Example for our salvation

His consummate example was for the salvation of us all, but only through doing the works which he did and 51:21 taught others to do. His purpose in healing was not alone to restore health, but to demon- strate his divine Principle. He was inspired by God, by 51:24 Truth and Love, in all that he said and did. The motives of his persecutors were pride, envy, cruelty, and vengeance, inflicted on the physical Jesus, but aimed at the divine Prin- 51:27 ciple, Love, which rebuked their sensuality.

Jesus was unselfish. His spirituality separated him from sensuousness, and caused the selfish materialist 51:30 to hate him; but it was this spirituality which enabled Jesus to heal the sick, cast out evil, and raise the dead.

Master's business

52:1 From early boyhood he was about his "Father's busi- ness." His pursuits lay far apart from theirs. His mas- 52:3 ter was Spirit; their master was matter. He served God; they served mammon. His affec- tions were pure; theirs were carnal. His senses drank in 52:6 the spiritual evidence of health, holiness, and life; their senses testified oppositely, and absorbed the material evi- dence of sin, sickness, and death.

Purity's rebuke

52:9 Their imperfections and impurity felt the ever-present rebuke of his perfection and purity. Hence the world's hatred of the just and perfect Jesus, and the 52:12 prophet's foresight of the reception error would give him. "Despised and rejected of men," was Isaiah's graphic word concerning the coming Prince of Peace. 52:15 Herod and Pilate laid aside old feuds in order to unite in putting to shame and death the best man that ever trod the globe. To-day, as of old, error and evil again 52:18 make common cause against the exponents of truth.

Saviour's prediction

The "man of sorrows" best understood the nothing- ness of material life and intelligence and the mighty ac- 52:21 tuality of all-inclusive God, good. These were the two cardinal points of Mind-healing, or Christian Science, which armed him with Love. The high- 52:24 est earthly representative of God, speaking of human ability to reflect divine power, prophetically said to his disciples, speaking not for their day only but for all time: 52:27 "He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also;" and "These signs shall follow them that believe."

Defamatory accusations

The accusations of the Pharisees were as self-contra- 52:30 dictory as their religion. The bigot, the deb- auchee, the hypocrite, called Jesus a glutton and a wine-bibber. They said: "He casteth out devils 53:1 through Beelzebub," and is the "friend of publicans and sinners." The latter accusation was true, but not in their 53:3 meaning. Jesus was no ascetic. He did not fast as did the Baptist's disciples; yet there never lived a man so far removed from appetites and passions as the Nazarene. 53:6 He rebuked sinners pointedly and unflinchingly, because he was their friend; hence the cup he drank.

Reputation and character

The reputation of Jesus was the very opposite of his 53:9 character. Why? Because the divine Principle and practice of Jesus were misunderstood. He was at work in divine Science. His words 53:12 and works were unknown to the world because above and contrary to the world's religious sense. Mortals be- lieved in God as humanly mighty, rather than as divine, 53:15 infinite Love.

Inspiring discontent

The world could not interpret aright the discomfort which Jesus inspired and the spiritual blessings which 53:18 might flow from such discomfort. Science shows the cause of the shock so often pro- duced by the truth, - namely, that this shock arises from 53:21 the great distance between the individual and Truth. Like Peter, we should weep over the warning, instead of denying the truth or mocking the lifelong sacrifice which 53:24 goodness makes for the destruction of evil.

Bearing our sins

Jesus bore our sins in his body. He knew the mortal errors which constitute the material body, and 53:27 could destroy those errors; but at the time when Jesus felt our infirmities, he had not conquered all the beliefs of the flesh or his sense of ma- 53:30 terial life, nor had he risen to his final demonstration of spiritual power.

Had he shared the sinful beliefs of others, he would 54:1 have been less sensitive to those beliefs. Through the magnitude of his human life, he demonstrated the divine 54:3 Life. Out of the amplitude of his pure affection, he de- fined Love. With the affluence of Truth, he vanquished error. The world acknowledged not his righteousness, 54:6 seeing it not; but earth received the harmony his glorified example introduced.

Inspiration of sacrifice

Who is ready to follow his teaching and example? All 54:9 must sooner or later plant themselves in Christ, the true idea of God. That he might liberally pour his dear-bought treasures into empty or sin- 54:12 filled human storehouses, was the inspiration of Jesus' intense human sacrifice. In witness of his divine com- mission, he presented the proof that Life, Truth, and 54:15 Love heal the sick and the sinning, and triumph over death through Mind, not matter. This was the highest proof he could have offered of divine Love. His hearers 54:18 understood neither his words nor his works. They would not accept his meek interpretation of life nor follow his example.

Spiritual friendship

54:21 His earthly cup of bitterness was drained to the dregs. There adhered to him only a few unpretentious friends, whose religion was something more 54:24 than a name. It was so vital, that it en- abled them to understand the Nazarene and to share the glory of eternal life. He said that those who fol- 54:27 lowed him should drink of his cup, and history has con- firmed the prediction.

Injustice to the Saviour

If that Godlike and glorified man were physically on 54:30 earth to-day, would not some, who now pro- fess to love him, reject him? Would they not deny him even the rights of humanity, if he enter- 55:1 tained any other sense of being and religion than theirs? The advancing century, from a deadened sense of the 55:3 invisible God, to-day subjects to unchristian comment and usage the idea of Christian healing enjoined by Jesus; but this does not affect the invincible facts. 55:6 Perhaps the early Christian era did Jesus no more injustice than the later centuries have bestowed upon the healing Christ and spiritual idea of being. Now 55:9 that the gospel of healing is again preached by the wayside, does not the pulpit sometimes scorn it? But that curative mission, which presents the Saviour in a 55:12 clearer light than mere words can possibly do, cannot be left out of Christianity, although it is again ruled out of the synagogue.

55:15 Truth's immortal idea is sweeping down the centuries, gathering beneath its wings the sick and sinning. My weary hope tries to realize that happy day, when man shall 55:18 recognize the Science of Christ and love his neighbor as himself, - when he shall realize God's omnipotence and the healing power of the divine Love in what it has done 55:21 and is doing for mankind. The promises will be ful- filled. The time for the reappearing of the divine healing is throughout all time; and whosoever layeth his earthly 55:24 all on the altar of divine Science, drinketh of Christ's cup now, and is endued with the spirit and power of Christian healing.

55:27 In the words of St. John: "He shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you forever." This Comforter I understand to be Divine Science.



CHAPTER III - MARRIAGE

What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder. In the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven. - JESUS.

56:1 WHEN our great Teacher came to him for baptism, John was astounded. Reading his thoughts, Jesus 56:3 added: "Suffer it to be so now: for thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness." Jesus' concessions (in certain cases) to material methods were for the advancement of 56:6 spiritual good.

Marriage temporal

Marriage is the legal and moral provision for genera- tion among human kind. Until the spiritual creation 56:9 is discerned intact, is apprehended and under- stood, and His kingdom is come as in the vision of the Apocalypse, - where the corporeal sense of crea- 56:12 tion was cast out, and its spiritual sense was revealed from heaven, - marriage will continue, subject to such moral regulations as will secure increasing virtue.

Fidelity required

56:15 Infidelity to the marriage covenant is the social scourge of all races, "the pestilence that walketh in darkness, . . . the destruction that wasteth at noonday." 56:18 The commandment, "Thou shalt not com- mit adultery," is no less imperative than the one, "Thou shalt not kill."

