|
TO
THE COLLEGE ASSOCIATION
Letter read at the meeting of the Massachusetts
Metaphysical
|
| 24 |
College Association, June
3, 1891
TO THE MEMBERS OF THE
CHRISTIAN SCIENTISTS' ASSOCIATION OF |
| 27 |
THE MASSACHUSETTS
METAPHYSICAL COLLEGE
My Beloved Students: - You may be
looking to see me
in my accustomed place with you, but this you must no
Page
136 |
| 1 |
longer expect. When I retired from the
field of labor,
it was a departure, socially, publicly, and finally,
from |
| 3 |
the routine of such material modes as
society and our
societies demand. Rumors are rumors, - nothing more.
I
am still with you on the field of battle, taking forward |
| 6 |
marches, broader and higher views, and
with the hope
that you will follow.
The eternal and
infinite, already brought to your |
| 9 |
earnest consideration, so grow upon my
vision that I
cannot feel justified in turning aside for one hour from
contemplation of them and of the faith unfeigned. |
| 12 |
When the verities of being seem to you as
to me, - as
they must some time, - you will understand the neces-
sity
for my seclusion, and its fulfilment of divine order. |
| 15 |
"Wherefore come out from among them, and
be ye sepa-
rate, saith the Lord."
All our thoughts
should be given to the absolute |
| 18 |
demonstration of Christian Science. You can
well
afford to give me up, since you have in my last re-
vised edition
of Science and Health your teacher and |
| 21 |
guide.
I recommend that the
June session of this honorable
body shall close your meetings for the
summer; also, that |
| 24 |
hereafter you hold three sessions annually,
convening
once in four months; oftener is not requisite, and the
members coming from a distance will be accommodated |
| 27 |
by this arrangement.
Yours
affectionately,
MARY B. G. EDDY
Page
137
TO
THE NATIONAL CHRISTIAN SCIENTIST ASSOCIATION
My Dear Students
and Friends: - Accept my
thanks |
| 3 |
for your card of invitation, your badge,
and order of exer-
cise, all of which are complete.
When I gave you a
meagre reception in Boston at the |
| 6 |
close of the first convention of the
National Christian
Scientist Association, it was simply to give you the
privi-
lege, poor as it was, of speaking a few words aside to your |
| 9 |
teacher. I remember my regret, when, having
asked in
general assembly if you had any questions to propose, I
received no reply. Since then you have doubtless realized |
| 12 |
that such opportunity might have been
improved; but
that time has passed.
I greatly rejoice
over the growth of my students within |
| 15 |
the last few years. It was kind of you to
part so gently
with the protecting wings of the mother-bird, and to
spread
your own so bravely. Now, dear ones, if you take my |
| 18 |
advice again, you will do - what?
Even this:
Disorganize the National Christian Scien-
tist Association! and each one
return to his place of |
| 21 |
labor, to work out individually and alone,
for himself and
for others, the sublime ends of human life.
To accomplish this,
you must give much time to self- |
| 24 |
examination and correction; you must
control appetite,
passion, pride, envy, evil-speaking, resentment, and
each
one of the innumerable errors that worketh or maketh |
| 27 |
a lie. Then you can give to the world the
benefit of all
this, and heal and teach with increased confidence. My
students can now organize their students into associa- |
| 30 |
tions, form churches, and hold these
organizations of their
Page
138 |
| 1 |
own, - until, in turn, their students will
sustain them-
selves and work for others. |
| 3 |
The time it takes yearly to prepare for
this national
convention is worse than wasted, if it causes thought to
wander in the wilderness or ways of the world. The de- |
| 6 |
tail of conforming to society, in any way,
costs you what
it would to give time and attention to hygiene in your
ministry and healing. |
| 9 |
For students to work together is not always
to co-
operate, but sometimes to coelbow! Each student should
seek
alone the guidance of our common Father - even |
| 12 |
the divine Principle which he claims to
demonstrate, -
and especially should he prove his faith by works, ethi-
cally, physically, and spiritually. Remember that the |
| 15 |
first and last lesson of Christian Science
is love, perfect
love, and love made perfect through the cross.
I once thought that
in unity was human strength; but |
| 18 |
have grown to know that human strength is
weakness, -
that unity is divine might, giving to human power, peace.
My counsel is
applicable to the state of general growth |
| 21 |
in the members of the National Christian
Scientist Asso-
ciation, but it is not so adapted to the members of
students' organizations. And wherefore? Because the |
| 24 |
growth of these at first is more gradual;
but whenever
they are equal to the march triumphant, God will give
to
all His soldiers of the cross the proper command, and |
| 27 |
under the banner of His love, and with the
"still, small
voice" for the music of our march, we all shall take step
and march on in spiritual organization. |
| 30 |
Your loving teacher,
MARY BAKER G.
EDDY
CONCORD, N. H., May
23, 1890
Page
139 |
| 1 |
N. B. I recommend this honorable body to
adjourn,
if it does not disorganize, to three years from this date; |
| 3 |
or, if it does disorganize, to meet again
in three years.
Then bring your tithes into the storehouse, and God
will
pour you out a blessing such as you even yet have not
received.
M. B. G. E.
TO
THE FIRST CHURCH OF CHRIST, SCIENTIST, BOSTON
(For the weapons
of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty
through God to the pulling down
of strong holds;) casting down
12 imaginations, and every high thing
that exalteth itself against the
knowledge of God, and bringing into
captivity every thought to the
obedience of Christ. - 2 COR. x. 4,
5. |
| 15 |
In April, 1883, I started the
Journal of Christian
Science, with a portion of the above Scripture
for its
motto. |
| 18 |
On December 10, 1889, I gave a lot of land
- in
Boston, situated near the beautiful Back
Bay Park, now
valued at $20,000 and rising in value - for the
purpose |
| 21 |
of having erected thereon a church edifice
to be called The
Church of Christ, Scientist.
I had this desirable site transferred in a
circuitous, |
| 24 |
novel way, at the wisdom whereof a few
persons have
since scrupled; but to my spiritual perception, like all
true wisdom, this transaction will in future be regarded |
| 27 |
as greatly wise, and it will be found that
this act was in
advance of the erring mind's apprehension.
As with all former efforts in the interest
of Christian |
| 30 |
Science, I took care that the provisions
for the land and
Page
140 |
| 1 |
building were such as error could not
control. I knew
that to God's gift, foundation and superstructure, no
one |
| 3 |
could hold a wholly material title. The
land, and the
church standing on it, must be conveyed through a type
representing the true nature of the gift; a type morally |
| 6 |
and spiritually inalienable, but materially
questionable
- even after the manner that all spiritual good comes
to
Christian Scientists, to the end of taxing their faith |
| 9 |
in God, and their adherence to the
superiority of the
claims of Spirit over matter or merely legal titles.
No one could buy,
sell, or mortgage my gift as I had |
| 12 |
it conveyed. Thus the case rested, and I
supposed the
trustee-deed was legal; but this was God's business, not
mine. Our church was prospered by the right hand of |
| 15 |
His righteousness, and contributions to the
Building Fund
generously poured into the treasury. Unity prevailed, -
till mortal man sought to know who owned God's temple, |
| 18 |
and adopted and urged only the material
side of this
question.
The lot of land
which I donated I redeemed from under |
| 21 |
mortgage. The foundation on which our
church was to
be built had to be rescued from the grasp of legal power,
and now it must be put back into the arms of Love, if we |
| 24 |
would not be found fighting against God.
The diviner claim
and means for upbuilding the Church
of Christ were prospered. Our title to
God's acres will |
| 27 |
be safe and sound - when we can "read our
title clear"
to heavenly mansions. Built on the rock, our church
will
stand the storms of ages: though the material super- |
| 30 |
structure should crumble into dust, the
fittest would sur-
vive, - the spiritual idea would live, a perpetual type
of
the divine Principle it reflects.
Page
141 |
| 1 |
The First Church of Christ, Scientist, our
prayer in
stone, will be the prophecy fulfilled, the monument up- |
| 3 |
reared, of Christian Science. It will speak
to you of the
Mother, and of your hearts' offering to her through whom
was revealed to you God's all-power, all-presence, and |
| 6 |
all-science. This building begun, will go
up, and no one
can suffer from it, for no one can resist the power that
is behind it; and against this church temple "the gates |
| 9 |
of hell" cannot prevail.
