CHAPTER VIII - FOOTSTEPS OF TRUTH

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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.

Practical preaching

1 THE best sermon ever preached is Truth practised

and demonstrated by the destruction of sin, sickness,

3 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

6 two masters."

We cannot build safely on false foundations. Truth

makes a new creature, in whom old things pass away

9 and "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

12 of God, good.

The uses of truth

We cannot fill vessels already full. They must first be

emptied. Let us disrobe error. Then, when

15 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

18 in truth through flood-tides of Love. Christian perfec-

tion is won on no other basis.

Grafting holiness upon unholiness, supposing that sin

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1 can 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.

Divine study

6 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,

9 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

12 the merits of Christ, - through the perception and ac-

ceptance of Truth. For this glorious result Christian

Science lights the torch of spiritual understanding.

Harmonious life-work

15 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

18 of 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

21 experience discloses the finity of error and the infinite

capacities of Truth, in which God gives man dominion

over all the earth.

Belief and practice

24 Our beliefs about a Supreme Being contradict the

practice growing out of them. Error abounds where

Truth should "much more abound." We

27 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 err-

30 ing mortal mind had more power than omnipotent Spirit.

Sure reward of righteousness

Common opinion admits that a man may take cold in

the act of doing good, and that this cold may produce

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1 fatal pulmonary disease; as though evil could overbear

the law of Love, and check the reward for do-

3 ing good. In the Science of Christianity, Mind

- omnipotence - has all-power, assigns sure

rewards to righteousness, and shows that matter can

6 neither heal nor make sick, create nor destroy.

Our belief and understanding

If God were understood instead of being merely be-

lieved, this understanding would establish health. The

9 accusation of the rabbis, "He made himself

the Son of God," was really the justification

of Jesus, for to the Christian the only true

12 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

15 but God, and so makes man the image of his Maker in

deed and in truth.

Suicide and sin

We are prone to believe either in more than one Su-

18 preme 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

21 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

24 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

27 him 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,

30 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

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1 once the centre and circumference of being. It is evil

that dies; good dies not.

Spirit the only intelligence and substance

3 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

6 error is as conclusively mental as immortal

Truth; and that there are two separate, an-

tagonistic entities and beings, two powers, - namely,

9 Spirit 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

15 so 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.

Unscientific theories

18 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 under-

21 stand the Ego, and realize only one God, one

Mind or intelligence?

False and self-assertive theories have given sinners the

24 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

27 Mind; 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

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1 utterances; else God will continue to be hidden from hu-

manity, and mortals will sin without knowing that they

3 are sinning, will lean on matter instead of Spirit, stumble

with lameness, drop with drunkenness, consume with dis-

case, - all because of their blindness, their false sense

6 concerning God and man.

Creation perfect

When will the error of believing that there is life in

matter, and that sin, sickness, and death are creations of

9 God, be unmasked? When will it be under-

stood that matter has neither intelligence, life,

nor sensation, and that the opposite belief is the prolific

12 source of all suffering? God created all through Mind,

and made all perfect and eternal. Where then is the

necessity for recreation or procreation?

Perceiving the divine image

15 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,

18 or 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-

21 ity of good, the nothingness and unreality of evil.

Redemption from selfishness

When we realize that there is one Mind, the divine law

of loving our neighbor as ourselves is unfolded;

24 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

27 where selfishness reigns.

Selfishness tips the beam of human existence towards

the side of error, not towards Truth. Denial of the one-

30 ness 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,

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1 we can have no other Mind but His, - no other Love,

wisdom, or Truth, no other sense of Life, and no con-

3 sciousness of the existence of matter or error.

Will-power unrighteous

The power of the human will should be exercised only

in subordination to Truth; else it will misguide the judg-

6 ment and free the lower propensities. It is the

province of spiritual sense to govern man.

Material, erring, human thought acts injuriously both

9 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

12 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.

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

18 source of supply.

Birth and death unreal

Does God send sickness, giving the mother her child

for the brief space of a few years and then taking it away

21 by 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

27 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

30 and subsequently correct them. God does not cause man

to sin, to be sick, or to die.

No evil in Spirit

There are evil beliefs, often called evil spirits; but

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1 these evils are not Spirit, for there is no evil in Spirit.

Because God is Spirit, evil becomes more apparent and

3 obnoxious proportionately as we advance spir-

itually, until it disappears from our lives.

This fact proves our position, for every scientific state-

6 ment in Christianity has its proof. Error of statement

leads to error in action.

Subordination of evil

God is not the creator of an evil mind. Indeed, evil

9 is not Mind. We must learn that evil is the awful decep-

tion and unreality of existence. Evil is not

supreme; good is not helpless; nor are the

12 so-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.

Evident impossibilities

15 Body is not first and Soul last, nor is evil mightier than

good. The Science of being repudiates self-

evident impossibilities, such as the amalgama-

18 tion of Truth and error in cause or effect. Science sepa-

rates the tares and wheat in time of harvest.

One primal cause

There is but one primal cause. Therefore there can

21 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, dis-

24 ease, 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.

30 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

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1 suppositional error, which affords no proof of God,

Spirit, or of the spiritual creation. Material sense de-

3 fines all things materially, and has a finite sense of the

infinite.