57:1 Chastity is the cement of civilization and progress. Without it there is no stability in society, and without it 57:3 one cannot attain the Science of Life.

Mental elements

Union of the masculine and feminine qualities consti- tutes completeness. The masculine mind reaches a 57:6 higher tone through certain elements of the feminine, while the feminine mind gains cour- age and strength through masculine qualities. These 57:9 different elements conjoin naturally with each other, and their true harmony is in spiritual oneness. Both sexes should be loving, pure, tender, and strong. The attrac- 57:12 tion between native qualities will be perpetual only as it is pure and true, bringing sweet seasons of renewal like the returning spring.

Affection's demands

57:15 Beauty, wealth, or fame is incompetent to meet the demands of the affections, and should never weigh against the better claims of intellect, good- 57:18 ness, and virtue. Happiness is spiritual, born of Truth and Love. It is unselfish; therefore it cannot exist alone, but requires all mankind to 57:21 share it.

Help and discipline

Human affection is not poured forth vainly, even though it meet no return. Love enriches the nature, en- 57:24 larging, purifying, and elevating it. The wintry blasts of earth may uproot the flowers of affec- tion, and scatter them to the winds; but this severance 57:27 of fleshly ties serves to unite thought more closely to God, for Love supports the struggling heart until it ceases to sigh over the world and begins to unfold its wings for 57:30 heaven.

Marriage is unblest or blest, according to the disap- pointments it involves or the hopes it fulfils. To happify 58:1 existence by constant intercourse with those adapted to elevate it, should be the motive of society. Unity of 58:3 spirit gives new pinions to joy, or else joy's drooping wings trail in dust.

Chord and discord

Ill-arranged notes produce discord. Tones of the 58:6 human mind may be different, but they should be con- cordant in order to blend properly. Unselfish ambition, noble life-motives, and purity, - 58:9 these constituents of thought, mingling, constitute in- dividually and collectively true happiness, strength, and permanence.

Mutual freedom

58:12 There is moral freedom in Soul. Never contract the horizon of a worthy outlook by the selfish exaction of all another's time and thoughts. With ad- 58:15 ditional joys, benevolence should grow more diffusive. The narrowness and jealousy, which would confine a wife or a husband forever within four walls, will 58:18 not promote the sweet interchange of confidence and love; but on the other hand, a wandering desire for incessant amusement outside the home circle is a poor augury for 58:21 the happiness of wedlock. Home is the dearest spot on earth, and it should be the centre, though not the bound- ary, of the affections.

A useful suggestion

58:24 Said the peasant bride to her lover: "Two eat no more together than they eat separately." This is a hint that a wife ought not to court vulgar extravagance 58:27 or stupid ease, because another supplies her wants. Wealth may obviate the necessity for toil or the chance for ill-nature in the marriage relation, but noth- 58:30 ing can abolish the cares of marriage.

Differing duties

"She that is married careth . . . how she may please her husband," says the Bible; and this is the pleasantest 59:1 thing to do. Matrimony should never be entered into without a full recognition of its enduring obligations on 59:3 both sides. There should be the most tender solicitude for each other's happiness, and mu- tual attention and approbation should wait on all the years 59:6 of married life.

Mutual compromises will often maintain a compact which might otherwise become unbearable. Man should 59:9 not be required to participate in all the annoyances and cares of domestic economy, nor should woman be ex- pected to understand political economy. Fulfilling the 59:12 different demands of their united spheres, their sympa- thies should blend in sweet confidence and cheer, each partner sustaining the other, - thus hallowing the union 59:15 of interests and affections, in which the heart finds peace and home.

Trysting renewed

Tender words and unselfish care in what promotes the 59:18 welfare and happiness of your wife will prove more salutary in prolonging her health and smiles than stolid indifference or jealousy. Husbands, hear this 59:21 and remember how slight a word or deed may renew the old trysting-times.

After marriage, it is too late to grumble over incompati- 59:24 bility of disposition. A mutual understanding should exist before this union and continue ever after, for decep- tion is fatal to happiness.

Permanent obligation

59:27 The nuptial vow should never be annulled, so long as its moral obligations are kept intact; but the frequency of divorce shows that the sacredness of this re- 59:30 lationship is losing its influence, and that fatal mistakes are undermining its foundations. Separation never should take place, and it never would, if both 60:1 husband and wife were genuine Christian Scientists. Science inevitably lifts one's being higher in the scale of 60:3 harmony and happiness.

Permanent affection

Kindred tastes, motives, and aspirations are necessary to the formation of a happy and permanent companion- 60:6 ship. The beautiful in character is also the good, welding indissolubly the links of affec- tion. A mother's affection cannot be weaned from her 60:9 child, because the mother-love includes purity and con- stancy, both of which are immortal. Therefore maternal affection lives on under whatever difficulties. 60:12 From the logic of events we learn that selfishness and impurity alone are fleeting, and that wisdom will ultimately put asunder what she hath not joined 60:15 together.

Centre for affections

Marriage should improve the human species, becoming a barrier against vice, a protection to woman, strength to 60:18 man, and a centre for the affections. This, however, in a majority of cases, is not its present tendency, and why? Because the education of 60:21 the higher nature is neglected, and other considerations, - passion, frivolous amusements, personal adornment, display, and pride, - occupy thought.

Spiritual concord

60:24 An ill-attuned ear calls discord harmony, not appreciat- ing concord. So physical sense, not discerning the true happiness of being, places it on a false basis. 60:27 Science will correct the discord, and teach us life's sweeter harmonies.

Soul has infinite resources with which to bless mankind, 60:30 and happiness would be more readily attained and would be more secure in our keeping, if sought in Soul. Higher enjoyments alone can satisfy the cravings of immortal 61:1 man. We cannot circumscribe happiness within the limits of personal sense. The senses confer no real 61:3 enjoyment.

Ascendency of good

The good in human affections must have ascendency over the evil and the spiritual over the animal, or happi- 61:6 ness will never be won. The attainment of this celestial condition would improve our progeny, diminish crime, and give higher aims to ambi- 61:9 tion. Every valley of sin must be exalted, and every mountain of selfishness be brought low, that the highway of our God may be prepared in Science. The offspring 61:12 of heavenly-minded parents inherit more intellect, better balanced minds, and sounder constitutions.

Propensities inherited

If some fortuitous circumstance places promising chil- 61:15 dren in the arms of gross parents, often these beautiful children early droop and die, like tropical flowers born amid Alpine snows. If perchance 61:18 they live to become parents in their turn, they may re- produce in their own helpless little ones the grosser traits of their ancestors. What hope of happiness, what noble 61:21 ambition, can inspire the child who inherits propensities that must either be overcome or reduce him to a loath- some wreck?

61:24 Is not the propagation of the human species a greater responsibility, a more solemn charge, than the culture of your garden or the raising of stock to increase your flocks 61:27 and herds? Nothing unworthy of perpetuity should be transmitted to children.

The formation of mortals must greatly improve to 61:30 advance mankind. The scientific morale of marriage is spiritual unity. If the propagation of a higher human species is requisite to reach this goal, then its material con- 62:1 ditions can only be permitted for the purpose of gener- ating. The foetus must be kept mentally pure and the 62:3 period of gestation have the sanctity of virginity.

The entire education of children should be such as to form habits of obedience to the moral and spiritual law, 62:6 with which the child can meet and master the belief in so- called physical laws, a belief which breeds disease.