All loyal Christian
Scientists hail with joy this pro-
posed type of universal Love; not so,
however, with |
| 12 |
error, which hates the bonds and methods of
Truth, and
shudders at the freedom, might, and majesty of Spirit,
-
even the annihilating law of Love. |
| 15 |
I vindicate both the law of God and the
laws of our
land. I believe, - yea, I understand, - that with the
spirit of Christ actuating all the parties concerned about |
| 18 |
the legal quibble, it can easily be
corrected to the satis-
faction of all. Let this be speedily done. Do not,
I im-
plore you, stain the early history of Christian Science by |
| 21 |
the impulses of human will and pride; but
let the divine
will and the nobility of human meekness rule this busi-
ness transaction, in obedience to the law of Love and the |
| 24 |
laws of our land.
As the ambassador of
Christ's teachings, I admonish
you: Delay not longer to commence building
our church |
| 27 |
in Boston; or else return every dollar that
you yourselves
declare you have had no legal authority for obtaining,
to
the several contributors, - and let them, not you, say |
| 30 |
what shall be done with their money.
Of our first church
in Boston, O recording angel!
write: God is in the midst of her: how
beautiful are her
Page
142 |
| 1 |
feet! how beautiful are her garments! how
hath He en-
larged her borders! how hath He made her wildernesses |
| 3 |
to bud and blossom as the rose!
With
love,
MARY BAKER EDDY
TO
DONORS OF BOAT, FROM TORONTO, CANADA
Written on
receipt of a beautiful boat presented by Christian
Scientists in Toronto,
for the little pond at Pleasant View. The |
| 9 |
boat displays, among other
beautiful decorations, a number of
masonic symbols.
Beloved Students and Friends: -
Accept my thanks |
| 12 |
for the beautiful boat and presentation
poem. Each day
since they arrived I have said, Let me write to the
donors,
- and what? |
| 15 |
My first impression was to indite a poem;
my second,
a psalm; my third, a letter. Why the letter alone? Be-
cause
your dear hearts expressed in their lovely gift such |
| 18 |
varying types of true affection, shaded as
autumn leaves
with bright hues of the spiritual, that my Muse lost her
lightsome lyre, and imagery of thought gave place to |
| 21 |
chords of feeling too deep for words.
A boat song seemed more Olympian than the
psalm in
spiritual strains of the Hebrew bard. So I send my |
| 24 |
answer in a commonplace letter. Poor
return, is it
not?
The symbols of freemasonry depicted on the
boat |
| 27 |
wakened memory, touched tender fibres of
thought, and
I longed to say to the masonic brothers: If as a woman
I
may not unite with you in freemasonry, nor you with |
| 30 |
me in Christian Science, yet as friends we
can feel the
Page
143 |
| 1 |
touch of heart to heart and hand to hand,
on the broad
basis and sure foundation of true friendship's "level" |
| 3 |
and the "square" of moral sentiments.
My dear students may
have explained to the kind par-
ticipants in beautifying this boat our
spiritual points, |
| 6 |
above the plane of matter. If so, I may
hope that a
closer link hath bound us. Across lakes, into a kingdom,
I
reach out my hand to clasp yours, with this silent bene- |
| 9 |
diction: May the kingdom of heaven come in
each of
your hearts!
With love, |
| 12 |
MARY BAKER EDDY
ADDRESS, - LAYING THE CORNER-STONE
Beloved
Students:-On the 21st day of May, A.
D. |
| 15 |
1894, with quiet, imposing ceremony, is
laid the corner-
stone of "The First Church of Christ, Scientist," in
Boston. |
| 18 |
It gives me great pleasure to say that you,
principally
the Normal class graduates of my College, well known
physicians, teachers, editors, and pastors of churches, |
| 21 |
by contributions of one thousand dollars
each, husband
and wife reckoned as one, have, within about three
months, donated the munificent sum of forty-two thou- |
| 24 |
sand dollars toward building The Mother
Church. A
quiet call from me for this extra contribution, in aid of
our
Church Building Fund, found you all "with one |
| 27 |
accord in one place." Each donation came
promptly;
sometimes at much self-sacrifice, but always accompanied
with
a touching letter breathing the donor's privileged joy.
Page
144 |
| 1 |
The granite for this church was taken from
the quar-
ries in New Hampshire, my native State. The money |
| 3 |
for building "Mother's Room," situated in
the second
story of the tower on the northeast corner of this build-
ing, and the name thereof, came from the dear children |
| 6 |
of Christian Scientists; a little band
called Busy Bees,
organized by Miss Maurine R. Campbell.
On this memorable
day there are laid away a copy of |
| 9 |
this address, the subscription list on
which appear your
several names in your own handwriting, your textbook,
"Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," and |
| 12 |
other works written by the same author,
your teacher,
the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science; (1)
with-
out pomp or pride, laid away as a sacred secret in the |
| 15 |
heart of a rock, there to typify the
prophecy, "And a man
shall be as an hiding place from the wind, and a
covert
from the tempest; . . . as the shadow of a great rock in |
| 18 |
weary land:" henceforth to whisper our
Master's
promise, "Upon this rock I will build my church; and
the gates
of hell shall not prevail against it." |
| 21 |
To-day, be this hope in each of our hearts,
- precious
in God's sight as shall be the assembling of His people
in
this temple, sweet as the rest that remaineth for the |
| 24 |
righteous, and fresh as a summer morn, -
that, from
earth's pillows of stone, our visible lives are rising to
God. As in the history of a seed, so may our earthly |
| 27 |
sowing bear fruit that exudes the
inspiration of the wine
poured into the cup of Christ.
To-day I pray that
divine Love, the life-giving Prin- |
| 30 |
ciple of Christianity, shall speedily wake
the long night
of materialism, and the universal dawn shall break upon
the spire of this temple. The Church, more than any
(1) A copy of the
Bible was included among the books placed in the corner-stone.
Page
145 |
| 1 |
other institution, at present is the cement
of society, and
it should be the bulwark of civil and religious
liberty. |
| 3 |
But the time cometh when the religious
element, or Church
of Christ, shall exist alone in the affections, and need
no
organization to express it. Till then, this form of godli- |
| 6 |
ness seems as requisite to manifest its
spirit, as individ-
uality to express Soul and substance.
Does a single bosom
burn for fame and power? Then |
| 9 |
when that person shall possess these, let
him ask him-
self, and answer to his name in this corner-stone of our
temple: Am I greater for them? And if he thinks that |
| 12 |
he is, then is he less than man to whom God
gave "do-
minion over all the earth," less than the meek who "in-
herit the earth." Even vanity forbids man to be vain; |
| 15 |
and pride is a hooded hawk which flies in
darkness. Over
a wounded sense of its own error, let not mortal thought
resuscitate too soon. |
| 18 |
In our rock-bound friendship, delicate as
dear, our
names may melt into one, and common dust, and their
modest
sign be nothingness. Be this as it may, the visible |
| 21 |
unity of spirit remains, to quicken even
dust into sweet
memorial such as Isaiah prophesied: "The wolf also shall
dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with |
| 24 |
the kid; and the calf and the young lion
and the fatling
together; and a little child shall lead them."
When the
hearts of Christian Scientists are woven to- |
| 27 |
gether as are their names in the web of
history, earth will
float majestically heaven's heraldry, and echo the
song
of angels: "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth |
| 30 |
peace, good will toward men."
To The Church of
Christ, Scientist, in Boston, and to
the dear children that my heart folds
within it, let me
Page
146 |
| 1 |
say, 'Tis sweet to remember thee, and God's
Zion, with
healing on her wings. May her walls be vocal with sal- |
| 3 |
vation; and her gates with praise!
TO
THE FIRST CHURCH OF CHRIST, SCIENTIST, BOSTON |
| 6 |
My Beloved Students: - I cannot
conscientiously lend
my counsel to direct your action on receiving or
dismiss-
ing candidates. To do this, I should need to be with |
| 9 |
you. I cannot accept hearsay, and would
need to know
the circumstances and facts regarding both sides of the
subject, to form a proper judgment. This is not my |
| 12 |
present province; hence I have hitherto
declined to be
consulted on these subjects, and still maintain this
position. |
| 15 |
These are matters of grave import; and you
cannot
be indifferent to this, but will give them immediate at-
tention, and be governed therein by the spirit and the |
| 18 |
letter of this Scripture: "Whatsoever ye
would that men
should do unto you, do ye even so to them."
