CHAPTER X - SCIENCE OF BEING

PAGE 268

That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life, . . . That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us: and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ.

- JOHN, First Epistle.

Here I stand. I can do no otherwise; so help me God! Amen! - MARTIN LUTHER.

Materialistic challenge

1 In the material world, thought has brought to light

with great rapidity many useful wonders. With

3 like activity have thought's swift pinions been rising

towards the realm of the real, to the spiritual

cause of those lower things which give im-

6 pulse to inquiry. Belief in a material basis, from

which may be deduced all rationality, is slowly yielding

to the idea of a metaphysical basis, looking away from

9 matter to Mind as the cause of every effect. Material-

istic hypotheses challenge metaphysics to meet in final

combat. In this revolutionary period, like the shep-

12 herd-boy with his sling, woman goes forth to battle with

Goliath.

Confusion confounded

In this final struggle for supremacy, semi-metaphysi-

15 cal systems afford no substantial aid to scientific meta-

physics, for their arguments are based on

the false testimony of the material senses as

18 well as on the facts of Mind. These semi-metaphysical

PAGE 269

1 systems are one and all pantheistic, and savor of Pan-

demonium, a house divided against itself.

3 From first to last the supposed coexistence of Mind

and matter and the mingling of good and evil have re-

sulted from the philosophy of the serpent. Jesus' demon-

6 strations sift the chaff from the wheat, and unfold the

unity and the reality of good, the unreality, the nothing-

ness, of evil.

Divine metaphysics

9 Human philosophy has made God manlike. Christian

Science makes man Godlike. The first is error; the latter

is truth. Metaphysics is above physics, and

12 matter does not enter into metaphysical prem-

ises or conclusions. The categories of metaphysics rest

on one basis, the divine Mind. Metaphysics resolves

15 things into thoughts, and exchanges the objects of sense

for the ideas of Soul.

These ideas are perfectly real and tangible to spiritual

18 consciousness, and they have this, advantage over the ob-

jects and thoughts of material sense, - they are good and

eternal.

Biblical foundations

21 The testimony of the material senses is neither abso-

lute nor divine. I therefore plant myself unreservedly

on the teachings of Jesus, of his apostles, of

24 the prophets, and on the testimony of the

Science of Mind. Other foundations there are none.

All other systems - systems based wholly or partly on

27 knowledge gained through the material senses - are reeds

shaken by the wind, not houses built on the rock.

Rejected theories

The theories I combat are these: (1) that all is matter;

30 (2) that matter originates in Mind, and is as

real as Mind, possessing intelligence and life.

The first theory, that matter is everything, is quite as

PAGE 270

1 reasonable as the second, that Mind and matter coexist

and cooperate. One only of the following statements can

3 be true: (1) that everything is matter; (2) that every-

thing is Mind. Which one is it?

Matter and Mind are opposites. One is contrary to

6 the other in its very nature and essence; hence both can-

not be real. If one is real, the other must be unreal. Only

by understanding that there is but one power, - not two

9 powers, matter and Mind, - are scientific and logical

conclusions reached. Few deny the hypothesis that in-

telligence, apart from man and matter, governs the uni-

12 verse; and it is generally admitted that this intelligence

is the eternal Mind or divine principle, Love.

Prophetic ignorance

The prophets of old looked for something higher than

15 the systems of their times; hence their fore-

sight of the new dispensation of Truth. But

they knew not what would be the precise nature of the

18 teaching and demonstration of God, divine Mind, in His

more infinite meanings, - the demonstration which was

to destroy sin, sickness, and death, establish the definition

21 of omnipotence, and maintain the Science of Spirit.

The pride of priesthood is the prince of this world. It

has nothing in Christ. Meekness and charity have divine

24 authority. Mortals think wickedly; consequently they

are wicked. They think sickly thoughts, and so become

sick. If sin makes sinners, Truth and Love alone can

27 unmake them. If a sense of disease produces suffering

and a sense of ease antidotes suffering, disease is mental,

not material. Hence the fact that the human mind alone

30 suffers, is sick, and that the divine Mind alone heals.

The life of Christ Jesus was not miraculous, but it was

indigenous to his spirituality, - the good soil wherein the

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1 seed of Truth springs up and bears much fruit. Christ's

Christianity is the chain of scientific being reappearing

3 in all ages, maintaining its obvious correspondence with

the Scriptures and uniting all periods in the design of

God. Neither emasculation, illusion, nor insubordination

6 exists in divine Science.

Jesus instructed his disciples whereby to heal the sick

through Mind instead of matter. He knew that the phi-

9 losophy, Science, and proof of Christianity were in Truth,

casting out all inharmony.

Studious disciples

In Latin the word rendered disciple signifies student;

12 and the word indicates that the power of healing was not

a supernatural gift to those learners, but the

result of their cultivated spiritual understand-

15 ing of the divine Science, which their Master demonstrated

by healing the sick and sinning. Hence the universal ap-

plication of his saying: "Neither pray I for these alone,

18 but for them also which shall believe on me [understand

me] through their word."

New Testament basis

Our Master said, "But the Comforter . . . shall

21 teach you all things." When the Science of Christianity

appears, it will lead you into all truth. The

Sermon on the Mount is the essence of this

24 Science, and the eternal life, not the death of Jesus, is

its outcome.

Modern evangel

Those, who are willing to leave their nets or to cast

27 them on the right side for Truth, have the opportunity

now, as aforetime, to learn and to practise

Christian healing. The Scriptures contain it.

30 The spiritual import of the Word imparts this power.

But, as Paul says, "How shall they hear without a

preacher? and how shall they preach, except they be

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1 sent?" If sent, how shall they preach, convert, and heal

multitudes, except the people hear?

Spirituality of Scripture

3 The spiritual sense of truth must be gained before

Truth can be understood. This sense is assimilated only

as we are honest, unselfish, loving, and meek.

6 In the soil of an "honest and good heart" the

seed must be sown; else it beareth not much fruit, for the

swinish element in human nature uproots it. Jesus said:

9 "Ye do err, not knowing the Scriptures." The spiritual

sense of the Scriptures brings out the scientific sense, and

is the new tongue referred to in the last chapter of Mark's

12 Gospel.

Jesus' parable of "the sower" shows the care our

Master took not to impart to dull ears and gross hearts

15 the spiritual teachings which dulness and grossness could

not accept. Reading the thoughts of the people, he said:

"Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast

18 ye your pearls before swine."

Unspiritual contrasts

It is the spiritualization of thought and Christianization

of daily life, in contrast with the results of the ghastly farce

21 of material existence; it is chastity and purity,

in contrast with the downward tendencies

and earthward gravitation of sensualism and impurity,

24 which really attest the divine origin and operation of Chris-

tian Science. The triumphs of Christian Science are re-

corded in the destruction of error and evil, from which are

27 propagated the dismal beliefs of sin, sickness, and death.

God the Principle of all

The divine Principle of the universe must interpret the

universe. God is the divine Principle of all that repre-

30 sents Him and of all that really exists. Chris-

tian Science, as demonstrated by Jesus, alone

reveals the natural, divine Principle of Science.

PAGE 273

1 Matter and its claims of sin, sickness, and death are

contrary to God, and cannot emanate from Him. There

3 is no material truth. The physical senses can take no

cognizance of God and spiritual Truth. Human belief

has sought out many inventions, but not one of them

6 can solve the problem of being without the divine Prin-

ciple of divine Science. Deductions from material hy-

potheses are not scientific. They differ from real Science

9 because they are not based on the divine law.

Science versus sense

Divine Science reverses the false testimony of the ma-

terial senses, and thus tears away the foun-

12 dations of error. Hence the enmity between

Science and the senses, and the impossibility

of attaining perfect understanding till the errors of sense

15 are eliminated.

The so-called laws of matter and of medical science have

never made mortals whole, harmonious, and immortal.

18 Man is harmonious when governed by Soul. Hence the

importance of understanding the truth of being, which

reveals the laws of spiritual existence.

Spiritual law the only law

21 God never ordained a material law to annul the spiritual

law. If there were such a material law, it would oppose

the supremacy of Spirit, God, and impugn the

24 wisdom of the creator. Jesus walked on the

waves, fed the multitude, healed the sick, and raised the

dead in direct opposition to material laws. His acts were

27 the demonstration of Science, overcoming the false claims

of material sense or law.

Material knowledge illusive

Science shows that material, conflicting mortal opin-

30 ions and beliefs emit the effects of error at all times, but

this atmosphere of mortal mind cannot be destructive to

morals and health when it is opposed promptly and per-

PAGE 274

1 sistently by Christian Science. Truth and Love antidote

this mental miasma, and thus invigorate and sustain ex-

3 istence. Unnecessary knowledge gained from

the five senses is only temporal, - the concep-

tion of mortal mind, the offspring of sense, not

6 of Soul, Spirit, - and symbolizes all that is evil and

perishable. Natural science, as it is commonly called, is

not really natural nor scientific, because it is deduced from

9 the evidence of the material senses. Ideas, on the con-

trary, are born of Spirit, and are not mere inferences

drawn from material premises.

Five senses deceptive

12 The senses of Spirit abide in Love, and they demon-

strate Truth and Life. Hence Christianity and the Sci-

ence which expounds it are based on spiritual

15 understanding, and they supersede the so-

called laws of matter. Jesus demonstrated this great

verity. When what we erroneously term the five physical

18 senses are misdirected, they are simply the manifested

beliefs of mortal mind, which affirm that life, substance,

and intelligence are material, instead of spiritual. These

21 false beliefs and their products constitute the flesh, and

the flesh wars against Spirit.

Impossible partnership

Divine Science is absolute, and permits no half-way

24 position in learning its Principle and rule - establishing

it by demonstration. The conventional firm,

called matter and mind, God never formed.

27 Science and understanding, governed by the unerring and

eternal Mind, destroy the imaginary copartnership, matter

and mind, formed only to be destroyed in a manner and

30 at a period as yet unknown. This suppositional partner-

ship is already obsolete, for matter, examined in the light

of divine metaphysics, disappears.

PAGE 275

Spirit the starting-point

1 Matter has no life to lose, and Spirit never dies. A

partnership of mind with matter would ignore omnipres-

3 ent and omnipotent Mind. This shows that

matter did not originate in God, Spirit, and is

not eternal. Therefore matter is neither substantial, living,

6 nor intelligent. The starting-point of divine Science is

that God, Spirit, is All-in-all, and that there is no other

might nor Mind, - that God is Love, and therefore He

9 is divine Principle.

Divine synonyms

To grasp the reality and order of being in its Science,

you must begin by reckoning God as the divine Principle

12 of all that really is. Spirit, Life, Truth, Love,

combine as one, - and are the Scriptural names

for God. All substance, intelligence, wisdom, being, im-

15 mortality, cause, and effect belong to God. These are

His attributes, the eternal manifestations of the infinite

divine Principle, Love. No wisdom is wise but His

18 wisdom; no truth is true, no love is lovely, no life is Life

but the divine; no good is, but the good God bestows.

The divine completeness

Divine metaphysics, as revealed to spiritual understand-

21 ing, shows clearly that all is Mind, and that Mind is

God, omnipotence, omnipresence, omniscience,

- that is, all power, all presence, all Science.

24 Hence all is in reality the manifestation of Mind.

Our material human theories are destitute of Science.

The true understanding of God is spiritual. It robs the

27 grave of victory. It destroys the false evidence that mis-

leads thought and points to other gods, or other so-called

powers, such as matter, disease, sin, and death, superior

30 or contrary to the one Spirit.

Truth, spiritually discerned, is scientifically understood.

It casts out error and heals the sick.

PAGE 276

Universal brotherhood

1 Having one God, one Mind, unfolds the power that

heals the sick, and fulfils these sayings of Scripture, "I

3 am the Lord that healeth thee," and "I have

found a ransom." When the divine precepts

are understood, they unfold the foundation of fellowship,

6 in which one mind is not at war with another, but all have

one Spirit, God, one intelligent source, in accordance with

the Scriptural command: "Let this Mind be in you,

9 which was also in Christ Jesus." Man and his Maker

are correlated in divine Science, and real consciousness

is cognizant only of the things of God.

12 The realization that all inharmony is unreal brings

objects and thoughts into human view in their true light,

and presents them as beautiful and immortal. Harmony

15 in man is as real and immortal as in music. Discord is

unreal and mortal.

Perfection requisite

If God is admitted to be the only Mind and Life,

18 there ceases to be any opportunity for sin and death.

When we learn in Science how to be perfect

even as our Father in heaven is perfect,

21 thought is turned into new and healthy channels, -

towards the contemplation of things immortal and away

from materiality to the Principle of the universe, includ-

24 ing harmonious man.

Material beliefs and spiritual understanding never

mingle. The latter destroys the former. Discord is the

27 nothingness named error. Harmony is the somethingness

named Truth.

Like evolving like

Nature and revelation inform us that like produces

30 like. Divine Science does not gather grapes

from thorns nor figs from thistles. Intelli-

gence never produces non-intelligence; but matter is

PAGE 277

1 ever non-intelligent and therefore cannot spring from

intelligence. To all that is unlike unerring and eternal

3 Mind, this Mind saith, "Thou shalt surely die;" and else-

where the Scripture says that dust returns to dust. The

non-intelligent relapses into its own unreality. Matter

6 never produces mind. The immortal never produces the

mortal. Good cannot result in evil. As God Himself is

good and is Spirit, goodness and spirituality must be im-

9 mortal. Their opposites, evil and matter, are mortal

error, and error has no creator. If goodness and spirit-

uality are real, evil and materiality are unreal and can-

12 not be the outcome of an infinite God, good.

