive prophets. If the medium of hearing is wholly spiritual, it is normal and indestructible.

    If Enoch’s perception had been confined to the evidence 6before his material senses, he could never have “walked with God,” nor been guided into the demonstration of life eternal.

9    Adam, represented in the Scriptures as formed from dust, is an object-lesson for the human mind. The mate‐Adam and the sensesrial senses, like Adam, originate in matter and 12return 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 spirit‐15ual sense, and not the material, conveys the impressions of Mind to man, then being will be understood and found to be harmonious.

18    We bow down to matter, and entertain finite thoughts of God like the pagan idolater. Mortals are inclined to Idolatrous illusionsfear and to obey what they consider a material 21body 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, 24slay man, and meanwhile would spread their table with cannibal tidbits and give thanks.

    How transient a sense is mortal sight, when a wound on 27the retina may end the power of light and lens! But the The senses of Soulreal sight or sense is not lost. Neither age nor accident can interfere with the senses of Soul, 30and 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 with‐215215:1out pain, and they are forever at peace. Nothing can hide from them the harmony of all things and the might and 3permanence of Truth.

    If Spirit, Soul, could sin or be lost, then being and im‐mortality would be lost, together with all the faculties of 6Real being never lostMind; but being cannot be lost while God ex‐ists. Soul and matter are at variance from the very necessity of their opposite natures. Mortals are 9unacquainted with the reality of existence, because matter and mortality do not reflect the facts of Spirit.

    Spiritual vision is not subordinate to geometric alti‐12tudes. Whatever is governed by God, is never for an instant deprived of the light and might of intelligence and Life.

15    We are sometimes led to believe that darkness is as real as light; but Science affirms darkness to be only a mortal Light and darknesssense of the absence of light, at the coming of 18which 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 21truth and love.

    With its divine proof, Science reverses the evidence of material sense. Every quality and condition of mortality 24is lost, swallowed up in immortality. Mortal man is the antipode of immortal man in origin, in existence, and in his relation to God.

27    Because he understood the superiority and immor‐tality of good, Socrates feared not the hemlock poison. Faith of SocratesEven the faith of his philosophy spurned phys‐30ical timidity. Having sought man’s spiritual state, he recognized the immortality of man. The igno‐rance and malice of the age would have killed the vener‐216216:1able philosopher because of his faith in Soul and his in‐difference to the body.

3    Who shall say that man is alive to-day, but may be dead to-morrow? What has touched Life, God, to such The serpent of errorstrange issues? Here theories cease, and Sci‐6ence unveils the mystery and solves the prob‐lem of man. Error bites the heel of truth, but cannot kill truth. Truth bruises the head of error — destroys error. 9Spirituality lays open siege to materialism. On which side are we fighting?

    The understanding that the Ego is Mind, and that 12there is but one Mind or intelligence, begins at once to Servants and mastersdestroy the errors of mortal sense and to supply the truth of immortal sense. This understand‐15ing 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 sub‐18mission 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 21and evil.

    If the decision were left to the corporeal senses, evil would appear to be the master of good, and sickness to 24be 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 Cor‐27inthians vi. 15.)

    When you say, “Man’s body is material,” I say with Paul: Be “willing rather to be absent from the body, 30Personal identityand 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 217 217:1own likeness. The loss of man’s identity through the understanding which Science confers is impossible; and 3the notion of such a possibility is more absurd than to conclude that individual musical tones are lost in the origin of harmony.

6    Medical schools may inform us that the healing work of Christian Science and Paul’s peculiar Christian con‐Paul’s experienceversion and experience, — which prove Mind 9 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 Scrip‐12tures, 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!”

15    That scientific methods are superior to others, is seen by their effects. When you have once conquered Fatigue is mentala diseased condition of the body through 18Mind, 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 21you are working out the problem of being in divine meta‐physics; and in proportion as you understand the con‐trol which Mind has over so-called matter, you will be 24able 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, 27and so destroy this illusion, for matter cannot be weary and heavy-laden.

    You say, “Toil fatigues me.” But what is this me? 30Is 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 non-218218:1intelligent. Mortal mind does the false talking, and that which affirms weariness, made that weariness.

3    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 Mind never wearyhuman mind says of the body, the body, like 6the inanimate wheel, would never be weary. The consciousness of Truth rests us more than hours of repose in unconsciousness.

9    The body is supposed to say, “I am ill.” The reports of sickness may form a coalition with the reports of sin, Coalition of sin and sicknessand say, “I am malice, lust, appetite, envy, 12hate.” What renders both sin and sickness difficult of cure is, that the human mind is the sinner, disinclined to self-correction, and believing that 15the 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 with‐18out faith in God’s willingness and ability to heal them? Sickness akin to sinIf you do believe in God, why do you sub‐stitute drugs for the Almighty’s power, and 21employ 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?

24    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.

27    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 30perverted 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, 219 219:1pain, weakness, weariness, sorrow, sin, death, will be unknown, and the mortal dream will forever cease. My 3method of treating fatigue applies to all bodily ailments, since Mind should be, and is, supreme, absolute, and final.

6    In mathematics, we do not multiply when we should subtract, and then say the product is correct. No more Affirmation and resultcan we say in Science that muscles give strength, 9that 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 12the whole body “sick, and the whole heart faint;” whereas divine Mind heals.