I cannot be the
conscience for this church; but if I |
| 21 |
were, I would gather every reformed mortal
that desired
to come, into its fold, and counsel and help him to walk
in the footsteps of His flock. I feel sure that as Chris- |
| 24 |
tian Scientists you will act, relative to
this matter, up to
your highest understanding of justice and mercy.
Affectionately yours, |
| 27 |
MARY BAKER EDDY
Feb. 12, 1895
Page
147
THE FIRST MEMBERS OF THE FIRST CHURCH OF CHRIST, SCIENTIST,
BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS |
| 3 |
My Beloved Students: - Another year
has rolled on,
another annual meeting has convened, another space of
time has been given us, and has another duty been done |
| 6 |
and another victory won for time and
eternity? Do you
meet in unity, preferring one another, and
demonstrating
the divine Principle of Christian Science? Have you |
| 9 |
improved past hours, and ladened them with
records
worthy to be borne heavenward? Have you learned
that sin is
inadmissible, and indicates a small mind? |
| 12 |
Do you manifest love for those that hate
you and de-
spitefully use you?
The man of integrity is one who makes it
his constant |
| 15 |
rule to follow the road of duty, according
as Truth and
the voice of his conscience point it out to him. He is
not
guided merely by affections which may some time give |
| 18 |
the color of virtue to a loose and
unstable character.
The upright man is guided by a fixed
Principle, which
destines him to do nothing but what is honorable, and
to |
| 21 |
abhor whatever is base or unworthy; hence
we find him
ever the same, - at all times the trusty friend, the affec-
tionate relative, the conscientious man of business, the |
| 24 |
pious worker, the public-spirited
citizen.
He assumes no borrowed appearance. He
seeks no
mask to cover him, for he acts no studied part; but he |
| 27 |
is indeed what he appears to be, - full of
truth, candor,
and humanity. In all his pursuits, he knows no path
but
the fair, open, and direct one, and would much rather |
| 30 |
fail of success than attain it by
reproachable means. He
Page
148 |
| 1 |
never shows us a smiling countenance while
he meditates
evil against us in his heart. We shall never find one
part |
| 3 |
of his character at variance with another.
Lovingly yours,
MARY BAKER EDDY |
| 6 |
Sept. 30, 1895
EXTRACT FROM A LETTER
The Rules and
By-laws in the Manual of The First |
| 9 |
Church of Christ, Scientist, Boston,
originated not in
solemn conclave as in ancient Sanhedrim. They were
not arbitrary opinions nor dictatorial demands, such as |
| 12 |
one person might impose on another. They
were im-
pelled by a power not one's own, were written at differ-
ent
dates, and as the occasion required. They sprang |
| 15 |
from necessity, the logic of events, - from
the immedi-
ate demand for them as a help that must be supplied to
maintain the dignity and defense of our Cause; hence |
| 18 |
their simple, scientific basis, and detail
so requisite to
demonstrate genuine Christian Science, and which will
do for the race what absolute doctrines destined for future |
| 21 |
generations might not accomplish.
TO
THE MOTHER CHURCH
Beloved
Brethren: - Until recently, I was not
aware |
| 24 |
that the contribution box was presented at
your Friday
evening meetings. I specially desire that you collect no
moneyed contributions from the people present on these |
| 27 |
occasions.
Let the invitation
to this sweet converse be in the words
of the prophet Isaiah: "Ho, every
one that thirsteth,
Page
149 |
| 1 |
come ye to the waters, and he that hath no
money; come
ye, buy, and eat; yea, come, buy wine and milk without |
| 3 |
money and without price."
Invite all cordially
and freely to this banquet of Chris-
tian Science, this feast and flow of
Soul. Ask them to |
| 6 |
bring what they possess of love and light
to help leaven
your loaf and replenish your scanty store. Then, after
presenting the various offerings, and one after another |
| 9 |
has opened his lips to discourse and
distribute what God
has given him of experience, hope, faith, and
under-
standing, gather up the fragments, and count the baskets |
| 12 |
full of accessions to your love, and see
that nothing has
been lost.
With
love, |
| 15 |
MARY BAKER EDDY
TO
FIRST CHURCH OF CHRIST, SCIENTIST, IN OCONTO |
| 18 |
My Beloved Brethren: - Lips nor pen
can ever ex-
press the joy you give me in parting so promptly with
your
beloved pastor, Rev. Mr. Norcross, to send him to |
| 21 |
aid me. It is a refreshing demonstration of
Christianity,
brotherly love, and all the rich graces of the Spirit.
May
this sacrifice bring to your beloved church a vision of the |
| 24 |
new church, that cometh down from heaven,
whose altar
is a loving heart, whose communion is fellowship with
saints and angels. This example of yours is a light that |
| 27 |
cannot be hid.
Guided by the pillar
and the cloud, this little church
that built the first temple for Christian
Science worship |
| 30 |
shall abide steadfastly in the faith of
Jesus' words: "Fear
Page
150 |
| 1 |
not, little flock; for it is your Father's
good pleasure to
give you the kingdom." May He soon give you a pastor; |
| 3 |
already you have the great Shepherd of
Israel watch-
ing over you. Give my forever-love to your dear church.
Yours in bonds of Christ, |
| 6 |
MARY BAKER G. EDDY
Boston, Mass.,
1889
TO
FIRST CHURCH OF CHRIST, SCIENTIST, IN SCRANTON
Beloved
Brethren: - Space is no separator of
hearts.
Spiritually, I am with all who are with Truth, and
whose |
| 12 |
hearts to-day are repeating their joy that
God dwelleth
in the congregation of the faithful, and loveth the gates
of Zion. |
| 15 |
The outlook is cheering. We have already
seen the
salvation of many people by means of Christian Science.
Chapels and churches are dotting the entire land. Con- |
| 18 |
venient houses and halls can now be
obtained wherein, as
whereout, Christian Scientists may worship the
Father
"in spirit and in truth," as taught by our great Master. |
| 21 |
"If God be for us, who can be against us?"
If He
be with us, the wayside is a sanctuary, and the desert a
resting-place peopled with living witnesses of the fact |
| 24 |
that "God is Love."
God is universal;
confined to no spot, defined by no
dogma, appropriated by no sect. Not more
to one than |
| 27 |
to all, is God demonstrable as divine Life,
Truth, and
Love; and His people are they that reflect Him - that
reflect Love. Again, this infinite Principle, with its uni- |
| 30 |
versal manifestation, is all that really
is or can be;
hence God is our Shepherd. He guards, guides, feeds,
Page
151 |
| 1 |
and folds the sheep of His pasture; and
their ears are
attuned to His call. In the words of the loving
disciple, |
| 3 |
"My sheep hear my voice, . . . and they
follow me;
neither shall any man pluck them out of my
hand." |
| 6 |
God is a consuming fire. He separates the
dross from
the gold, purifies the human character, through the
furnace
of affliction. Those who bear fruit He purgeth, |
| 9 |
that they may bear more fruit. Through the
sacred law,
He speaketh to the unfruitful in tones of Sinai: and, in
the gospel, He saith of the barren fig-tree, "Cut it down; |
| 12 |
why cumbereth it the ground?"
God is our Father
and our Mother, our Minister and
the great Physician: He is man's only real
relative on |
| 15 |
earth and in heaven. David sang, "Whom have
I in
heaven but thee? and there is none upon earth that I
desire beside
thee." |
| 18 |
Brother, sister, beloved in the Lord,
knowest thou
thyself, and art thou acquainted with God? If not, I
pray
thee as a Christian Scientist, delay not to make Him |
| 21 |
thy first acquaintance.
Glorious things are
spoken of you in His Word. Ye
are a chosen people, whose God is - what?
Even All. |
| 24 |
May mercy and truth go before you: may the
lamp of
your life continually be full of oil, and you be wedded
to the
spiritual idea, Christ; then will you heal, and |
| 27 |
teach, and preach, on the ascending scale
of everlasting
Life and Love.
Affectionately yours in Christ, |
| 30 |
MARY BAKER EDDY
Page
152
TO
FIRST CHURCH OF CHRIST, SCIENTIST, IN DENVER |
| 3 |
Beloved Pastor and Brethren: - "As
in water face
answereth to face," and in love continents clasp hands, so
the oneness of God includes also His presence with those |
| 6 |
whose hearts unite in the purposes of
goodness. Of this
we may be sure: that thoughts winged with peace and
love breathe a silent benediction over all the earth, co- |
| 9 |
operate with the divine power, and brood
unconsciously
o'er the work of His hand.
