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on the mind and body of man against his holiness and [1]
health.
That there is but one G.o.d or Life, one cause and one effect, is the _multum in parvo_ of Christian Science; and to my understanding it is the heart of Christianity, [5]
the religion that Jesus taught and demonstrated. In divine Science it is found that matter is a phase of error, and that neither one really exists, since G.o.d is Truth, and All-in-all. Christ"s Sermon on the Mount, in its direct application to human needs, confirms this [10]
conclusion.
Science, understood, translates matter into Mind, rejects all other theories of causation, restores the spir- itual and original meaning of the Scriptures, and ex- plains the teachings and life of our Lord. It is religion"s [15]
"new tongue," with "signs following," spoken of by St. Mark. It gives G.o.d"s infinite meaning to mankind, healing the sick, casting out evil, and raising the spirit- ually dead. Christianity is Christlike only as it re- iterates the word, repeats the works, and manifests the [20]
spirit of Christ.
Jesus" only medicine was omnipotent and omniscient Mind. As _omni_ is from the Latin word meaning _all_, this medicine is all-power; and omniscience means as well, all-science. The sick are more deplorably situated [25]
than the sinful, if the sick cannot trust G.o.d for help and the sinful can. If G.o.d created drugs good, they cannot be harmful; if He could create them otherwise, then they are bad and unfit for man; and if He created drugs for healing the sick, why did not Jesus employ them and [30]
recommend them for that purpose?
No human hypotheses, whether in philosophy, medi-
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cine, or religion, can survive the wreck of time; but [1]
whatever is of G.o.d, hath life abiding in it, and ulti- mately will be known as self-evident truth, as demonstra- ble as mathematics. Each successive period of progress is a period more humane and spiritual. The only logical [5]
conclusion is that all is Mind and its manifestation, from the rolling of worlds, in the most subtle ether, to a potato- patch.
The agriculturist ponders the history of a seed, and believes that his crops come from the seedling and the [10]
loam; even while the Scripture declares He made "every plant of the field before it was in the earth." The Scien- tist asks, Whence came the first seed, and what made the soil? Was it molecules, or material atoms? Whence came the infinitesimals,-from infinite Mind, or from [15]
matter? If from matter, how did matter originate? Was it self-existent? Matter is not intelligent, and thus able to evolve or create itself: it is the very opposite of Spirit, intelligent, self-creative, and infinite Mind. The belief of mind in matter is pantheism. Natural history shows [20]
that neither a genus nor a species produces its opposite.
G.o.d is All, in all. What can be more than All? Noth- ing: and this is just what I call matter, _nothing_. Spirit, G.o.d, has no antecedent; and G.o.d"s consequent is the spiritual cosmos. The phrase, "express image," in the [25]
common version of Hebrews i. 3, is, in the Greek Tes- tament, _character_.
The Scriptures name G.o.d as good, and the Saxon term for G.o.d is also good. From this premise comes the logical conclusion that G.o.d is naturally and divinely [30]
infinite good. How, then, can this conclusion change, or be changed, to mean that good is evil, or the creator
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of evil? What can there be besides infinity? Nothing! [1]
Therefore the Science of good calls evil _nothing_. In divine Science the terms G.o.d and good, as Spirit, are synonymous. That G.o.d, good, creates evil, or aught that can result in evil,-or that Spirit creates its oppo- [5]
site, named matter,-are conclusions that destroy their premise and prove themselves invalid. Here is where Christian Science sticks to its text, and other systems of religion abandon their own logic. Here also is found the pith of the basal statement, the cardinal point in [10]
Christian Science, that matter and evil (including all inharmony, sin, disease, death) are _unreal_. Mortals accept natural science, wherein no species ever pro- duces its opposite. Then why not accept divine Sci- ence on this ground? since the Scriptures maintain [15]
this fact by parable and proof, asking, "Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?" "Doth a fountain send forth at the same place sweet water and bitter?"
According to reason and revelation, evil and matter [20]
are negation: for evil signifies the absence of good, G.o.d, though G.o.d is ever present; and matter claims some- thing besides G.o.d, when G.o.d is really _All_. Creation, evolution, or manifestation,-being in and of Spirit, Mind, and all that really is,-must be spiritual and [25]
mental. This is Science, and is susceptible of proof.