Inheritance heeded

If parents create in their babes a desire for incessant 62:9 amusement, to be always fed, rocked, tossed, or talked to, those parents should not, in after years, complain of their children's fretfulness or fri- 62:12 volity, which the parents themselves have occasioned. Taking less "thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink"; less thought "for your body what 62:15 ye shall put on," will do much more for the health of the rising generation than you dream. Children should be allowed to remain children in knowledge, and should 62:18 become men and women only through growth in the understanding of man's higher nature.

The Mind creative

We must not attribute more and more intelligence 62:21 to matter, but less and less, if we would be wise and healthy. The divine Mind, which forms the bud and blossom, will care for the human 62:24 body, even as it clothes the lily; but let no mortal inter- fere with God's government by thrusting in the laws of erring, human concepts.

Superior law of Soul

62:27 The higher nature of man is not governed by the lower; if it were, the order of wisdom would be reversed. Our false views of life hide eternal harmony, 62:30 and produce the ills of which we complain. Because mortals believe in material laws and reject the Science of Mind, this does not make materiality first and 63:1 the superior law of Soul last. You would never think that flannel was better for warding off pulmonary disease 63:3 than the controlling Mind, if you understood the Science of being.

Spiritual origin

In Science man is the offspring of Spirit. The beauti- 63:6 ful, good, and pure constitute his ancestry. His origin is not, like that of mortals, in brute instinct, nor does he pass through material conditions prior 63:9 to reaching intelligence. Spirit is his primitive and ulti- mate source of being; God is his Father, and Life is the law of his being.

The rights of woman

63:12 Civil law establishes very unfair differences between the rights of the two sexes. Christian Science furnishes no precedent for such injustice, and civilization 63:15 mitigates it in some measure. Still, it is a marvel why usage should accord woman less rights than does either Christian Science or civilization.

Unfair discrimination

63:18 Our laws are not impartial, to say the least, in their discrimination as to the person, property, and parental claims of the two sexes. If the elective fran- 63:21 chise for women will remedy the evil with- out encouraging difficulties of greater magnitude, let us hope it will be granted. A feasible as well as rational 63:24 means of improvement at present is the elevation of society in general and the achievement of a nobler race for legislation, - a race having higher aims and 63:27 motives.

If a dissolute husband deserts his wife, certainly the wronged, and perchance impoverished, woman should be 63:30 allowed to collect her own wages, enter into business agreements, hold real estate, deposit funds, and own her children free from interference.

64:1 Want of uniform justice is a crying evil caused by the selfishness and inhumanity of man. Our forefathers 64:3 exercised their faith in the direction taught by the Apostle James, when he said: "Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father, is this, To visit the fatherless and 64:6 widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world."

Benevolence hindered

Pride, envy, or jealousy seems on most occasions to 64:9 be the master of ceremonies, ruling out primitive Chris- tianity. When a man lends a helping hand to some noble woman, struggling alone with 64:12 adversity, his wife should not say, "It is never well to interfere with your neighbor's business." A wife is sometimes debarred by a covetous domestic tyrant from 64:15 giving the ready aid her sympathy and charity would afford.

Progressive development

Marriage should signify a union of hearts. Further- 64:18 more, the time cometh of which Jesus spake, when he declared that in the resurrection there should be no more marrying nor giving in marriage, 64:21 but man would be as the angels. Then shall Soul re- joice in its own, in which passion has no part. Then white-robed purity will unite in one person masculine wis- 64:24 dom and feminine love, spiritual understanding and per- petual peace.

Until it is learned that God is the Father of all, mar- 64:27 riage will continue. Let not mortals permit a disregard of law which might lead to a worse state of society than now exists. Honesty and virtue ensure the stability of 64:30 the marriage covenant. Spirit will ultimately claim its own, - all that really is, - and the voices of physical sense will be forever hushed.

Blessing of Christ

65:1 Experience should be the school of virtue, and human happiness should proceed from man's highest nature. 65:3 May Christ, Truth, be present at every bridal altar to turn the water into wine and to give to human life an inspiration by which man's spiritual and 65:6 eternal existence may be discerned.

Righteous foundations

If the foundations of human affection are consistent with progress, they will be strong and enduring. Divorces 65:9 should warn the age of some fundamental error in the marriage state. The union of the sexes suffers fearful discord. To gain Christian Science and its 65:12 harmony, life should be more metaphysically regarded.

Powerless promises

The broadcast powers of evil so conspicuous to-day show themselves in the materialism and sensualism of 65:15 the age, struggling against the advancing spiritual era. Beholding the world's lack of Christianity and the powerlessness of vows to make home 65:18 happy, the human mind will at length demand a higher affection.

Transition and reform

There will ensue a fermentation over this as over many 65:21 other reforms, until we get at last the clear straining of truth, and impurity and error are left among the lees. The fermentation even of fluids is 65:24 not pleasant. An unsettled, transitional stage is never desirable on its own account. Matrimony, which was once a fixed fact among us, must lose its present slippery foot- 65:27 ing, and man must find permanence and peace in a more spiritual adherence.

The mental chemicalization, which has brought con- 65:30 jugal infidelity to the surface, will assuredly throw off this evil, and marriage will become purer when the scum is gone.

Thou art right, immortal Shakespeare, great poet of humanity: 66:3 Sweet are the uses of adversity; Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous, Wears yet a precious jewel in his head.

Salutary sorrow

66:6 Trials teach mortals not to lean on a material staff, - a broken reed, which pierces the heart. We do not half remember this in the sunshine of joy 66:9 and prosperity. Sorrow is salutary. Through great tribulation we enter the kingdom. Trials are proofs of God's care. Spiritual development germi- 66:12 nates not from seed sown in the soil of material hopes, but when these decay, Love propagates anew the higher joys of Spirit, which have no taint of earth. Each suc- 66:15 cessive stage of experience unfolds new views of divine goodness and love.

Amidst gratitude 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 circumstances, 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 God. 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.

God'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 God, 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 God's creation while believ- ing that man is a creator. God'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 God's in- finite plan. Spiritually to understand that there is but one creator, God, unfolds all creation, confirms the Scrip- 69:15 tures, brings the sweet assurance 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 God's creation. Some day the child will ask his parent: "Do you keep the First 69:21 Commandment? Do you have one God and creator, or is man a creator?" If the father replies, "God 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 God? - 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 God, but spiritual man, made in God's likeness, reflects God. 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 identity

70:12 The divine Mind maintains all identities, from a blade of grass to a star, as distinct and eternal. The questions are: What are God's identities? 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 God 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 identity, 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, God, 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 God, 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 God, 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 God, 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 God, 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 passes 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 God, 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. God controls man, and God 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- tition of evil.

73:15 If Spirit, or God, 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.

No me-diumship

It is a grave mistake to suppose that matter is any part 73:27 of the reality of intelligent existence, or that Spirit and matter, intelligence and non-intelligence, can commune together. This error Science will 73:30 destroy. The sensual cannot be made the mouthpiece of the spiritual, nor can the finite become the channel of the infinite. There is no communication between so- 74:1 called material existence and spiritual life which is not subject to death.

Opposing conditions

74:3 To be on communicable terms with Spirit, persons must be free from organic bodies; and their return to a mate- rial condition, after having once left it, would 74:6 be as impossible as would be the restoration to its original condition of the acorn, already absorbed into a sprout which has risen above the soil. The seed 74:9 which has germinated has a new form and state of exist- ence. When here or hereafter the belief of life in matter is extinct, the error which has held the belief dissolves 74:12 with the belief, and never returns to the old condition. No correspondence nor communion can exist between persons in such opposite dreams as the belief of having 74:15 died and left a material body and the belief of still living in an organic, material body.