    When this is understood, we shall never affirm concern‐15ing 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 18mind 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 21harmoniously. “The wish,” says the poet, “is ever father to the thought.”

    We may hear a sweet melody, and yet misunderstand 24the science that governs it. Those who are healed Scientific beginningthrough metaphysical Science, not compre‐hending the Principle of the cure, may misun‐27derstand 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 30death may not be reached at this period, but we may look for an abatement of these evils; and this scientific begin‐ning is in the right direction.

220

220:1    We hear it said: “I exercise daily in the open air. I take cold baths, in order to overcome a predisposition to 3Hygiene ineffectualtake cold; and yet I have continual colds, catarrh, and cough.” Such admissions ought to open people’s eyes to the inefficacy of material hygiene, 6and induce sufferers to look in other directions for cause and cure.

    Instinct is better than misguided reason, as even na‐9ture 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 12amid the blasts; he has no catarrh from wet feet, and procures a summer residence with more ease than a na‐bob. The atmosphere of the earth, kinder than the at‐15mosphere of mortal mind, leaves catarrh to the latter. Colds, coughs, and contagion are engendered solely by human theories.

18    Mortal mind produces its own phenomena, and then The reflex phenomenacharges them to something else, — like a kitten glancing into the mirror at itself and thinking 21it sees another kitten.

    A clergyman once adopted a diet of bread and water to increase his spirituality. Finding his health failing, 24he gave up his abstinence, and advised others never to try dietetics for growth in grace.

    The belief that either fasting or feasting makes men 27better morally or physically is one of the fruits of “the Volition far-reachingtree of the knowledge of good and evil,” con‐cerning which God said, “Thou shalt not eat 30of 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.

221

221:1    I knew a person who when quite a child adopted the Graham system to cure dyspepsia. For many years, he 3Starvation and dyspepsiaate only bread and vegetables, and drank noth‐ing but water. His dyspepsia increasing, he decided that his diet should be more rigid, and 6thereafter 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 9he 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 12his 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, 15and he is now in perfect health without a vestige of the old complaint.

    He learned that suffering and disease were the self-18imposed 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-21starvation 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 24he 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-27pots of Egypt, feeling childhood’s hunger and undisci‐plined by self-denial and divine Science.

    This new-born understanding, that neither food nor 30Mind and stomachthe stomach, without the consent of mortal mind, can make one suffer, brings with it an‐other lesson, — that gluttony is a sensual illusion, and 222 222:1that this phantasm of mortal mind disappears as we better apprehend our spiritual existence and ascend the ladder 3of life.

    This person learned that food affects the body only as mortal mind has its material methods of working, one 6of 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 re‐9generates this fleshly mind and feeds thought with the bread of Life.

    Food had less power to help or to hurt him after he 12had 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 15should 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 18been kept alive, as was believed, only by the strictest ad‐herence to hygiene and drugs, and yet he continued ill all the while. Now he dropped drugs and material 21hygiene, and was well.

    He learned that a dyspeptic was very far from being the image and likeness of God, — far from having “do‐24minion 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 27never 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 30Life only in Spiritall, 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 223 223:1matter, and plant ourselves upon what is pure and per‐fect. Paul said, “Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not 3fulfil 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 6instead of in Spirit.

    Matter does not express Spirit. God is infinite omni‐present Spirit. If Spirit is all and is everywhere, what 9Soul greater than bodyand 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 12than 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. 15Many are ready to meet this inquiry with the assurance The question of the ageswhich comes of understanding; but more are blinded by their old illusions, and try to “give 18it pause.” “If the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch.”

    The efforts of error to answer this question by some 21ology are vain. Spiritual rationality and free thought ac‐company approaching Science, and cannot be put down. They will emancipate humanity, and supplant unscientific 24means and so-called laws.

    Peals that should startle the slumbering thought from its erroneous dream are partially unheeded; but the last 27Heralds of Sciencetrump has not sounded, or this would not be so. Marvels, calamities, and sin will much more abound as truth urges upon mortals its resisted 30claims; but the awful daring of sin destroys sin, and foreshadows the triumph of truth. God will over‐turn, until “He come whose right it is.” Longevity 224 224:1is increasing and the power of sin diminishing, for the world feels the alterative effect of truth through every 3pore.

    As the crude footprints of the past disappear from the dissolving paths of the present, we shall better understand 6the 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 9be painless progress, attended by life and peace instead of discord and death.

    In the record of nineteen centuries, there are sects 12many but not enough Christianity. Centuries ago re‐Sectarianism and oppositionligionists were ready to hail an anthropomor‐phic God, and array His vicegerent with pomp 15and splendor; but this was not the manner of truth’s appearing. Of old the cross was truth’s cen‐tral sign, and it is to-day. The modern lash is less 18material 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 har‐21bingers of truth’s full-orbed appearing.

    A higher and more practical Christianity, demonstrat‐ing justice and meeting the needs of mortals in sickness 24and 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 27came 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 30Mental emancipationpower of God brings deliverance to the cap‐tive. No power can withstand divine Love. What is this supposed power, which opposes itself to God? 225 225:1Whence cometh it? What is it that binds man with iron shackles to sin, sickness, and death? Whatever enslaves 3man is opposed to the divine government. Truth makes man free.