Natural history presents vegetables and animals as

preserving their original species, - like reproducing like.

15 A mineral is not produced by a vegetable nor the man

by the brute. In reproduction, the order of genus and

species is preserved throughout the entire round of nature.

18 This points to the spiritual truth and Science of being.

Error relies upon a reversal of this order, asserts that

Spirit produces matter and matter produces all the ills

21 of flesh, and therefore that good is the origin of evil.

These suppositions contradict even the order of material

so-called science.

Material error

24 The realm of the real is Spirit. The unlikeness of Spirit

is matter, and the opposite of the real is not divine, - it is

a human concept. Matter is an error of state-

27 ment. This error in the premise leads to errors

in the conclusion in every statement into which it enters.

Nothing we can say or believe regarding matter is immor-

30 tal, for matter is temporal and is therefore a mortal phe-

nomenon, a human concept, sometimes beautiful, always

erroneous.

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Substance versus supposition

1 Is Spirit the source or creator of matter? Science re-

veals nothing in Spirit out of which to create matter.

3 Divine metaphysics explains away matter.

Spirit is the only substance and consciousness

recognized by divine Science. The material

6 senses oppose this, but there are no material senses, for

matter has no mind. In Spirit there is no matter, even

as in Truth there is no error, and in good no evil. It is

9 a false supposition, the notion that there is real substance-

matter, the opposite of Spirit. Spirit, God, is infinite,

all. Spirit can have no opposite.

One cause supreme

12 That matter is substantial or has life and sensation, is

one of the false beliefs of mortals, and exists only in a

supposititious mortal consciousness. Hence,

15 as we approach Spirit and Truth, we lose the

consciousness of matter. The admission that there can

be material substance requires another admission, -

18 namely, that Spirit is not infinite and that matter is self-

creative, self-existent, and eternal. From this it would

follow that there are two eternal causes, warring forever

21 with each other; and yet we say that Spirit is supreme

and all-presence.

The belief of the eternity of matter contradicts the

24 demonstration of life as Spirit, and leads to the conclu-

sion that if man is material, he originated in matter and

must return to dust, - logic which would prove his an-

27 nihilation.

Substance is Spirit

All that we term sin, sickness, and death is a mortal

belief. We define matter as error, because it is the oppo-

30 site of life, substance, and intelligence. Mat-

ter, with its mortality, cannot be substantial

if Spirit is substantial and eternal. Which ought to

PAGE 279

1 be substance to us, - the erring, changing, and dying,

the mutable and mortal, or the unerring, immutable,

3 and immortal? A New Testament writer plainly de-

scribes faith, a quality of mind, as "the substance of things

hoped for."

Material mortality

6 The doom of matter establishes the conclusion that

matter, slime, or protoplasm never originated

in the immortal Mind, and is therefore not

9 eternal. Matter is neither created by Mind nor for the

manifestation and support of Mind.

Spiritual tangibility

Ideas are tangible and real to immortal consciousness,

12 and they have the advantage of being eternal.

Spirit and matter can neither coexist nor co-

operate, and one can no more create the other than

15 Truth can create error, or vice versa.

In proportion as the belief disappears that life and in-

telligence are in or of matter, the immortal facts of

18 being are seen, and their only idea or intelligence is

in God. Spirit is reached only through the understand-

ing and demonstration of eternal Life and Truth and

21 Love.

Pantheistic tendencies

Every system of human philosophy, doctrine, and

medicine is more or less infected with the pantheistic

24 belief that there is mind in matter; but this

belief contradicts alike revelation and right

reasoning. A logical and scientific conclusion is reached

27 only through the knowledge that there are not two

bases of being, matter and mind, but one alone, -

Mind.

30 Pantheism, starting from a material sense of God,

seeks cause in effect, Principle in its idea, and life and

intelligence in matter.

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The things of God are beautiful

1 In the infinitude of Mind, matter must be unknown.

Symbols and elements of discord and decay are not prod-

3 ucts of the infinite, perfect, and eternal All.

From Love and from the light and harmony

which are the abode of Spirit, only reflections

6 of good can come. All things beautiful and harmless are

ideas of Mind. Mind creates and multiplies them, and

the product must be mental.

9 Finite belief can never do justice to Truth in any direc-

tion. Finite belief limits all things, and would compress

Mind, which is infinite, beneath a skull bone. Such be-

12 lief can neither apprehend nor worship the infinite; and

to accommodate its finite sense of the divisibility of Soul

and substance, it seeks to divide the one Spirit into per-

15 sons and souls.

Belief in many gods

Through this error, human belief comes to have "gods

many and lords many." Moses declared as Jehovah's

18 first command of the Ten: "Thou shalt have

no other gods before me!" But behold the

zeal of belief to establish the opposite error of many

21 minds. The argument of the serpent in the allegory, "Ye

shall be as gods," urges through every avenue the belief

that Soul is in body, and that infinite Spirit, and Life, is

24 in finite forms.

Sensationless body

Rightly understood, instead of possessing a sentient

material form, man has a sensationless body; and God,

27 the Soul of man and of all existence, being

perpetual in His own individuality, harmony,

and immortality, imparts and perpetuates these qualities

30 in man, - through Mind, not matter. The only excuse

for entertaining human opinions and rejecting the Science

of being is our mortal ignorance of Spirit, - ignorance

PAGE 281

1 which yields only to the understanding of divine Science,

the understanding by which we enter into the kingdom

3 of Truth on earth and learn that Spirit is infinite and

supreme. Spirit and matter no more commingle than

light and darkness. When one appears, the other dis-

6 appears.

God and His image

Error presupposes man to be both mind and matter.

Divine Science contradicts the corporeal senses, rebukes

9 mortal belief, and asks: What is the Ego,

whence its origin and what its destiny? The

Ego-man is the reflection of the Ego-God; the Ego-man

12 is the image and likeness of perfect Mind, Spirit, divine

Principle.

The one Ego, the one Mind or Spirit called God, is

15 infinite individuality, which supplies all form and come-

liness and which reflects reality and divinity in individual

spiritual man and things.

18 The mind supposed to exist in matter or beneath a

skull bone is a myth, a misconceived sense and false

conception as to man and Mind. When we put off the

21 false sense for the true, and see that sin and mortality

have neither Principle nor permanency, we shall learn

that sin and mortality are without actual origin or right-

24 ful existence. They are native nothingness, out of which

error would simulate creation through a man formed from

dust.

The true new idea

27 Divine Science does not put new wine into old bottles,

Soul into matter, nor the infinite into the finite. Our

false views of matter perish as we grasp

30 the facts of Spirit. The old belief must be

cast out or the new idea will be spilled, and the in-

spiration, which is to change our standpoint, will be

PAGE 282

1 lost. Now, as of old, Truth casts out evils and heals

the sick.

Figures of being

3 The real Life, or Mind, and its opposite, the so-called

material life and mind, are figured by two geometrical

symbols, a circle or sphere and a straight

6 line. The circle represents the infinite with-

out beginning or end; the straight line represents the

finite, which has both beginning and end. The sphere

9 represents good, the self-existent and eternal individuality

or Mind; the straight line represents evil, a belief in

a self-made and temporary material existence. Eternal

12 Mind and temporary material existence never unite in

figure or in fact.

Opposite symbols

A straight line finds no abiding-place in a curve, and a

15 curve finds no adjustment to a straight line. Similarly,

matter has no place in Spirit, and Spirit has

no place in matter. Truth has no home in

18 error, and error has no foothold in Truth. Mind cannot

pass into non-intelligence and matter, nor can non-intel-

ligence become Soul. At no point can these opposites

21 mingle or unite. Even though they seem to touch, one

is still a curve and the other a straight line.

There is no inherent power in matter; for all that is

24 material is a material, human, mortal thought, always

governing itself erroneously.

Truth is the intelligence of immortal Mind. Error is

27 the so-called intelligence of mortal mind.

Truth is not inverted

Whatever indicates the fall of man or the opposite of

God or God's absence, is the Adam-dream, which is neither

30 Mind nor man, for it is not begotten of the

Father. The rule of inversion infers from

error its opposite, Truth; but Truth is the light which

PAGE 283

1 dispels error. As mortals begin to understand Spirit,

they give up the belief that there is any true existence

3 apart from God.

Source of all life and action

Mind is the source of all movement, and there is no

inertia to retard or check its perpetual and harmonious

6 action. Mind is the same Life, Love, and wis-

dom "yesterday, and to-day, and forever."

Matter and its effects - sin, sickness, and

9 death - are states of mortal mind which act, react, and

then come to a stop. They are not facts of Mind. They

are not ideas, but illusions. Principle is absolute. It

12 admits of no error, but rests upon understanding.

But what say prevalent theories? They insist that

Life, or God, is one and the same with material life so-

15 called. They speak of both Truth and error as mind,

and of good and evil as spirit. They claim that to be

life which is but the objective state of material sense, -

18 such as the structural life of the tree and of material

man, - and deem this the manifestation of the one Life,

God.

Spiritual structure

21 This false belief as to what really constitutes life so

detracts from God's character and nature, that the true

sense of His power is lost to all who cling to

24 this falsity. The divine Principle, or Life, can-

not be practically demonstrated in length of days, as it

was by the patriarchs, unless its Science be accurately

27 stated. We must receive the divine Principle in the under-

standing, and live it in daily life; and unless we so do, we

can no more demonstrate Science, than we can teach and

30 illustrate geometry by calling a curve a straight line or a

straight line a sphere.

Are mentality, immortality, consciousness, resident in

PAGE 284

1 matter? It is not rational to say that Mind is infinite,

but dwells in finiteness, - in matter, - or that matter is

3 infinite and the medium of Mind.

Mind never limited

If God were limited to man or matter, or if the infinite

could be circumscribed within the finite, God would be

6 corporeal, and unlimited Mind would seem

to spring from a limited body; but this is an

impossibility. Infinite Mind can have no starting-point,

9 and can return to no limit. It can never be in bonds,

nor be fully manifested through corporeality.

Material recognition impossible

Is God's image or likeness matter, or a mortal, sin,

12 sickness, and death? Can matter recognize Mind?

Can infinite Mind recognize matter? Can the

infinite dwell in the finite or know aught un-

15 like the infinite? Can Deity be known through

the material senses? Can the material senses, which re-

ceive no direct evidence of Spirit, give correct testimony

18 as to spiritual life, truth, and love?

The answer to all these questions must forever be in

the negative.

Our physical insensibility to Spirit

21 The physical senses can obtain no proof of God. They

can neither see Spirit through the eye nor hear it through

the ear, nor can they feel, taste, or smell Spirit.

24 Even the more subtile and misnamed ma-

terial elements are beyond the cognizance

of these senses, and are known only by the effects com-

27 monly attributed to them.

According to Christian Science, the only real senses

of man are spiritual, emanating from divine Mind.

30 Thought passes from God to man, but neither sensation

nor report goes from material body to Mind. The in-

tercommunication is always from God to His idea, man.

PAGE 285

1 Matter is not sentient and cannot be cognizant of good

or of evil, of pleasure or of pain. Man's individu-

3 ality is not material. This Science of being obtains not

alone hereafter in what men call Paradise, but here

and now; it is the great fact of being for time and

6 eternity.

The human counterfeit

What, then, is the material personality which suffers,

sins, and dies? It is not man, the image and likeness

9 of God, but man's counterfeit, the inverted

likeness, the unlikeness called sin, sickness,

and death. The unreality of the claim that a mortal is

12 the true image of God is illustrated by the opposite na-

tures of Spirit and matter, Mind and body, for one is

intelligence while the other is non-intelligence.

Material misconceptions

15 Is God a physical personality? Spirit is not physical.

The belief that a material body is man is a false con-

ception of man. The time has come for a

18 finite conception of the infinite and of a ma-

terial body as the seat of Mind to give place

to a diviner sense of intelligence and its manifestations,

21 to the better understanding that Science gives of the

Supreme Being, or divine Principle, and idea.

Salvation is through reform

By interpreting God as a corporeal Saviour but not as

24 the saving Principle, or divine Love, we shall continue

to seek salvation through pardon and not

through reform, and resort to matter instead

27 of Spirit for the cure of the sick. As mortals

reach, through knowledge of Christian Science, a higher

sense, they will seek to learn, not from matter, but from

30 the divine Principle, God, how to demonstrate the Christ,

Truth, as the healing and saving power.

It is essential to understand, instead of believe, what

PAGE 286

1 relates most nearly to the happiness of being. To seek

Truth through belief in a human doctrine is not to un-

3 derstand the infinite. We must not seek the immutable

and immortal through the finite, mutable, and mortal,

and so depend upon belief instead of demonstration, for

6 this is fatal to a knowledge of Science. The understand-

ing of Truth gives full faith in Truth, and spiritual un-

derstanding is better than all burnt offerings.

9 The Master said, "No man cometh unto the Father

[the divine Principle of being] but by me," Christ,

Life, Truth, Love; for Christ says, "I am the way."

12 Physical causation was put aside from first to

last by this original man, Jesus. He knew that the

divine. Principle, Love, creates and governs all that

15 is real.

Goodness a portion of God

In the Saxon and twenty other tongues good is the term

for God. The Scriptures declare all that He

18 made to be good, like Himself, - good in

Principle and in idea. Therefore the spiritual

universe is good, and reflects God as He is.