I, as a corporeal
person, am not in your midst: I, as a |
| 12 |
dictator, arbiter, or ruler, am not
present; but I, as a
mother whose heart pulsates with every throb of
theirs
for the welfare of her children, am present, and rejoice |
| 15 |
with them that rejoice.
May meekness, mercy,
and love dwell forever in the
hearts of those who worship in this
tabernacle: then |
| 18 |
will they receive the heritage that God has
prepared for
His people,-made ready for the pure in affection, the
meek
in spirit, the worshipper in truth, the follower of |
| 21 |
good.
Thus founded upon
the rock of Christ, when storm
and tempest beat against this sure
foundation, you, |
| 24 |
safely sheltered in the strong tower of
hope, faith, and
Love, are God's nestlings; and He will hide you in His
feathers till the storm has passed. Into His haven of |
| 27 |
Soul there enters no element of earth to
cast out angels,
to silence the right intuition which guides you safely
home. |
| 30 |
Exercise more faith in God and His
spiritual means
Page
153 |
| 1 |
and methods, than in man and his material
ways and
means, of establishing the Cause of Christian Science. |
| 3 |
If right yourself, God will confirm His
inheritance. "Be
not weary in well doing." Truth is restful, and Love
is
triumphant. |
| 6 |
When God went forth before His people, they
were
fed with manna: they marched through the wilderness:
they passed
through the Red Sea, untouched by the bil- |
| 9 |
lows. At His command, the rock became a
fountain;
and the land of promise, green isles of refreshment. In
the
words of the Psalmist, when" the Lord gave the word: |
| 12 |
great was the company of those that
published it."
God is good to
Israel, - washed in the waters of
Meribah, cleansed of the flesh, - good to
His Israel |
| 15 |
encompassed not with pride, hatred,
self-will, and self-
justification; wherein violence covereth men as a
gar-
ment, and as captives are they enchained. |
| 18 |
Christian Scientists bring forth the fruits
of Spirit,
not flesh; and God giveth this "new name" to no man
who
honors Him not by positive proof of trust worthiness. |
| 21 |
May you be able to say, "I have not
cleansed my heart
in vain."
Sir Edwin Arnold, to
whom I presented a copy of |
| 24 |
my first edition of "Science and Health
with Key to the
Scriptures," writes: -
Peace on earth and Good-will! |
| 27 |
Souls that are gentle and
still
Hear the first music of this
Far-off, infinite, Bliss! |
| 30 |
So may the God of peace be and abide with
this church.
Affectionately yours,
MARY BAKER EDDY
Page
154
TO
FIRST CHURCH OF CHRIST, SCIENTIST, IN LAWRENCE |
| 3 |
Beloved Brethren: - The spreading
branches of The
Church of Christ, Scientist, are fast reaching out
their
broad shelter to the entire world. Your faith has not |
| 6 |
been without works, - and God's love for
His flock is
manifest in His care. He will dig about this little
church,
prune its encumbering branches, water it with the dews |
| 9 |
of heaven, enrich its roots, and enlarge
its borders with
divine Love. God only waits for man's worthiness to
enhance the means and measure of His grace. You |
| 12 |
have already proof of the prosperity of His
Zion. You
sit beneath your own vine and fig-tree as the growth
of
spirituality - even that vine whereof our Father is |
| 15 |
husbandman.
It is the purpose of
divine Love to resurrect the under-
standing, and the kingdom of God, the
reign of har- |
| 18 |
mony already within us. Through the word
that is
spoken unto you, are you made free. Abide in His word,
and it
shall abide in you; and the healing Christ will |
| 21 |
again be made manifest in the flesh -
understood and
glorified.
Honor thy Father and
Mother, God. Continue in |
| 24 |
His love. Bring forth fruit - "signs
following" - that
your prayers be not hindered. Pray without ceasing.
Watch diligently; never desert the post of spiritual ob- |
| 27 |
servation and self-examination. Strive for
self-abnega-
tion, justice, meekness, mercy, purity, love. Let your
light reflect Light. Have no ambition, affection, nor |
| 30 |
aim apart from holiness. Forget not for a
moment, that
Page
155 |
| 1 |
God is All-in-all-therefore, that in
reality there is but
one cause and effect. |
| 3 |
The pride of circumstance or power is the
prince of
this world that has nothing in Christ. All power and
happiness are spiritual, and proceed from goodness. |
| 6 |
Sacrifice self to bless one another, even
as God has
blessed you. Forget self in laboring for mankind; then
will
you woo the weary wanderer to your door, win the |
| 9 |
pilgrim and stranger to your church, and
find access to
the heart of humanity. While pressing meekly on, be
faithful, be valiant in the Christian's warfare, and peace |
| 12 |
will crown your joy.
Lovingly
yours,
MARY BAKER EDDY
TO
CORRESPONDENTS
Beloved
Students: - Because Mother has not the
time
even to read all of her interesting correspondence,
and |
| 18 |
less wherein to answer it (however much she
desires
thus to do), she hereby requests: First, that you, her
students' students, who write such excellent letters to |
| 21 |
her, will hereafter, as a general rule,
send them to the
editors of The Christian Science Journal for
publication,
and thereby give to us all the pleasure of hearing from
you. |
| 24 |
If my own students cannot spare time to
write to God,
- when they address me I shall be apt to forward their
letters to Him as our common Parent, and by way of |
| 27 |
The Christian Science Journal; thus
fulfilling their moral
obligation to furnish some reading-matter for our
denomi-
national organ. Methinks, were they to contemplate the |
| 30 |
universal charge wherewith divine Love has
entrusted us,
Page
156
Miscellaneous
Writings |
| 1 |
in behalf of a suffering race, they would
contribute oftener
to the pages of this swift vehicle of scientific
thought; |
| 3 |
for it reaches a vast number of earnest
readers, and seek-
ers after Truth.
With love,
MARY BAKER EDDY
TO
STUDENTS
Beloved Christian
Scientists: - Please send in your
contributions as usual to our Journal. All is well at
head- |
| 9 |
quarters, and when the mist shall melt away
you will see
clearly the signs of Truth and the heaven of Love within
your hearts. Let the reign of peace and harmony be |
| 12 |
supreme and forever yours.
I proposed to merge
the adjourned meeting in the one
held at Chicago, because I saw no
advantage, but great |
| 15 |
disadvantage, in one student's opinions or
modus oper-
andi becoming the basis for others: read "Retrospection"
on this subject. Science is absolute, and best under- |
| 18 |
stood through the study of my works and the
daily Chris-
tian demonstration thereof. It is their materiality
that
clogs the progress of students, and "this kind goeth not |
| 21 |
forth but by prayer and fasting." It is
materialism through
which the animal magnetizer preys, and in turn
becomes
a prey. Spirituality is the basis of all true thought and |
| 24 |
volition. Assembling themselves together,
and listening
to each other amicably, or contentiously, is no aid to
students in acquiring solid Christian Science. Experi- |
| 27 |
ence and, above all, obedience, are
the aids and tests of
growth and understanding in this direction.
With
love, |
| 30 |
MARY B. G. EDDY
Page
157
TO
A STUDENT
My Dear
Student: - It is a great thing to be
found |
| 3 |
worthy to suffer for Christ, Truth. Paul
said, "If we
suffer, we shall also reign with him." Reign then, my
beloved in the Lord. He that marketh the sparrow's fall |
| 6 |
will direct thy way.
I have written, or
caused my secretary to write, to Mr.
and Mrs. Stewart, of Toronto, Canada
(you will find their |
| 9 |
card in The C. S. Journal), that you
or your lawyer will
ask them all questions important for your case, and
re-
quested that they furnish all information possible. They |
| 12 |
will be glad to help you. Every true
Christian Scientist
will feel "as bound with you," but as free in Truth
and
Love, safe under the shadow of His wing. |
| 15 |
Yes, my student, my Father is your Father;
and He
helps us most when help is most needed, for He is the
ever-present help. |
| 18 |
I am glad that you are in good cheer. I
enclose you
the name of Mr. E. A. Kimball, C. S. D., of Chicago, -
5020 Woodlawn Ave., - for items relative to Mrs. Steb- |
| 21 |
bin's case.
"Commit thy way unto
the Lord; trust also in Him;
and He shall bring it to pass. And He shall
bring forth |
| 24 |
thy righteousness as the light, and thy
judgment as the
noonday." This I know, for God is for us.
Write me when you
need me. Error has no power |
| 27 |
but to destroy itself. It cannot harm
you; it cannot stop
the eternal currents of Truth.