    You may know when first Truth leads by the few‐6ness and faithfulness of its followers. Thus it is that Truth’s ordealthe march of time bears onward freedom’s banner. The powers of this world will fight, 9and 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 12always some tumult, but there is a rallying to truth’s standard.

    The history of our country, like all history, illustrates 15the might of Mind, and shows human power to be propor‐Immortal sentencestionate to its embodiment of right thinking. A few immortal sentences, breathing the omnipo‐18tence 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 21breath of freedom come from the cannon’s mouth. Love is the liberator.

    Legally to abolish unpaid servitude in the United 24States was hard; but the abolition of mental slavery is Slavery abolisheda more difficult task. The despotic tenden‐cies, inherent in mortal mind and always ger‐27minating 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 30bondage 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 Afri‐226226:1can slavery was abolished in our land. That was only prophetic of further steps towards the banishment of a 3world-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 6still echoing in our land, when the voice of the herald of Liberty’s crusadethis new crusade sounded the keynote of uni‐versal freedom, asking a fuller acknowledg‐9ment 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 12through human warfare, not with bayonet and blood, but through Christ’s divine Science.

    God has built a higher platform of human rights, and 15He has built it on diviner claims. These claims are not Cramping systemsmade through code or creed, but in demonstra‐tion of “on earth peace, good-will toward men.” 18Human codes, scholastic theology, material medicine and hygiene, fetter faith and spiritual understanding. Divine Science rends asunder these fetters, and man’s birthright 21of sole allegiance to his Maker asserts itself.

    I saw before me the sick, wearing out years of servi‐tude to an unreal master in the belief that the body gov‐24erned 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 27House of bondagetheir 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 be‐30fore me the awful conflict, the Red Sea and the wilder‐ness; but I pressed on through faith in God, trusting Truth, the strong deliverer, to guide me into the land 227 227:1of Christian Science, where fetters fall and the rights of man are fully known and acknowledged.

3    I saw that the law of mortal belief included all error, and that, even as oppressive laws are disputed and mor‐Higher law ends bondagetals are taught their right to freedom, so the 6claims of the enslaving senses must be de‐nied and superseded. The law of the divine Mind must end human bondage, or mortals will continue unaware 9of man’s inalienable rights and in subjection to hope‐less slavery, because some public teachers permit an ignorance of divine power, — an ignorance that 12is the foundation of continued bondage and of human suffering.

    Discerning the rights of man, we cannot fail to fore‐15see the doom of all oppression. Slavery is not the legiti‐Native freedommate state of man. God made man free. Paul said, “I was free born.” All men should 18be free. “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is lib‐erty.” Love and Truth make free, but evil and error lead into captivity.

21    Christian Science raises the standard of liberty and cries: “Follow me! Escape from the bondage of sick‐Standard of libertyness, sin, and death!” Jesus marked out the 24way. Citizens of the world, accept the “glori‐ous liberty of the children of God,” and be free! This is your divine right. The illusion of material sense, not 27divine law, has bound you, entangled your free limbs, crippled your capacities, enfeebled your body, and de‐faced the tablet of your being.

30    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 228 228:1direct opposition to them and in defiance of all material conditions.

3    The transmission of disease or of certain idiosyncra‐sies of mortal mind would be impossible if this great fact No fleshly heredityof being were learned, — namely, that nothing 6inharmonious can enter being, for Life is God. Heredity is a prolific subject for mortal belief to pin the‐ories upon; but if we learn that nothing is real but the 9right, we shall have no dangerous inheritances, and fleshly ills will disappear.

    The enslavement of man is not legitimate. It will 12cease when man enters into his heritage of freedom, his God-given dominionGod-given dominion over the material senses. Mortals will some day assert their freedom in 15the name of Almighty God. Then they will control their own bodies through the understanding of divine Science. Dropping their present beliefs, they will recognize har‐18mony as the spiritual reality and discord as the material unreality.

    If we follow the command of our Master, “Take no 21thought 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 24Truth.

    There is no power apart from God. Omnipotence has all-power, and to acknowledge any other power is to dis‐27Priestly pride humbledhonor God. The humble Nazarene overthrew the supposition that sin, sickness, and death have power. He proved them powerless. It should have 30humbled the pride of the priests, when they saw the dem‐onstration of Christianity excel the influence of their dead faith and ceremonies.

229

229:1    If Mind is not the master of sin, sickness, and death, they are immortal, for it is already proved that mat‐3ter has not destroyed them, but is their basis and support.

    We should hesitate to say that Jehovah sins or suffers; 6but if sin and suffering are realities of being, whence did No union of oppositesthey emanate? God made all that was made, and Mind signifies God, — infinity, not finity. 9Not 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 12at the same time admits that Spirit is God, — vir‐tually declaring Him good in one instance and evil in another.

15    By universal consent, mortal belief has constituted itself a law to bind mortals to sickness, sin, and death. Self-constituted lawThis customary belief is misnamed material 18law, and the individual who upholds it is mis‐taken in theory and in practice. The so-called law of mortal mind, conjectural and speculative, is made void 21by the law of immortal Mind, and false law should be trampled under foot.

