Paradisaical rest from physical agony would come to the criminal, if the dream of dying should startle him from the dream of suffering. The paradise of Spirit would come to Jesus, in a spiritual sense of Life and [15]
power. Christ Jesus lived and reappeared. He was too good to die; for goodness is immortal. The thief was not equal to the demands of the hour; but sin was de- stroying itself, and had already begun to die,-as the poor thief"s prayer for help indicated. The dy- [20]
ing malefactor and our Lord were inevitably sepa- rated through Mind. The thief"s body, as matter, must dissolve into its native nothingness; whereas the body of the holy Spirit of Jesus was eternal. That day the thief would be with Jesus only in a finite [25]
and material sense of relief; while our Lord would soon be rising to the supremacy of Spirit, working out, even in the silent tomb, those wonderful demon- strations of divine power, in which none could equal his glory. [30]
[Page 71.]
_Is it right for me to treat others, when I am not entirely_ [1]
_well myself?_
The late John B. Gough is said to have suffered from an appet.i.te for alcoholic drink until his death; yet he saved many a drunkard from this fatal appet.i.te. Paul [5]
had a thorn in the flesh: one writer thinks that he was troubled with rheumatism, and another that he had sore eyes; but this is certain, that he healed others who were sick. It is unquestionably right to do right; and heal- ing the sick is a very right thing to do. [10]
_Does Christian Science set aside the law of transmission,_ _prenatal desires, and good or bad influences on the unborn_ _child?_
Science never averts law, but supports it. All actual causation must interpret omnipotence, the all-knowing [15]
Mind. Law brings out Truth, not error; unfolds divine Principle,-but neither human hypothesis nor matter.
Errors are based on a mortal or material formation; they are suppositional modes, not the factors of divine presence and power. [20]
Whatever is humanly conceived is a departure from divine law; hence its mythical origin and certain end.
According to the Scriptures,-St. Paul declares astutely, "For of Him, and through Him, and to Him, are all things,"-man is incapable of originating; nothing can [25]
be formed apart from G.o.d, good, the all-knowing Mind.
What seems to be of human origin is the counterfeit of the divine,-even human concepts, mortal shadows flitting across the dial of time.
Whatever is real is right and eternal; hence the im- [30]
mutable and just law of Science, that G.o.d is good only,
[Page 72.]
and can transmit to man and the universe nothing evil, [1]
or unlike Himself. For the innocent babe to be born a lifelong sufferer because of his parents" mistakes or sins, were sore injustice. Science sets aside man as a creator, and unfolds the eternal harmonies of the only living and [5]
true origin, G.o.d.
According to the beliefs of the flesh, both good and bad traits of the parents are transmitted to their help- less offspring, and G.o.d is supposed to impart to man this fatal power. It is cause for rejoicing that this belief [10]
is as false as it is remorseless. The immutable Word saith, through the prophet Ezekiel, "What mean ye, that ye use this proverb concerning the land of Israel, saying, The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children"s teeth are set on edge? As I live, saith the Lord G.o.d, [15]
ye shall not have occasion any more to use this proverb in Israel."
_Are material things real when they are harmonious, and_ _do they disappear only to the natural sense? Does this_ _Scripture, __"__Your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have_ [20]
_need of all these things__"__ imply that Spirit takes note of_ _matter?_
The Science of Mind, as well as the material unii verse, shows that nothing which is material is in perpetual harmony. Matter is manifest mortal mind, [35]
and it exists only to material sense. Real sensation is not material; it is, and must be, mental: and Mind is not mortal, it is immortal. Being is G.o.d, infinite Spirit; therefore it cannot cognize aught material, or outside of infinity. [30]
The Scriptural pa.s.sage quoted affords no evidence of
[Page 73.]
the reality of matter, or that G.o.d is conscious of it. [1]
The so-called material body is said to suffer, but this supposition is proven erroneous when Mind casts out the suffering. The Scripture saith, "Whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth;" and again, "He doth not [5]
afflict willingly." Interpreted materially, these pas- sages conflict; they mingle the testimony of immor- tal Science with mortal sense; but once discern their spiritual meaning, and it separates the false sense from the true, and establishes the reality of what is spiritual, [10]
and the unreality of materiality.