Spiritual thoughts

21 God's thoughts are perfect and eternal, are substance

and Life. Material and temporal thoughts are human,

involving error, and since God, Spirit, is the

24 only cause, they lack a divine cause. The

temporal and material are not then creations of Spirit.

They are but counterfeits of the spiritual and eternal.

27 Transitory thoughts are the antipodes of everlasting

Truth, though (by the supposition of opposite qualities)

error must also say, "I am true." But by this saying

30 error, the lie, destroys itself.

Sin, sickness, and death are comprised in human ma-

terial belief, and belong not to the divine Mind. They

PAGE 287

1 are without a real origin or existence. They have neither

Principle nor permanence, but belong, with all that is

3 material and temporal, to the nothingness of error, which

simulates the creations of Truth. All creations of Spirit

are eternal; but creations of matter must return to dust.

6 Error supposes man to be both mental and material.

Divine Science contradicts this postulate and maintains

man's spiritual identity.

Divine allness

9 We call the absence of Truth, error. Truth and error

are unlike. In Science, Truth is divine, and the infinite

God can have no unlikeness. Did God, Truth,

12 create error? No! "Doth a fountain send

forth at the same place sweet water and bitter?" God

being everywhere and all-inclusive, how can He be absent

15 or suggest the absence of omnipresence and omnipotence?

How can there be more than all?

Neither understanding nor truth accompanies error,

18 nor is error the offshoot of Mind. Evil calls itself some-

thing, when it is nothing. It saith, "I am man, but I am

not the image and likeness of God;" whereas the Scrip-

21 tures declare that man was made in God's likeness.

Error unveiled

Error is false, mortal belief; it is illusion, without spir-

itual identity or foundation, and it has no real existence.

24 The supposition that life, substance, and in-

telligence are in matter, or of it, is an error.

Matter is neither a thing nor a person, but merely the

27 objective supposition of Spirit's opposite. The five mate-

rial senses testify to truth and error as united in a mind

both good and evil. Their false evidence will finally

30 yield to Truth, - to the recognition of Spirit and of the

spiritual creation.

Truth cannot be contaminated by error. The state-

PAGE 288

1 ment that Truth is real necessarily includes the correlated

statement, that error, Truth's unlikeness, is unreal.

The great conflict

3 The suppositional warfare between truth and error is

only the mental conflict between the evidence of the spir-

itual senses and the testimony of the material

6 senses, and this warfare between the Spirit and

flesh will settle all questions through faith in and the un-

derstanding of divine Love.

9 Superstition and understanding can never combine.

When the final physical and moral effects of Christian

Science are fully apprehended, the conflict between truth

12 and error, understanding and belief, Science and material

sense, foreshadowed by the prophets and inaugurated

by Jesus, will cease, and spiritual harmony reign. The

15 lightnings and thunderbolts of error may burst and flash

till the cloud is cleared and the tumult dies away in the

distance. Then the raindrops of divinity refresh the

18 earth. As St. Paul says: "There remaineth therefore

a rest to the people of God" (of Spirit).

The chief stones in the temple

The chief stones in the temple of Christian Science are

21 to be found in the following postulates: that Life is God,

good, and not evil; that Soul is sinless, not

to be found in the body; that Spirit is not, and

24 cannot be, materialized; that Life is not subject

to death; that the spiritual real man has no birth, no ma-

terial life, and no death.

The Christ-element

27 Science reveals the glorious possibilities of immortal

man, forever unlimited by the mortal senses.

The Christ-element in the Messiah made him

30 the Way-shower, Truth and Life.

The eternal Truth destroys what mortals seem to have

learned from error, and man's real existence as a child

PAGE 289

1 of God comes to light. Truth demonstrated is eternal

life. Mortal man can never rise from the temporal debris

3 of error, belief in sin, sickness, and death, until he learns

that God is the only Life. The belief that life and sensa-

tion are in the body should be overcome by the under-

6 standing of what constitutes man as the image of God.

Then Spirit will have overcome the flesh.

Wickedness is not man

A wicked mortal is not the idea of God. He is little

9 else than the expression of error. To suppose that sin,

lust, hatred, envy, hypocrisy, revenge, have life

abiding in them, is a terrible mistake. Life

12 and life's idea, Truth and Truth's idea, never make men

sick, sinful, or mortal.

Death but an illusion

The fact that the Christ, or Truth, overcame and still

15 overcomes death proves the "king of terrors" to be but

a mortal belief, or error, which Truth destroys

with the spiritual evidences of Life; and this

18 shows that what appears to the senses to be death is but a

mortal illusion, for to the real man and the real universe

there is no death-process.

21 The belief that matter has life results, by the universal

law of mortal mind, in a belief in death. So man, tree,

and flower are supposed to die; but the fact remains,

24 that God's universe is spiritual and immortal.

Spiritual offspring

The spiritual fact and the material belief of things are

contradictions; but the spiritual is true, and therefore the

27 material must be untrue. Life is not in matter.

Therefore it cannot be said to pass out of mat-

ter. Matter and death are mortal illusions. Spirit and

30 all things spiritual are the real and eternal.

Man is not the offspring of flesh, but of Spirit, - of

Life, not of matter. Because Life is God, Life must be

PAGE 290

1 eternal, self-existent. Life is the everlasting I AM, the Be-

ing who was and is and shall be, whom nothing can erase.

Death no advantage

3 If the Principle, rule, and demonstration of man's being

are not in the least understood before what is termed death

overtakes mortals, they will rise no higher spir-

6 itually in the scale of existence on account of

that single experience, but will remain as material as be-

fore the transition, still seeking happiness through a ma-

9 terial, instead of through a spiritual sense of life, and from

selfish and inferior motives. That Life or Mind is finite

and physical or is manifested through brain and nerves,

12 is false. Hence Truth comes to destroy this error and

its effects, - sickness, sin, and death. To the spiritual

class, relates the Scripture: "On such the second death

15 hath no power."

Future purification

If the change called death destroyed the belief in sin,

sickness, and death, happiness would be won at the mo-

18 ment of dissolution, and be forever permanent;

but this is not so. Perfection is gained only

by perfection. They who are unrighteous shall be un-

21 righteous still, until in divine Science Christ, Truth, re-

moves all ignorance and sin.

Sin is punished

The sin and error which possess us at the instant of

24 death do not cease at that moment, but endure until the

death of these errors. To be wholly spiritual,

man must be sinless, and he becomes thus only

27 when he reaches perfection. The murderer, though slain

in the act, does not thereby forsake sin. He is no more

spiritual for believing that his body died and learning that

30 his cruel mind died not. His thoughts are no purer until

evil is disarmed by good. His body is as material as his

mind, and vice versa.

PAGE 291

1 The suppositions that sin is pardoned while unfor-

saken, that happiness can be genuine in the midst of

3 sin, that the so-called death of the body frees from sin,

and that God's pardon is aught but the destruction of

sin, - these are grave mistakes. We know that all will

6 be changed "in the twinkling of an eye," when the last

trump shall sound; but this last call of wisdom cannot

come till mortals have already yielded to each lesser call

9 in the growth of Christian character. Mortals need not

fancy that belief in the experience of death will awaken

them to glorified being.

Salvation and probation

12 Universal salvation rests on progression and probation,

and is unattainable without them. Heaven is not a local-

ity, but a divine state of Mind in which all the

15 manifestations of Mind are harmonious and

immortal, because sin is not there and man is

found having no righteousness of his own, but in posses-

18 sion of "the mind of the Lord," as the Scripture says.

"In the place where the tree falleth, there it shall

be." So we read in Ecclesiastes. This text has been

21 transformed into the popular proverb, "As the tree

falls, so it must lie." As man falleth asleep, so shall he

awake. As death findeth mortal man, so shall he be

24 after death, until probation and growth shall effect the

needed change. Mind never becomes dust. No resur-

rection from the grave awaits Mind or Life, for the grave

27 has no power over either.

Day of judgment

No final judgment awaits mortals, for the judgment-

day of wisdom comes hourly and continually,

30 even the judgment by which mortal man is di-

vested of all material error. As for spiritual error there

is none.

PAGE 292

1 When the last mortal fault is destroyed, then the final

trump will sound which will end the battle of Truth with

3 error and mortality; "but of that day and hour, knoweth

no man." Here prophecy pauses. Divine Science alone

can compass the heights and depths of being and reveal

6 the infinite.

Primitive error

Truth will be to us "the resurrection and the life" only

as it destroys all error and the belief that Mind, the only

9 immortality of man, can be fettered by the

body, and Life be controlled by death. A sin-

ful, sick, and dying mortal is not the likeness of God, the

12 perfect and eternal.

Matter is the primitive belief of mortal mind, because

this so-called mind has no cognizance of Spirit. To

15 mortal mind, matter is substantial, and evil is

real. The so-called senses of mortals are material.

Hence the so-called life of mortals is dependent on

18 matter.

Explaining the origin of material man and mortal mind,

Jesus said: "Why do ye not understand my speech?

21 Even because ye cannot hear my word. Ye are of your

father, the devil [evil], and the lusts of your father ye will

do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode

24 not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When

he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar,

and the father of it."

Immortal man

27 This carnal material mentality, misnamed mind, is

mortal. Therefore man would be annihilated, were it

not for the spiritual real man's indissoluble

30 connection with his God, which Jesus brought

to light. In his resurrection and ascension, Jesus showed

that a mortal man is not the real essence of manhood, and

PAGE 293

1 that this unreal material mortality disappears in presence

of the reality.

Elementary electricity

3 Electricity is not a vital fluid, but the least material

form of illusive consciousness, - the material mindless-

ness, which forms no link between matter and

6 Mind, and which destroys itself. Matter and

mortal mind are but different strata of human belief. The

grosser substratum is named matter or body; the more

9 ethereal is called mind. This so-called mind and body

is the illusion called a mortal, a mind in matter. In reality

and in Science, both strata, mortal mind and mortal body,

12 are false representatives of man.

The material so-called gases and forces are counter-

feits of the spiritual forces of divine Mind, whose potency

15 is Truth, whose attraction is Love, whose adhesion and

cohesion are Life, perpetuating the eternal facts of being.

Electricity is the sharp surplus of materiality which coun-

18 terfeits the true essence of spirituality or truth, - the

great difference being that electricity is not intelligent,

while spiritual truth is Mind.

The counterfeit forces

21 There is no vapid fury of mortal mind - expressed in

earthquake, wind, wave, lightning, fire, bestial ferocity

- and this so-called mind is self-destroyed.

24 The manifestations of evil, which counterfeit

divine justice, are called in the Scriptures, "The anger

of the Lord." In reality, they show the self-destruction

27 of error or matter and point to matter's opposite, the

strength and permanency of Spirit. Christian Science

brings to light Truth and its supremacy, universal har-

30 mony, the entireness of God, good, and the nothingness

of evil.

Instruments of error

The five physical senses are the avenues and instru-

PAGE 294

1 ments of human error, and they correspond with error.

These senses indicate the common human belief, that life,

3 substance, and intelligence are a unison of

matter with Spirit. This is pantheism, and

carries within itself the seeds of all error.

6 If man is both mind and matter, the loss of one finger

would take away some quality and quantity of the man,

for matter and man would be one.

Mortal verdict

9 The belief that matter thinks, sees, or feels is not more

real than the belief that matter enjoys and suffers. This

mortal belief, misnamed man, is error, saying:

12 "Matter has intelligence and sensation. Nerves

feel. Brain thinks and sins. The stomach can make a

man cross. Injury can cripple and matter can kill man."

15 This verdict of the so-called material senses victimizes

mortals, taught, as they are by physiology and pathology,

to revere false testimony, even the errors that are destroyed

18 by Truth through spiritual sense and Science.

Mythical pleasure

The lines of demarcation between immortal man, repre-

senting Spirit, and mortal man, representing the error that

21 life and intelligence are in matter, show the

pleasures and pains of matter to be myths, and

human belief in them to be the father of mythology, in

24 which matter is represented as divided into intelligent gods.

Man's genuine selfhood is recognizable only in what is

good and true. Man is neither self-made nor made by

27 mortals. God created man.

Severed members

The inebriate believes that there is pleasure in intoxica-

tion. The thief believes that he gains something by steal-

30 ing, and the hypocrite that he is hiding himself. The

Science of Mind corrects such mistakes, for Truth demon-

strates the falsity of error.

PAGE 295

Severed members

1 The belief that a severed limb is aching in the old loca-

tion, the sensation seeming to be in nerves which

3 are no longer there, is an added proof of the un-

reliability of physical testimony.

Mortals unlike immortals

God creates and governs the universe, including man.

6 The universe is filled with spiritual ideas, which He

evolves, and they are obedient to the Mind

that makes them. Mortal mind would trans-

9 form the spiritual into the material, and then

recover man's original self in order to escape from the

mortality of this error. Mortals are not like immortals,

12 created in God's own image; but infinite Spirit being all,

mortal consciousness will at last yield to the scientific fact

and disappear, and the real sense of being, perfect and

15 forever intact, will appear.

Goodness transparent

The manifestation of God through mortals is as light

passing through the window-pane. The light and the

18 glass never mingle, but as matter, the glass

is less opaque than the walls. The mortal

mind through which Truth appears most vividly is that

21 one which has lost much materiality - much error - in

order to become a better transparency for Truth. Then,

like a cloud melting into thin vapor, it no longer hides

24 the sun.

Brainology a myth

All that is called mortal thought is made up of error.