Ever with
love, |
| 30 |
MARY B. G. EDDY
Page
158
TO
A STUDENT
My Beloved
Student: - In reply to your letter I
will |
| 3 |
say: God's ways are not as our ways; but
higher far
than the heavens above the earth is His wisdom above
ours.
When I requested you to be ordained, I little |
| 6 |
thought of the changes about to be made.
When I in-
sisted on your speaking without notes, I little knew that
so
soon another change in your pulpit would be demanded. |
| 9 |
But now, after His messenger has obeyed the
message
of divine Love, comes the interpretation thereof. But you
see
we both had first to obey, and to do this through faith, |
| 12 |
not sight.
The meaning of it
all, as now shown, is this: when
you were bidden to be ordained, it was in
reward for your |
| 15 |
faithful service, thus to honor it. The
second command,
to drop the use of notes, was to rebuke a lack of faith
in
divine help, and to test your humility and obedience in |
| 18 |
bearing this cross.
All God's servants
are minute men and women. As
of old, I stand with sandals on and staff in
hand, wait- |
| 21 |
ing for the watchword and the revelation of
what, how,
whither. Let us be faithful and obedient, and God will
do
the rest. |
| 24 |
In the April number of The Christian
Science Journal
you will find the forthcoming completion (as I now
think)
of the divine directions sent out to the churches. It is |
| 27 |
satisfactory to note, however, that the
order therein given
corresponds to the example of our Master. Jesus was
not ordained as our churches ordain ministers. We |
| 30 |
have no record that he used notes when
preaching. He
Page
159 |
| 1 |
spake in their synagogues, reading the
Scriptures and
expounding them; and God has given to this age "Science |
| 3 |
and Health with Key to the Scriptures," to
elucidate
His Word.
You may read this
letter to your church, and then |
| 6 |
send it to Rev. Mr. Norcross, and he will
understand.
May the God of all grace give you peace.
With love, |
| 9 |
MARY BAKER EDDY
EXTRACT FROM A CHRISTMAS LETTER
Beloved
Students: - My heart has many rooms:
one |
| 12 |
of these is sacred to the memory of my
students. Into
this upper chamber, where all things are pure and of
good report, - into this sanctuary of love, - I often |
| 15 |
retreat, sit silently, and ponder. In this
chamber is
memory's wardrobe, where I deposit certain recollec-
tions
and rare grand collections once in each year. This |
| 18 |
is my Christmas storehouse. Its goods
commemorate,
- not so much the Bethlehem babe, as the man of God,
the
risen Christ, and the adult Jesus. Here I deposit |
| 21 |
the gifts that my dear students offer at
the shrine of
Christian Science, and to their lone Leader. Here I talk
once a year, - and this is a bit of what I said in 1890: |
| 24 |
"O glorious Truth ! O Mother Love ! how has
the sense
of Thy children grown to behold Thee! and how have
many weary wings sprung upward! and how has our |
| 27 |
Model, Christ, been unveiled to us, and to
the age!"
I look at the rich
devices in embroidery, silver, gold,
and jewels,-all gifts of Christian
Scientists from all |
| 30 |
parts of our nation, and some from abroad,
- then al-
Page
160 |
| 1 |
most marvel at the power and permanence of
affection
under the régime of Christian Science! Never did
grati- |
| 3 |
tude and love unite more honestly in
uttering the word
thanks, than ours at this season. But a mother's
love
behind words has no language; it may give no material |
| 6 |
token, but lives steadily on, through time
and circum-
stance, as part and paramount portion of her being.
Thus may our lives
flow on in the same sweet rhythm |
| 9 |
of head and heart, till they meet and
mingle in bliss super-
nal. There is a special joy in knowing that one is
gaining
constantly in the knowledge of Truth and divine Love. |
| 12 |
Your progress, the past year, has been
marked. It satis-
fies my present hope. Of this we rest assured, that
every
trial of our faith in God makes us stronger and firmer in |
| 15 |
understanding and obedience.
Lovingly
yours,
MARY BAKER G.
EDDY
Page
161
CHAPTER VI - SERMONS
A
CHRISTMAS SERMON
DELIVERED IN CHICKERING HALL, BOSTON, MASS., ON THE
SUNDAY BEFORE CHRISTMAS, 1888
SUBJECT: The Corporeal and Incorporeal Saviour
TEXT: For unto us a child is born, unto
us a son is given: and the |
| 6 |
government shall be upon his shoulder:
and his name shall be called
Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The
everlasting Father, The
Prince of Peace. - ISAIAH ix. 6. |
| 9 |
TO the senses, Jesus was the son of man: in
Science,
man is the son of God. The material senses could
not cognize
the Christ, or Son of God: it was Jesus' |
| 12 |
approximation to this state of being that
made him the
Christ-Jesus, the Godlike, the anointed.
The prophet whose words we have chosen for
our |
| 15 |
text, prophesied the appearing of this dual
nature, as
both human and divinely endowed, the personal and the
impersonal Jesus. |
| 18 |
The only record of our Master as a public
benefactor,
or personal Saviour, opens when he was thirty years of
age;
owing in part, perhaps, to the Jewish law that none |
| 21 |
should teach or preach in public under that
age. Also,
it is natural to conclude that at this juncture he was
specially endowed with the Holy Spirit; for he was given |
| 24 |
the new name, Messiah, or Jesus Christ, -
the God-
Page
162 |
| 1 |
anointed; even as, at times of special
enlightenment,
Jacob was called Israel; and Saul, Paul. |
| 3 |
The third event of this eventful period, -
a period of
such wonderful spiritual import to mankind! - was the
advent of a higher Christianity. |
| 6 |
From this dazzling, God-crowned summit, the
Naza-
rene stepped suddenly before the people and their schools
of
philosophy; Gnostic, Epicurean, and Stoic. He must |
| 9 |
stem these rising angry elements, and walk
serenely over
their fretted, foaming billows.
Here the cross
became the emblem of Jesus' history; |
| 12 |
while the central point of his Messianic
mission was peace,
good will, love, teaching, and healing.
Clad with divine
might, he was ready to stem the tide |
| 15 |
of Judaism, and prove his power, derived
from Spirit, to
be supreme; lay himself as a lamb upon the altar of
materialism, and therefrom rise to his nativity in Spirit. |
| 18 |
The corporeal Jesus bore our infirmities,
and through
his stripes we are healed. He was the Way-shower, and
suffered in the flesh, showing mortals how to escape from |
| 21 |
the sins of the flesh.
There was no
incorporeal Jesus of Nazareth. The
spiritual man, or Christ, was after the
similitude of the |
| 24 |
Father, without corporeality or finite
mind.
Materiality,
worldliness, human pride, or self-will, by
demoralizing his motives and
Christlikeness, would have |
| 27 |
dethroned his power as the Christ.
To carry out his
holy purpose, he must be oblivious of
human self. |
| 30 |
Of the lineage of David, like him he went
forth, simple
as the shepherd boy, to disarm the Goliath. Panoplied
in
the strength of an exalted hope, faith, and understand-
Page
163 |
| 1 |
ing, he sought to conquer the three-in-one
of error: the
world, the flesh, and the devil. |
| 3 |
Three years he went about doing good. He
had for
thirty years been preparing to heal and teach divinely;
but his
three-years mission was a marvel of glory: its |
| 6 |
chaplet, a grave to mortal sense
dishonored - from which
sprang a sublime and everlasting victory!
He who dated time,
the Christian era, and spanned |
| 9 |
eternity, was the meekest man on earth. He
healed
and taught by the wayside, in humble homes: to arrant
hypocrite
and to dull disciples he explained the Word |
| 12 |
of God, which has since ripened into
interpretation
through Science.
His words were
articulated in the language of a de- |
| 15 |
clining race, and committed to the
providence of God.
In no one thing seemed he less human and more divine
than in his unfaltering faith in the immortality of Truth. |
| 18 |
Referring to this, he said, "Heaven and
earth shall
pass away, but my words shall not pass away!" and
they
have not: they still live; and are the basis of divine |
| 21 |
liberty, the medium of Mind, the hope of
the race.
Only three years a
personal Saviour! yet the founda-
tions he laid are as eternal as Truth,
the chief corner- |
| 24 |
stone.