    If God causes man to be sick, sickness must be good, 24and its opposite, health, must be evil, for all that He Sickness from mortal mind makes is good and will stand forever. If the transgression of God’s law produces sickness, it 27is 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 30matter nor of divine Mind, which causes the belief of sick‐ness. The remedy is Truth, not matter, — the truth that disease is unreal.

230

230:1    If sickness is real, it belongs to immortality; if true, it is a part of Truth. Would you attempt with drugs, 3or 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, 6holiness, and immortality. This awakening is the for‐ever coming of Christ, the advanced appearing of Truth, which casts out error and heals the sick. This is the sal‐9vation which comes through God, the divine Principle, Love, as demonstrated by Jesus.

    It would be contrary to our highest ideas of God to 12suppose Him capable of first arranging law and causation God never inconsistentso as to bring about certain evil results, and then punishing the helpless victims of His vo‐15lition 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 18cause evil and health occasion disease.

    Does wisdom make blunders which must afterwards be rectified by man? Does a law of God produce sick‐21Mental narcoticsness, 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 24material method. These merely evade the question. They are soothing syrups to put children to sleep, satisfy mortal belief, and quiet fear.

27    We think that we are healed when a disease disap‐pears, though it is liable to reappear; but we are never The true healingthoroughly healed until the liability to be 30ill 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 231 231:1must be obliterated through Christ in divine Science, or the so-called physical senses will get the victory.

3    Unless an ill is rightly met and fairly overcome by Truth, the ill is never conquered. If God destroys not Destruction of all evilsin, sickness, and death, they are not de‐6stroyed 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, 9they 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.

12    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 15material, creating and governing man through perpetual warfare. God is not the author of mortal discords. Therefore we accept the conclusion that discords have 18only a fabulous existence, are mortal beliefs which divine Truth and Love destroy.

    To hold yourself superior to sin, because God made 21you superior to it and governs man, is true wisdom. To Superiority to sickness and sinfear sin is to misunderstand the power of Love and the divine Science of being in man’s rela‐24tion 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 27with divine Science. To fear them is impossible, when you fully apprehend God and know that they are no part of His creation.

30    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 232 232:1Him was not anything made that was made,” — can triumph over sin, sickness, and death.

3    Many theories relative to God and man neither make man harmonious nor God lovable. The beliefs we com‐Denials of divine powermonly entertain about happiness and life 6afford no scatheless and permanent evidence of either. Security for the claims of harmonious and eternal being is found only in divine Science.

9    Scripture informs us that “with God all things are possible,” — all good is possible to Spirit; but our prev‐alent theories practically deny this, and make healing 12possible only through matter. These theories must be untrue, for the Scripture is true. Christianity is not false, but religions which contradict its Principle are 15false.

    In our age Christianity is again demonstrating the power of divine Principle, as it did over nineteen hun‐18dred years ago, by healing the sick and triumphing over death. Jesus never taught that drugs, food, air, and ex‐ercise could make a man healthy, or that they could de‐21stroy 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 sen‐24tence of God, which sealed God’s condemnation of sin, sickness, and death.

    In the sacred sanctuary of Truth are voices of sol‐27emn import, but we heed them not. It is only when the Signs followingso-called pleasures and pains of sense pass away in our lives, that we find unquestion‐30able signs of the burial of error and the resurrection to spiritual life.

    There is neither place nor opportunity in Science for error 233 233:1of any sort. Every day makes its demands upon us for higher proofs rather than professions of Christian power. 3Profession and proofThese 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 6progress, and progress is the law of God, whose law de‐mands of us only what we can certainly fulfil.

    In the midst of imperfection, perfection is seen and 9acknowledged only by degrees. The ages must slowly Perfection gained slowlywork up to perfection. How long it must be before we arrive at the demonstration of scien‐12tific being, no man knoweth, — not even “the Son but the Father;” but the false claim of error con‐tinues its delusions until the goal of goodness is assidu‐15ously earned and won.

    Already the shadow of His right hand rests upon the hour. Ye who can discern the face of the sky, — the 18Christ’s missionsign material, — how much more should ye discern the sign mental, and compass the de‐struction of sin and sickness by overcoming the thoughts 21which 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 24the hearts which rejected him.

    When numbers have been divided according to a fixed rule, the quotient is not more unquestionable than the 27Efficacy of truthscientific tests I have made of the effects of truth upon the sick. The counter fact rela‐tive to any disease is required to cure it. The utterance 30of truth is designed to rebuke and destroy error. Why should truth not be efficient in sickness, which is solely the result of inharmony?

234

234:1    Spiritual draughts heal, while material lotions interfere with truth, even as ritualism and creed hamper spirit‐3uality. If we trust matter, we distrust Spirit.

    Whatever inspires with wisdom, Truth, or Love — be it song, sermon, or Science — blesses the human family 6Crumbs of comfortwith crumbs of comfort from Christ’s table, feeding the hungry and giving living waters to the thirsty.

9    We should become more familiar with good than with evil, and guard against false beliefs as watchfully as we Hospitality to health and goodbar our doors against the approach of thieves 12and murderers. We should love our enemies and help them on the basis of the Golden Rule; but avoid casting pearls before those who trample 15them under foot, thereby robbing both themselves and others.

