Remember that the Scriptures say of mortal 476:24 man: "As for man, his days are as gra.s.s: as a flower of the field, so he flourisheth. For the wind pa.s.seth over it, and it is gone; and the place thereof shall 476:27 know it no more."
The kingdom within
When speaking of G.o.d"s children, not the children of men, Jesus said, "The kingdom of G.o.d is within you;"
476:30 that is, Truth and Love reign in the real man, showing that man in G.o.d"s image is unfallen and eternal. Jesus beheld in Science the per- 477:1 fect man, who appeared to him where sinning mortal man appears to mortals. In this perfect man the Saviour 477:3 saw G.o.d"s own likeness, and this correct view of man healed the sick. Thus Jesus taught that the kingdom of G.o.d is intact, universal, and that man is pure and holy.
477:6 Man is not a material habitation for Soul; he is himself spiritual. Soul, being Spirit, is seen in nothing imperfect nor material.
Material body never G.o.d"s idea
477:9 Whatever is material is mortal. To the five corporeal senses, man appears to be matter and mind united; but Christian Science reveals man as the idea of 477:12 G.o.d, and declares the corporeal senses to be mortal and erring illusions. Divine Science shows it to be impossible that a material body, though 477:15 interwoven with matter"s highest stratum, misnamed mind, should be man, - the genuine and perfect man, the immortal idea of being, indestructible and eternal.
477:18 Were it otherwise, man would be annihilated.
Reflection of Spirit
_Question_. - What are body and Soul?
_Answer_. - Ident.i.ty is the reflection of Spirit, the re- 477:21 flection in multifarious forms of the living Principle, Love. Soul is the substance, Life, and intelli- gence of man, which is individualized, but not 477:24 in matter. Soul can never reflect anything inferior to Spirit.
Man inseparable from Spirit
Man is the expression of Soul. The Indians caught 477:27 some glimpses of the underlying reality, when they called a certain beautiful lake "the smile of the Great Spirit." Separated from man, 477:30 who expresses Soul, Spirit would be a nonent.i.ty; man, divorced from Spirit, would lose his ent.i.ty. But there is, 478:1 there can be, no such division, for man is coexistent with G.o.d.
A vacant domicile
478:3 What evidence of Soul or of immortality have you within mortality? Even according to the teachings of natural science, man has never beheld Spirit 478:6 or Soul leaving a body or entering it. What basis is there for the theory of indwelling spirit, except the claim of mortal belief? What would be thought of 478:9 the declaration that a house was inhabited, and by a cer- tain cla.s.s of persons, when no such persons were ever seen to go into the house or to come out of it, nor were they 478:12 even visible through the windows? Who can see a soul in the body?
Harmonious functions
_Question_. - Does brain think, and do nerves feel, and 478:15 is there intelligence in matter?
_Answer_. - No, not if G.o.d is true and mortal man a liar. The a.s.sertion that there can be pain or pleasure 478:18 in matter is erroneous. That body is most harmonious in which the discharge of the nat- ural functions is least noticeable. How can intelligence 478:21 dwell in matter when matter is non-intelligent and brain-lobes cannot think? Matter cannot perform the functions of Mind. Error says, "I am man;" but this 478:24 belief is mortal and far from actual. From beginning to end, whatever is mortal is composed of material hu- man beliefs and of nothing else. That only is real which 478:27 reflects G.o.d. St. Paul said, "But when it pleased G.o.d, who separated me from my mother"s womb, and called me by His grace, ... I conferred not with flesh and blood."
Immortal birthright
478:30 _Mortal man_ is really a self-contradictory phrase, for man is not mortal, "neither indeed can be;" man is im- 479:1 mortal. If a child is the offspring of physical sense and not of Soul, the child must have a material, not a spirit- 479:3 ual origin. With what truth, then, could the Scriptural rejoicing be uttered by any mother, "I have gotten a man from the Lord"? On the con- 479:6 trary, if aught comes from G.o.d, it cannot be mortal and material; it must be immortal and spiritual.
