Amidst grat.i.tude for conjugal felicity, it is well to re- 66:18 member how fleeting are human joys. Amidst conjugal infelicity, it is well to hope, pray, and wait patiently on divine wisdom to point out the path.
Patience is wisdom
66:21 Husbands and wives should never separate if there is no Christian demand for it. It is better to await the logic of events than for a wife precipitately 66:24 to leave her husband or for a husband to leave his wife. If one is better than the other, as must always be the case, the other pre-eminently needs good 66:27 company. Socrates considered patience salutary under such circ.u.mstances, making his Xantippe a discipline for his philosophy.
The gold and dross
66:30 Sorrow has its reward. It never leaves us where it found us. The furnace separates the gold from the dross that the precious metal may 67:1 be graven with the image of G.o.d. The cup our Father hath given, shall we not drink it and learn the lessons 67:3 He teaches?
Weathering the storm
When the ocean is stirred by a storm, then the clouds lower, the wind shrieks through the tightened shrouds, 67:6 and the waves lift themselves into mountains.
We ask the helmsman: "Do you know your course? Can you steer safely amid the storm?" He 67:9 answers bravely, but even the dauntless seaman is not sure of his safety; nautical science is not equal to the Science of Mind. Yet, acting up to his highest under- 67:12 standing, firm at the post of duty, the mariner works on and awaits the issue. Thus should we deport ourselves on the seething ocean of sorrow. Hoping and work- 67:15 ing, one should stick to the wreck, until an irresistible propulsion precipitates his doom or sunshine gladdens the troubled sea.
Spiritual power
67:18 The notion that animal natures can possibly give force to character is too absurd for consideration, when we remember that through spiritual ascendency 67:21 our Lord and Master healed the sick, raised the dead, and commanded even the winds and waves to obey him. Grace and Truth are potent beyond all other 67:24 means and methods.
The lack of spiritual power in the limited demonstration of popular Christianity does not put to silence the labor 67:27 of centuries. Spiritual, not corporeal, consciousness is needed. Man delivered from sin, disease, and death presents the true likeness or spiritual ideal.
Basis of true religion
67:30 Systems of religion and medicine treat of physical pains and pleasures, but Jesus rebuked the suffering from any such cause or effect. The epoch approaches when the 68:1 understanding of the truth of being will be the basis of true religion. At present mortals progress slowly for 68:3 fear of being thought ridiculous. They are slaves to fashion, pride, and sense. Some- time we shall learn how Spirit, the great architect, has 68:6 created men and women in Science. We ought to weary of the fleeting and false and to cherish nothing which hinders our highest selfhood.
68:9 Jealousy is the grave of affection. The presence of mistrust, where confidence is due, withers the flowers of Eden and scatters love"s petals to decay. Be not 68:12 in haste to take the vow "until death do us part."
Consider its obligations, its responsibilities, its rela- tions to your growth and to your influence on other 68:15 lives.
Insanity and agamogenesis
I never knew more than one individual who believed in agamogenesis; she was unmarried, a lovely charac- 68:18 ter, was suffering from incipient insanity, and a Christian Scientist cured her. I have named her case to individuals, when casting my bread upon 68:21 the waters, and it may have caused the good to ponder and the evil to hatch their silly innuendoes and lies, since salutary causes sometimes incur these effects. The per- 68:24 petuation of the floral species by bud or cell-division is evident, but I discredit the belief that agamogenesis applies to the human species.
G.o.d"s creation intact
68:27 Christian Science presents unfoldment, not accretion; it manifests no material growth from molecule to mind, but an impartation of the divine Mind to man 68:30 and the universe. Proportionately as human generation ceases, the unbroken links of eternal, har- monious being will be spiritually discerned; and man, 69:1 not of the earth earthly but coexistent with G.o.d, will appear. The scientific fact that man and the universe 69:3 are evolved from Spirit, and so are spiritual, is as fixed in divine Science as is the proof that mortals gain the sense of health only as they lose the sense of sin and disease.
69:6 Mortals can never understand G.o.d"s creation while believ- ing that man is a creator. G.o.d"s children already created will be cognized only as man finds the truth of being.
69:9 Thus it is that the real, ideal man appears in proportion as the false and material disappears. No longer to marry or to be "given in marriage" neither closes man"s con- 69:12 tinuity nor his sense of increasing number in G.o.d"s in- finite plan. Spiritually to understand that there is but one creator, G.o.d, unfolds all creation, confirms the Scrip- 69:15 tures, brings the sweet a.s.surance of no parting, no pain, and of man deathless and perfect and eternal.
If Christian Scientists educate their own offspring 69:18 spiritually, they can educate others spiritually and not conflict with the scientific sense of G.o.d"s creation. Some day the child will ask his parent: "Do you keep the First 69:21 Commandment? Do you have one G.o.d and creator, or is man a creator?" If the father replies, "G.o.d creates man through man," the child may ask, "Do you teach 69:24 that Spirit creates materially, or do you declare that Spirit is infinite, therefore matter is out of the ques- tion?" Jesus said, "The children of this world marry, 69:27 and are given in marriage: But they which shall be ac- counted worthy to obtain that world, and the resur- rection from the dead, neither marry, nor are given in 69:30 marriage."
CHAPTER IV - CHRISTIAN SCIENCE VERSUS SPIRITUALISM
And when they shall say unto you, Seek unto them that have familiar spirits, And unto wizards that peep and that mutter; Should not a people seek unto their G.o.d? - ISAIAH.