    If mortals would keep proper ward over mortal mind, 18the brood of evils which infest it would be cleared out. Cleansing the mindWe must begin with this so-called mind and empty it of sin and sickness, or sin and sick‐21ness will never cease. The present codes of human systems disappoint the weary searcher after a divine theology, adequate to the right education of human 24thought.

    Sin and disease must be thought before they can be manifested. You must control evil thoughts in the first 27instance, 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 30action 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 235 235:1malicious purposes cannot go forth, like wandering pollen, from one human mind to another, finding unsuspected 3lodgment, 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 6the requirements of divine Science.

    The teachers of schools and the readers in churches should be selected with as direct reference to their 9Teachers’ functionsmorals as to their learning or their correct reading. Nurseries of character should be strongly garrisoned with virtue. School-examinations are 12one-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 15imparted to pupils, will reach higher than the heavens of astronomy; while the debased and unscrupulous mind, though adorned with gems of scholarly attainment, will 18degrade the characters it should inform and elevate.

    Physicians, whom the sick employ in their helplessness, should be models of virtue. They should be wise spir‐21Physicians’ privilegeitual guides to health and hope. To the trem‐blers on the brink of death, who understand not the divine Truth which is Life and perpetuates being, 24physicians 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 27power.

    Clergymen, occupying the watchtowers of the world, should uplift the standard of Truth. They should so raise 30Clergymen’s dutytheir hearers spiritually, that their listeners will love to grapple with a new, right idea and broaden their concepts. Love of Christianity, rather 236 236:1than love of popularity, should stimulate clerical labor and progress. Truth should emanate from the pulpit, 3but 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.

6    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 9individuals, who reiterate Christ’s teachings in support of his proof by example that the divine Mind heals sick‐ness as well as sin?

12    A mother is the strongest educator, either for or against crime. Her thoughts form the embryo of an‐A mother’s responsibilityother mortal mind, and unconsciously mould 15it, either after a model odious to herself or through divine influence, “according to the pattern showed to thee in the mount.” Hence the importance 18of Christian Science, from which we learn of the one Mind and of the availability of good as the remedy for every woe.

21    Children should obey their parents; insubordination is an evil, blighting the buddings of self-government. Children’s tractabilityParents should teach their children at the 24earliest 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 27make them happy and good.

    Jesus loved little children because of their freedom from wrong and their receptiveness of right. While 30age is halting between two opinions or battling with false beliefs, youth makes easy and rapid strides towards Truth.

237

237:1    A little girl, who had occasionally listened to my ex‐planations, badly wounded her finger. She seemed not 3to notice it. On being questioned about it she answered ingenuously, “There is no sensation in matter.” Bound‐ing off with laughing eyes, she presently added, “Mamma, 6my 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 9Soil and seedheight their little daughter so naturally at‐tained. The more stubborn beliefs and theo‐ries of parents often choke the good seed in the minds of 12themselves and their offspring. Superstition, like “the fowls of the air,” snatches away the good seed before it has sprouted.

15    Children should be taught the Truth-cure, Christian Science, among their first lessons, and kept from discuss‐Teaching childrening or entertaining theories or thoughts about 18sickness. 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 21be excluded on the same principle as the former. This makes Christian Science early available.

    Some invalids are unwilling to know the facts or to 24hear about the fallacy of matter and its supposed laws. Deluded invalidsThey devote themselves a little longer to their material gods, cling to a belief in the life and 27intelligence 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, unwill‐30ing to investigate the Science of Mind which would rid them of their complaints, they hug false beliefs and suffer the delusive consequences.

238

238:1    Motives and acts are not rightly valued before they are understood. It is well to wait till those whom you would 3Patient waitingbenefit are ready for the blessing, for Science is working changes in personal character as well as in the material universe.

6    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 9to 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?”

12    To fall away from Truth in times of persecution, shows that we never understood Truth. From out the bridal Unimproved opportunitieschamber of wisdom there will come the warn‐15ing, “I know you not.” Unimproved op‐portunities will rebuke us when we attempt to claim the benefits of an experience we have not made our own, try 18to 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 be‐21cause we suffer severely from error.

    Attempts to conciliate society and so gain dominion over mankind, arise from worldly weakness. He who leaves 24all 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. 27Society and intolerancePeople 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 30falsehood, is the work of time.

    The cross is the central emblem of history. It is the lodestar in the demonstration of Christian healing, — the 239 239:1demonstration by which sin and sickness are destroyed. The sects, which endured the lash of their predecessors, 3in their turn lay it upon those who are in advance of creeds.

    Take away wealth, fame, and social organizations, 6which weigh not one jot in the balance of God, and we Right views of humanityget clearer views of Principle. Break up cliques, level wealth with honesty, let worth 9be judged according to wisdom, and we get better views of humanity.

    The wicked man is not the ruler of his upright 12neighbor. 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 15unrighteous man his thoughts.”

    To ascertain our progress, we must learn where our affections are placed and whom we acknowledge and 18Standpoint revealedobey 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 21the spirit we manifest reveal our standpoint, and show what we are winning.