Matter"s supposed selfhood
Matter is neither self-existent nor a product of Spirit.
479:9 An image of mortal thought, reflected on the retina, is all that the eye beholds. Matter cannot see, feel, hear, taste, nor smell. It is not self- 479:12 cognizant, - cannot feel itself, see itself, nor understand itself. Take away so-called mortal mind, which const.i.tutes matter"s supposed selfhood, and matter 479:15 can take no cognizance of matter. Does that which we call dead ever see, hear, feel, or use any of the physical senses?
Chaos and darkness
479:18 "In the beginning G.o.d created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep."
479:21 (Genesis i. 1, 2.) In the vast forever, in the Science and truth of being, the only facts are Spirit and its innumerable creations. Darkness and chaos 479:24 are the imaginary opposites of light, understanding, and eternal harmony, and they are the elements of nothingness.
Spiritual reflection
479:27 We admit that black is not a color, because it reflects no light. So evil should be denied ident.i.ty or power, because it has none of the divine hues. Paul 479:30 says: "For the invisible things of Him, from the creation of the world, are clearly seen, being under- stood by the things that are made." (Romans i. 20.) 480:1 When the substance of Spirit appears in Christian Sci- ence, the nothingness of matter is recognized. Where 480:3 the spirit of G.o.d is, and there is no place where G.o.d is not, evil becomes nothing, - the opposite of the some- thing of Spirit. If there is no spiritual reflection, then 480:6 there remains only the darkness of vacuity and not a trace of heavenly tints.
Harmony from Spirit
Nerves are an element of the belief that there is sensa- 480:9 tion in matter, whereas matter is devoid of sensation.
Consciousness, as well as action, is governed by Mind, - is in G.o.d, the origin and gov- 480:12 ernor of all that Science reveals. Material sense has its realm apart from Science in the unreal. Harmonious action proceeds from Spirit, G.o.d. inharmony has no 480:15 Principle; its action is erroneous and presupposes man to be in matter. Inharmony would make matter the cause as well as the effect of intelligence, or Soul, thus 480:18 attempting to separate Mind from G.o.d.
Evil non-existent
Man is not G.o.d, and G.o.d is not man. Again, G.o.d, or good, never made man capable of sin. It is the oppo- 480:21 site of good - that is, evil - which seems to make men capable of wrong-doing. Hence, evil is but an illusion, and it has no real basis. Evil is a 480:24 false belief. G.o.d is not its author. The supposit.i.tious parent of evil is a lie.
Vapor and nothingness
The Bible declares: "All things were made by Him 480:27 [the divine Word]; and without Him was not anything, made that was made." This is the eternal verity of divine Science. If sin, sickness, and 480:30 death were understood as nothingness, they would dis- appear. As vapor melts before the sun, so evil would vanish before the reality of good. One must hide the 481:1 other. How important, then, to choose good as the reality! Man is tributary to G.o.d, Spirit, and to nothing 481:3 else. G.o.d"s being is infinity, freedom, harmony, and boundless bliss. "Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty." Like the archpriests of yore, man is 481:6 free "to enter into the holiest," - the realm of G.o.d.
The fruit forbidden
Material sense never helps mortals to understand Spirit, G.o.d. Through spiritual sense only, man com- 481:9 prehends and loves Deity. The various con- tradictions of the Science of Mind by the ma- terial senses do not change the unseen Truth, which re- 481:12 mains forever intact. The forbidden fruit of knowledge, against which wisdom warns man, is the testimony of error, declaring existence to be at the mercy of death, 481:15 and good and evil to be capable of commingling. This is the significance of the Scripture concerning this "tree of the knowledge of good and evil," - this growth of 481:18 material belief, of which it is said: "In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." Human hypotheses first a.s.sume the reality of sickness, sin, and death, and 481:21 then a.s.sume the necessity of these evils because of their admitted actuality. These human verdicts are the pro- curers of all discord.