But, say you, is a stone spiritual?
To erring material sense, No! but to unerring spiritual sense, it is a small manifestation of Mind, a type of spirit- ual substance, "the substance of things hoped for." [30]
Mortals can know a stone as substance, only by first ad- mitting that it is substantial. Take away the mortal sense
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of substance, and the stone itself would disappear, only [1]
to reappear in the spiritual sense thereof. Matter can neither see, hear, feel, taste, nor smell; having no sen- sation of its own. Perception by the five personal senses is mental, and dependent on the beliefs that mortals [5]
entertain. Destroy the belief that you can walk, and volition ceases; for muscles cannot move without mind.
Matter takes no cognizance of matter. In dreams, things are only what mortal mind makes them; and the phe- nomena of mortal life are as dreams; and this so-called [10]
life is a dream soon told. In proportion as mortals turn from this mortal and material dream, to the true sense of reality, everlasting Life will be found to be the only Life. That death does not destroy the beliefs of the flesh, our Master proved to his doubting disciple, Thomas. Also, [15]
he demonstrated that divine Science alone can overbear materiality and mortality; and this great truth was shown is by his ascension after death, whereby he arose above the illusion of matter.
The First Commandment, "Thou shalt have no other [20]
G.o.ds before me," suggests the inquiry, What meaneth this Me,-Spirit, or matter? It certainly does not signify a graven idol, and must mean Spirit. Then the commandment means, Thou shalt recognize no intelligence nor life in matter; and find neither pleasure [25]
nor pain therein. The Master"s practical knowledge of this grand verity, together with his divine Love, healed the sick and raised the dead. He literally annulled the claims of physique and of physical law, by the superiority of the higher law; hence his decla- [30]
ration, "These signs shall follow them that believe;...
if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them;
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they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover." [1]
Do you believe his words? I do, and that his prom- ise is perpetual. Had it been applicable only to his immediate disciples, the p.r.o.noun would be _you_, not _them_. [5]
The purpose of his life-work touches universal human- ity. At another time he prayed, not for the twelve only, but "for them also which shall believe on me through their word."
The Christ-healing was practised even before the Christ- [10]
ian era; "the Word was with G.o.d, and the Word was G.o.d." There is, however, no a.n.a.logy between Christian Science and spiritualism, or between it and any specu- lative theory.
In 1867, I taught the first student in Christian Science. [15]
Since that date I have known of but fourteen deaths in the ranks of my about five thousand students. The census since 1875 (the date of the first publication of my work, "Science and Health with Key to the Scrip- tures") shows that longevity has _increased_. Daily letters [20]
inform me that a perusal of my volume is healing the writers of chronic and acute diseases that had defied medi- cal skill.
Surely the people of the Occident know that esoteric magic and Oriental barbarisms will neither flavor Chris- [25]
tianity nor advance health and length of days.
Miracles are no infraction of G.o.d"s laws; on the contrary, they fulfil His laws; for they are the signs fol- lowing Christianity, whereby matter is proven power- less and subordinate to Mind. Christians, like students [30]
in mathematics, should be working up to those higher rules of Life which Jesus taught and proved. Do we
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really understand the divine Principle of Christianity [1]
before we prove it, in at least some feeble demonstra- tion thereof, according to Jesus" example in healing the sick? Should we adopt the "simple addition" in Chris- tian Science and doubt its higher rules, or despair of [5]
ultimately reaching them, even though failing at first to demonstrate all the possibilities of Christianity?
St. John spiritually discerned and revealed the sum total of transcendentalism. He saw the real earth and heaven. They were spiritual, not material; and they [10]
were without pain, sin, or death. Death was not the door to this heaven. The gates thereof he declared were inlaid with pearl,-likening them to the priceless under- standing of man"s real existence, to be recognized here and now. [15]
The great Way-shower ill.u.s.trated Life unconfined, un- contaminated, untrammelled, by matter. He proved the superiority of Mind over the flesh, opened the door to the captive, and enabled man to demonstrate the law of Life, which St. Paul declares "hath made me free from [20]
the law of sin and death."
The stale saying that Christian Science "is neither Christian nor science!" is to-day the fossil of wisdom- less wit, weakness, and superst.i.tion. "The fool hath said in his heart, There is no G.o.d." [25]