    Mortal mind is the acknowledged seat of human mo‐24tives. It forms material concepts and produces every Antagonistic sourcesdiscordant action of the body. If action pro‐ceeds from the divine Mind, action is harmo‐27nious. If it comes from erring mortal mind, it is discord‐ant and ends in sin, sickness, death. Those two opposite sources never mingle in fount or stream. The perfect 30Mind sends forth perfection, for God is Mind. Imper‐fect mortal mind sends forth its own resemblances, of which the wise man said, “All is vanity.”

240

240:1    Nature voices natural, spiritual law and divine Love, but human belief misinterprets nature. Arctic regions, 3Some lessons from naturesunny tropics, giant hills, winged winds, mighty billows, verdant vales, festive flowers, and glorious heavens, — all point to Mind, the spiritual 6intelligence they reflect. The floral apostles are hiero‐glyphs of Deity. Suns and planets teach grand lessons. The stars make night beautiful, and the leaflet turns nat‐9urally towards the light.

    In the order of Science, in which the Principle is above what it reflects, all is one grand concord. Change this 12Perpetual motionstatement, suppose Mind to be governed by matter or Soul in body, and you lose the key‐note of being, and there is continual discord. Mind is 15perpetual motion. Its symbol is the sphere. The rota‐tions and revolutions of the universe of Mind go on eternally.

18    Mortals move onward towards good or evil as time glides on. If mortals are not progressive, past failures Progress demandedwill be repeated until all wrong work is ef‐21faced 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 24it. Remember that mankind must sooner or later, either by suffering or by Science, be convinced of the error that is to be overcome.

27    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 30of paying sin’s wages involves unwinding one’s snarls, and learning from experience how to divide between sense and Soul.

241

241:1    “Whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth.” He, who knows God’s will or the demands of divine Science and 3obeys 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 6doth corrupt.” Mortality is their doom. Sin breaks in The doom of sinupon them, and carries off their fleeting joys. The sensualist’s affections are as imaginary, 9whimsical, 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 12a mocking spectacle is sin!

    The Bible teaches transformation of the body by the renewal of Spirit. Take away the spiritual signification 15Spirit transformsof 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 18practice.

    The substance of all devotion is the reflection and demonstration of divine Love, healing sickness and 21destroying sin. Our Master said, “If ye love me, keep my commandments.”

    One’s aim, a point beyond faith, should be to find the 24footsteps of Truth, the way to health and holiness. We should strive to reach the Horeb height where God is re‐vealed; and the corner-stone of all spiritual building is 27purity. 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 30demonstration.

    It is “easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle,” than for sinful beliefs to enter the kingdom of 242 242:1heaven, eternal harmony. Through repentance, spiritual baptism, and regeneration, mortals put off their material 3Spiritual baptismbeliefs 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.” 6Denial of the claims of matter is a great step towards the joys of Spirit, towards human freedom and the final triumph over the body.

9    There is but one way to heaven, harmony, and Christ in divine Science shows us this way. It is to know no The one only wayother reality — to have no other conscious‐12ness of life — than good, God and His reflec‐tion, and to rise superior to the so-called pain and pleasure of the senses.

15    Self-love is more opaque than a solid body. In pa‐tient obedience to a patient God, let us labor to dis‐solve with the universal solvent of Love the adamant 18of error, — self-will, self-justification, and self-love, — which wars against spirituality and is the law of sin and death.

21    The vesture of Life is Truth. According to the Bible, the facts of being are commonly misconstrued, for it is Divided vestmentswritten: “They parted my raiment among 24them, 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 27superstition appropriates no part of the divine vesture, while inspiration restores every part of the Christly gar‐ment of righteousness.

30    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 243 243:1spiritual ignorance from the world, but we can never succeed in the Science and demonstration of spiritual 3good through ignorance or hypocrisy.

    The divine Love, which made harmless the poisonous viper, which delivered men from the boiling oil, from 6Ancient and modern miraclesthe fiery furnace, from the jaws of the lion, can heal the sick in every age and triumph over sin and death. It crowned the demon‐9strations 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 12confirm and repeat the ancient demonstrations of prophets and apostles. That those wonders are not more com‐monly repeated to-day, arises not so much from lack of 15desire 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, 18Mental telegraphydiseased, consumptive, or lame. If this in‐formation is conveyed, mortal mind conveys it. Neither immortal and unerring Mind nor matter, 21the 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 24sensation.

    Truth has no consciousness of error. Love has no Annihilation of errorsense of hatred. Life has no partnership 27with death. Truth, Life, and Love are a law of annihilation to everything unlike themselves, because they declare nothing except God.

30    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 244 244:1good and the fount of all being, He does not produce moral or physical deformity; therefore such deformity is 3Deformity and perfectionnot real, but is illusion, the mirage of error. Divine Science reveals these grand facts. On their basis Jesus demonstrated Life, never 6fearing 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, happi‐9ness 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 12made 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 15Man never less than manman were dust in his earliest stage of exist‐ence, we might admit the hypothesis that he returns eventually to his primitive condition; 18but 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 21 entire manifestation, — when there is no full reflection of the infinite Mind.