The theoretical mind is matter, named brain, or mate-

27 rial consciousness, the exact opposite of real

Mind, or Spirit. Brainology teaches that

mortals are created to suffer and die. It further

30 teaches that when man is dead, his immortal soul is

resurrected from death and mortality. Thus error the-

orizes that spirit is born of matter and returns to mat-

PAGE 296

1 ter, and that man has a resurrection from dust; whereas

Science unfolds the eternal verity, that man is the spiritual,

3 eternal reflection of God.

Scientific purgation

Progress is born of experience. It is the ripening of

mortal man, through which the mortal is dropped for

6 the immortal. Either here or hereafter, suf-

fering or Science must destroy all illusions

8 regarding life and mind, and regenerate material sense

9 and self. The old man with his deeds must be put off.

Nothing sensual or sinful is immortal. The death of a

false material sense and of sin, not the death of organic

12 matter, is what reveals man and Life, harmonious, real,

and eternal.

The so-called pleasures and pains of matter perish,

15 and they must go out under the blaze of Truth, spiritual

sense, and the actuality of being. Mortal belief must lose

all satisfaction in error and sin in order to part with

18 them.

Whether mortals will learn this sooner or later, and

how long they will suffer the pangs of destruction, de-

21 pends upon the tenacity of error.

Mixed testimony

The knowledge obtained from the corporeal senses

leads to sin and death. When the evidence of Spirit

24 and matter, Truth and error, seems to com-

mingle, it rests upon foundations which time

is wearing away. Mortal mind judges by the testimony

27 of the material senses, until Science obliterates this false

testimony. An improved belief is one step out of error,

and aids in taking the next step and in understanding

30 the situation in Christian Science.

Belief an autocrat

Mortal belief is a liar from the beginning, not deserving

power. It says to mortals, "You are wretched!" and they

PAGE 297

1 think they are so; and nothing can change this state, until

the belief changes. Mortal belief says, "You are happy!"

3 and mortals are so; and no circumstance can

alter the situation, until the belief on this sub-

ject changes. Human belief says to mortals, "You are

6 sick!" and this testimony manifests itself on the body as

sickness. It is as necessary for a health-illusion, as for

an illusion of sickness, to be instructed out of itself into

9 the understanding of what constitutes health; for a change

in either a health-belief or a belief in sickness affects the

physical condition.

Self-improvement

12 Erroneous belief is destroyed by truth. Change the

evidence, and that disappears which before seemed real

to this false belief, and the human conscious-

15 ness rises higher. Thus the reality of being

is attained and man found to be immortal. The only

fact concerning any material concept is, that it is neither

18 scientific nor eternal, but subject to change and dis-

solution.

Faith higher than belief

Faith is higher and more spiritual than belief. It is

21 a chrysalis state of human thought, in which spiritual

evidence, contradicting the testimony of mate-

rial sense, begins to appear, and Truth, the

24 ever-present, is becoming understood. Human thoughts

have their degrees of comparison. Some thoughts are

better than others. A belief in Truth is better than a

27 belief in error, but no mortal testimony is founded on the

divine rock. Mortal testimony can be shaken. Until

belief becomes faith, and faith becomes spiritual under-

30 standing, human thought has little relation to the actual

or divine.

A mortal belief fulfils its own conditions. Sickness,

PAGE 298

1 sin, and death are the vague realities of human conclu-

sions. Life, Truth, and Love are the realities of divine

3 Science. They dawn in faith and glow full-orbed in

spiritual understanding. As a cloud hides the sun it

cannot extinguish, so false belief silences for a while the

6 voice of immutable harmony, but false belief cannot de-

stroy Science armed with faith, hope, and fruition.

Truth's witness

What is termed material sense can report only a mor-

9 tal temporary sense of things, whereas spiritual sense can

bear witness only to Truth. To material sense,

the unreal is the real until this sense is corrected

12 by Christian Science.

Spiritual sense, contradicting the material senses, in-

volves intuition, hope, faith, understanding, fruition, real-

15 ity. Material sense expresses the belief that mind is in

matter. This human belief, alternating between a sense

of pleasure and pain, hope and fear, life and death, never

18 reaches beyond the boundary of the mortal or the unreal.

When the real is attained, which is announced by Science,

joy is no longer a trembler, nor is hope a cheat. Spirit-

21 ual ideas, like numbers and notes, start from Principle,

and admit no materialistic beliefs. Spiritual ideas lead

up to their divine origin, God, and to the spiritual sense

24 of being.

Thought-angels

Angels are not etherealized human beings, evolving

animal qualities in their wings; but they are celestial

27 visitants, flying on spiritual, not material,

pinions. Angels are pure thoughts from God,

winged with Truth and Love, no matter what their indi-

30 vidualism may be. Human conjecture confers upon angels

its own forms of thought, marked with superstitious out-

lines, making them human creatures with suggestive

PAGE 299

1 feathers; but this is only fancy. It has behind it no more

reality than has the sculptor's thought when he carves

3 his "Statue of Liberty," which embodies his concep-

tion of an unseen quality or condition, but which has

no physical antecedent reality save in the artist's own ob-

6 servation and "chambers of imagery."

Our Angelic messengers

My angels are exalted thoughts, appearing at the door

of some sepulchre, in which human belief has buried

9 its fondest earthly hopes. With white fin-

gers they point upward to a new and glo-

rified trust, to higher ideals of life and its joys. Angels

12 are God's representatives. These upward-soaring beings

never lead towards self, sin, or materiality, but guide to

the divine Principle of all good, whither every real indi-

15 viduality, image, or likeness of God, gathers. By giving

earnest heed to these spiritual guides they tarry with us,

and we entertain "angels unawares."

Knowledge and Truth

18 Knowledge gained from material sense is figuratively

represented in Scripture as a tree, bearing the fruits of

sin, sickness, and death. Ought we not then

21 to judge the knowledge thus obtained to be

untrue and dangerous, since "the tree is known by his

fruit"?

24 Truth never destroys God's idea. Truth is spiritual,

eternal substance, which cannot destroy the right reflec-

tion. Corporeal sense, or error, may seem to hide Truth,

27 health, harmony, and Science, as the mist obscures the

sun or the mountain; but Science, the sunshine of Truth,

will melt away the shadow and reveal the celestial

30 peaks.

Old and new man

If man were solely a creature of the material senses,

he would have no eternal Principle and would be mutable

PAGE 300

1 and mortal. Human logic is awry when it attempts

to draw correct spiritual conclusions regarding life from

3 matter. Finite sense has no true apprecia-

tion of infinite Principle, God, or of His infi-

nite image or reflection, man. The mirage, which makes

6 trees and cities seem to be where they are not, illustrates

the illusion of material man, who cannot be the image

of God.

9 So far as the scientific statement as to man is under-

stood, it can be proved and will bring to light the true

reflection of God - the real man, or the new man (as

12 St. Paul has it).

The tares and wheat

The temporal and unreal never touch the eternal and

real. The mutable and imperfect never touch the im-

15 mutable and perfect. The inharmonious and

self-destructive never touch the harmonious

and self-existent. These opposite qualities are the tares

18 and wheat, which never really mingle, though (to mortal

sight) they grow side by side until the harvest; then, Sci-

ence separates the wheat from the tares, through the real-

21 ization of God as ever present and of man as reflecting

the divine likeness.

The divine reflection

Spirit is God, Soul; therefore Soul is not in matter. If

24 Spirit were in matter, God would have no representative,

and matter would be identical with God.

The theory that soul, spirit, intelligence, in-

27 habits matter is taught by the schools. This theory is

unscientific. The universe reflects and expresses the di-

vine substance or Mind; therefore God is seen only in the

30 spiritual universe and spiritual man, as the sun is seen in

the ray of light which goes out from it. God is re-

vealed only in that which reflects Life, Truth, Love, -

PAGE 301

1 yea, which manifests God's attributes and power, even

as the human likeness thrown upon the mirror, repeats

3 the color, form, and action of the person in front of the

mirror.

Few persons comprehend what Christian Science

6 means by the word reflection. To himself, mortal and

material man seems to be substance, but his sense of

substance involves error and therefore is material,

9 temporal.

On the other hand, the immortal, spiritual man is really

substantial, and reflects the eternal substance, or Spirit,

12 which mortals hope for. He reflects the divine, which

constitutes the only real and eternal entity. This reflection

seems to mortal sense transcendental, because the spiritual

15 man's substantiality transcends mortal vision and is re-

vealed only through divine Science.

Inverted images and ideas

As God is substance and man is the divine image and

18 likeness, man should wish for, and in reality has, only

the substance of good, the substance of Spirit,

not matter. The belief that man has any other

21 substance, or mind, is not spiritual and breaks

the First Commandment, Thou shalt have one God, one

Mind. Mortal man seems to himself to be material sub-

24 stance, while man is "image" (idea). Delusion, sin, dis-

ease, and death arise from the false testimony of material

sense, which, from a supposed standpoint outside the

27 focal distance of infinite Spirit, presents an inverted image

of Mind and substance with everything turned upside

down.

30 This falsity presupposes soul to be an unsubstantial

dweller in material forms, and man to be material instead

of spiritual. Immortality is not bounded by mortality.

PAGE 302

1 Soul is not compassed by finiteness. Principle is not to

be found in fragmentary ideas.

Identity not lost

3 The material body and mind are temporal, but the

real man is spiritual and eternal. The identity of the

5 real man is not lost, but found through this

6 explanation; for the conscious infinitude of

existence and of all identity is thereby discerned and re-

mains unchanged. It is impossible that man should lose

9 aught that is real, when God is all and eternally his. The

notion that mind is in matter, and that the so-called pleas-

ures and pains, the birth, sin, sickness, and death of

12 matter, are real, is a mortal belief; and this belief is all

that will ever be lost.

Definition of man

Continuing our definition of man, let us remember that

15 harmonious and immortal man has existed forever, and

is always beyond and above the mortal illu-

sion of any life, substance and intelligence

18 as existent in matter. This statement is based on fact,

not fable. The Science of being reveals man as perfect,

even as the Father is perfect, because the Soul, or Mind,

21 of the spiritual man is God, the divine Principle of all

being, and because this real man is governed by Soul

instead of sense, by the law of Spirit, not by the so-called

24 laws of matter.

God is Love. He is therefore the divine, infinite Prin-

ciple, called Person or God. Man's true consciousness

27 is in the mental, not in any bodily or personal likeness

to Spirit. Indeed, the body presents no proper likeness

of divinity, though mortal sense would fain have us so

30 believe.

Mental propagation

Even in Christian Science, reproduction by Spirit's

individual ideas is but the reflection of the creative power

PAGE 303

1 of the divine Principle of those ideas. The reflection,

through mental manifestation, of the multitudinous

3 forms of Mind which people the realm of

the real is controlled by Mind, the Principle

governing the reflection. Multiplication of God's chil-

6 dren comes from no power of propagation in matter, it

is the reflection of Spirit.

The minutiae of lesser individualities reflect the one di-

9 vine individuality and are comprehended in and formed

by Spirit, not by material sensation. Whatever reflects

Mind, Life, Truth, and Love, is spiritually conceived and

12 brought forth; but the statement that man is conceived

and evolved both spiritually and materially, or by both

God and man, contradicts this eternal truth. All the

15 vanity of the ages can never make both these contraries

true. Divine Science lays the axe at the root of the illu-

sion that life, or mind, is formed by or is in the material

18 body, and Science will eventually destroy this illusion

through the self-destruction of all error and the beatified

understanding of the Science of Life.

Error defined

21 The belief that pain and pleasure, life and death, holi-

ness and unholiness, mingle in man, - that

mortal, material man is the likeness of God

24 and is himself a creator, - is a fatal error.

Man's entity spiritual

God, without the image and likeness of Himself, would

be a nonentity, or Mind unexpressed. He would be

27 without a witness or proof of His own na-

ture. Spiritual man is the image or idea of

God, an idea which cannot be lost nor sep-

30 arated from its divine Principle. When the evidence

before the material senses yielded to spiritual sense, the

apostle declared that nothing could alienate him from

PAGE 304

1 God, from the sweet sense and presence of Life and

Truth.

Man inseparable from Love

3 It is ignorance and false belief, based on a material

sense of things, which hide spiritual beauty and good-

ness. Understanding this, Paul said: "Nei-

6 ther death, nor life, . . . nor things present,

nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor

any other creature, shall be able to separate us from

9 the love of God." This is the doctrine of Christian

Science: that divine Love cannot be deprived of its

manifestation, or object; that joy cannot be turned into

12 sorrow, for sorrow is not the master of joy; that good can

never produce evil; that matter can never produce mind

nor life result in death. The perfect man - governed

15 by God, his perfect Principle - is sinless and eternal.

Harmony natural

Harmony is produced by its Principle, is controlled

by it and abides with it. Divine Principle is the Life

18 of man. Man's happiness is not, therefore, at

the disposal of physical sense. Truth is not

contaminated by error. Harmony in man is as beautiful

21 as in music, and discord is unnatural, unreal.

The science of music governs tones. If mortals caught

harmony through material sense, they would lose har-

24 mony, if time or accident robbed them of material sense.

To be master of chords and discords, the science of

music must be understood. Left to the decisions

27 of material sense, music is liable to be misappre-

hended and lost in confusion. Controlled by belief,

instead of understanding, music is, must be, imper-

30 fectly expressed. So man, not understanding the Sci-

ence of being, - thrusting aside his divine Principle as

incomprehensible, - is abandoned to conjectures, left in

PAGE 305

1 the hands of ignorance, placed at the disposal of illusions,

subjected to material sense which is discord. A discon-

3 tented, discordant mortal is no more a man than discord

is music.