Seemingly independent authority

The Scriptures say, "In Him we live, and move, and

6 have our being." What then is this seeming power, in-

dependent of God, which causes disease and

cures it? What is it but an error of belief, -

9 a 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.

12 It 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

15 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

18 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

21 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

24 forever unseen.

Sickness as only thought

Mind, not matter, is causation. A material body

only expresses a material and mortal mind. A mortal

27 man possesses this body, and he makes it

harmonious or discordant according to the

images of thought impressed upon it. You embrace

30 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

PAGE 209

1 included in matter. Man, being immortal, has a perfect

indestructible life. It is the mortal belief which makes

3 the body discordant and diseased in proportion as igno-

rance, fear, or human will governs mortals.

Allness of Truth

Mind, supreme over all its formations and governing

6 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

9 material 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

12 philosophy 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.

15 Nearness, not distance, lends enchantment to this view.

Spiritual translation

The compounded minerals or aggregated substances

composing the earth, the relations which constituent

18 masses hold to each other, the magnitudes,

distances, and revolutions of the celestial

bodies, are of no real importance, when we remember

21 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

24 found harmonious and eternal.

Material substances or mundane formations, astro-

nomical calculations, and all the paraphernalia of specu-

27 lative 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

30 Spirit.

Spiritual sense is a conscious, constant capacity to un-

derstand God. It shows the superiority of faith by works

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1 over faith in words. Its ideas are expressed only in "new

tongues;" and these are interpreted by the translation of

3 the spiritual original into the language which human

thought can comprehend.

Jesus' disregard of matter

The Principle and proof of Christianity are discerned

6 by spiritual sense. They are set forth in Jesus' demon-

strations, 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

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

15 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

18 process.

Mind not mortal

The expression mortal mind is really a solecism, for

Mind is immortal, and Truth pierces the error of mortality

21 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.

24 Error soweth the wind and reapeth the whirlwind.

Matter mindless

What is termed matter, being unintelligent, cannot say,

"I suffer, I die, I am sick, or I am well." It is the so-

27 called 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

30 sense 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.

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1 If brain, nerves, stomach, are intelligent, - if they talk

to us, tell us their condition, and report how they feel, -

3 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

6 greater?

Matter sensationless

The sensations of the body must either be the sensa-

tions of a so-called mortal mind or of matter. Nerves

9 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

12 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

15 this 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

18 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

21 on edge." Sympathy with error should disappear. The

transfer of the thoughts of one erring mind to another,

Science renders impossible.

Nerves painless

24 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

27 is dematerialized, these faculties must be lost,

for their immortality is not in Spirit; whereas the fact

is that only through dematerialization and spiritualiza-

30 tion of thought can these faculties be conceived of as

immortal.

Nerves are not the source of pain or pleasure. We

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1 suffer or enjoy in our dreams, but this pain or pleasure

is not communicated through a nerve. A tooth which has

3 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

6 the 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-

9 tal 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

12 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.

15 Reverse the process; take away this so-called mind instead

of a piece of the flesh, and the nerves have no sensation.

Human falsities

Mortals have a modus of their own, undirected and un-

18 sustained 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

21 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

24 means of Mind, not matter.

No miracles in Mind-methods

Because all the methods of Mind are not understood,

we say the lips or hands must move in order to convey

27 thought, that the undulations of the air convey

sound, and possibly that other methods involve

so-called miracles. The realities of being, its

30 normal 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

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1 modus and action, are styled the real. Whoever con-

tradicts this mortal mind supposition of reality is called

3 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.

Good indefinable

6 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

9 material conception. God, good, is self-exist-

ent and self-expressed, though indefinable as a whole.

Every step towards goodness is a departure from materi-

12 ality, and is a tendency towards God, Spirit. Material

theories partially paralyze this attraction towards infinite

and eternal good by an opposite attraction towards the

15 finite, temporary, and discordant.

Sound is a mental impression made on mortal belief.

The ear does not really hear. Divine Science reveals

18 sound as communicated through the senses of Soul -

through spiritual understanding.

Music, rhythm of head and heart

Mozart experienced more than he expressed. The

21 rapture of his grandest symphonies was never heard. He

was a musician beyond what the world knew.

This was even more strikingly true of Beet-

24 hoven, 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.

27 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.

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, -

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1 it is possible that the impressions from Truth were as

distinct as sound, and that they came as sound to the

3 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

6 before his material senses, he could never have "walked

with God," nor been guided into the demonstration of

life eternal.

Adam and the senses

9 Adam, represented in the Scriptures as formed from

dust, is an object-lesson for the human mind. The mate-

rial senses, like Adam, originate in matter and

12 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 spirit-

15 ual sense, and not the material, conveys the impressions

of Mind to man, then being will be understood and found

to be harmonious.

Idolatrous illusions

18 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

21 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,

24 slay man, and meanwhile would spread their table with

cannibal tidbits and give thanks.

The senses of Soul

How transient a sense is mortal sight, when a wound on

27 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,

30 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 with-

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1 out pain, and they are forever at peace. Nothing can hide

from them the harmony of all things and the might and

3 permanence of Truth.