Verily, verily, I say unto you, If a man keep my saying, he shall never see death. Then said the Jews unto him, Now we know that thou hast a devil. - JOHN.
The infinite one Spirit
70:1 MORTAL existence is an enigma. Every day is a mystery. The testimony of the corporeal senses 70:3 cannot inform us what is real and what is delusive, but the revelations of Christian Science unlock the treasures of Truth. Whatever is false or sinful can 70:6 never enter the atmosphere of Spirit. There is but one Spirit. Man is never G.o.d, but spiritual man, made in G.o.d"s likeness, reflects G.o.d. In this scientific 70:9 reflection the Ego and the Father are inseparable. The supposition that corporeal beings are spirits, or that there are good and evil spirits, is a mistake.
Real and unreal ident.i.ty
70:12 The divine Mind maintains all ident.i.ties, from a blade of gra.s.s to a star, as distinct and eternal. The questions are: What are G.o.d"s ident.i.ties?
70:15 What is Soul? Does life or soul exist in the thing formed?
71:1 Nothing is real and eternal, - nothing is Spirit, - but G.o.d and His idea. Evil has no reality. It is neither 71:3 person, place, nor thing, but is simply a belief, an illusion of material sense.
The ident.i.ty, or idea, of all reality continues forever; 71:6 but Spirit, or the divine Principle of all, is not _in_ Spirit"s formations. Soul is synonymous with Spirit, G.o.d, the creative, governing, infinite Principle outside of finite form, 71:9 which forms only reflect.
Dream-lessons
Close your eyes, and you may dream that you see a flower, - that you touch and smell it. Thus you learn 71:12 that the flower is a product of the so-called mind, a formation of thought rather than of matter. Close your eyes again, and you may see land- 71:15 scapes, men, and women. Thus you learn that these also are images, which mortal mind holds and evolves and which simulate mind, life, and intelligence. From 71:18 dreams also you learn that neither mortal mind nor matter is the image or likeness of G.o.d, and that im- mortal Mind is not in matter.
Found wanting
71:21 When the Science of Mind is understood, spiritualism will be found mainly erroneous, having no scientific basis nor origin, no proof nor power outside of 71:24 human testimony. It is the offspring of the physical senses. There is no sensuality in Spirit. I never could believe in spiritualism.
71:27 The basis and structure of spiritualism are alike ma- terial and physical. Its spirits are so many corporealities, limited and finite in character and quality. Spiritualism 71:30 therefore presupposes Spirit, which is ever infinite, to be a corporeal being, a finite form, - a theory contrary to Christian Science.
72:1 There is but one spiritual existence, - the Life of which corporeal sense can take no cognizance. The 72:3 divine Principle of man speaks through immortal sense.
If a material body - in other words, mortal, material sense - were permeated by Spirit, that body would 72:6 disappear to mortal sense, would be deathless. A con- dition precedent to communion with Spirit is the gain of spiritual life.
Spirits obsolete
72:9 So-called _spirits_ are but corporeal communicators. As light destroys darkness and in the place of darkness all is light, so (in absolute Science) Soul, or G.o.d, 72:12 is the only truth-giver to man. Truth de- stroys mortality, and brings to light immortality. Mortal belief (the material sense of life) and immortal Truth 72:15 (the spiritual sense) are the tares and the wheat, which are not united by progress, but separated.
Perfection is not expressed through imperfection.
72:18 Spirit is not made manifest through matter, the anti- pode of Spirit. Error is not a convenient sieve through which truth can be strained.
Scientific phenomena
72:21 G.o.d, good, being ever present, it follows in divine logic that evil, the suppositional opposite of good, is never present. In Science, individual good derived 72:24 from G.o.d, the infinite All-in-all, may flow from the departed to mortals; but evil is neither com- municable nor scientific. A sinning, earthly mortal is 72:27 not the reality of Life nor the medium through which truth pa.s.ses to earth. The joy of intercourse becomes the jest of sin, when evil and suffering are communicable.
72:30 Not personal intercommunion but divine law is the com- municator of truth, health, and harmony to earth and humanity. As readily can you mingle fire and frost as 73:1 Spirit and matter. In either case, one does not support the other.
73:3 Spiritualism calls one person, living in this world, _ma- terial_, but another, who has died to-day a sinner and sup- posedly will return to earth to-morrow, it terms a _spirit_.
73:6 The fact is that neither the one nor the other is infinite Spirit, for Spirit is G.o.d, and man is His likeness.
One government
The belief that one man, as spirit, can control an- 73:9 other man, as matter, upsets both the individuality and the Science of man, for man is image. G.o.d controls man, and G.o.d is the only Spirit. Any 73:12 other control or attraction of so-called spirit is a mortal belief, which ought to be known by its fruit, - the repe- t.i.tion of evil.
73:15 If Spirit, or G.o.d, communed with mortals or controlled them through electricity or any other form of matter, the divine order and the Science of omnipotent, omnipresent 73:18 Spirit would be destroyed.
Incorrect theories
The belief that material bodies return to dust, hereafter to rise up as spiritual bodies with material sensations and 73:21 desires, is incorrect. Equally incorrect is the belief that spirit is confined in a finite, ma- terial body, from which it is freed by death, and that, when 73:24 it is freed from the material body, spirit retains the sensa- tions belonging to that body.