Human reflection

A picture in the camera or a face reflected in the mirror

6 is not the original, though resembling it. Man, in the

likeness of his Maker, reflects the central light

of being, the invisible God. As there is no cor-

9 poreality in the mirrored form, which is but a reflection,

so man, like all things real, reflects God, his divine Prin-

ciple, not in a mortal body.

12 Gender also is a quality, not of God, but a character-

istic of mortal mind. The verity that God's image is not

a creator, though he reflects the creation of Mind, God,

15 constitutes the underlying reality of reflection. "Then

answered Jesus and said unto them: Verily, verily I say

unto you, the Son can do nothing of himself, but what he

18 seeth the Father do: for what things soever He doeth,

these also doeth the Son likewise."

Inverted images

The inverted images presented by the senses, the de-

21 flections of matter as opposed to the Science of spirit-

ual reflection, are all unlike Spirit, God. In

the illusion of life that is here to-day and

24 gone to-morrow, man would be wholly mortal, were

it not that Love, the divine Principle that obtains in

divine Science, destroys all error and brings immor-

27 tality to light. Because man is the reflection of his

Maker, he is not subject to birth, growth, maturity, de-

cay. These mortal dreams are of human origin, not

30 divine.

Jewish traditions

The Sadducees reasoned falsely about the resurrec-

tion, but not so blindly as the Pharisees, who believed

PAGE 306

1 error to be as immortal as Truth. The Pharisees thought

that they could raise the spiritual from the material. They

3 would first make life result in death, and then

resort to death to reproduce spiritual life.

Jesus taught them how death was to be overcome by

6 spiritual Life, and demonstrated this beyond cavil.

Divinity not childless

Life demonstrates Life. The immortality of Soul makes

man immortal. If God, who is Life, were parted for a

9 moment from His reflection, man, during that

moment there would be no divinity reflected.

The Ego would be unexpressed, and the Father would be

12 childless, - no Father.

If Life or Soul and its representative, man, unite for

a period and then are separated as by a law of divorce to

15 be brought together again at some uncertain future time

and in a manner unknown, - and this is the general

religious opinion of mankind, - we are left without a

18 rational proof of immortality. But man cannot be sep-

arated for an instant from God, if man reflects God.

Thus Science proves man's existence to be intact.

Thought-forms

21 The myriad forms of mortal thought, made manifest

as matter, are not more distinct nor real to the mate-

rial senses than are the Soul-created forms

24 to spiritual sense, which cognizes Life as per-

manent. Undisturbed amid the jarring testimony of the

material senses, Science, still enthroned, is unfolding

27 to mortals the immutable, harmonious, divine Principle,

- is unfolding Life and the universe, ever present and

eternal.

30 God's man, spiritually created, is not material and

mortal.

The serpent's whisper

The parent of all human discord was the Adam-dream,

PAGE 307

1 the deep sleep, in which originated the delusion that life

and intelligence proceeded from and passed into matter.

3 This pantheistic error, or so-called serpent, in-

sists still upon the opposite of Truth, saying,

"Ye shall be as gods;" that is, I will make error as real

6 and eternal as Truth.

Evil still affirms itself to be mind, and declares that

there is more than one intelligence or God. It says:

9 "There shall be lords and gods many. I declare that God

makes evil minds and evil spirits, and that I aid Him.

Truth shall change sides and be unlike Spirit. I will

12 put spirit into what I call matter, and matter shall seem

to have life as much as God, Spirit, who is the only life."

Bad results from error

This error has proved itself to be error. Its life is found

15 to be not Life, but only a transient, false sense of an ex-

istence which ends in death. Error charges

its lie to Truth and says: "The Lord knows

18 it. He has made man immortal and material, out of mat-

ter instead of Spirit." Thus error partakes of its own

nature and utters its own falsities. If we regard matter

21 as intelligent, and Mind as both good and evil, every sin

or supposed material pain and pleasure seems normal,

a part of God's creation, and so weighs against our course

24 Spiritward.

Higher statutes

Truth has no beginning. The divine Mind is the Soul

of man, and gives man dominion over all things. Man

27 was not created from a material basis, nor

bidden to obey material laws which Spirit never

made; his province is in spiritual statutes, in the higher

30 law of Mind.

The great question

Above error's awful din, blackness, and chaos, the voice

of Truth still calls: "Adam, where art thou? Conscious-

PAGE 308

1 ness, where art thou? Art thou dwelling in the belief

that mind is in matter, and that evil is mind, or art thou

3 in the living faith that there is and can be but

one God, and keeping His commandment?"

Until the lesson is learned that God is the only Mind gov-

6 erning man, mortal belief will be afraid as it was in the

beginning, and will hide from the demand, "Where art

thou?" This awful demand, "Adam, where art thou?"

9 is met by the admission from the head, heart, stomach,

blood, nerves, etc.: "Lo, here I am, looking for happiness

and life in the body, but finding only an illusion, a blend-

12 ing of false claims, false pleasure, pain, sin, sickness, and

death."

The Soul-inspired patriarchs heard the voice of Truth,

15 and talked with God as consciously as man talks with man.

Wrestling of Jacob

Jacob was alone, wrestling with error, - struggling

with a mortal sense of life, substance, and intelligence

18 as existent in matter with its false pleasures

and pains, - when an angel, a message from

Truth and Love, appeared to him and smote the sinew,

21 or strength, of his error, till he saw its unreality; and

Truth, being thereby understood, gave him spiritual

strength in this Peniel of divine Science. Then said

24 the spiritual evangel: "Let me go, for the day breaketh;"

that is, the light of Truth and Love dawns upon thee.

But the patriarch, perceiving his error and his need

27 of help, did not loosen his hold upon this glorious light

until his nature was transformed. When Jacob was

asked, "What is thy name?" he straightway answered;

30 and then his name was changed to Israel, for "as a prince"

had he prevailed and had "power with God and with

men." Then Jacob questioned his deliverer, "Tell me,

PAGE 309

1 I pray thee, thy name;" but this appellation was withheld,

for the messenger was not a corporeal being, but a name-

3 less, incorporeal impartation of divine Love to man, which,

to use the word of the Psalmist, restored his Soul, - gave

him the spiritual sense of being and rebuked his material

6 sense.

Israel the new name

The result of Jacob's struggle thus appeared. He had

conquered material error with the understanding of Spirit

9 and of spiritual power. This changed the man.

He was no longer called Jacob, but Israel, -

a prince of God, or a soldier of God, who had fought

12 a good fight. He was to become the father of those, who

through earnest striving followed his demonstration of the

power of Spirit over the material senses; and the children

15 of earth who followed his example were to be called the

children of Israel, until the Messiah should rename them.

If these children should go astray, and forget that Life

18 is God, good, and that good is not in elements which are

not spiritual, - thus losing the divine power which heals

the sick and sinning, - they were to be brought back

21 through great tribulation, to be renamed in Christian

Science and led to deny material sense, or mind in matter,

even as the gospel teaches.

Life never structural

24 The Science of being shows it to be impossible for in-

finite Spirit or Soul to be in a finite body or for man to

have an intelligence separate from his Maker.

27 It is a self-evident error to suppose that there

can be such a reality as organic animal or vegetable life,

when such so-called life always ends in death. Life is

30 never for a moment extinct. Therefore it is never struc-

tural nor organic, and is never absorbed nor limited by its

own formations.

PAGE 310

Thought seen as substance

1 The artist is not in his painting. The picture is the

artist's thought objectified. The human belief fancies

3 that it delineates thought on matter, but what

is matter? Did it exist prior to thought?

Matter is made up of supposititious mortal mind-force;

6 but all might is divine Mind. Thought will finally be

understood and seen in all form, substance, and color, but

without material accompaniments. The potter is not in

9 the clay; else the clay would have power over the potter.

God is His own infinite Mind, and expresses all.

The central intelligence

Day may decline and shadows fall, but darkness flees

12 when the earth has again turned upon its axis. The sun

is not affected by the revolution of the earth.

So Science reveals Soul as God, untouched

15 by sin and death, - as the central life and intelligence

around which circle harmoniously all things in the sys-

tems of Mind.

Soul imperishable

18 Soul changeth not. We are commonly taught that there

is a human soul which sins and is spiritually lost, - that

soul may be lost, and yet be immortal. If

21 Soul could sin, Spirit, Soul, would be flesh in-

stead of Spirit. It is the belief of the flesh and of mate-

rial sense which sins. If Soul sinned, Soul would die.

24 Sin is the element of self-destruction, and spiritual death

is oblivion. If there was sin in Soul, the annihilation of

Spirit would be inevitable. The only Life is Spirit, and

27 if Spirit should lose Life as God, good, then Spirit, which

has no other existence, would be annihilated.

Mind is God, and God is not seen by material sense,

30 because Mind is Spirit, which material sense cannot dis-

cern. There is neither growth, maturity, nor decay in

Soul. These changes are the mutations of material sense,

PAGE 311

1 the varying clouds of mortal belief, which hide the truth

of being.

3 What we term mortal mind or carnal mind, dependent

on matter for manifestation, is not Mind. God is Mind:

all that Mind, God, is, or hath made, is good, and He

6 made all. Hence evil is not made and is not real.

Sin only of the flesh

Soul is immortal because it is Spirit, which has no ele-

ment of self-destruction. is man lost spiritually? No,

9 he can only lose a sense material. All sin is

of the flesh. It cannot be spiritual. Sin exists

here or hereafter only so long as the illusion of mind in

12 matter remains. It is a sense of sin, and not a sinful soul,

which is lost. Evil is destroyed by the sense of good.

Soul impeccable

Through false estimates of soul as dwelling in sense

15 and of mind as dwelling in matter, belief strays into a

sense of temporary loss or absence of soul, spir-

itual truth. This state of error is the mortal

18 dream of life and substance as existent in matter, and is

directly opposite to the immortal reality of being. So long

as we believe that soul can sin or that immortal Soul is in

21 mortal body, we can never understand the Science of be-

ing. When humanity does understand this Science, it

will become the law of Life to man, - even the higher law

24 of Soul, which prevails over material sense through har-

mony and immortality.

The objects cognized by the physical senses have not

27 the reality of substance. They are only what mortal

belief calls them. Matter, sin, and mortality lose all

supposed consciousness or claim to life or existence, as

30 mortals lay off a false sense of life, substance, and intelli-

gence. but the spiritual, eternal man is not touched by

these phases of mortality.

PAGE 312

Sense-dreams

1 How true it is that whatever is learned through material

sense must be lost because such so-called knowledge is

3 reversed by the spiritual facts of being in

Science. That which material sense calls

intangible, is found to be substance. What to material

6 sense seems substance, becomes nothingness, as the sense-

dream vanishes and reality appears.

The senses regard a corpse, not as man, but simply as

9 matter. People say, "Man is dead;" but this death is

the departure of a mortal's mind, not of matter. The

matter is still there. The belief of that mortal that he

12 must die occasioned his departure; yet you say that

matter has caused his death.

Vain ecstasies

People go into ecstasies over the sense of a corporeal

15 Jehovah, though with scarcely a spark of love in their

hearts; yet God is love, and without Love,

God, immortality cannot appear. Mortals try

18 to believe without understanding Truth; yet God is

Truth. Mortals claim that death is inevitable; but man's

eternal Principle is ever-present life. Mortals believe in

21 a finite personal God; while God is infinite Love, which

must be unlimited.

Man-made theories

Our theories are based on finite premises, which can-

24 not penetrate beyond matter. A personal sense of God

and of man's capabilities necessarily limits

faith and hinders spiritual understanding. It

27 divides faith and understanding between matter and Spirit,

the finite and the infinite, and so turns away from the

intelligent and divine healing Principle to the inanimate

30 drug.

The one anointed

Jesus' spiritual origin and his demonstration of divine

Principle richly endowed him and entitled him to sonship

PAGE 313

1 in Science. He was the son of a virgin. The term

Christ Jesus, or Jesus the Christ (to give the full and

3 proper translation of the Greek), may be ren-

dered "Jesus the anointed," Jesus the God-

crowned or the divinely royal man, as it is said of him in

6 the first chapter of Hebrews: -

Therefore God, even thy God, hath anointed thee

With the oil of gladness above thy fellows.

9 With this agrees another passage in the same chapter,

which refers to the Son as "the brightness of His [God's]

glory, and the express [expressed] image of His person

12 [infinite Mind]." It is noteworthy that the phrase "ex-

press image" in the Common Version is, in the Greek

Testament, character. Using this word in its higher mean-

15 ing, we may assume that the author of this remarkable

epistle regarded Christ as the Son of God, the royal

reflection of the infinite; and the cause given for the ex-

18 altation of Jesus, Mary's son, was that he "loved right-

eousness and hated iniquity." The passage is made

even clearer in the translation of the late George R.

21 Noyes, D.D.: "Who, being a brightness from His glory,

and an image of His being."

Jesus the Scientist

Jesus of Nazareth was the most scientific man that

24 ever trod the globe. He plunged beneath the material

surface of things, and found the spiritual

cause. To accommodate himself to imma-

27 ture ideas of spiritual power, - for spirituality was pos

sessed only in a limited degree even by his disciples, -

Jesus called the body, which by spiritual power he

30 raised from the grave, "flesh and bones." To show

that the substance of himself was Spirit and the body

PAGE 314

1 no more perfect because of death and no less material

until the ascension (his further spiritual exaltation),

3 Jesus waited until the mortal or fleshly sense had re-

linquished the belief of substance-matter, and spiritual

sense had quenched all earthly yearnings. Thus he found

6 the eternal Ego, and proved that he and the Father were

inseparable as God and His reflection or spiritual man.