    Man in Science is neither young nor old. He has 24neither birth nor death. He is not a beast, a vegetable, Man not evolvednor a migratory mind. He does not pass from matter to Mind, from the mortal to the im‐27mortal, 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 30helplessness and decadence, instead of assigning to man the everlasting grandeur and immortality of development, power, and prestige.

245

245:1    The error of thinking that we are growing old, and the benefits of destroying that illusion, are illustrated in a 3sketch 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 6insane and lost all account of time. Believing that she Perpetual youthwas still living in the same hour which parted her from her lover, taking no note of years, 9she 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 12older. 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 15youth sat gently on cheek and brow. Asked to guess her age, those unacquainted with her history conjectured that she must be under twenty.

18    This instance of youth preserved furnishes a useful hint, upon which a Franklin might work with more cer‐tainty than when he coaxed the enamoured lightning 21from 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 24that she was young manifested the influence of such a be‐lief. She could not age while believing herself young, for the mental state governed the physical.

27    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 30decrepitude 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 246 246:1 and its formations can never be annihilated. Man is not a pendulum, swinging between evil and good, joy and 3Man reflects Godsorrow, sickness and health, life and death. Life and its faculties are not measured by calendars. The perfect and immortal are the eternal 6likeness 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 9its source.

    The measurement of life by solar years robs youth and gives ugliness to age. The radiant sun of virtue and truth 12coexists with being. Manhood is its eternal noon, un‐dimmed by a declining sun. As the physical and mate‐rial, the transient sense of beauty fades, the radiance of 15Spirit should dawn upon the enraptured sense with bright and imperishable glories.

    Never record ages. Chronological data are no part 18of the vast forever. Time-tables of birth and death are Undesirable recordsso many conspiracies against manhood and womanhood. Except for the error of meas‐21uring 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, 24governed by immortal Mind, is always beautiful and grand. Each succeeding year unfolds wisdom, beauty, and holiness.

27    Life is eternal. We should find this out, and begin the demonstration thereof. Life and goodness are immortal. True life eternalLet us then shape our views of existence into 30loveliness, freshness, and continuity, rather than into age and blight.

    Acute and chronic beliefs reproduce their own types. 247 247:1The acute belief of physical life comes on at a remote period, and is not so disastrous as the chronic belief.

3    I have seen age regain two of the elements it had lost, sight and teeth. A woman of eighty-five, whom I knew, Eyes and teeth renewedhad a return of sight. Another woman at 6ninety had new teeth, incisors, cuspids, bi‐cuspids, and one molar. One man at sixty had retained his full set of upper and lower teeth without 9a decaying cavity.

    Beauty, as well as truth, is eternal; but the beauty of material things passes away, fading and fleeting as 12Eternal beautymortal belief. Custom, education, and fashion form the transient standards of mortals. Im‐mortality, exempt from age or decay, has a glory of its 15own, — the radiance of Soul. Immortal men and women are models of spiritual sense, drawn by perfect Mind and reflecting those higher conceptions of loveliness 18which transcend all material sense.

    Comeliness and grace are independent of matter. Be‐ing possesses its qualities before they are perceived hu‐21The divine lovelinessmanly. Beauty is a thing of life, which dwells forever in the eternal Mind and re‐flects the charms of His goodness in expression, form, 24outline, 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 27starry gems, and covers earth with loveliness.

    The embellishments of the person are poor substitutes for the charms of being, shining resplendent and eternal 30over age and decay.

    The recipe for beauty is to have less illusion and more Soul, to retreat from the belief of pain or pleasure 248 248:1in the body into the unchanging calm and glorious free‐dom of spiritual harmony.

3    Love never loses sight of loveliness. Its halo rests upon its object. One marvels that a friend can ever seem less Love’s endowmentthan beautiful. Men and women of riper 6years and larger lessons ought to ripen into health and immortality, instead of lapsing into darkness or gloom. Immortal Mind feeds the body with supernal 9freshness and fairness, supplying it with beautiful images of thought and destroying the woes of sense which each day brings to a nearer tomb.

12    The sculptor turns from the marble to his model in order to perfect his conception. We are all sculptors, Mental sculptureworking at various forms, moulding and chisel‐15ing thought. What is the model before mortal mind? Is it imperfection, joy, sorrow, sin, suffering? Have you accepted the mortal model? Are you repro‐18ducing 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 21it 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 24and 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 27Perfect modelsmodels in thought and look at them continually, or we shall never carve them out in grand and noble lives. Let unselfishness, goodness, mercy, justice, 30health, holiness, love — the kingdom of heaven — reign within us, and sin, disease, and death will diminish until they finally disappear.

249

249:1    Let us accept Science, relinquish all theories based on sense-testimony, give up imperfect models and illusive 3ideals; 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. 6Let us feel the divine energy of Spirit, bringing us into Renewed selfhoodnewness of life and recognizing no mortal nor material power as able to destroy. Let us re‐9joice 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.

12    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 15the infinite, and infinity never began, will never end, and includes nothing unlike God. Whence then is soulless matter?

18    Life is, like Christ, “the same yesterday, and to-day, and forever.” Organization and time have nothing to do Illusive dreamswith Life. You say, “I dreamed last night.” 21What a mistake is that! The I is Spirit. God never slumbers, and His likeness never dreams. Mortals are the Adam dreamers.