Bridgeless division

The caterpillar, transformed into a beautiful insect, 74:18 is no longer a worm, nor does the insect return to fraternize with or control the worm. Such a backward transformation is impossible in 74:21 Science. Darkness and light, infancy and manhood, sickness and health, are opposites, - different beliefs, which never blend. Who will say that infancy can utter 74:24 the ideas of manhood, that darkness can represent light, that we are in Europe when we are in the opposite hemi- sphere? There is no bridge across the gulf which divides 74:27 two such opposite conditions as the spiritual, or incor- poreal, and the physical, or corporeal.

In Christian Science there is never a retrograde step, 74:30 never a return to positions outgrown. The so-called dead and living cannot commune together, for they are in separate states of existence, or consciousness.

Unscientific investiture

75:1 This simple truth lays bare the mistaken assumption that man dies as matter but comes to life as spirit. The 75:3 so-called dead, in order to reappear to those still in the existence cognized by the physical senses, would need to be tangible and material, - to have 75:6 a material investiture, - or the material senses could take no cognizance of the so-called dead.

Spiritualism would transfer men from the spiritual sense 75:9 of existence back into its material sense. This gross mate- rialism is scientifically impossible, since to infinite Spirit there can be no matter.

Raising the dead

75:12 Jesus said of Lazarus: "Our friend Lazarus sleepeth; but I go, that I may awake him out of sleep." Jesus restored Lazarus by the understanding that 75:15 Lazarus had never died, not by an admis- sion that his body had died and then lived again. Had Jesus believed that Lazarus had lived or died in his 75:18 body, the Master would have stood on the same plane of belief as those who buried the body, and he could not have resuscitated it.

75:21 When you can waken yourself or others out of the belief that all must die, you can then exercise Jesus' spiritual power to reproduce the presence of those who have thought 75:24 they died, - but not otherwise.

Vision of the dying

There is one possible moment, when those living on the earth and those called dead, can commune together, and 75:27 that is the moment previous to the transition, - the moment when the link between their op- posite beliefs is being sundered. In the vestibule through 75:30 which we pass from one dream to another dream, or when we awake from earth's sleep to the grand verities of Life, the departing may hear the glad welcome of those 76:1 who have gone before. The ones departing may whisper this vision, name the face that smiles on them and the 76:3 hand which beckons them, as one at Niagara, with eyes open only to that wonder, forgets all else and breathes aloud his rapture.

Real Life is God

76:6 When being is understood, Life will be recognized as neither material nor finite, but as infinite, - as God, universal good; and the belief that life, or 76:9 mind, was ever in a finite form, or good in evil, will be destroyed. Then it will be understood that Spirit never entered matter and was therefore never 76:12 raised from matter. When advanced to spiritual being and the understanding of God, man can no longer com- mune with matter; neither can he return to it, any more 76:15 than a tree can return to its seed. Neither will man seem to be corporeal, but he will be an individual conscious- ness, characterized by the divine Spirit as idea, not matter.

76:18 Suffering, sinning, dying beliefs are unreal. When divine Science is universally understood, they will have no power over man, for man is immortal and lives by 76:21 divine authority.

Immaterial pleasure

The sinless joy, - the perfect harmony and immortality of Life, possessing unlimited divine beauty and goodness 76:24 without a single bodily pleasure or pain, - constitutes the only veritable, indestructible man, whose being is spiritual. This state of existence 76:27 is scientific and intact, - a perfection discernible only by those who have the final understanding of Christ in divine Science. Death can never hasten this state of 76:30 existence, for death must be overcome, not submitted to, before immortality appears.

The recognition of Spirit and of infinity comes not 77:1 suddenly here or hereafter. The pious Polycarp said: "I cannot turn at once from good to evil." Neither do 77:3 other mortals accomplish the change from error to truth at a single bound.

Second death

Existence continues to be a belief of corporeal sense 77:6 until the Science of being is reached. Error brings its own self-destruction both here and hereafter, for mortal mind creates its own physical con- 77:9 ditions. Death will occur on the next plane of existence as on this, until the spiritual understanding of Life is reached. Then, and not until then, will it be demon- 77:12 strated that "the second death hath no power."

A dream vanishing

The period required for this dream of material life, embracing its so-called pleasures and pains, to vanish 77:15 from consciousness, "knoweth no man . . . neither the Son, but the Father." This period will be of longer or shorter duration according to the 77:18 tenacity of error. Of what advantage, then, would it be to us, or to the departed, to prolong the material state and so prolong the illusion either of a soul inert or of a sinning, 77:21 suffering sense, - a so-called mind fettered to matter.

Progress and purgatory

Even if communications from spirits to mortal con- sciousness were possible, such communications would 77:24 grow beautifully less with every advanced stage of existence. The departed would gradually rise above ignorance and materiality, and Spiritualists 77:27 would outgrow their beliefs in material spiritualism. Spiritism consigns the so-called dead to a state resembling that of blighted buds, - to a wretched purgatory, where 77:30 the chances of the departed for improvement narrow into nothing and they return to their old standpoints of matter.

Unnatural deflections

78:1 The decaying flower, the blighted bud, the gnarled oak, the ferocious beast, - like the discords of disease, sin, 78:3 and death, - are unnatural. They are the fal- sities of sense, the changing deflections of mor- tal mind; they are not the eternal realities of Mind.

Absurd oracles

78:6 How unreasonable is the belief that we are wearing out life and hastening to death, and that at the same time we are communing with immortality! 78:9 If the departed are in rapport with mor- tality, or matter, they are not spiritual, but must still be mortal, sinning, suffering, and dying. Then why 78:12 look to them - even were communication possible - for proofs of immortality, and accept them as oracles? Com- munications gathered from ignorance are pernicious in 78:15 tendency.

Spiritualism with its material accompaniments would destroy the supremacy of Spirit. If Spirit pervades all 78:18 space, it needs no material method for the transmission of messages. Spirit needs no wires nor electricity in order to be omnipresent.

Spirit intangible

78:21 Spirit is not materially tangible. How then can it communicate with man through electric, material effects? How can the majesty and omnipotence of 78:24 Spirit be lost? God is not in the medley where matter cares for matter, where spiritism makes many gods, and hypnotism and electricity are claimed 78:27 to be the agents of God's government.

Spirit blesses man, but man cannot "tell whence it cometh." By it the sick are healed, the sorrowing are 78:30 comforted, and the sinning are reformed. These are the effects of one universal God, the invisible good dwelling in eternal Science.

Thought regarding death

79:1 The act of describing disease - its symptoms, locality, and fatality - is not scientific. Warning people against 79:3 death is an error that tends to frighten into death those who are ignorant of Life as God. Thousands of instances could be cited of health restored 79:6 by changing the patient's thoughts regarding death.

Fallacious hypotheses

A scientific mental method is more sanitary than the use of drugs, and such a mental method produces perma- 79:9 nent health. Science must go over the whole ground, and dig up every seed of error's sow- ing. Spiritualism relies upon human beliefs and hy- 79:12 potheses. Christian Science removes these beliefs and hypotheses through the higher understanding of God, for Christian Science, resting on divine Principle, not on ma- 79:15 terial personalities, in its revelation of immortality, intro- duces the harmony of being.