Real being never lost

If Spirit, Soul, could sin or be lost, then being and im-

mortality would be lost, together with all the faculties of

6 Mind; 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

9 unacquainted with the reality of existence, because matter

and mortality do not reflect the facts of Spirit.

Spiritual vision is not subordinate to geometric alti-

12 tudes. Whatever is governed by God, is never for an

instant deprived of the light and might of intelligence

and Life.

Light and darkness

15 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

18 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

21 truth and love.

With its divine proof, Science reverses the evidence of

material sense. Every quality and condition of mortality

24 is lost, swallowed up in immortality. Mortal man is the

antipode of immortal man in origin, in existence, and in his

relation to God.

Faith of Socrates

27 Because he understood the superiority and immor-

tality of good, Socrates feared not the hemlock poison.

Even the faith of his philosophy spurned phys-

30 ical 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-

PAGE 216

1 able philosopher because of his faith in Soul and his in-

difference to the body.

The serpent of error

3 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 Sci-

6 ence 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.

9 Spirituality lays open siege to materialism. On which

side are we fighting?

Servants and masters

The understanding that the Ego is Mind, and that

12 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 understand-

15 ing 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-

18 mission 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

21 and evil.

If the decision were left to the corporeal senses, evil

would appear to be the master of good, and sickness to

24 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 Cor-

27 inthians vi. 15.)

Personal identity

When you say, "Man's body is material," I say with

Paul: Be "willing rather to be absent from the body,

30 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

PAGE 217

1 own likeness. The loss of man's identity through the

understanding which Science confers is impossible; and

3 the notion of such a possibility is more absurd than to

conclude that individual musical tones are lost in the

origin of harmony.

Paul's experience

6 Medical schools may inform us that the healing work

of Christian Science and Paul's peculiar Christian con-

version 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-

12 tures, 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!"

Fatigue is mental

15 That scientific methods are superior to others, is

seen by their effects. When you have once conquered

a diseased condition of the body through

18 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

21 you 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

24 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,

27 and so destroy this illusion, for matter cannot be weary

and heavy-laden.

You say, "Toil fatigues me." But what is this me!

30 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 non-

PAGE 218

1 intelligent. Mortal mind does the false talking, and that

which affirms weariness, made that weariness.

Mind never weary

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

human mind says of the body, the body, like

6 the inanimate wheel, would never be weary.

The consciousness of Truth rests us more than hours of

repose in unconsciousness.

Coalition of sin and sickness

9 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,

12 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

15 the body can be sick independently of mortal mind and

that the divine Mind has no jurisdiction over the body.

Sickness akin to sin

Why pray for the recovery of the sick, if you are with-

18 out faith in God's willingness and ability to heal them?

If you do believe in God, why do you sub-

stitute drugs for the Almighty's power, and

21 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?

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

30 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,

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1 pain, weakness, weariness, sorrow, sin, death, will be

unknown, and the mortal dream will forever cease. My

3 method of treating fatigue applies to all bodily ailments,

since Mind should be, and is, supreme, absolute, and

final.

Affirmation and result

6 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,

9 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

12 the whole body "sick, and the whole heart faint;" whereas

divine Mind heals.

When this is understood, we shall never affirm concern-

15 ing 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

18 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

21 harmoniously. "The wish," says the poet, "is ever father

to the thought."

Scientific beginning

We may hear a sweet melody, and yet misunderstand

24 the science that governs it. Those who are healed

through metaphysical Science, not compre-

hending the Principle of the cure, may misun-

27 derstand 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

30 death 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.

PAGE 220

Hygiene ineffectual

1 We hear it said: " I exercise daily in the open air. I

take cold baths, in order to overcome a predisposition to

3 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,

6 and induce sufferers to look in other directions for cause

and cure.

Instinct is better than misguided reason, as even na-

9 ture 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

12 amid 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-

15 mosphere of mortal mind, leaves catarrh to the latter.

Colds, coughs, and contagion are engendered solely by

human theories.

The reflex phenomena

18 Mortal mind produces its own phenomena, and then

charges them to something else, - like a kitten

glancing into the mirror at itself and thinking

21 it sees another kitten.

A clergyman once adopted a diet of bread and water

to increase his spirituality. Finding his health failing,

24 he gave up his abstinence, and advised others never to

try dietetics for growth in grace.

Volition far-reaching

The belief that either fasting or feasting makes men

27 better morally or physically is one of the fruits of "the

tree of the knowledge of good and evil," con-

cerning which God said, "Thou shalt not eat

30 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 mind.

PAGE 221

Starvation and dyspepsia

1 I knew a person who when quite a child adopted the

Graham system to cure dyspepsia. For many years, he

3 ate only bread and vegetables, and drank noth-

ing but water. His dyspepsia increasing, he

decided that his diet should be more rigid, and

6 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

9 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

12 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,

15 and he is now in perfect health without a vestige of the

old complaint.

He learned that suffering and disease were the self-

18 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-

21 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

24 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-

27 pots of Egypt, feeling childhood's hunger and undisci-

plined by self-denial and divine Science.

Mind and stomach

This new-born understanding, that neither food nor

30 the stomach, without the consent of mortal

mind, can make one suffer, brings with it an-

other lesson, - that gluttony is a sensual illusion, and

PAGE 222

1 that this phantasm of mortal mind disappears as we better

apprehend our spiritual existence and ascend the ladder

3 of life.