Our Master gained the solution of being, demonstrating

9 the existence of but one Mind without a second or equal.

The bodily resurrection

The Jews, who sought to kill this man of God, showed

plainly that their material views were the parents of their

12 wicked deeds. When Jesus spoke of repro-

ducing his body, - knowing, as he did, that

Mind was the builder, - and said, "Destroy this temple,

15 and in three days I will raise it up," they thought that he

meant their material temple instead of his body. To such

materialists, the real man seemed a spectre, unseen and

18 unfamiliar, and the body, which they laid in a sepulchre,

seemed to be substance. This materialism lost sight of

the true Jesus; but the faithful Mary saw him, and he

21 presented to her, more than ever before, the true idea of

Life and substance.

Opposition of materialists

Because of mortals' material and sinful belief, the

24 spiritual Jesus was imperceptible to them. The higher

his demonstration of divine Science carried

the problem of being, and the more dis-

27 tinctly he uttered the demands of its divine Principle,

Truth and Love, the more odious he became to sinners

and to those who, depending on doctrines and material

30 laws to save them from sin and sickness, were submis-

sive to death as being in supposed accord with the

inevitable law of life. Jesus proved them wrong by

PAGE 315

1 his resurrection, and said: "Whosoever liveth and be-

lieveth in me shall never die."

Hebrew theology

3 That saying of our Master, "I and my Father are one,"

separated him from the scholastic theology of the rabbis.

His better understanding of God was a rebuke

6 to them. He knew of but one Mind and laid

no claim to any other. He knew that the Ego was Mind

instead of body and that matter, sin, and evil were not

9 Mind; and his understanding of this divine Science

brought upon him the anathemas of the age.

The true sonship

The opposite and false views of the people hid from

12 their sense Christ's sonship with God. They could not

discern his spiritual existence. Their carnal

minds were at enmity with it. Their thoughts

15 were filled with mortal error, instead of with God's spirit-

ual idea as presented by Christ Jesus. The likeness of

God we lose sight of through sin, which beclouds the spir-

18 itual sense of Truth; and we realize this likeness only

when we subdue sin and prove man's heritage, the liberty

of the sons of God.

Immaculate conception

21 Jesus' spiritual origin and understanding enabled him

to demonstrate the facts of being, - to prove irrefutably

how spiritual Truth destroys material error,

24 heals sickness, and overcomes death. The

divine conception of Jesus pointed to this truth and pre-

sented an illustration of creation. The history of Jesus

27 shows him to have been more spiritual than all other

earthly personalities.

Jesus as mediator

Wearing in part a human form (that is, as it seemed

30 to mortal view), being conceived by a human mother,

Jesus was the mediator between Spirit and the flesh,

between Truth and error. Explaining and demonstrat-

PAGE 316

1 ing the way of divine Science, he became the way of

salvation to all who accepted his word. From him mor-

3 tals may learn how to escape from evil. The

real man being linked by Science to his Maker,

mortals need only turn from sin and lose sight of mortal

6 selfhood to find Christ, the real man and his relation to

God, and to recognize the divine sonship. Christ, Truth,

was demonstrated through Jesus to prove the power of

9 Spirit over the flesh, - to show that Truth is made

manifest by its effects upon the human mind and body,

healing sickness and destroying sin.

Spiritual government

12 Jesus represented Christ, the true idea of God. Hence

the warfare between this spiritual idea and perfunctory

religion, between spiritual clear-sightedness

15 and the blindness of popular belief, which led

to the conclusion that the spiritual idea could be killed

by crucifying the flesh. The Christ-idea, or the Christ-

18 man, rose higher to human view because of the crucifixion,

and thus proved that truth was the master of death.

Christ presents the indestructible man, whom Spirit cre-

21 ates, constitutes, and governs. Christ illustrates that

blending with God, his divine Principle, which gives man

dominion over all the earth.

Deadness in sin

24 The spiritual idea of God, as presented by Jesus, was

scourged in person, and its Principle was rejected. That

man was accounted a criminal who could

27 prove God's divine power by healing the

sick, casting out evils, spiritualizing materialistic beliefs,

and raising the dead, - those dead in trespasses and

30 sins, satisfied with the flesh, resting on the basis of mat-

ter, blind to the possibilities of Spirit and its correla-

tive truth.

PAGE 317

1 Jesus uttered things which had been "secret from the

foundation of the world," - since material knowledge

3 usurped the throne of the creative divine Principle, insisted

on the might of matter, the force of falsity, the insignifi-

cance of spirit, and proclaimed an anthropomorphic God.

The cup of Jesus

6 Whosoever lives most the life of Jesus in this age

and declares best the power of Christian Science, will

drink of his Master's cup. Resistance to

9 Truth will haunt his steps, and he will in-

cur the hatred of sinners, till "wisdom is justified of

her children." These blessed benedictions rest upon

12 Jesus' followers: "If the world hate you, ye know that

it hated me before it hated you;" "Lo, I am with you

alway," - that is, not only in all time, but in all ways

15 and conditions.

The individuality of man is no less tangible because

it is spiritual and because his life is not at the mercy of

18 matter. The understanding of his spiritual individuality

makes man more real, more formidable in truth, and en-

ables him to conquer sin, disease, and death. Our Lord

21 and Master presented himself to his disciples after his

resurrection from the grave, as the self-same Jesus whom

they had loved before the tragedy on Calvary.

Material skepticism

24 To the materialistic Thomas, looking for the ideal

Saviour in matter instead of in Spirit and to the testi-

mony of the material senses and the body,

27 more than to Soul, for an earnest of immor-

tality, - to him Jesus furnished the proof that he was

unchanged by the crucifixion. To this dull and doubt-

30 ing disciple Jesus remained a fleshly reality, so long as

the Master remained an inhabitant of the earth. Noth-

ing but a display of matter could make existence real

PAGE 318

1 to Thomas. For him to believe in matter was no task,

but for him to conceive of the substantiality of Spirit -

3 to know that nothing can efface Mind and immortality, in

which Spirit reigns - was more difficult.

What the senses originate

Corporeal senses define diseases as realities; but the

6 Scriptures declare that God made all, even while the cor-

poreal senses are saying that matter causes

disease and the divine Mind cannot or will

9 not heal it. The material senses originate and

support all that is material, untrue, selfish, or debased.

They would put soul into soil, life into limbo, and doom

12 all things to decay. We must silence this lie of material

sense with the truth of spiritual sense. We must cause

the error to cease that brought the belief of sin and death

15 and would efface the pure sense of omnipotence.

Sickness as discord

Is the sick man sinful above all others? No! but

so far as he is discordant, he is not the image of God.

18 Weary of their material beliefs, from which

comes so much suffering, invalids grow more

spiritual, as the error - or belief that life is in matter -

21 yields to the reality of spiritual Life.

The Science of Mind denies the error of sensation in

matter, and heals with Truth. Medical science treats

24 disease as though disease were real, therefore right, and

attempts to heal it with matter. If disease is right it is

wrong to heal it. Material methods are temporary, and

27 are not adapted to elevate mankind.

The governor is not subjected to the governed. In

Science man is governed by God, divine Principle, as

30 numbers are controlled and proved by His laws. Intelli-

gence does not originate in numbers, but is manifested

through them. The body does not include soul, but man-

PAGE 319

1 ifests mortality, a false sense of soul. The delusion that

there is life in matter has no kinship with the Life supernal.

Unscientific introspection

3 Science depicts disease as error, as matter versus

Mind, and error reversed as subserving the facts of

health. To calculate one's life-prospects

6 from a material basis, would infringe upon

spiritual law and misguide human hope. Having faith

in the divine Principle of Health and spiritually under-

9 standing God, sustains man under all circumstances;

whereas the lower appeal to the general faith in material

means (commonly called nature) must yield to the all-

12 might of infinite Spirit.

Throughout the infinite cycles of eternal existence,

Spirit and matter neither concur in man nor in the universe.

God the only Mind

15 The varied doctrines and theories which presuppose

life and intelligence to exist in matter are so many ancient

and modern mythologies. Mystery, miracle,

18 sin, and death will disappear when it becomes

fairly understood that the divine Mind controls man and

man has no Mind but God.

Scriptures misinterpreted

21 The divine Science taught in the original language

of the Bible came through inspiration, and needs inspi-

ration to be understood. Hence the misappre-

24 hension of the spiritual meaning of the Bible,

and the misinterpretation of the Word in

some instances by uninspired writers, who only wrote

27 down what an inspired teacher had said. A misplaced

word changes the sense and misstates the Science of

the Scriptures, as, for instance, to name Love as merely

30 an attribute of God; but we can by special and proper

capitalization speak of the love of Love, meaning by that

what the beloved disciple meant in one of his epistles,

PAGE 320

1 when he said, "God is love." Likewise we can speak of

the truth of Truth and of the life of Life, for Christ plainly

3 declared, "I am the way, the truth, and the life."

Interior meaning

Metaphors abound in the Bible, and names are often

expressive of spiritual ideas. The most distinguished

6 theologians in Europe and America agree that

the Scriptures have both a spiritual and lit-

eral meaning. In Smith's Bible Dictionary it is said:

9 "The spiritual interpretation of Scripture must rest

upon both the literal and moral;" and in the learned

article on Noah in the same work, the familiar text,

12 Genesis vi. 3, "And the Lord said, My spirit shall not

always strive with man, for that he also is flesh," is quoted

as follows, from the original Hebrew: "And Jehovah

15 said, My spirit shall not forever rule [or be humbled] in

men, seeing that they are [or, in their error they are]

but flesh." Here the original text declares plainly the

18 spiritual fact of being, even man's eternal and harmo-

nious existence as image, idea, instead of matter (how-

ever transcendental such a thought appears), and avers

21 that this fact is not forever to be humbled by the belief

that man is flesh and matter, for according to that error

man is mortal.

Job, on the resurrection

24 The one important interpretation of Scripture is the

spiritual. For example, the text, "In my flesh shall I

see God," gives a profound idea of the di-

27 vine power to heal the ills of the flesh, and

encourages mortals to hope in Him who healeth all our

diseases; whereas this passage is continually quoted

30 as if Job intended to declare that even if disease and

worms destroyed his body, yet in the latter days he should

stand in celestial perfection before Elohim, still clad

PAGE 321

1 in material flesh, - an interpretation which is just the op-

posite of the true, as may be seen by studying the book

3 of Job. As Paul says, in his first epistle to the Corin-

thians, "Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of

God."

Fear of the serpent overcome

6 The Hebrew Lawgiver, slow of speech, despaired of

making the people understand what should be revealed

to him. When, led by wisdom to cast down his

9 rod, he saw it become a serpent, Moses fled be-

fore it; but wisdom bade him come back and

handle the serpent, and then Moses' fear departed. In

12 this incident was seen the actuality of Science. Matter

was shown to be a belief only. The serpent, evil, under

wisdom's bidding, was destroyed through understanding

15 divine Science, and this proof was a staff upon which to

lean. The illusion of Moses lost its power to alarm him,

when he discovered that what he apparently saw was really

18 but a phase of mortal belief.

Leprosy healed

It was scientifically demonstrated that leprosy was a

creation of mortal mind and not a condition of matter,

21 when Moses first put his hand into his bosom

and drew it forth white as snow with the dread

disease, and presently restored his hand to its natural con-

24 dition by the same simple process. God had lessened

Moses' fear by this proof in divine Science, and the in-

ward voice became to him the voice of God, which said:

27 "It shall come to pass, if they will not believe thee, neither

hearken to the voice of the first sign, that they will believe

the voice of the latter sign." And so it was in the coming

30 centuries, when the Science of being was demonstrated

by Jesus, who showed his students the power of Mind by

changing water into wine, and taught them how to handle

PAGE 322

1 serpents unharmed, to heal the sick and cast out evils in

proof of the supremacy of Mind.

Standpoints changed

3 When understanding changes the standpoints of life and

intelligence from a material to a spiritual basis, we shall

gain the reality of Life, the control of Soul over

6 sense, and we shall perceive Christianity, or

Truth, in its divine Principle. This must be the climax

before harmonious and immortal man is obtained and his

9 capabilities revealed. It is highly important - in view

of the immense work to be accomplished before this recog-

nition of divine Science can come - to turn our thoughts

12 towards divine Principle, that finite belief may be pre-

pared to relinquish its error.

Saving the inebriate

Man's wisdom finds no satisfaction in sin, since God

15 has sentenced sin to suffer. The necromancy of yester-

day foreshadowed the mesmerism and hypno-

tism of to-day. The drunkard thinks he enjoys

18 drunkenness, and you cannot make the inebriate leave

his besottedness, until his physical sense of pleasure yields

to a higher sense. Then he turns from his cups, as

21 the startled dreamer who wakens from an incubus in-

curred through the pains of distorted sense. A man who

likes to do wrong - finding pleasure in it and refraining

24 from it only through fear of consequences - is neither

a temperate man nor a reliable religionist.

Uses of suffering

The sharp experiences of belief in the supposititious life

27 of matter, as well as our disappointments and ceaseless

woes, turn us like tired children to the arms

of divine Love. Then we begin to learn Life

30 in divine Science. Without this process of weaning,

"Canst thou by searching find out God?" It is easier

to desire Truth than to rid one's self of error. Mortals

PAGE 323

1 may seek the understanding of Christian Science, but they

will not be able to glean from Christian Science the facts

3 of being without striving for them. This strife consists

in the endeavor to forsake error of every kind and to pos-

sess no other consciousness but good.