Jesus cast out evil spirits, or false beliefs. The Apostle 79:18 Paul bade men have the Mind that was in the Christ. Jesus did his own work by the one Spirit. He said: "My Father worketh hitherto, and I work." He never de- 79:21 scribed disease, so far as can be learned from the Gospels, but he healed disease.

Mistaken methods

The unscientific practitioner says: "You are ill. Your 79:24 brain is overtaxed, and you must rest. Your body is weak, and it must be strengthened. You have nervous prostration, and must be treated for it." 79:27 Science objects to all this, contending for the rights of in- telligence and asserting that Mind controls body and brain.

Divine strength

Mind-science teaches that mortals need "not be weary 79:30 in well doing." It dissipates fatigue in doing good. Giving does not impoverish us in the service of our Maker, neither does withholding enrich us. 80:1 We have strength in proportion to our apprehension of the truth, and our strength is not lessened by giving 80:3 utterance to truth. A cup of coffee or tea is not the equal of truth, whether for the inspiration of a sermon or for the support of bodily endurance.

A denial of immortality

80:6 A communication purporting to come from the late Theodore Parker reads as follows: "There never was, and there never will be, an immortal spirit." 80:9 Yet the very periodical containing this sen- tence repeats weekly the assertion that spirit-communica- tions are our only proofs of immortality.

Mysticism unscientific

80:12 I entertain no doubt of the humanity and philanthropy of many Spiritualists, but I cannot coincide with their views. It is mysticism which gives spiritual- 80:15 ism its force. Science dispels mystery and explains extraordinary phenomena; but Science never removes phenomena from the domain of reason into the 80:18 realm of mysticism.

Physical falsities

It should not seem mysterious that mind, without the aid of hands, can move a table, when we already know 80:21 that it is mind-power which moves both table and hand. Even planchette - the French toy which years ago pleased so many people - attested the con- 80:24 trol of mortal mind over its substratum, called matter.

It is mortal mind which convulses its substratum, matter. These movements arise from the volition of human belief, 80:27 but they are neither scientific nor rational. Mortal mind produces table-tipping as certainly as table-setting, and believes that this wonder emanates from spirits and elec- 80:30 tricity. This belief rests on the common conviction that mind and matter cooperate both visibly and invisibly, hence that matter is intelligent.

Poor post-mortem evidence

81:1 There is not so much evidence to prove intercommuni- cation between the so-called dead and the living, as there 81:3 is to show the sick that matter suffers and has sensation; yet this latter evidence is destroyed by Mind-science. If Spiritualists understood the 81:6 Science of being, their belief in mediumship would vanish.

No proof of immortality

At the very best and on its own theories, spiritualism can only prove that certain individuals have a continued 81:9 existence after death and maintain their affili- ation with mortal flesh; but this fact affords no certainty of everlasting life. A man's assertion that 81:12 he is immortal no more proves him to be so, than the op- posite assertion, that he is mortal, would prove immor- tality a lie. Nor is the case improved when alleged spirits 81:15 teach immortality. Life, Love, Truth, is the only proof of immortality.

Mind's manifestations immortal

Man in the likeness of God as revealed in Science can- 81:18 not help being immortal. Though the grass seemeth to wither and the flower to fade, they reappear. Erase the figures which express number, silence 81:21 the tones of music, give to the worms the body called man, and yet the producing, governing, divine Principle lives on, - in the case of man as truly as in 81:24 the case of numbers and of music, - despite the so-called laws of matter, which define man as mortal. Though the inharmony resulting from material sense hides the 81:27 harmony of Science, inharmony cannot destroy the divine Principle of Science. In Science, man's immortality de- pends upon that of God, good, and follows as a necessary 81:30 consequence of the immortality of good.

Reading thoughts

That somebody, somewhere, must have known the deceased person, supposed to be the communicator, is 82:1 evident, and it is as easy to read distant thoughts as near. We think of an absent friend as easily as we do of one 82:3 present. It is no more difficult to read the absent mind than it is to read the present. Chaucer wrote centuries ago, yet we still read his thought 82:6 in his verse. What is classic study, but discernment of the minds of Homer and Virgil, of whose personal exist- ence we may be in doubt?

Impossible intercommunion

82:9 If spiritual life has been won by the departed, they cannot return to material existence, because different states of consciousness are involved, and one 82:12 person cannot exist in two different states of consciousness at the same time. In sleep we do not communicate with the dreamer by our side despite 82:15 his physical proximity, because both of us are either un- conscious or are wandering in our dreams through differ- ent mazes of consciousness.

82:18 In like manner it would follow, even if our departed friends were near us and were in as conscious a state of existence as before the change we call death, that their 82:21 state of consciousness must be different from ours. We are not in their state, nor are they in the mental realm in which we dwell. Communion between them and 82:24 ourselves would be prevented by this difference. The mental states are so unlike, that intercommunion is as impossible as it would be between a mole and a human 82:27 being. Different dreams and different awakenings be- token a differing consciousness. When wandering in Australia, do we look for help to the Esquimaux in their 82:30 snow huts?

In a world of sin and sensuality hastening to a greater development of power, it is wise earnestly to 83:1 consider whether it is the human mind or the divine Mind which is influencing one. What the prophets of 83:3 Jehovah did, the worshippers of Baal failed to do; yet artifice and delusion claimed that they could equal the work of wisdom.

83:6 Science only can explain the incredible good and evil elements now coming to the surface. Mortals must find refuge in Truth in order to escape the error of these latter 83:9 days. Nothing is more antagonistic to Christian Science than a blind belief without understanding, for such a belief hides Truth and builds on error.

Natural wonders

83:12 Miracles are impossible in Science, and here Science takes issue with popular religions. The scientific mani- festation of power is from the divine nature 83:15 and is not supernatural, since Science is an explication of nature. The belief that the universe, in- cluding man, is governed in general by material laws, but 83:18 that occasionally Spirit sets aside these laws, - this be- lief belittles omnipotent wisdom, and gives to matter the precedence over Spirit.

Conflicting standpoints

83:21 It is contrary to Christian Science to suppose that life is either material or organically spiritual. Between Christian Science and all forms of superstition 83:24 a great gulf is fixed, as impassable as that be- tween Dives and Lazarus. There is mortal mind-reading and immortal Mind-reading. The latter is a revelation 83:27 of divine purpose through spiritual understanding, by which man gains the divine Principle and explanation of all things. Mortal mind-reading and immortal Mind- 83:30 reading are distinctly opposite standpoints, from which cause and effect are interpreted. The act of reading mortal mind investigates and touches only human beliefs. 84:1 Science is immortal and coordinate neither with the premises nor with the conclusions of mortal beliefs.

Scientific foreseeing

84:3 The ancient prophets gained their foresight from a spiritual, incorporeal standpoint, not by foreshadowing evil and mistaking fact for fiction, - predict- 84:6 ing the future from a groundwork of corpo- reality and human belief. When sufficiently advanced in Science to be in harmony with the truth of being, men 84:9 become seers and prophets involuntarily, controlled not by demons, spirits, or demigods, but by the one Spirit. It is the prerogative of the ever-present, divine Mind, and 84:12 of thought which is in rapport with this Mind, to know the past, the present, and the future.

Acquaintance with the Science of being enables us to 84:15 commune more largely with the divine Mind, to foresee and foretell events which concern the universal welfare, to be divinely inspired, - yea, to reach the range of fetter- 84:18 less Mind.