This person learned that food affects the body only

as mortal mind has its material methods of working, one

6 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 re-

9 generates this fleshly mind and feeds thought with the

bread of Life.

Food had less power to help or to hurt him after he

12 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

15 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

18 been 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

21 hygiene, and was well.

He learned that a dyspeptic was very far from being

the image and likeness of God, - far from having "do-

24 minion 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

27 never made a dyspeptic, while fear, hygiene, physiology,

and physics had made him one, contrary to His commands.

Life only in Spirit

In seeking a cure for dyspepsia consult matter not at

30 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

PAGE 223

1 matter, and plant ourselves upon what is pure and per-

fect. Paul said, "Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not

3 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

6 instead of in Spirit.

Soul greater than body

Matter does not express Spirit. God is infinite omni-

present Spirit. If Spirit is all and is everywhere, what

9 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

12 than body. If Spirit were once within the body, Spirit

would be finite, and therefore could not be Spirit.

The question of the ages

The question, "What is Truth," convulses the world.

15 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

18 it pause." "If the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into

the ditch."

The efforts of error to answer this question by some

21 ology are vain. Spiritual rationality and free thought ac-

company approaching Science, and cannot be put down.

They will emancipate humanity, and supplant unscientific

24 means and so-called laws.

Heralds of Science

Peals that should startle the slumbering thought from

its erroneous dream are partially unheeded; but the last

27 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

30 claims; 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

PAGE 224

1 is increasing and the power of sin diminishing, for the,

world feels the alterative effect of truth through every

3 pore.

As the crude footprints of the past disappear from the

dissolving paths of the present, we shall better understand

6 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

9 be painless progress, attended by life and peace instead

of discord and death.

Sectarianism and opposition

In the record of nineteen centuries, there are sects

12 many but not enough Christianity. Centuries ago re-

ligionists were ready to hail an anthropomor-

phic God, and array His vicegerent with pomp

15 and 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

18 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 har-

21 bingers of truth's full-orbed appearing.

A higher and more practical Christianity, demonstrat-

ing justice and meeting the needs of mortals in sickness

24 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

27 came of old to the patriarch at noonday?

Mental emancipation

Truth brings the elements of liberty. On its banner

is the Soul-inspired motto, "Slavery is abolished." The

30 power of God brings deliverance to the cap-

tive. No power can withstand divine Love.

What is this supposed power, which opposes itself to God?

PAGE 225

1 Whence cometh it? What is it that binds man with iron

shackles to sin, sickness, and death? Whatever enslaves

3 man is opposed to the divine government. Truth makes

man free.

Truth's ordeal

You may know when first Truth leads by the few-

6 ness 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,

9 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

12 always some tumult, but there is a rallying to truth's

standard.

Immortal sentences

The history of our country, like all history, illustrates

15 the might of Mind, and shows human power to be propor-

tionate to its embodiment of right thinking. A

few immortal sentences, breathing the omnipo-

18 tence 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

21 breath of freedom come from the cannon's mouth. Love

is the liberator.

Slavery abolished

Legally to abolish unpaid servitude in the United

24 States was hard; but the abolition of mental slavery is

a more difficult task. The despotic tenden-

cies, inherent in mortal mind and always ger-

27 minating 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

30 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 Afri-

PAGE 226

1 can slavery was abolished in our land. That was only

prophetic of further steps towards the banishment of a

3 world-wide slavery, found on higher planes of existence

and under more subtle and depraving forms.

Liberty's crusade

The voice of God in behalf of the African slave was

6 still echoing in our land, when the voice of the herald of

this new crusade sounded the keynote of uni-

versal freedom, asking a fuller acknowledg-

9 ment 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

12 through human warfare, not with bayonet and blood, but

through Christ's divine Science.

Cramping systems

God has built a higher platform of human rights, and

15 He has built it on diviner claims. These claims are not

made through code or creed, but in demonstra-

tion of "on earth peace, good-will toward men."

18 Human codes, scholastic theology, material medicine and

hygiene, fetter faith and spiritual understanding. Divine

Science rends asunder these fetters, and man's birthright

21 of 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-

24 erned them, rather than Mind.

House of bondage

The lame, the deaf, the dumb, the blind, the sick, the

sensual, the sinner, I wished to save from the slavery of

27 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 be-

30 fore 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

PAGE 227

1 of Christian Science, where fetters fall and the rights of

man are fully known and acknowledged.

Higher law ends bondage

3 I saw that the law of mortal belief included all error,

and that, even as oppressive laws are disputed and mor-

tals are taught their right to freedom, so the

6 claims 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

9 of man's inalienable rights and in subjection to hope-

less slavery, because some public teachers permit

an ignorance of divine power, - an ignorance that

12 is the foundation of continued bondage and of human

suffering.

Native freedom

Discerning the rights of man, we cannot fail to fore-

15 see the doom of all oppression. Slavery is not the legiti-

mate state of man. God made man free.

Paul said, "I was free born." All men should

18 be free. "Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is lib-

erty." Love and Truth make free, but evil and error

lead into captivity.