After his brief
brave struggle, and the crucifixion of
the corporeal man, the incorporeal
Saviour - the Christ |
| 27 |
or spiritual idea which leadeth into all
Truth - must
needs come in Christian Science, demonstrating the spir-
itual healing of body and mind. |
| 30 |
This idea or divine essence was, and is,
forever about
the Father's business; heralding the Principle of
health,
holiness, and immortality.
Page
164 |
| 1 |
Its divine Principle interprets the
incorporeal idea, or
Son of God; hence the incorporeal and corporeal
are |
| 3 |
distinguished thus: the former is the
spiritual idea that
represents divine good, and the latter is the human
presentation of goodness in man. The Science of Chris- |
| 6 |
tianity, that has appeared in the ripeness
of time, re-
veals the incorporeal Christ; and this will continue
to be
seen more clearly until it be acknowledged, under- |
| 9 |
stood, - and the Saviour, which is Truth,
be compre-
hended.
To the vision of the
Wisemen, this spiritual idea of the |
| 12 |
Principle of man or the universe, appeared
as a star. At
first, the babe Jesus seemed small to mortals; but from
the mount of revelation, the prophet beheld it from the |
| 15 |
beginning as the Redeemer, who would
present a wonder-
ful manifestation of Truth and Love.
In our text Isaiah
foretold, "His name shall be called |
| 18 |
Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The
everlasting
Father, The Prince of Peace."
As the Wisemen grew
in the understanding of Christ, |
| 21 |
the spiritual idea, it grew in favor with
them. Thus it
will continue, as it shall become understood, until man
be found in the actual likeness of his Maker. Their |
| 24 |
highest human concept of the man Jesus,
that portrayed
him as the only Son of God, the only begotten of the
Father, full of grace and Truth, will become so magnified |
| 27 |
to human sense, by means of the lens of
Science, as to
reveal man collectively, as individually, to be the son
of
God. |
| 30 |
The limited view of God's ideas arose from
the testimony
of the senses. Science affords the evidence that God is
the
Father of man, of all that is real and eternal. This spir-
Page
165 |
| 1 |
itual idea that the personal Jesus
demonstrated, casting
out evils and healing, more than eighteen centuries
ago, |
| 3 |
disappeared by degrees; both because of the
ascension
of Jesus, in which it was seen that he had grown beyond
the
human sense of him, and because of the corruption of |
| 6 |
the Church.
The last appearing
of Truth will be a wholly spiritual
idea of God and of man, without the
fetters of the flesh, or |
| 9 |
corporeality. This infinite idea of
infinity will be, is, as
eternal as its divine Principle. The daystar of
this appear-
ing is the light of Christian Science - the Science which |
| 12 |
rends the veil of the flesh from top to
bottom. The light
of this revelation leaves nothing that is material;
neither
darkness, doubt, disease, nor death. The material cor- |
| 15 |
poreality disappears; and individual
spirituality, perfect
and eternal, appears - never to disappear.
The truth uttered
and lived by Jesus, who passed on |
| 18 |
and left to mortals the rich legacy of what
he said and
did, makes his followers the heirs to his example; but
they can neither appreciate nor appropriate his treasures |
| 21 |
of Truth and Love, until lifted to these by
their own
growth and experiences. His goodness and grace pur-
chased
the means of mortals' redemption from sin; but, |
| 24 |
they never paid the price of sin. This
cost, none but the
sinner can pay; and accordingly as this account is
settled
with divine Love, is the sinner ready to avail himself of |
| 27 |
the rich blessings flowing from the
teaching, example,
and suffering of our Master.
The secret stores of
wisdom must be discovered, their |
| 30 |
treasures reproduced and given to the
world, before man
can truthfully conclude that he has been found in the
order, mode, and virgin origin of man according to divine
Page
166 |
| 1 |
Science, which alone demonstrates the
divine Principle
and spiritual idea of being. |
| 3 |
The monument whose finger points upward,
commem-
orates the earthly life of a martyr; but this is not all of
the
philanthropist, hero, and Christian. The Truth he |
| 6 |
has taught and spoken lives, and moves in
our midst a
divine afflatus. Thus it is that the ideal Christ - or
impersonal infancy, manhood, and womanhood of Truth |
| 9 |
and Love - is still with us.
And what of
this child? - "For unto us a child is
born, unto us a son
is given: and the government shall |
| 12 |
be upon his shoulder."
This child, or
spiritual idea, has evolved a more ready
ear for the overture of angels and
the scientific under- |
| 15 |
standing of Truth and Love. When Christ,
the incor-
poreal idea of God, was nameless, and a Mary knew not
how to
declare its spiritual origin, the idea of man was |
| 18 |
not understood. The Judaean religion even
required the
Virgin-mother to go to the temple and be purified, for
having given birth to the corporeal child Jesus, whose |
| 21 |
origin was more spiritual than the senses
could inter-
pret. Like the leaven that a certain woman hid in three
measures of meal, the Science of God and the spiritual |
| 24 |
idea, named in this century Christian
Science, is leaven-
ing the lump of human thought, until the whole
shall
be leavened and all materialism disappear. This action |
| 27 |
of the divine energy, even if not
acknowledged, has
come to be seen as diffusing richest blessings. This
spiritual idea, or Christ, entered into the minutiae of the |
| 30 |
life of the personal Jesus. It made him an
honest man,
a good carpenter, and a good man, before it could make
him
the glorified.
Page
167 |
| 1 |
The material questions at this age on the
reappearing
of the infantile thought of God's man, are after the man- |
| 3 |
ner of a mother in the flesh, though their
answers per-
tain to the spiritual idea, as in Christian Science: -
Is he deformed? |
| 6 |
He is wholly symmetrical; the one
altogether lovely.
Is the babe a son, or
daughter?
Both son and daughter: even the
compound idea of |
| 9 |
all that resembles God.
How much does he weigh?
His substance outweighs the material world. |
| 12 |
How old is he?
Of his days there is no beginning and no ending.
What is
his name? |
| 15 |
Christ Science.
Who are his parents, brothers, and sisters?
His Father and Mother are divine Life, Truth,
and |
| 18 |
Love; and they who do the will of his
Father are his
brethren.
Is he heir to an
estate? |
| 21 |
"The government shall be upon his
shoulder!" He
has dominion over the whole earth; and in admiration
of
his origin, he exclaims, "I thank Thee, O Father, Lord |
| 24 |
of heaven and earth, that Thou hast hid
these things
from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto
babes !" |
| 27 |
Is he wonderful?
His works thus prove
him. He giveth power, peace,
and holiness; he exalteth the lowly; he giveth
liberty
Page
168 |
| 1 |
to the captive, health to the sick,
salvation from sin to
the sinner - and overcometh the world ! |
| 3 |
Go, and tell what things ye shall see and
hear: how
the blind, spiritually and physically, receive sight; how
the
lame, those halting between two opinions or hob- |
| 6 |
bling on crutches, walk; how the physical
and moral
lepers are cleansed; how the deaf - those who, having
ears,
hear not, and are afflicted with "tympanum on the |
| 9 |
brain" - hear; how the dead, those buried
in dogmas
and physical ailments, are raised; that to the poor -
the
lowly in Christ, not the man-made rabbi - the |
| 12 |
gospel is preached. Note this: only such as
are pure
in spirit, emptied of vainglory and vain knowledge, re-
ceive
Truth. |
| 15 |
Here ends the colloquy; and a voice from
heaven seems
to say, "Come and see."
The
nineteenth-century prophets repeat, "Unto us a |
| 18 |
son is given."
The shepherds shout,
"We behold the appearing of
the star!" - and the pure in heart clap their
hands.
EDITOR'S EXTRACTS FROM SERMON
TEXT: Ye do err,
not knowing the Scriptures, nor the power of
God. - MATT. xxii.
29. |
| 24 |
The Christian Science Journal
reported as follows: -
The announcement
that the Rev. Mary B. G. Eddy
would speak before the Scientist denomination
on the |
| 27 |
afternoon of October 26, drew a large
audience. Haw-
thorne Hall was densely packed, and many had to go
away
unable to obtain seats. The distinguished speaker |
| 30 |
began by saying: -
Page
169 |
| 1 |
Within Bible pages she had found all the
divine Science
she preaches; noticing, all along the way of her
researches |
| 3 |
therein, that whenever her thoughts had
wandered into
the bypaths of ancient philosophies or pagan literatures,
her spiritual insight had been darkened thereby, till |
| 6 |
she was God-driven back to the inspired
pages. Early
training, through the misinterpretation of the Word,
had
been the underlying cause of the long years of in- |
| 9 |
validism she endured before Truth dawned
upon her
understanding, through right interpretation. With the
understanding of Scripture-meanings, had come physical |
| 12 |
rejuvenation. The uplifting of spirit was
the upbuild-
ing of the body.