The Mind unbounded

To understand that Mind is infinite, not bounded by corporeality, not dependent upon the ear and eye for 84:21 sound or sight nor upon muscles and bones for locomotion, is a step towards the Mind- science by which we discern man's nature and existence. 84:24 This true conception of being destroys the belief of spirit- ualism at its very inception, for without the concession of material personalities called spirits, spiritualism has no 84:27 basis upon which to build.

Scientific foreknowing

All we correctly know of Spirit comes from God, divine Principle, and is learned through Christ and Christian 84:30 Science. If this Science has been thoroughly learned and properly digested, we can know the truth more accurately than the astronomer can read 85:1 the stars or calculate an eclipse. This Mind-reading is the opposite of clairvoyance. It is the illumination of 85:3 the spiritual understanding which demonstrates the ca- pacity of Soul, not of material sense. This Soul-sense comes to the human mind when the latter yields to the 85:6 divine Mind.

Value of intuition

Such intuitions reveal whatever constitutes and per- petuates harmony, enabling one to do good, but not 85:9 evil. You will reach the perfect Science of healing when you are able to read the human mind after this manner and discern the error you would 85:12 destroy. The Samaritan woman said: "Come, see a man, which told me all things that ever I did: is not this the Christ?"

85:15 It is recorded that Jesus, as he once journeyed with his students, "knew their thoughts," - read them scientifi- cally. In like manner he discerned disease and healed 85:18 the sick. After the same method, events of great mo- ment were foretold by the Hebrew prophets. Our Master rebuked the lack of this power when he said: 85:21 "O ye hypocrites! ye can discern the face of the sky; but can ye not discern the signs of the times?"

Hypocrisy condemned

Both Jew and Gentile may have had acute corporeal 85:24 senses, but mortals need spiritual sense. Jesus knew the generation to be wicked and adulterous, seek- ing the material more than the spiritual. His 85:27 thrusts at materialism were sharp, but needed. He never spared hypocrisy the sternest condemnation. He said: "These ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other 85:30 undone." The great Teacher knew both cause and effect, knew that truth communicates itself but never imparts error.

Mental contact

86:1 Jesus once asked, "Who touched me?" Supposing this inquiry to be occasioned by physical contact alone, 86:3 his disciples answered, "The multitude throng thee." Jesus knew, as others did not, that it was not matter, but mortal mind, whose touch called 86:6 for aid. Repeating his inquiry, he was answered by the faith of a sick woman. His quick apprehension of this mental call illustrated his spirituality. The disciples' 86:9 misconception of it uncovered their materiality. Jesus possessed more spiritual susceptibility than the disciples. Opposites come from contrary directions, and produce 86:12 unlike results.

Images of thought

Mortals evolve images of thought. These may appear to the ignorant to be apparitions; but they are myste- 86:15 rious only because it is unusual to see thoughts, though we can always feel their influence. Haunted houses, ghostly voices, unusual 86:18 noises, and apparitions brought out in dark seances either involve feats by tricksters, or they are images and sounds evolved involuntarily by mortal mind. Seeing 86:21 is no less a quality of physical sense than feeling. Then why is it more difficult to see a thought than to feel one? Education alone determines the difference. In reality 86:24 there is none.

Phenomena explained

Portraits, landscape-paintings, fac-similes of penman- ship, peculiarities of expression, recollected sentences, 86:27 can all be taken from pictorial thought and memory as readily as from objects cognizable by the senses. Mortal mind sees what it believes as 86:30 certainly as it believes what it sees. It feels, hears, and sees its own thoughts. Pictures are mentally formed before the artist can convey them to canvas. So is it 87:1 with all material conceptions. Mind-readers perceive these pictures of thought. They copy or reproduce 87:3 them, even when they are lost to the memory of the mind in which they are discoverable.

Mental environment

It is needless for the thought or for the person hold- 87:6 ing the transferred picture to be individually and con- sciously present. Though individuals have passed away, their mental environment re- 87:9 mains to be discerned, described, and transmitted. Though bodies are leagues apart and their associations forgotten, their associations float in the general atmosphere of human 87:12 mind.

Second sight

The Scotch call such vision "second sight", when really it is first sight instead of second, for it presents 87:15 primal facts to mortal mind. Science enables one to read the human mind, but not as a clairvoyant. It enables one to heal through Mind, but 87:18 not as a mesmerist.

Buried secrets

The mine knows naught of the emeralds within its rocks; the sea is ignorant of the gems within its caverns, 87:21 of the corals, of its sharp reefs, of the tall ships that float on its bosom, or of the bodies which lie buried in its sands: yet these are all there. Do not 87:24 suppose that any mental concept is gone because you do not think of it. The true concept is never lost. The strong impressions produced on mortal mind by friend- 87:27 ship or by any intense feeling are lasting, and mind- readers can perceive and reproduce these impressions.

Recollected friends

Memory may reproduce voices long ago silent. We 87:30 have but to close the eyes, and forms rise before us, which are thousands of miles away or altogether gone from physical sight and sense, and 88:1 this not in dreamy sleep. In our day-dreams we can recall that for which the poet Tennyson expressed the 88:3 heart's desire, - the touch of a vanished hand, And the sound of a voice that is still.

88:6 The mind may even be cognizant of a present flavor and odor, when no viand touches the palate and no scent salutes the nostrils.

Illusions not ideas

88:9 How are veritable ideas to be distinguished from il- lusions? By learning the origin of each. Ideas are emanations from the divine Mind. Thoughts, 88:12 proceeding from the brain or from matter, are offshoots of mortal mind; they are mortal material be- liefs. Ideas are spiritual, harmonious, and eternal. Beliefs 88:15 proceed from the so-called material senses, which at one time are supposed to be substance-matter and at another are called spirits.

88:18 To love one's neighbor as one's self, is a divine idea; but this idea can never be seen, felt, nor understood through the physical senses. Excite the organ of ven- 88:21 eration or religious faith, and the individual manifests profound adoration. Excite the opposite development, and he blasphemes. These effects, however, do not pro- 88:24 ceed from Christianity, nor are they spiritual phenomena, for both arise from mortal belief.

Trance speaking illusion

Eloquence re-echoes the strains of Truth and Love. 88:27 It is due to inspiration rather than to erudition. It shows the possibilities derived from divine Mind, though it is said to be a gift whose endowment 88:30 is obtained from books or received from the impulsion of departed spirits. When eloquence proceeds from the belief that a departed spirit is speaking, who 89:1 can tell what the unaided medium is incapable of know- ing or uttering? This phenomenon only shows that the 89:3 beliefs of mortal mind are loosed. Forgetting her igno- rance in the belief that another mind is speaking through her, the devotee may become unwontedly eloquent. Hav- 89:6 ing more faith in others than in herself, and believing that somebody else possesses her tongue and mind, she talks freely.

89:9 Destroy her belief in outside aid, and her eloquence disappears. The former limits of her belief return. She says, "I am incapable of words that glow, for I am un- 89:12 educated." This familiar instance reaffirms the Scrip- tural word concerning a man, "As he thinketh in his heart, so is he." If one believes that he cannot be an orator with- 89:15 out study or a superinduced condition, the body responds to this belief, and the tongue grows mute which before was eloquent.