Standard of liberty

21 Christian Science raises the standard of liberty and

cries: "Follow me! Escape from the bondage of sick-

ness, sin, and death!" Jesus marked out the

24 way. 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

27 divine 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

PAGE 228

1 direct opposition to them and in defiance of all material

conditions.

No fleshly heredity

3 The transmission of disease or of certain idiosyncra-

sies of mortal mind would be impossible if this great fact

of being were learned, - namely, that nothing

6 inharmonious 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

9 right, we shall have no dangerous inheritances, and fleshly

ills will disappear.

God-given dominion

The enslavement of man is not legitimate. It will

12 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

15 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 har-

18 mony as the spiritual reality and discord as the material

unreality.

If we follow the command of our Master, "Take no

21 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

24 Truth.

Priestly pride humbled

There is no power apart from God. Omnipotence has

all-power, and to acknowledge any other power is to dis-

27 honor God. The humble Nazarene overthrew

the supposition that sin, sickness, and death

have power. He proved them powerless. It should have

30 humbled the pride of the priests, when they saw the dem-

onstration of Christianity excel the influence of their dead

faith and ceremonies.

PAGE 229

1 If Mind is not the master of sin, sickness, and death,

they are immortal, for it is already proved that mat-

3 ter has not destroyed them, but is their basis and

support.

No union of opposites

We should hesitate to say that Jehovah sins or suffers;

6 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.

9 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

12 at the same time admits that Spirit is God, - vir-

tually declaring Him good in one instance and evil in

another.

Self-constituted law

15 By universal consent, mortal belief has constituted

itself a law to bind mortals to sickness, sin, and death.

This customary belief is misnamed material

18 law, 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

21 by the law of immortal Mind, and false law should be

trampled under foot.

Sickness from mortal mind

If God causes man to be sick, sickness must be good,

24 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

27 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

30 matter nor of divine Mind, which causes the belief of sick-

ness. The remedy is Truth, not matter, - the truth that

disease is unreal.

PAGE 230

1 If sickness is real, it belongs to immortality; if true,

it is a part of Truth. Would you attempt with drugs,

3 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,

6 holiness, 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-

9 vation which comes through God, the divine Principle,

Love, as demonstrated by Jesus.

God never inconsistent

It would be contrary to our highest ideas of God to

12 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 vo-

15 lition 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

18 cause evil and health occasion disease.

Mental narcotics

Does wisdom make blunders which must afterwards

be rectified by man? Does a law of God produce sick-

21 ness, 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

24 material method. These merely evade the question.

They are soothing syrups to put children to sleep, satisfy

mortal belief, and quiet fear.

The true healing

27 We think that we are healed when a disease disap-

pears, though it is liable to reappear; but we are never

thoroughly healed until the liability to be

30 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

PAGE 231

1 must be obliterated through Christ in divine Science, or

the so-called physical senses will get the victory.

Destruction of all evil

3 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 de-

6 stroyed 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,

9 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.

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

15 material, creating and governing man through perpetual

warfare. God is not the author of mortal discords.

Therefore we accept the conclusion that discords have

18 only a fabulous existence, are mortal beliefs which divine

Truth and Love destroy.

Superiority to sickness and sin

To hold yourself superior to sin, because God made

21 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 rela-

24 tion 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

27 with 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

PAGE 232

1 Him was not anything made that was made," - can

triumph over sin, sickness, and death.

Denials of divine power

3 Many theories relative to God and man neither make

man harmonious nor God lovable. The beliefs we com-

monly entertain about happiness and life

6 afford 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

12 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

15 false.

In our age Christianity is again demonstrating the

power of divine Principle, as it did over nineteen hun-

18 dred 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-

21 stroy 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-

24 tence of God, which sealed God's condemnation of sin,

sickness, and death.

Signs following

In the sacred sanctuary of Truth are voices of sol-

27 emn 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 unquestion-

30 able signs of the burial of error and the resurrection to

spiritual life.

Profession and proof

There is neither place nor opportunity in Science for error

PAGE 233

1 of any sort. Every day makes its demands upon us for

higher proofs rather than professions of Christian power.

3 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

6 progress, and progress is the law of God, whose law de-

mands of us only what we can certainly fulfil.

Perfection gained slowly

In the midst of imperfection, perfection is seen and

9 acknowledged only by degrees. The ages must slowly

work up to perfection. How long it must be

before we arrive at the demonstration of scien-

12 tific 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-

15 ously earned and won.

Christ's mission

Already the shadow of His right hand rests upon the

hour. Ye who can discern the face of the sky, - the

18 sign material, - how much more should ye

discern the sign mental, and compass the de-

struction of sin and sickness by overcoming the thoughts

21 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

24 the hearts which rejected him.

Efficacy of truth

When numbers have been divided according to a fixed

rule, the quotient is not more unquestionable than the

27 scientific 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

30 of truth is designed to rebuke and destroy error. Why

should truth not be efficient in sickness, which is solely

the result of inharmony?

PAGE 234

1 Spiritual draughts heal, while material lotions interfere

with truth, even as ritualism and creed hamper spirit-

3 uality. If we trust matter, we distrust Spirit.

Crumbs of comfort

Whatever inspires with wisdom, Truth, or Love - be

it song, sermon, or Science - blesses the human family

6 with crumbs of comfort from Christ's table

feeding the hungry and giving living waters to

the thirsty.