She affirmed that
the Scriptures cannot properly be |
| 15 |
interpreted in a literal way. The truths
they teach must
be spiritually discerned, before their message can be
borne fully to our minds and hearts. That there is a |
| 18 |
dual meaning to every Biblical passage, the
most eminent
divines of the world have concluded; and to get at the
highest, or metaphysical, it is necessary rightly to read |
| 21 |
what the inspired writers left for our
spiritual instruction.
The literal rendering of the Scriptures makes them
noth-
ing valuable, but often is the foundation of unbelief and |
| 24 |
hopelessness. The metaphysical rendering is
health and
peace and hope for all. The literal or material reading is
the reading of the carnal mind, which is enmity toward |
| 27 |
God, Spirit.
Taking several Bible
passages, Mrs. Eddy showed how
beautiful and inspiring are the thoughts
when rightly |
| 30 |
understood. "Let the dead bury their dead;
follow
thou me," was one of the passages explained metaphysi-
cally. In
their fullest meaning, those words are salvation
Page
170 |
| 1 |
from the belief of death, the last enemy to
be overthrown;
for by following Christ truly, resurrection and life
im- |
| 3 |
mortal are brought to us. If we follow him,
to us there
can be no dead. Those who know not this, may still
believe
in death and weep over the graves of their beloved; |
| 6 |
but with him is Life eternal, which never
changes to
death. The eating of bread and drinking of wine at the
Lord's supper, merely symbolize the spiritual refresh- |
| 9 |
ment of God's children having rightly read
His Word,
whose entrance into their understanding is healthful life.
This is the reality behind the symbol. |
| 12 |
So, also, she spoke of the hades, or hell
of Scripture,
saying, that we make our own heavens and our own hells,
by right and wise, or wrong and foolish, conceptions of |
| 15 |
God and our fellow-men. Jesus interpreted
all spirit-
ually: "I have bread to eat that ye know not of," he
said.
The bread he ate, which was refreshment of divine |
| 18 |
strength, we also may all partake of.
The material record
of the Bible, she said, is no more
important to our well-being than the
history of Europe |
| 21 |
and America; but the spiritual application
bears upon
our eternal life. The method of Jesus was purely meta-
physical; and no other method is Christian Science. In |
| 24 |
the passage recording Jesus' proceedings
with the blind
man (Mark viii.) he is said to have spat upon the dust.
Spitting was the Hebrew method of expressing the utmost |
| 27 |
contempt. So Jesus is recorded as having
expressed
contempt for the belief of material eyes as having any
power
to see. Having eyes, ye see not; and ears, ye hear |
| 30 |
not, he had just told them. The putting on
of hands
mentioned, she explained as the putting forth of power.
"Hand," in Bible usage, often means spiritual power.
Page
171 |
| 1 |
"His hand is not shortened that it cannot
save," can
never be wrested from its true meaning to signify human |
| 3 |
hands. Jesus' first effort to realize Truth
was not wholly
successful; but he rose to the occasion with the second
attempt, and the blind saw clearly. To suppose that |
| 6 |
Jesus did actually anoint the blind man's
eyes with his
spittle, is as absurd as to think, according to the
report
of some, that Christian Scientists sit in back-to-back |
| 9 |
seances with their patients, for the divine
power to filter
from vertebrae to vertebrae. When one comes to the age
with spiritual translations of God's messages, expressed |
| 12 |
in literal or physical terms, our right
action is not to con-
demn and deny, but to "try the spirits" and see what
manner they are of. This does not mean communing |
| 15 |
with spirits supposed to have departed from
the earth,
but the seeking out of the basis upon which are accom-
plished the works by which the new teacher would prove |
| 18 |
his right to be heard. By these signs are
the true disciples
of the Master known: the sick are healed; to the
poor
the gospel is preached.
EXTRACT FROM A SERMON DELIVERED IN BOSTON,
JANUARY 18, 1885
TEXT: The kingdom of heaven is like
unto leaven, which a woman |
| 24 |
took, and hid in three measures of
meal, till the whole was leavened.
- MATT. xiii. 33.
Few people at present know aught of the
Science of |
| 27 |
mental healing; and so many are obtruding
upon the
public attention their ignorance or false knowledge in
the
name of Science, that it behooves all clad in the shin- |
| 30 |
ing mail to keep bright their invincible
armor; to keep
Page
172 |
| 1 |
their demonstrations modest, and their
claims and lives
steadfast in Truth. |
| 3 |
Dispensing the Word charitably, but
separating the
tares from the wheat, let us declare the positive and
the negative of metaphysical Science; what it is, and |
| 6 |
what it is not. Intrepid, self-oblivious
Protestants in
a higher sense than ever before, let us meet and defeat
the claims of sense and sin, regardless of the bans or |
| 9 |
clans pouring in their fire upon us; and
white-winged
charity, brooding over all, shall cover with her feathers
the veriest sinner. |
| 12 |
Divine and unerring Mind measures man,
until the
three measures be accomplished, and he arrives at
fulness of
stature; for "the Lord God omnipotent |
| 16 |
reigneth."
Science is divine:
it is neither of human origin nor of
human direction. That which is termed
"natural science," |
| 18 |
the evidences whereof are taken in by the
five personal
senses, presents but a finite, feeble sense of the
infinite
law of God; which law is written on the heart, received |
| 21 |
through the affections, spiritually
understood, and dem-
onstrated in our lives.
This law of God is
the Science of mental healing, |
| 24 |
spiritually discerned, understood, and
obeyed.
Mental Science, and
the five personal senses, are at
war; and peace can only be declared on the
side of im- |
| 27 |
mutable right, - the health, holiness, and
immortality
of man. To gain this scientific result, the first and
funda-
mental rule of Science must be understood and adhered |
| 30 |
to; namely, the oft-repeated declaration
in Scripture
that God is good; hence, good is omnipotent and
omnipresent.
Page
173 |
| 1 |
Ancient and modern philosophy, human
reason, or
man's theorems, misstate mental Science, its Principle |
| 3 |
and practice. The most enlightened sense
herein sees
nothing but a law of matter.
Who has ever learned
of the schools that there is but |
| 6 |
one Mind, and that this is God, who
healeth all our sick-
ness and sins?
Who has ever learned
from the schools, pagan phi- |
| 9 |
losophy, or scholastic theology, that
Science is the law of
Mind and not of matter, and that this law has no
relation
to, or recognition of, matter? |
| 12 |
Mind is its own great cause and effect.
Mind is God,
omnipotent and omnipresent. What, then, of an oppo-
site
so-called science, which says that man is both matter |
| 15 |
and mind, that Mind is in matter? Can the
infinite
be within the finite? And must not man have preexisted
in the
All and Only? Does an evil mind exist without |
| 18 |
space to occupy, power to act, or vanity
to pretend that
it is man?
If God is Mind and
fills all space, is everywhere, matter |
| 21 |
is nowhere and sin is obsolete. If Mind,
God, is all-power
and all-presence, man is not met by another power
and
presence, that - obstructing his intelligence - |
| 24 |
pains, fetters, and befools him. The
perfection of man
is intact; whence, then, is something besides Him
that
is not the counterpart but the counterfeit of man's creator? |
| 27 |
Surely not from God, for He made man in His
own
likeness. Whence, then, is the atom or molecule called
matter? Have
attraction and cohesion formed it? |
| 30 |
But are these forces laws of matter, or
laws of
Mind?
For matter to be
matter, it must have been self-created.
Page
174 |
| 1 |
Mind has no more power to evolve or to
create matter
than has good to produce evil. Matter is a misstatement |
| 3 |
of Mind; it is a lie, claiming to talk and
disclaim against
Truth; idolatry, having other gods; evil, having
presence
and power over omnipotence! |
| 6 |
Let us have a clearing up of abstractions.
Let us
come into the presence of Him who removeth all iniqui-
ties, and
healeth all our diseases. Let us attach our sense |
| 9 |
of Science to what touches the religious
sentiment within
man. Let us open our affections to the Principle that
moves all in harmony, - from the falling of a sparrow |
| 12 |
to the rolling of a world. Above Arcturus
and his sons,
broader than the solar system and higher than the at-
mosphere of our planet, is the Science of mental |
| 15 |
healing.