Scientific improvisation

89:18 Mind is not necessarily dependent upon educational processes. It possesses of itself all beauty and poetry, and the power of expressing them. Spirit, 89:21 God, is heard when the senses are silent. We are all capable of more than we do. The influence or action of Soul confers a freedom, which explains the phe- 89:24 nomena of improvisation and the fervor of untutored lips.

Divine origination

Matter is neither intelligent nor creative. The tree is not the author of itself. Sound is not the originator of 89:27 music, and man is not the father of man. Cain very naturally concluded that if life was in the body, and man gave it, man had the right to take it away. 89:30 This incident shows that the belief of life in matter was "a murderer from the beginning."

If seed is necessary to produce wheat, and wheat to 90:1 produce flour, or if one animal can originate another, how then can we account for their primal origin? How 90:3 were the loaves and fishes multiplied on the shores of Galilee, - and that, too, without meal or monad from which loaf or fish could come?

Mind is substance

90:6 The earth's orbit and the imaginary line called the equator are not substance. The earth's motion and position are sustained by Mind alone. Divest 90:9 yourself of the thought that there can be sub- stance in matter, and the movements and transitions now possible for mortal mind will be found to be equally 90:12 possible for the body. Then being will be recognized as spiritual, and death will be obsolete, though now some insist that death is the necessary prelude to 90:15 immortality.

Mortal delusions

In dreams we fly to Europe and meet a far-off friend. The looker-on sees the body in bed, but the supposed 90:18 inhabitant of that body carries it through the air and over the ocean. This shows the possibilities of thought. Opium and hashish eaters men- 90:21 tally travel far and work wonders, yet their bodies stay in one place. This shows what mortal mentality and knowledge are.

Scientific finalities

90:24 The admission to one's self that man is God's own like- ness sets man free to master the infinite idea. This con- viction shuts the door on death, and opens it 90:27 wide towards immortality. The understanding and recognition of Spirit must finally come, and we may as well improve our time in solving the mysteries of being 90:30 through an apprehension of divine Principle. At present we know not what man is, but we certainly shall know this when man reflects God.

91:1 The Revelator tells us of "a new heaven and a new earth." Have you ever pictured this heaven and 91:3 earth, inhabited by beings under the control of supreme wisdom?

Let us rid ourselves of the belief that man is separated 91:6 from God, and obey only the divine principle, Life and Love. Here is the great point of departure for all true spiritual growth.

Man's genuine being

91:9 It is difficult for the sinner to accept divine Science, because Science exposes his nothingness; but the sooner error is reduced to its native nothingness, the 91:12 sooner man's great reality will appear and his genuine being will be understood. The destruction of error is by no means the destruction of Truth or Life, but 91:15 is the acknowledgment of them.

Absorbed in material selfhood we discern and reflect but faintly the substance of Life or Mind. The denial of 91:18 material selfhood aids the discernment of man's spirit- ual and eternal individuality, and destroys the erroneous knowledge gained from matter or through what are termed 91:21 the material senses.

Erroneous postulates

Certain erroneous postulates should be here considered in order that the spiritual facts may be better 91:24 apprehended.

The first erroneous postulate of belief is, that substance, life, and intelligence are something apart from God. 91:27 The second erroneous postulate is, that man is both mental and material.

The third erroneous postulate is, that mind is both evil 91:30 and good; whereas the real Mind cannot be evil nor the medium of evil, for Mind is God.

The fourth erroneous postulate is, that matter is in- 92:1 telligent, and that man has a material body which is part of himself.

92:3 The fifth erroneous postulate is, that matter holds in itself the issues of life and death, - that matter is not only capable of experiencing pleasure and pain, but also 92:6 capable of imparting these sensations. From the illusion implied in this last postulate arises the decomposition of mortal bodies in what is termed death. 92:9 Mind is not an entity within the cranium with the power of sinning now and forever.

Knowledge of good and evil

In old Scriptural pictures we see a serpent coiled around 92:12 the tree of knowledge and speaking to Adam and Eve. This represents the serpent in the act of commending to our first parents the knowl- 92:15 edge of good and evil, a knowledge gained from matter, or evil, instead of from Spirit. The portrayal is still graphically accurate, for the common conception of mor- 92:18 tal man - a burlesque of God's man - is an outgrowth of human knowledge or sensuality, a mere offshoot of material sense.

Opposing power

92:21 Uncover error, and it turns the lie upon you. Until the fact concerning error - namely, its nothingness - appears, the moral demand will not be met, 92:24 and the ability to make nothing of error will be wanting. We should blush to call that real which is only a mistake. The foundation of evil is laid on a belief 92:27 in something besides God. This belief tends to support two opposite powers, instead of urging the claims of Truth alone. The mistake of thinking that error can be real, 92:30 when it is merely the absence of truth, leads to belief in the superiority of error.

The age's privilege

Do you say the time has not yet come in which to 93:1 recognize Soul as substantial and able to control the body? Remember Jesus, who nearly nineteen centuries 93:3 ago demonstrated the power of Spirit and said, "He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also," and who also said, "But the hour 93:6 cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth." "Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of sal- 93:9 vation," said Paul.

Logic and revelation

Divine logic and revelation coincide. If we believe otherwise, we may be sure that either our 93:12 logic is at fault or that we have misinterpreted revelation. Good never causes evil, nor creates aught that can cause evil.

93:15 Good does not create a mind susceptible of causing evil, for evil is the opposing error and not the truth of creation. Destructive electricity is not the offspring of in- 93:18 finite good. Whatever contradicts the real nature of the divine Esse, though human faith may clothe it with angelic vestments, is without foundation.

Derivatives of spirit

93:21 The belief that Spirit is finite as well as infinite has darkened all history. In Christian Science, Spirit, as a proper noun, is the name of the Supreme Being. 93:24 It means quantity and quality, and applies ex- clusively to God. The modifying derivatives of the word spirit refer only to quality, not to God. Man is spiritual. 93:27 He is not God, Spirit. If man were Spirit, then men would be spirits, gods. Finite spirit would be mortal, and this is the error embodied in the belief that the infi- 93:30 nite can be contained in the finite. This belief tends to becloud our apprehension of the kingdom of heaven and of the reign of harmony in the Science of being.

Scientific man

94:1 Jesus taught but one God, one Spirit, who makes man in the image and likeness of Himself, - of Spirit, not of 94:3 matter. Man reflects infinite Truth, Life, and Love. The nature of man, thus understood, includes all that is implied by the terms "image" and 94:6 "likeness" as used in Scripture. The truly Christian and scientific statement of personality and of the relation of man to God, with the demonstration which accompa- 94:9 nied it, incensed the rabbis, and they said: "Crucify him, crucify him . . . by our law he ought to die, because he made himself the Son of God."

94:12 The eastern empires and nations owe their false gov- ernment to the misconceptions of Deity there prevalent. Tyranny, intolerance, and bloodshed, wherever found, 94:15 arise from the belief that the infinite is formed after the pattern of mortal personality, passion, and impulse.

Ingratitude and denial

The progress of truth confirms its claims, and our 94:18 Master confirmed his words by his works. His healing- power evoked denial, ingratitude, and be- trayal, arising from sensuality. Of the ten 94:21 lepers whom Jesus healed, but one returned to give God thanks, - that is, to acknowledge the divine Principle which had healed him.