Hospitality to health and good

9 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

12 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

15 them under foot, thereby robbing both themselves and

others.

Cleansing the mind

If mortals would keep proper ward over mortal mind,

18 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 sick-

21 ness will never cease. The present codes of human

systems disappoint the weary searcher after a divine

theology, adequate to the right education of human

24 thought.

Sin and disease must be thought before they can be

manifested. You must control evil thoughts in the first

27 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

30 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

PAGE 235

1 malicious purposes cannot go forth, like wandering pollen,

from one human mind to another, finding unsuspected

3 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

6 the requirements of divine Science.

Teachers' functions

The teachers of schools and the readers in churches

should be selected with as direct reference to their

9 morals as to their learning or their correct

reading. Nurseries of character should be

strongly garrisoned with virtue. School-examinations are

12 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

15 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

18 degrade the characters it should inform and elevate.

Physicians' privilege

Physicians, whom the sick employ in their helplessness,

should be models of virtue. They should be wise spir-

21 itual 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,

24 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

27 power.

Clergymen's duty

Clergymen, occupying the watchtowers of the world,

should uplift the standard of Truth. They should so raise

30 their hearers spiritually, that their listeners

will love to grapple with a new, right idea

and broaden their concepts. Love of Christianity, rather

PAGE 236

1 than love of popularity, should stimulate clerical labor

and progress. Truth should emanate from the pulpit,

3 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.

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

9 individuals, who reiterate Christ's teachings in support

of his proof by example that the divine Mind heals sick-

ness as well as sin?

A mother's responsibility

12 A mother is the strongest educator, either for or

against crime. Her thoughts form the embryo of an-

other mortal mind, and unconsciously mould

15 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

18 of Christian Science, from which we learn of the one

Mind and of the availability of good as the remedy for

every woe.

Children's tractability

21 Children should obey their parents; insubordination

is an evil, blighting the buddings of self-government.

Parents should teach their children at the

24 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

27 make them happy and good.

Jesus loved little children because of their freedom

from wrong and their receptiveness of right. While

30 age is halting between two opinions or battling with

false beliefs, youth makes easy and rapid strides towards

Truth.

PAGE 237

1 A little girl, who had occasionally listened to my ex-

planations, badly wounded her finger. She seemed not

3 to 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,

6 my finger is not a bit sore."

Soil and seed

It might have been months or years before her parents

would have laid aside their drugs, or reached the mental

9 height 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

12 themselves and their offspring. Superstition, like "the

fowls of the air," snatches away the good seed before it

has sprouted.

Teaching children

15 Children should be taught the Truth-cure, Christian

Science, among their first lessons, and kept from discuss-

ing or entertaining theories or thoughts about

18 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

21 be excluded on the same principle as the former. This

makes Christian Science early available.

Deluded invalids

Some invalids are unwilling to know the facts or to

24 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

27 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, unwill-

30 ing to investigate the Science of Mind which would rid

them of their complaints, they hug false beliefs and suffer

the delusive consequences.

PAGE 238

Patient waiting

1 Motives and acts are not rightly valued before they are

understood. It is well to wait till those whom you would

3 benefit 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

9 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?"

Unimproved opportunities

12 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 warn-

15 ing, "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

18 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 be-

21 cause we suffer severely from error.

Attempts to conciliate society and so gain dominion over

mankind, arise from worldly weakness. He who leaves

24 all for Christ forsakes popularity and gains Christianity.

Society and intolerance

Society is a foolish juror, listening only to one side of

the case. Justice often comes too late to secure a verdict.

27 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

30 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

PAGE 239

1 demonstration by which sin and sickness are destroyed.

The sects, which endured the lash of their predecessors,

3 in their turn lay it upon those who are in advance of

creeds.

Right views of humanity

Take away wealth, fame, and social organizations,

6 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

9 be judged according to wisdom, and we get better views

of humanity.

The wicked man is not the ruler of his upright

12 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

15 unrighteous man his thoughts."

Standpoint revealed

To ascertain our progress, we must learn where our

affections are placed and whom we acknowledge and

18 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

21 the spirit we manifest reveal our standpoint, and show

what we are winning.

Antagonistic sources

Mortal mind is the acknowledged seat of human mo-

24 tives. It forms material concepts and produces every

discordant action of the body. If action pro-

ceeds from the divine Mind, action is harmo-

27 nious. 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

30 Mind 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."

PAGE 240

Some lessons from nature

1 Nature voices natural, spiritual law and divine Love,

but human belief misinterprets nature. Arctic regions,

3 sunny tropics, giant hills, winged winds,

mighty billows, verdant vales, festive flowers,

and glorious heavens, - all point to Mind, the spiritual

6 intelligence 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-

9 urally towards the light.

Perpetual motions

In the order of Science, in which the Principle is above

what it reflects, all is one grand concord. Change this

12 statement, 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

15 perpetual motion. Its symbol is the sphere. The rota-

tions and revolutions of the universe of Mind go on

eternally.

Progress demanded

18 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 ef-

21 faced 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

24 it. 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

30 of paying sin's wages involves unwinding one's snarls

and learning from experience how to divide between sense

and Soul.