Law is never material: it is always mental and moral, and a commandment to the wise. The foolish disobey moral law, and are punished. Human wisdom therefore can get no farther than to say, He knoweth that we have [15]
need of experience. Belief fulfils the conditions of a be- lief, and these conditions destroy the belief. Hence the verdict of experience: We have need of _these_ things; we have need to know that the so-called pleasures and pains of matter-yea, that all subjective states of false sensa- [20]
tion-are _unreal_.
_"__And Jesus said unto them, Verily I say unto you,_ _That ye which have followed me, in the regeneration when_ _the Son of man shall sit in the throne of his glory,_ _ye also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the_ [25]
_twelve tribes of Israel.__"_ (Matt. xix. 28.) _What is meant_ _by regeneration?_
It is the appearing of divine law to human under- standing; the spiritualization that comes from spiritual sense in contradistinction to the testimony of the so- [30]
called material senses. The phenomena of Spirit in
[Page 74.]
Christian Science, and the divine correspondence of [1]
noumenon and phenomenon understood, are here signi- fied. This new-born sense subdues not only the false sense of generation, but the human will, and the un- natural enmity of mortal man toward G.o.d. It quickly [5]
imparts a new apprehension of the true basis of being, and the spiritual foundation for the affections which en- throne the Son of man in the glory of his Father; and judges, through the stern mandate of Science, all human systems of etiology and teleology. [10]
_If G.o.d does not recognize matter, how did Jesus, who was_ _"__the way, the truth, and the life,__"__ cognize it?_
Christ Jesus" sense of matter was the opposite of that which mortals entertain: his nativity was a spiritual and immortal sense of the ideal world. His earthly mission [15]
was to translate substance into its original meaning, Mind. He walked upon the waves; he turned the water into wine; he healed the sick and the sinner; he raised the dead, and rolled away the stone from the door of his own tomb. His demonstration of Spirit virtually van- [20]
quished matter and its supposed laws. Walking the wave, he proved the fallacy of the theory that matter is substance; healing through Mind, he removed any sup- position that matter is intelligent, or can recognize or express pain and pleasure. His triumph over the grave [25]
was an everlasting victory for Life; it demonstrated the lifelessness of matter, and the power and permanence of Spirit. He met and conquered the resistance of the world.
If you will admit, with me, that matter is neither [30]
substance, intelligence, nor Life, you may have all that
[Page 75.]
is left of it; and you will have touched the hem of the [1]
garment of Jesus" idea of matter, Christ was "the way;"
since Life and Truth were the way that gave us, through a human person, a spiritual revelation of man"s possible earthly development. [5]
_Why do you insist that there is but one Soul, and that_ _Soul is not in the body?_
_First:_ I urge this fundamental fact and grand verity of Christian Science, because it includes a rule that must be understood, or it is impossible to demonstrate the Sci- [10]
ence. Soul is a synonym of Spirit, and G.o.d is Spirit.
There is but one G.o.d, and the infinite is not within the finite; hence Soul is one, and is G.o.d; and G.o.d is not in matter or the mortal body.
_Second:_ Because Soul is a term for Deity, and this [15]
term should seldom be employed except where the word _G.o.d_ can be used and make complete sense. The word _Soul_ may sometimes be used metaphorically; but if this term is warped to signify human quality, a subst.i.tution of _sense_ for _soul_ clears the meaning, and a.s.sists one to [20]
understand Christian Science. Mary"s exclamation, ""My _soul_ doth magnify the Lord," is rendered in Sci- ence, "My _spiritual sense_ doth magnify the Lord;"
for the name of Deity used in that place does not bring out the meaning of the pa.s.sage. It was evidently an [25]
illuminated sense through which she discovered the spiritual origin of man. "The soul that sinneth, it shall die," means, that mortal man (_alias_ material sense) that sinneth, shall die; and the commonly accepted view is that _soul_ is deathless. Soul is the divine Mind,-for [30]
Soul cannot be formed or brought forth by human
[Page 76.]