Spiritual insight

94:24 Our Master easily read the thoughts of mankind, and this insight better enabled him to direct those thoughts aright; but what would be said at this period of an in- 94:27 fidel blasphemer who should hint that Jesus used his in- cisive power injuriously? Our Master read mortal mind on a scientific basis, that of the omnipresence of Mind. 94:30 An approximation of this discernment indicates spiritual growth and union with the infinite capacities of the one Mind. Jesus could injure no one by his Mind-reading. 95:1 The effect of his Mind was always to heal and to save, and this is the only genuine Science of reading mortal 95:3 mind. His holy motives and aims were tra- duced by the sinners of that period, as they would be to-day if Jesus were personally present. Paul 95:6 said, "To be spiritually minded is life." We approach God, or Life, in proportion to our spirituality, our fidel- ity to Truth and Love; and in that ratio we know all 95:9 human need and are able to discern the thought of the sick and the sinning for the purpose of healing them. Error of any kind cannot hide from the law of God.

95:12 Whoever reaches this point of moral culture and good- ness cannot injure others, and must do them good. The greater or lesser ability of a Christian Scientist to discern 95:15 thought scientifically, depends upon his genuine spirit- uality. This kind of mind-reading is not clairvoyance, but it is important to success in healing, and is one of the 95:18 special characteristics thereof.

Christ's reappearance

We welcome the increase of knowledge and the end of error, because even human invention must have its 95:21 day, and we want that day to be succeeded by Christian Science, by divine reality. Mid- night foretells the dawn. Led by a solitary star amid 95:24 the darkness, the Magi of old foretold the Messiahship of Truth. Is the wise man of to-day believed, when he beholds the light which heralds Christ's eternal dawn 95:27 and describes its effulgence?

Spiritual awakening

Lulled by stupefying illusions, the world is asleep in the cradle of infancy, dreaming away the hours. 95:30 Material sense does not unfold the facts of existence; but spiritual sense lifts human consciousness into eternal Truth. Humanity advances 96:1 slowly out of sinning sense into spiritual understanding; unwillingness to learn all things rightly, binds Christen- 96:3 dom with chains.

The darkest hours of all

Love will finally mark the hour of harmony, and spir- itualization will follow, for Love is Spirit. Before error 96:6 is wholly destroyed, there will be interrup- tions of the general material routine. Earth will become dreary and desolate, but summer and winter, 96:9 seedtime and harvest (though in changed forms), will continue unto the end, - until the final spiritualization of all things. "The darkest hour precedes the dawn."

Arena of contest

96:12 This material world is even now becoming the arena for conflicting forces. On one side there will be discord and dismay; on the other side there will be 96:15 Science and peace. The breaking up of mate- rial beliefs may seem to be famine and pestilence, want and woe, sin, sickness, and death, which assume new 96:18 phases until their nothingness appears. These disturb- ances will continue until the end of error, when all discord will be swallowed up in spiritual Truth. 96:21 Mortal error will vanish in a moral chemicalization. This mental fermentation has begun, and will continue until all errors of belief yield to understanding. Belief is 96:24 changeable, but spiritual understanding is changeless.

Millennial glory

As this consummation draws nearer, he who has shaped his course in accordance with divine Science 96:27 will endure to the end. As material knowl- edge diminishes and spiritual understanding increases, real objects will be apprehended mentally 96:30 instead of materially.

During this final conflict, wicked minds will endeavor to find means by which to accomplish more evil; but 97:1 those who discern Christian Science will hold crime in check. They will aid in the ejection of error. They 97:3 will maintain law and order, and cheerfully await the certainty of ultimate perfection.

Dangerous resemblances

In reality, the more closely error simulates truth and 97:6 so-called matter resembles its essence, mortal mind, the more impotent error becomes as a belief. Ac- cording to human belief, the lightning is fierce 97:9 and the electric current swift, yet in Christian Science the flight of one and the blow of the other will become harmless. The more destructive matter becomes, the 97:12 more its nothingness will appear, until matter reaches its mortal zenith in illusion and forever disappears. The nearer a false belief approaches truth without passing 97:15 the boundary where, having been destroyed by divine Love, it ceases to be even an illusion, the riper it becomes for destruction. The more material the belief, the more 97:18 obvious its error, until divine Spirit, supreme in its do- main, dominates all matter, and man is found in the like- ness of Spirit, his original being.

97:21 The broadest facts array the most falsities against themselves, for they bring error from under cover. It requires courage to utter truth; for the higher Truth 97:24 lifts her voice, the louder will error scream, until its in- articulate sound is forever silenced in oblivion.

"He uttered His voice, the earth melted." This Scrip- 97:27 ture indicates that all matter will disappear before the supremacy of Spirit.

Christianity still rejected

Christianity is again demonstrating the Life that is 97:30 Truth, and the Truth that is Life, by the apos- tolic work of casting out error and healing the sick. Earth has no repayment for the persecutions which 98:1 attend a new step in Christianity; but the spiritual recom- pense of the persecuted is assured in the elevation of ex- 98:3 istence above mortal discord and in the gift of divine Love.

Spiritual foreshadowings

The prophet of to-day beholds in the mental horizon the signs of these times, the reappearance of the Chris- 98:6 tianity which heals the sick and destroys error, and no other sign shall be given. Body can- not be saved except through Mind. The Science of Chris- 98:9 tianity is misinterpreted by a material age, for it is the healing influence of Spirit (not spirits) which the material senses cannot comprehend, which can only be spiritu- 98:12 ally discerned. Creeds, doctrines, and human hypotheses do not express Christian Science; much less can they demonstrate it.

Revelation of Science

98:15 Beyond the frail premises of human beliefs, above the loosening grasp of creeds, the demonstration of Christian Mind-healing stands a revealed and practical 98:18 Science. It is imperious throughout all ages as Christ's revelation of Truth, of Life, and of Love, which remains inviolate for every man to understand and to 98:21 practise.

Science as foreign to all religion

For centuries - yea, always - natural science has not been considered a part of any religion, Christianity not 98:24 excepted. Even now multitudes consider that which they call science has no proper con- nection with faith and piety. Mystery does 98:27 not enshroud Christ's teachings, and they are not theo- retical and fragmentary, but practical and complete; and being practical and complete, they are not deprived of 98:30 their essential vitality.

Key to the kingdom

The way through which immortality and life are learned is not ecclesiastical but Christian, not human but divine, 99:1 not physical but metaphysical, not material but scien- tifically spiritual. Human philosophy, ethics, and super- 99:3 stition afford no demonstrable divine Principle by which mortals can escape from sin; yet to escape from sin, is what the Bible demands. "Work 99:6 out your own salvation with fear and trembling," says the apostle, and he straightway adds: "for it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of His good 99:9 pleasure" (Philippians ii. 12, 13). Truth has furnished the key to the kingdom, and with this key Christian Sci- ence has opened the door of the human understanding. 99:12 None may pick the lock nor enter by some other door. The ordinary teachings are material and not spiritual. Christian Science teaches only that which is spiritual and 99:15 divine, and not human. Christian Science is unerring and Divine; the human sense of things errs because it is human.

99:18 Those individuals, who adopt theosophy, spiritualism, or hypnotism, may possess natures above some others who eschew their false beliefs. Therefore my contest is 99:21 not with the individual, but with the false system. I love mankind, and shall continue to labor and to endure.

The calm, strong currents of true spirituality, the 99:24 manifestations of which are health, purity, and self- immolation, must deepen human experience, until the beliefs of material existence are seen to be a bald imposi- 99:27 tion, and sin, disease, and death give everlasting place to the scientific demonstration of divine Spirit and to God's spiritual, perfect man.