PAGE 241

1 "Whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth." He, who

knows God's will or the demands of divine Science and

3 obeys them, incurs the hostility of envy; and he who

refuses obedience to God, is chastened by Love.

The doom of sin

Sensual treasures are laid up "where moth and rust

6 doth corrupt." Mortality is their doom. Sin breaks in

upon them, and carries off their fleeting joys.

The sensualist's affections are as imaginary,

9 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

12 a mocking spectacle is sin!

Spirit transforms

The Bible teaches transformation of the body by the

renewal of Spirit. Take away the spiritual signification

15 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

18 practice.

The substance of all devotion is the reflection and

demonstration of divine Love, healing sickness and

21 destroying sin. Our Master said, "If ye love me, keep

my commandments."

One's aim, a point beyond faith, should be to find the

24 footsteps 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

27 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

30 demonstration.

Spiritual baptism

It is "easier for a camel to go through the eye of a

needle," than for sinful beliefs to enter the kingdom of

PAGE 242

1 heaven, eternal harmony. Through repentance, spiritual

baptism, and regeneration, mortals put off their material

3 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."

6 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.

The one only way

9 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 conscious-

12 ness 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

18 of error, - self-will, self-justification, and self-love, -

which wars against spirituality and is the law of sin

and death.

Divided vestments

21 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

24 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

27 superstition 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

PAGE 243

1 spiritual ignorance from the world, but we can never

succeed in the Science and demonstration of spiritual

3 good through ignorance or hypocrisy.

Ancient and modern miracles

The divine Love, which made harmless the poisonous

viper, which delivered men from the boiling oil, from

6 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 demon-

9 strations 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

12 confirm 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

15 desire as from lack of spiritual growth.

Mental telegraphy

The clay cannot reply to the potter. The head, heart,

lungs, and limbs do not inform us that they are dizzy,

18 diseased, consumptive, or lame. If this in-

formation is conveyed, mortal mind conveys

it. Neither immortal and unerring Mind nor matter,

21 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

24 sensation.

Annihilation of error

Truth has no consciousness of error. Love has no

sense of hatred. Life has no partnership

27 with death. Truth, Life, and Love are a law

of annihilation to everything unlike themselves, because

they declare nothing except God.

Deformity and perfection

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

PAGE 244

1 good and the fount of all being, He does not produce

moral or physical deformity; therefore such deformity is

3 not real, but is illusion, the mirage of error.

Divine Science reveals these grand facts. On

their basis Jesus demonstrated Life, never

6 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, happi-

9 ness 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

12 made me free from the law of sin and death."

Man never less than man

Man undergoing birth, maturity, and decay is like the

beasts and vegetables, - subject to laws of decay. If

15 man were dust in his earliest stage of exist-

ence, we might admit the hypothesis that he

returns eventually to his primitive condition;

18 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

21 entire manifestation, - when there is no full reflection

of the infinite Mind.

Man not evolved

Man in Science is neither young nor old. He has

24 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 im-

27 mortal, 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

30 helplessness and decadence, instead of assigning to man

the everlasting grandeur and immortality of development,

power, and prestige.

PAGE 245

1 The error of thinking that we are growing old, and the

benefits of destroying that illusion, are illustrated in a

3 sketch from the history of an English woman, published

in the London medical magazine called The Lancet.

Perpetual youth

Disappointed in love in her early years, she became

6 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,

9 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

12 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

15 youth 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

21 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

24 that 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

30 decrepitude is not according to law, nor is it a necessity of

nature, but an illusion.

Man reflects God

The infinite never began nor will it ever end. Mind

PAGE 246

1 and its formations can never be annihilated. Man is not

a pendulum, swinging between evil and good, joy and

3 sorrow, sickness and health, life and death.

Life and its faculties are not measured by

calendars. The perfect and immortal are the eternal

6 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

9 its source.

The measurement of life by solar years robs youth and

gives ugliness to age. The radiant sun of virtue and truth

12 coexists 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

15 Spirit should dawn upon the enraptured sense with bright

and imperishable glories.

Undesirable records

Never record ages. Chronological data are no part

18 of the vast forever. Time-tables of birth and death are

so many conspiracies against manhood and

womanhood. Except for the error of meas-

21 uring 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,

24 governed by immortal Mind, is always beautiful and

grand. Each succeeding year unfolds wisdom, beauty,

and holiness.

True life eternal

27 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

30 loveliness, freshness, and continuity, rather

than into age and blight.

Acute and chronic beliefs reproduce their own types.

PAGE 247

1 The acute belief of physical life comes on at a remote

period, and is not so disastrous as the chronic belief.

Eyes and teeth renewed

3 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

6 ninety 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

9 a decaying cavity.

Eternal beauty

Beauty, as well as truth, is eternal; but the beauty

of material things passes away, fading and fleeting as

12 mortal belief. Custom, education, and fashion

form the transient standards of mortals. Im-

mortality, exempt from age or decay, has a glory of its

15 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

18 which transcend all material sense.

The divine loveliness

Comeliness and grace are independent of matter. Be-

ing possesses its qualities before they are perceived hu-

21 manly. Beauty is a thing of life, which

dwells forever in the eternal Mind and re-

flects the charms of His goodness in expression, form,

24 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

27 starry gems, and covers earth with loveliness.