Sense and pure Soul
481:24 If Soul sins, it must be mortal. Sin has the elements of self-destruction. It cannot sustain itself. If sin is supported, G.o.d must uphold it, and this is 481:27 impossible, since Truth cannot support error.
Soul is the divine Principle of man and never sins, - hence the immortality of Soul. In Science we learn that 481:30 it is material sense, not Soul, which sins; and it will be found that it is the sense of sin which is lost, and not a sinful soul. When reading the Scriptures, the subst.i.tu- 482:1 tion of the word _sense_ for _soul_ gives the exact meaning in a majority of cases.
Soul defined
482:3 Human thought has adulterated the meaning of the word _soul_ through the hypothesis that soul is both an evil and a good intelligence, resident in matter.
482:6 The proper use of the word _soul_ can always be gained by subst.i.tuting the word _G.o.d_, where the deific meaning is required. In other cases, use the word _sense_, 482:9 and you will have the scientific signification. As used in Christian Science, Soul is properly the synonym of Spirit, or G.o.d; but out of Science, soul is identical with 482:12 sense, with material sensation.
Sonship of Jesus
_Question_. - Is it important to understand these ex- planations in order to heal the sick?
482:15 _Answer_. - It is, since Christ is "the way" and the truth casting out all error. Jesus called himself "the Son of man," but not the son of Joseph. As 482:18 woman is but a species of the genera, he was literally the Son of Man. Jesus was the highest human concept of the perfect man. He was inseparable from 482:21 Christ, the Messiah, - the divine idea of G.o.d outside the flesh. This enabled Jesus to demonstrate his con- trol over matter. Angels announced to the Wis.e.m.e.n of 482:24 old this dual appearing, and angels whisper it, through faith, to the hungering heart in every age.
Sickness erroneous
Sickness is part of the error which Truth casts out.
482:27 Error will not expel error. Christian Science is the law of Truth, which heals the sick, on the basis of the one Mind or G.o.d. It can heal in no 482:30 other way, since the human, mortal mind so-called is not a healer, but causes the belief in disease.
True healing transcendent
483:1 Then comes the question, how do drugs, hygiene, and animal magnetism heal? It may be affirmed that they 483:3 do not heal, but only relieve suffering tempo- rarily, exchanging one disease for another.
We cla.s.sify disease as error, which nothing but Truth or 483:6 Mind can heal, and this Mind must be divine, not human.
Mind transcends all other power, and will ultimately su- persede all other means in healing. In order to heal by 483:9 Science, you must not be ignorant of the moral and spir- itual demands of Science nor disobey them. Moral igno- rance or sin affects your demonstration, and hinders its 483:12 approach to the standard in Christian Science.
Terms adopted by the author
After the author"s sacred discovery, she affixed the name "Science" to Christianity, the name "error" to 483:15 corporeal sense, and the name "substance" to Mind. Science has called the world to battle over this issue and its demonstration, which 483:18 heals the sick, destroys error, and reveals the universal harmony. To those natural Christian Scientists, the an- cient worthies, and to Christ Jesus, G.o.d certainly revealed 483:21 the spirit of Christian Science, if not the absolute letter.
Science the way
Because the Science of Mind seems to bring into dis- honor the ordinary scientific schools, which wrestle with 483:24 material observations alone, this Science has met with opposition; but if any system honors G.o.d, it ought to receive aid, not opposition, from all think- 483:27 ing persons. And Christian Science does honor G.o.d as no other theory honors Him, and it does this in the way of His appointing, by doing many wonderful works 483:30 through the divine name and nature. One must fulfil one"s mission without timidity or dissimulation, for to be well done, the work must be done unselfishly. Christianity 484:1 will never be based on a divine Principle and so found to be unerring, until its absolute Science is reached. When 484:3 this is accomplished, neither pride, prejudice, bigotry, nor envy can wash away its foundation, for it is built upon the rock, Christ.