A bright outlook

6 Through the wholesome chastisements of Love, we

are helped onward in the march towards righteousness,

peace, and purity, which are the landmarks

9 of Science. Beholding the infinite tasks of

truth, we pause, - wait on God. Then we push onward,

until boundless thought walks enraptured, and concep-

12 tion unconfined is winged to reach the divine glory.

Need and supply

In order to apprehend more, we must put into prac-

tice what we already know. We must recollect that

15 Truth is demonstrable when understood, and

that good is not understood until demonstrated.

If "faithful over a few things," we shall be made rulers

18 over many; but the one unused talent decays and is lost.

When the sick or the sinning awake to realize their need

of what they have not, they will be receptive of divine

21 Science, which gravitates towards Soul and away from

material sense, removes thought from the body, and ele-

vates even mortal mind to the contemplation of some-

24 thing better than disease or sin. The true idea of God

gives the true understanding of Life and Love, robs the

grave of victory, takes away all sin and the delusion that

27 there are other minds, and destroys mortality.

Childlike receptivity

The effects of Christian Science are not so much seen

as felt. It is the "still, small voice" of Truth

30 uttering itself. We are either turning away

from this utterance, or we are listening to it and going

up higher. Willingness to become as a little child and

PAGE 324

1 to leave the old for the new, renders thought receptive of

the advanced idea. Gladness to leave the false landmarks

3 and joy to see them disappear, - this disposition helps

to precipitate the ultimate harmony. The purification

of sense and self is a proof of progress. "Blessed are the

6 pure in heart: for they shall see God."

Narrow pathway

Unless the harmony and immortality of man are be-

coming more apparent, we are not gaining the true idea

9 of God; and the body will reflect what gov-

erns it, whether it be Truth or error,

understanding or belief, Spirit or matter. Therefore

12 "acquaint now thyself with Him, and be at peace."

Be watchful, sober, and vigilant. The way is straight

and narrow, which leads to the understanding that God

15 is the only Life. It is a warfare with the flesh, in which

we must conquer sin, sickness, and death, either here

or hereafter, - certainly before we can reach the goal

18 of Spirit, or life in God.

Paul's enlightenment

Paul was not at first a disciple of Jesus but a perse-

cutor of Jesus' followers. When the truth first appeared

21 to him in Science, Paul was made blind,

and his blindness was felt; but spiritual

light soon enabled him to follow the example and teach-

24 ings of Jesus, healing the sick and preaching Christian-

ity throughout Asia Minor, Greece, and even in imperial

Rome.

27 Paul writes, "If Christ [Truth] be not risen, then is

our preaching vain." That is, if the idea of the suprem-

acy of Spirit, which is the true conception of being,

30 come not to your thought, you cannot be benefited by

what I say.

Abiding in Life

Jesus said substantially, "He that believeth in me

PAGE 325

1 shall not see death." That is, he who perceives the

true idea of Life loses his belief in death. He who has

3 the true idea of good loses all sense of evil,

and by reason of this is being ushered into the

undying realities of Spirit. Such a one abideth in Life, -

6 life obtained not of the body incapable of supporting life,

but of Truth, unfolding its own immortal idea. Jesus

gave the true idea of being, which results in infinite bless-

9 ings to mortals.

Indestructible being

In Colossians (iii. 4) Paul writes: "When Christ, who

is our life, shall appear [be manifested], then shall ye also

12 appear [be manifested] with him in glory."

When spiritual being is understood in all its

perfection, continuity, and might, then shall man be found

15 in God's image. The absolute meaning of the apostolic

words is this: Then shall man be found, in His likeness,

perfect as the Father, indestructible in Life, "hid with

18 Christ in God," - with Truth in divine Love, where

human sense hath not seen man.

Consecration required

Paul had a clear sense of the demands of Truth upon

21 mortals physically and spiritually, when he said: "Pre-

sent your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, ac-

ceptable unto God, which is your reasonable

24 service." But he, who is begotten of the beliefs of the

flesh and serves them, can never reach in this world the

divine heights of our Lord. The time cometh when

27 the spiritual origin of man, the divine Science which

ushered Jesus into human presence, will be understood

and demonstrated.

30 When first spoken in any age, Truth, like the light,

"shineth in darkness, and the darkness comprehended

it not." A false sense of life, substance, and mind

PAGE 326

1 hides the divine possibilities, and conceals scientific

demonstration.

Loving God supremely

3 If we wish to follow Christ, Truth, it must be in the

way of God's appointing. Jesus said, "He that believeth

on me, the works that I do shall he do also."

6 He, who would reach the source and find the

divine remedy for every ill, must not try to climb the hill

of Science by some other road. All nature teaches God's

9 love to man, but man cannot love God supremely and set

his whole affections on spiritual things, while loving the

material or trusting in it more than in the spiritual.

12 We must forsake the foundation of material systems,

however time-honored, if we would gain the Christ as

our only Saviour. Not partially, but fully, the great

15 healer of mortal mind is the healer of the body.

The purpose and motive to live aright can be gained

now. This point won, you have started as you should.

18 You have begun at the numeration-table of Christian

Science, and nothing but wrong intention can hinder your

advancement. Working and praying with true motives,

21 your Father will open the way. "Who did hinder you,

that ye should not obey the truth?"

Conversion of Saul

Saul of Tarsus beheld the way - the Christ, or Truth

24 - only when his uncertain sense of right yielded to a

spiritual sense, which is always right. Then

the man was changed. Thought assumed a

27 nobler outlook, and his life became more spiritual. He

learned the wrong that he had done in persecuting Chris-

tians, whose religion he had not understood, and in hu-

30 mility he took the new name of Paul. He beheld for the

first time the true idea of Love, and learned a lesson in

divine Science.

PAGE 327

1 Reform comes by understanding that there is no abid-

ing pleasure in evil, and also by gaining an affection for

3 good according to Science, which reveals the immortal

fact that neither pleasure nor pain, appetite nor passion,

can exist in or of matter, while divine Mind can and does

6 destroy the false beliefs of pleasure, pain, or fear and all

the sinful appetites of the human mind.

Image of the beast

What a pitiful sight is malice, finding pleasure in re-

9 venge! Evil is sometimes a man's highest conception

of right, until his grasp on good grows stronger.

Then he loses pleasure in wickedness, and it

12 becomes his torment. The way to escape the misery of

sin is to cease sinning. There is no other way. Sin is

the image of the beast to be effaced by the sweat of agony.

15 It is a moral madness which rushes forth to clamor with

midnight and tempest.

Peremptory demands

To the physical senses, the strict demands of Christian

18 Science seem peremptory; but mortals are has-

tening to learn that Life is God, good, and that

evil has in reality neither place nor power in the human or

21 the divine economy.

Moral courage

Fear of punishment never made man truly honest.

Moral courage is requisite to meet the wrong and to

24 proclaim the right. But how shall we re-

form the man who has more animal than

moral courage, and who has not the true idea of good?

27 Through human consciousness, convince the mortal of

his mistake in seeking material means for gaining hap-

piness. Reason is the most active human faculty. Let

30 that inform the sentiments and awaken the man's dor-

mant sense of moral obligation, and by degrees he will

learn the nothingness of the pleasures of human sense

PAGE 328

1 and the grandeur and bliss of a spiritual sense, which

silences the material or corporeal. Then he not only will

3 be saved, but is saved.

Final destruction of error

Mortals suppose that they can live without goodness,

when God is good and the only real Life. What is the

6 result? Understanding little about the divine

Principle which saves and heals, mortals get

rid of sin, sickness, and death only in belief. These errors

9 are not thus really destroyed, and must therefore cling

to mortals until, here or hereafter, they gain the true un-

derstanding of God in the Science which destroys human

12 delusions about Him and reveals the grand realities of

His allness.

Promise perpetual

This understanding of man's power, when he is

15 equipped by God, has sadly disappeared from Christian

history. For centuries it has been dormant, a

lost element of Christianity. Our missionaries

18 carry the Bible to India, but can it be said that they

explain it practically, as Jesus did, when hundreds of

persons die there annually from serpent-bites? Under-

21 standing spiritual law and knowing that there is no mate-

rial law, Jesus said: "These signs shall follow them that

believe, . . . they shall take up serpents, and if they

24 drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them. They

shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover." It

were well had Christendom believed and obeyed this

27 sacred saying.

Jesus' promise is perpetual. Had it been given only

to his immediate disciples, the Scriptural passage would

30 read you, not they. The purpose of his great life-work

extends through time and includes universal humanity.

Its Principle is infinite, reaching beyond the pale of a

PAGE 329

1 single period or of a limited following. As time moves

on, the healing elements of pure Christianity will be fairly

3 dealt with; they will be sought and taught, and will glow

in all the grandeur of universal goodness.

Imitation of Jesus

A little leaven leavens the whole lump. A little under-

6 standing of Christian Science proves the truth of all that

I say of it. Because you cannot walk on the

water and raise the dead, you have no right to

9 question the great might of divine Science in these direc-

tions. Be thankful that Jesus, who was the true demon-

strator of Science, did these things, and left his example for

12 us. In Science we can use only what we understand. We

must prove our faith by demonstration.

One should not tarry in the storm if the body is freez-

15 ing, nor should he remain in the devouring flames. Un-

til one is able to prevent bad results, he should avoid their

occasion. To be discouraged, is to resemble a pupil in

18 addition, who attempts to solve a problem of Euclid, and

denies the rule of the problem because he fails in his first

effort.

Error destroyed, not pardoned

21 There is no hypocrisy in Science. Principle is impera-

tive. You cannot mock it by human will. Science is a

divine demand, not a human. Always right,

24 its divine Principle never repents, but main-

tains the claim of Truth by quenching error.

The pardon of divine mercy is the destruction of error. If

27 men understood their real spiritual source to be all bless-

edness, they would struggle for recourse to the spiritual

and be at peace; but the deeper the error into which mor-

30 tal mind is plunged, the more intense the opposition to

spirituality, till error yields to Truth.

The hopeful outlook

Human resistance to divine Science weakens in pro-

PAGE 330

1 portion as mortals give up error for Truth and the un-

derstanding of being supersedes mere belief. Until the

3 author of this book learned the vastness of

Christian Science, the fixedness of mortal illu-

sions, and the human hatred of Truth, she cherished

6 sanguine hopes that Christian Science would meet with

immiediate and universal acceptance.

When the following platform is understood and the

9 letter and the spirit bear witness, the infallibility of divine

metaphysics will be demonstrated.

The deific supremacy

I. God is infinite, the only Life, substance, Spirit, or

12 Soul, the only intelligence of the universe, including man.

Eye hath neither seen God nor His image and

likeness. Neither God nor the perfect man

15 can be discerned by the material senses. The individ-

uality of Spirit, or the infinite, is unknown, and thus a

knowledge of it is left either to human conjecture or to the

18 revelation of divine Science.

The deific definitions

II. God is what the Scriptures declare Him to be, -

Life, Truth, Love. Spirit is divine Principle, and divine

21 Principle is Love, and Love is Mind, and

Mind is not both good and bad, for God is

Mind; therefore there is in reality one Mind only, be-

24 cause there is one God.

Evil obsolete

III. The notion that both evil and good are real is a

delusion of material sense, which Science annihilates.

27 Evil is nothing, no thing, mind, nor power.

As manifested by mankind it stands for a lie,

nothing claiming to be something, - for lust, dishonesty,

30 selfishness, envy, hypocrisy, slander, hate, theft, adultery,

murder, dementia, insanity, inanity, devil, hell, with all

the etceteras that word includes.

PAGE 331

Life the creator

1 IV. God is divine Life, and Life is no more confined

to the forms which reflect it than substance is in its

3 shadow. If life were in mortal man or mate-

rial things, it would be subject to their limi-

tations and would end in death. Life is Mind, the creator

6 reflected in His creations. If He dwelt within what He

creates, God would not be reflected but absorbed, and the

Science of being would be forever lost through a mortal

9 sense, which falsely testifies to a beginning and an

end.

Allness of Spirit

V. The Scriptures imply that God is All-in-all. From

12 this it follows that nothing possesses reality nor existence

except the divine Mind and His ideas. The

Scriptures also declare that God is Spirit.

15 Therefore in Spirit all is harmony, and there can be no

discord; all is Life, and there is no death. Everything

in God's universe expresses Him.

The universal cause

18 VI. God is individual, incorporeal. He is divine Prin-

ciple, Love, the universal cause, the only creator, and

there is no other self-existence. He is all-

21 inclusive, and is reflected by all that is real

and eternal and by nothing else. He fills all space, and

it is impossible to conceive of such omnipresence and in-

24 dividuality except as infinite Spirit or Mind. Hence all

is Spirit and spiritual.

Divine trinity

VII. Life, Truth, and Love constitute the triune Person

27 called God, - that is, the triply divine Principle, Love.

They represent a trinity in unity, three in

one, - the same in essence, though multi-

30 form in office: God the Father-Mother; Christ the spirit-

ual idea of sonship; divine Science or the Holy Comforter.

These three express in divine Science the threefold, essen-

PAGE 332

1 tial nature of the infinite. They also indicate the divine

Principle of scientific being, the intelligent relation of God

3 to man and the universe.

Father-Mother

VIII. Father-Mother is the name for Deity, which in-

dicates His tender relationship to His spiritual creation.