The embellishments of the person are poor substitutes

for the charms of being, shining resplendent and eternal

30 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

PAGE 248

1 in the body into the unchanging calm and glorious free-

dom of spiritual harmony.

Love's endowment

3 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

6 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

9 freshness and fairness, supplying it with beautiful images

of thought and destroying the woes of sense which each

day brings to a nearer tomb.

Mental sculpture

12 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 chisel-

15 ing thought. What is the model before mortal

mind? Is it imperfection, joy, sorrow, sin, suffering?

Have you accepted the mortal model? Are you repro-

18 ducing 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

21 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

24 and deformity of matter models.

Perfect models

To remedy this, we must first turn our gaze in the right

direction, and then walk that way. We must form perfect

27 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,

30 health, holiness, love - the kingdom of heaven - reign

within us, and sin, disease, and death will diminish until

they finally disappear.

PAGE 249

1 Let us accept Science, relinquish all theories based on

sense-testimony, give up imperfect models and illusive

3 ideals; and so let us have one God, one Mind, and that

one perfect, producing His own models of excellence.

Renewed selfhood

Let the "male and female" of God's creating appear.

6 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 re-

9 joice 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

15 the infinite, and infinity never began, will never end, and

includes nothing unlike God. Whence then is soulless

matter?

Illusive dreams

18 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."

21 What a mistake is that! The I is Spirit. God

never slumbers, and His likeness never dreams. Mortals

are the Adam dreamers.

24 Sleep and apath 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

27 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

30 mundane flights quite ethereal.

Philosophical blunders

Man is the reflection of Soul. He is the direct oppo-

site of material sensation, and there is but one Ego. We

PAGE 250

1 run into error when we divide Soul into souls, multiply

Mind into minds and suppose error to be mind, then mind

3 to be in matter and matter to be a lawgiver,

unintelligence to act like intelligence, and mor-

tality to be the matrix of immortality.

Spirit the one Ego

6 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;

9 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.

12 Man is not God, but like a ray of light which comes from

the sun, man, the outcome of God, reflects God.

Mortal existence a dream

Mortal body and mind are one, and that one is called

15 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.

18 When that dream vanishes, the mortal finds himself

experiencing none of these dream-sensations. To the

observer, the body lies listless, undisturbed, and sensa-

21 tionless, 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?

24 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

27 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,

30 and 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.

PAGE 251

Error self-destroyed

1 Error is not real, hence it is not more imperative

as it hastens towards self-destruction. The so-called

3 belief of mortal mind apparent as an abscess

should not grow more painful before it suppu-

rates neither should a fever become more severe before

6 it ends.

Illusion of death

Fright is so great at certain stages of mortal belief

as to drive belief into new paths. In the illusion of

9 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

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.

Mortal mind's disappearance

15 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

18 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

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,

24 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

27 perish or to be punished.

Spiritual ignorance

Ignorance, like intentional wrong, is not Science.

Ignorance must be seen and corrected before we can at-

30 tain harmony. Inharmonious beliefs, which

rob Mind, calling it matter, and deify their

own notions, imprison themselves in what they create.

PAGE 252

1 They are at war with Science, and as our Master said,

"If a kingdom be divided against itself, that kingdom

3 cannot stand."

Human ignorance of Mind and of the recuperative

energies of Truth occasions the only skepticism regard-

6 ing the pathology and theology of Christian Science.

Eternal man recognized

When false human beliefs learn even a little of their

own falsity, they begin to disappear. A knowledge of

9 error and of its operations must precede that

understanding of Truth which destroys error,

until the entire mortal, material error finally disappears,

12 and 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:

Testimony of sense

18 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. Ani-

21 mal 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

24 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,

27 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

30 consuming fire.

Spirit, bearing opposite testimony, saith:

Testimony of Soul

I am Spirit. Man, whose senses are spiritual, is my

PAGE 253

1 likeness. He reflects the infinite understanding, for I am

Infinity. The beauty of holiness, the perfection of being,

3 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.

6 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.

Heaven-bestowed prerogative

9 I hope, dear reader, I am leading you into the under-

standing of your divine rights, your heaven-bestowed har-

mony, - that, as you read, you see there is no

12 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.

15 Knowing the falsity of so-called material sense, you can

assert your prerogative to overcome the belief in sin, dis-

ease, or death.

Right endeavor possible

18 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

21 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

24 the body.

Do not believe in any supposed necessity for sin, dis-

ease, or death, knowing (as you ought to know) that God

27 never 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-

30 stead of death, of harmony instead of discord, of Spirit

instead of the flesh.

Patience and final perfection

The divine demand, "Be ye therefore perfect," is sci-

PAGE 254

1 entific, and the human footsteps leading to perfection are

indispensable. Individuals are consistent who, watching

3 and praying, can "run, and not be weary; . . .

walk, and not faint," who gain good rapidly

and hold their position, or attain slowly and

6 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

9 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

12 our 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

15 being, is doing much.

During the sensual ages, absolute Christian Science

may not be achieved prior to the change called death,

18 for 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

21 to-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?

The cross and crown

27 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

30 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.

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