24    Sleep and apathy are phases of the dream that life, sub‐stance, and intelligence are material. The mortal night-dream is sometimes nearer the fact of being than are the 27thoughts 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 30mundane flights quite ethereal.

    Man is the reflection of Soul. He is the direct oppo‐site of material sensation, and there is but one Ego. We 250 250:1run into error when we divide Soul into souls, multiply Mind into minds and suppose error to be mind, then mind 3Philosophical blundersto be in matter and matter to be a lawgiver, unintelligence to act like intelligence, and mor‐tality to be the matrix of immortality.

6    Mortal existence is a dream; mortal existence has no real entity, but saith “It is I.” Spirit is the Ego which Spirit the one Egonever dreams, but understands all things; 9which 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. 12Man 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 15man; but a mortal is not man, for man is immortal. A Mortal existence a dreammortal may be weary or pained, enjoy or suffer, according to the dream he entertains in sleep. 18When that dream vanishes, the mortal finds himself experiencing none of these dream-sensations. To the observer, the body lies listless, undisturbed, and sensa‐21tionless, 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? 24There 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 27a 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, 30and drift to the ground. Science reveals Life as not being at the mercy of death, nor will Science admit that happi‐ness is ever the sport of circumstance.

251

251:1    Error is not real, hence it is not more imperative as it hastens towards self-destruction. The so-called 3Error self-destroyedbelief of mortal mind apparent as an abscess should not grow more painful before it suppu‐rates, neither should a fever become more severe before 6it ends.

    Fright is so great at certain stages of mortal belief as to drive belief into new paths. In the illusion of 9Illusion of deathdeath, 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 12 works out the nothingness of error in just these ways. Sickness, as well as sin, is an error that Christ, Truth, alone can destroy.

15    We must learn how mankind govern the body, — whether through faith in hygiene, in drugs, or in will-Mortal mind’s disappearancepower. We should learn whether they govern 18the 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 21 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, 24and the healer of sin, disease, death. This process of higher spiritual understanding improves mankind until error disappears, and nothing is left which deserves to 27perish or to be punished.

    Ignorance, like intentional wrong, is not Science. Ignorance must be seen and corrected before we can at‐30Spiritual ignorancetain harmony. Inharmonious beliefs, which rob Mind, calling it matter, and deify their own notions, imprison themselves in what they create. 252 252:1They are at war with Science, and as our Master said, “If a kingdom be divided against itself, that kingdom 3cannot stand.”

    Human ignorance of Mind and of the recuperative energies of Truth occasions the only skepticism regard‐6ing 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 9Eternal man recognizederror and of its operations must precede that understanding of Truth which destroys error, until the entire mortal, material error finally disappears, 12and the eternal verity, man created by and of Spirit, is understood and recognized as the true likeness of his Maker.

15    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:

18    I am wholly dishonest, and no man knoweth it. I can cheat, lie, commit adultery, rob, murder, and I elude Testimony of sensedetection by smooth-tongued villainy. Ani‐21mal 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 24sin 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, 27may 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 30consuming fire.

    Spirit, bearing opposite testimony, saith:

    I am Spirit. Man, whose senses are spiritual, is my 253 253:1likeness. He reflects the infinite understanding, for I am Infinity. The beauty of holiness, the perfection of being, 3Testimony of Soulimperishable 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. 6I 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.

9    I hope, dear reader, I am leading you into the under‐standing of your divine rights, your heaven-bestowed har‐Heaven-bestowed prerogativemony, — that, as you read, you see there is no 12cause (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. 15Knowing the falsity of so-called material sense, you can assert your prerogative to overcome the belief in sin, dis‐ease, or death.

18    If you believe in and practise wrong knowingly, you can at once change your course and do right. Matter can Right endeavor possiblemake no opposition to right endeavors against 21sin or sickness, for matter is inert, mindless. Also, if you believe yourself diseased, you can alter this wrong belief and action without hindrance from 24the body.

    Do not believe in any supposed necessity for sin, dis‐ease, or death, knowing (as you ought to know) that God 27never requires obedience to a so-called material law, for no such law exists. The belief in sin and death is de‐stroyed by the law of God, which is the law of Life in‐30stead of death, of harmony instead of discord, of Spirit instead of the flesh.

    The divine demand, “Be ye therefore perfect,” is sci‐254254:1entific, and the human footsteps leading to perfection are indispensable. Individuals are consistent who, watching 3Patience and final perfectionand praying, can “run, and not be weary; . . . walk, and not faint,” who gain good rapidly and hold their position, or attain slowly and 6yield 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 9clothed 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 12our path. Imperfect mortals grasp the ultimate of spir‐itual perfection slowly; but to begin aright and to con‐tinue the strife of demonstrating the great problem of 15being, is doing much.

    During the sensual ages, absolute Christian Science may not be achieved prior to the change called death, 18for we have not the power to demonstrate what we do not understand. But the human self must be evangel‐ized. This task God demands us to accept lovingly 21to-day, and to abandon so fast as practical the material, and to work out the spiritual which determines the out‐ward and actual.

24    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?

27    If you launch your bark upon the ever-agitated but healthful waters of truth, you will encounter storms. The cross and crownYour good will be evil spoken of. This is the 30cross. 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.