6 As the apostle expressed it in words which he

quoted with approbation from a classic poet:

"For we are also His offspring."

The Son of God

9 IX. Jesus was born of Mary. Christ is the true idea

voicing good, the divine message from God to men speak-

ing to the human consciousness. The Christ

12 is incorporeal, spiritual, - yea, the divine

image and likeness, dispelling the illusions of the senses;

the Way, the Truth, and the Life, healing the sick and

15 casting out evils, destroying sin, disease, and death. As

Paul says: "There is one God, and one mediator between

God and men, the man Christ Jesus." The corporeal

18 man Jesus was human.

Holy Ghost or Comforter

X. Jesus demonstrated Christ; he proved that Christ

is the divine idea of God - the Holy Ghost,

21 or Comforter, revealing the divine Principle,

Love, and leading into all truth.

Christ Jesus

XI. Jesus was the son of a virgin. He was appointed

24 to speak God's word and to appear to mortals in such

a form of humanity as they could understand

as well as perceive. Mary's conception of

27 him was spiritual, for only purity could reflect Truth

and Love, which were plainly incarnate in the good and

pure Christ Jesus. He expressed the highest type of

30 divinity, which a fleshly form could express in that age.

Into the real and ideal man the fleshly element cannot

enter. Thus it is that Christ illustrates the coincidence,

PAGE 333

1 or spiritual agreement, between God and man in His

image.

Messiah or Christ

3 XII. The word Christ is not properly a synonym for

Jesus, though it is commonly so used. Jesus was a human

name, which belonged to him in common with

6 other Hebrew boys and men, for it is identical

with the name Joshua, the renowned Hebrew leader. On

the other hand, Christ is not a name so much as the divine

9 title of Jesus. Christ expresses God's spiritual, eternal

nature. The name is synonymous with Messiah, and al-

ludes to the spirituality which is taught, illustrated, and

12 demonstrated in the life of which Christ Jesus was the

embodiment. The proper name of our Master in the

Greek was Jesus the Christ; but Christ Jesus better sig-

15 nifies the Godlike.

The divine Principle and idea

XIII. The advent of Jesus of Nazareth marked the

first century of the Christian era, but the Christ is

18 without beginning of years or end of days.

Throughout all generations both before and

after the Christian era, the Christ, as the spirit-

21 ual idea, - the reflection of God, - has come with some

measure of power and grace to all prepared to receive

Christ, Truth. Abraham, Jacob, Moses, and the prophets

24 caught glorious glimpses of the Messiah, or Christ, which

baptized these seers in the divine nature, the essence of

Love. The divine image, idea, or Christ was, is, and

27 ever will be inseparable from the divine Principle, God.

Jesus referred to this unity of his spiritual identity thus:

"Before Abraham was, I am;" "I and my Father are

30 one;" "My Father is greater than I." The one Spirit

includes all identities.

Spiritual oneness

XIV. By these sayings Jesus meant, not that the hu-

PAGE 334

1 man Jesus was or is eternal, but that the divine idea or

Christ was and is so and therefore antedated Abraham;

3 not that the corporeal Jesus was one with the

Father, but that the spiritual idea, Christ,

dwells forever in the bosom of the Father, God, from

6 which it illumines heaven and earth; not that the Father

is greater than Spirit, which is God, but greater, infinitely

greater, than the fleshly Jesus, whose earthly career was

9 brief.

The Son's duality

XV. The invisible Christ was imperceptible to the

so-called personal senses, whereas Jesus appeared as a

12 bodily existence. This dual personality of the

unseen and the seen, the spiritual and mate-

rial, the eternal Christ and the corporeal Jesus manifest

15 in flesh, continued until the Master's ascension, when

the human, material concept, or Jesus, disappeared,

while the spiritual self, or Christ, continues to exist in

18 the eternal order of divine Science, taking away the sins

of the world, as the Christ has always done, even before

the human Jesus was incarnate to mortal eyes.

Eternity of the Christ

21 XVI. This was "the Lamb slain from the foundation

of the world," - slain, that is, according to the testi-

mony of the corporeal senses, but undying in

24 the deific Mind. The Revelator represents the

Son of man as saying (Revelation i. 17, 18): "I am the

first and the last: I am he that liveth, and was dead

27 [not understood]; and, behold, I am alive for evermore,

[Science has explained me]." This is a mystical state-

ment of the eternity of the Christ, and is also a reference

30 to the human sense of Jesus crucified.

Infinite Spirit

XVII. Spirit being God, there is but one Spirit, for

there can be but one infinite and therefore one God.

PAGE 335

1 There are neither spirits many nor gods many. There

is no evil in Spirit, because God is Spirit. The theory,

3 that Spirit is distinct from matter but must

pass through it, or into it, to be individualized,

would reduce God to dependency on matter, and establish

6 a basis for pantheism.

The only substance

XVIII. Spirit, God, has created all in and of Him-

self. Spirit never created matter. There is nothing in

9 Spirit out of which matter could be made,

for, as the Bible declares, without the Logos,

the AEon or Word of God, "was not anything made

12 that was made." Spirit is the only substance, the in-

visible and indivisible infinite God. Things spiritual and

eternal are substantial. Things material and temporal

15 are insubstantial.

Soul and Spirit one

XIX. Soul and Spirit being one, God and Soul are

one, and this one never included in a limited mind or a

18 limited body. Spirit is eternal, divine. Noth-

ing but Spirit, Soul, can evolve Life, for Spirit

is more than all else. Because Soul is immortal, it does

21 not exist in mortality. Soul must be incorporeal to be

Spirit, for Spirit is not finite. Only by losing the false

sense of Soul can we gain the eternal unfolding of Life as

24 immortality brought to light.

The one divine Mind

XX. Mind is the divine Principle, Love, and can pro-

duce nothing unlike the eternal Father-Mother, God.

27 Reality is spiritual, harmonious, immutable,

immortal, divine, eternal. Nothing unspirit-

ual can be real, harmonious, or eternal. Sin, sickness,

30 and mortality are the suppositional antipodes of Spirit,

and must be contradictions of reality.

The divine Ego

XXI. The Ego is deathless and limitless, for limits

PAGE 336

1 would imply and impose ignorance. Mind is the I AM,

or infinity. Mind never enters the finite. Intelligence

3 never passes into non-intelligence, or matter.

Good never enters into evil the unlimited into

the limited, the eternal into the temporal, nor the im-

6 mortal into mortality. The divine Ego, or individuality,

is reflected in all spiritual individuality from the infini-

tesimal to the infinite.

The real manhood

9 XXII. Immortal man was and is God's image or idea,

even the infinite expression of infinite Mind, and immor-

tal man is coexistent and coeternal with that

12 Mind. He has been forever in the eternal

Mind, God; but infinite Mind can never be in man, but

is reflected by man. The spiritual man's consciousness

15 and individuality are reflections of God. They are the

emanations of Him who is Life, Truth, and Love. Im-

mortal man is not and never was material, but always

18 spiritual and eternal.

Indivisibility of the infinite

XXIII. God is indivisible. A portion of God could

not enter man; neither could God's fulness be reflected

21 by a single man, else God would be manifestly

finite, lose the deific character, and become

less than God. Allness is the measure of the infinite, and

24 nothing less can express God.

God the parent Mind

XXIV. God, the divine Principle of man, and man in

God's likeness are inseparable, harmonious, and eternal.

27 The Science of being furnishes the rule of per-

fection, and brings immortality to light. God

and man are not the same, but in the order of divine Sci-

30 ence, God and man coexist and are eternal. God is the

parent Mind, and man is God's spiritual offspring.

Man reflects the perfect God

XXV. God is individual and personal in a scientific

PAGE 337

1 sense, but not in any anthropomorphic sense. Therefore

man, reflecting God, cannot lose his individuality; but as

3 material sensation, or a soul in the body, blind

mortals do lose sight of spiritual individuality.

Material personality is not realism; it is not

6 the reflection or likeness of Spirit, the perfect God. Sen-

sualism is not bliss, but bondage. For true happiness,

man must harmonize with his Principle, divine Love; the

9 Son must be in accord with the Father, in conformity with

Christ. According to divine Science, man is in a degree

as perfect as the Mind that forms him. The truth of be-

12 ing makes man harmonious and immortal, while error is

mortal and discordant.

Purity the path to perfection

XXVI. Christian Science demonstrates that none but

15 the pure in heart can see God, as the gospel

teaches. In proportion to his purity is man

perfect; and perfection is the order of celestial

18 being which demonstrates Life in Christ, Life's spiritual

ideal.

True idea of man

XXVII. The true idea of man, as the reflection of the

21 invisible God, is as incomprehensible to the limited senses

as is man's infinite Principle. The visible uni-

verse and material man are the poor counter-

24 feits of the invisible universe and spiritual man. Eternal

things (verities) are God's thoughts as they exist in the

spiritual realm of the real. Temporal things are the

27 thoughts of mortals and are the unreal, being the oppo-

site of the real or the spiritual and eternal.

Truth demonstrated

XXVIII. Subject sickness, sin, and death to the rule

30 of health and holiness in Christian Science,

and you ascertain that this Science is demon-

strably true, for it heals the sick and sinning as no

PAGE 338

1 other system can. Christian Science, rightly under-

stood, leads to eternal harmony. It brings to light the

3 only living and true God and man as made in His like-

ness; whereas the opposite belief - that man originates

in matter and has beginning and end, that he is both

6 soul and body, both good and evil, both spiritual and

material - terminates in discord and mortality, in the

error which must be destroyed by Truth. The mortality

9 of material man proves that error has been ingrafted

into the premises and conclusions of material and mortal

humanity.

Adam not ideal man

12 XXIX. The word Adam is from the Hebrew adamah,

signifying the red color of the ground, dust, nothingness.

Divide the name Adam into two syllables,

15 and it reads, a dam, or obstruction. This

suggests the thought of something fluid, of mortal mind

in solution. It further suggests the thought of that

18 " darkness . . . upon the face of the deep," when mat-

ter or dust was deemed the agent of Deity in creating

man, - when matter, as that which is accursed, stood

21 opposed to Spirit. Here a dam is not a mere play upon

words; it stands for obstruction, error, even the sup-

posed separation of man from God, and the obstacle

24 which the serpent, sin, would impose between man and

his creator. The dissection and definition of words,

aside from their metaphysical derivation, is not scien-

27 tific. Jehovah declared the ground was accursed; and

from this ground, or matter, sprang Adam, notwith-

standing God had blessed the earth "for man's sake."

30 From this it follows that Adam was not the ideal man

for whom the earth was blessed. The ideal man was

revealed in due time, and was known as Christ Jesus.

PAGE 339

Divine pardon

1 XXX. The destruction of sin is the divine method of

pardon. Divine Life destroys death, Truth destroys

3 error, and Love destroys hate. Being de-

stroyed, sin needs no other form of forgiveness.

Does not God's pardon, destroying any one sin, prophesy

6 and involve the final destruction of all sin?

Evil not produced by God

XXXI. Since God is All, there is no room for His

unlikeness. God, Spirit, alone created all, and called it

9 good. Therefore evil, being contrary to good,

is unreal, and cannot be the product of God.

A sinner can receive no encouragement from the fact that

12 Science demonstrates the unreality of evil, for the sinner

would make a reality of sin, - would make that real

which is unreal, and thus heap up "wrath against the

15 day of wrath." He is joining in a conspiracy against

himself, - against his own awakening to the awful un-

reality by which he has been deceived. Only those, who

18 repent of sin and forsake the unreal, can fully understand

the unreality of evil.

Basis of health and immortality

XXXII. As the mythology of pagan Rome has yielded

21 to a more spiritual idea of Deity, so will our material

theories yield to spiritual ideas, until the finite

gives place to the infinite, sickness to health,

24 sin to holiness, and God's kingdom comes "in

earth, as it is in heaven." The basis of all health, sin-

lessness, and immortality is the great fact that God is

27 the only Mind; and this Mind must be not merely be-

lieved, but it must be understood. To get rid of sin

through Science, is to divest sin of any supposed mind

30 or reality, and never to admit that sin can have intelli-

gence or power, pain or pleasure. You conquer error by

denying its verity. Our various theories will never lose

PAGE 340

1 their imaginary power for good or evil, until we lose our

faith in them and make life its own proof of harmony

3 and God.

This text in the book of Ecclesiastes conveys the

Christian Science thought, especially when the word

6 duty, which is not in the original, is omitted: "Let

us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God,

and keep His commandments: for this is the whole

9 duty of man." In other words: Let us hear the con-

clusion of the whole matter: love God and keep His

commandments: for this is the whole of man in His

12 image and likeness. Divine Love is infinite. Therefore

all that really exists is in and of God, and manifests His

love.

15 "Thou shalt have no other gods before me." (Exodus

xx. 3.) The First Commandment is my favorite text.

It demonstrates Christian Science. It inculcates the tri-

18 unity of God, Spirit, Mind; it signifies that man shall

have no other spirit or mind but God, eternal good, and

that all men shall have one Mind. The divine Principle

21 of the First Commandment bases the Science of being, by

which man demonstrates health, holiness, and life eternal.

One infinite God, good, unifies men and nations; con-

24 stitutes the brotherhood of man; ends wars; fulfils the

Scripture, "Love thy neighbor as thyself;" annihilates

pagan and Christian idolatry, - whatever is wrong in

27 social, civil, criminal, political, and religious codes;

equalizes the sexes; annuls the curse on man, and leaves

nothing that can sin, suffer, be punished or destroyed.

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