What is the kingdom
of heaven? The abode of Spirit,
the realm of the real. No matter is there,
no night is |
| 18 |
there - nothing that maketh or worketh a
lie. Is this
kingdom afar off? No: it is ever-present here. The
first
to declare against this kingdom is matter. Shall |
| 21 |
that be called heresy which pleads for
Spirit - the All of
God, and His omnipresence?
The kingdom of
heaven is the reign of divine Science: |
| 24 |
it is a mental state. Jesus said it is
within you, and
taught us to pray, "Thy kingdom come;" but he did
not
teach us to pray for death whereby to gain heaven. |
| 27 |
We do not look into darkness for light.
Death can never
usher in the dawn of Science that reveals the spiritual
facts of man's Life here and now. |
| 30 |
The leaven which a woman took and hid in
three
measures of meal, is Divine Science; the Comforter;
the Holy
Ghost that leadeth into all Truth; the "still,
Page
175 |
| 1 |
small voice" that breathes His presence and
power, cast-
ing out error and healing the sick. And woman, the |
| 3 |
spiritual idea, takes of the things of God
and showeth
them unto the creature, until the whole sense of being
is
leavened with Spirit. The three measures of meal |
| 6 |
may well be likened to the false sense of
life, substance,
and intelligence, which says, I am sustained by
bread,
matter, instead of Mind. The spiritual leaven of divine |
| 9 |
Science changes this false sense, giving
better views of
Life; saying, Man's Life is God; and when this shall
appear, it shall be "the substance of things hoped for." |
| 12 |
The measure of Life shall increase by every
spiritual
touch, even as the leaven expands the loaf. Man shall
keep
the feast of Life, not with the old leaven of the |
| 15 |
scribes and Pharisees, neither with "the
leaven of malice
and wickedness; but the unleavened bread of sincerity
and truth." |
| 18 |
Thus it can be seen that the Science of
mental healing
must be understood. There are false Christs that would
"deceive, if it were possible, the very elect," by institut- |
| 21 |
ing matter and its methods in place of God,
Mind. Their
supposition is, that there are other minds than His; that
one mind controls another; that one belief takes the |
| 24 |
place of another. But this ism of to-day
has nothing
to do with the Science of mental healing which acquaints
us
with God and reveals the one perfect Mind and His |
| 27 |
laws.
The attempt to mix
matter and Mind, to work by
means of both animal magnetism and divine
power, is |
| 30 |
literally saying, Have we not in thy name
cast out devils,
and done many wonderful works?
But remember God in
all thy ways, and thou shalt
Page
176 |
| 1 |
find the truth that breaks the dream of
sense, letting the
harmony of Science that declares Him, come in
with |
| 3 |
healing, and peace, and perfect love.
SUNDAY SERVICES ON JULY FOURTH
-
EXTEMPORE REMARKS |
| 6 |
The great theme so deeply and solemnly
expounded
by the preacher, has been exemplified in all ages, but
chiefly in the great crises of nations or of the human race. |
| 9 |
It is then that supreme devotion to
Principle has espe-
cially been called for and manifested. It is then that
we
learn a little more of the nothingness of evil, and more |
| 12 |
of the divine energies of good, and strive
valiantly for the
liberty of the sons of God.
The day we celebrate reminds us of the
heroes and |
| 15 |
heroines who counted not their own lives
dear to them,
when they sought the New England shores, not as the
flying nor as conquerors, but, steadfast in faith and love, |
| 18 |
to build upon the rock of Christ, the true
idea of God -
the supremacy of Spirit and the nothingness of matter.
When first the Pilgrims planted their feet on Plymouth |
| 21 |
Rock, frozen ritual and creed should
forever have melted
away in the fire of love which came down from
heaven.
The Pilgrims came to establish a nation in true freedom, |
| 24 |
in the rights of conscience.
But what of ourselves, and our times and
obligations?
Are we duly aware of our own great opportunities and |
| 27 |
responsibilities? Are we prepared to meet
and improve
them, to act up to the acme of divine energy wherewith
we
are armored?
Page
177 |
| 1 |
Never was there a more solemn and imperious
call
than God makes to us all, right here, for fervent de- |
| 3 |
votion and an absolute consecration to the
greatest and
holiest of all causes. The hour is come. The great
battle
of Armageddon is upon us. The powers of evil |
| 6 |
are leagued together in secret conspiracy
against the
Lord and against His Christ, as expressed and opera-
tive
in Christian Science. Large numbers, in desperate |
| 9 |
malice, are engaged day and night in
organizing action
against us. Their feeling and purpose are deadly, and
they have sworn enmity against the lives of our standard- |
| 12 |
bearers.
What will you do
about it? Will you be equally in
earnest for the truth? Will you doff your
lavender-kid |
| 15 |
zeal, and become real and consecrated
warriors? Will
you give yourselves wholly and irrevocably to the great
work of establishing the truth, the gospel, and the Science |
| 18 |
which are necessary to the salvation of
the world from
error, sin, disease, and death? Answer at once and
practi-
cally, and answer aright!
EASTER SERVICES
The editor of The
Christian Science Journal said that
at three o'clock, the hour for the
church service proper, |
| 24 |
the pastor, Rev. Mary Baker G. Eddy,
accompanied
by Rev. D. A. Easton, who was announced to preach
the
sermon, came on the platform. The pastor intro- |
| 27 |
duced Mr. Easton as follows: -
Friends: - The homesick
traveller in foreign lands
greets with joy a familiar face. I am constantly
home- |
| 30 |
sick for heaven. In my long journeyings I
have met
Page
178 |
| 1 |
one who comes from the place of my own
sojourning
for many years, - the Congregational Church. He is |
| 3 |
a graduate of Bowdoin College and of
Andover The-
ological School. He has left his old church, as I did,
from a yearning of the heart; because he was not sat- |
| 6 |
isfied with a manlike God, but wanted to
become a God-
like man. He found that the new wine could not be
put
into old bottles without bursting them, and he came |
| 9 |
to us.
Mr. Easton then
delivered an interesting discourse
from the text, "If ye then be risen with
Christ, seek |
| 12 |
those things which are above, where Christ
sitteth on the
right hand of God" (Col. iii. 1), which he prefaced by
saying: - |
| 15 |
"I think it was about a year ago that I
strayed into
this hall, a stranger, and wondered what sort of people
you were, and of what you were worshippers. If any |
| 18 |
one had said to me that to-day I should
stand before
you to preach a sermon on Christian Science, I should
have
replied, 'Much learning' - or something else - |
| 21 |
'hath made thee mad.' If I had not found
Christian
Science a new gospel, I should not be standing before you:
if
I had not found it truth, I could not have stood up |
| 24 |
again to preach, here or
elsewhere."
At the conclusion of
the sermon, the pastor again came
forward, and added the following:
- |
| 27 |
My friends, I wished to be excused from
speaking
to-day, but will yield to circumstances. In the flesh, we
are
as a partition wall between the old and the new; |
| 30 |
between the old religion in which we have
been educated,
and the new, living, impersonal Christ-thought that has
been given to the world to-day.
Page
179 |
| 1 |
The old churches are saying, "He is not
here;" and,
"Who shall roll away the stone?" |
| 3 |
The stone has been rolled away by human
suffer-
ing. The first rightful desire in the hour of loss, when
believing we have lost sight of Truth, is to know where |
| 6 |
He is laid. This appeal resolves itself
into these
questions: -
Is our consciousness
in matter or in God? Have we |
| 9 |
any other consciousness than that of good?
If we have,
He is saying to us to-day, "Adam, where art thou?" We
are
wrong if our consciousness is in sin, sickness, and |
| 12 |
death. This is the old consciousness.
In the new religion
the teaching is, "He is not here;
Truth is not in matter; he is risen;
Truth has become |
| 15 |
more to us, - more true, more spiritual."
Can we say this
to-day? Have we left the conscious-
ness of sickness and sin for that of
health and |
| 18 |
holiness?
What is it that
seems a stone between us and the
resurrection morning? |
| 21 |
It is the belief of mind in matter. We can
only come
into the spiritual resurrection by quitting the old con-
sciousness of Soul in sense. |
| 24 |
These flowers are floral apostles. God does
all this
through His followers; and He made every flower in
Mind
before it sprang from the earth: yet we look into |
| 27 |
matter and the earth to give us these
smiles of God!
We must lay aside
material consciousness, and then
we can perceive Truth, and say with Mary,
"Rabboni!" |
| 30 |
- Master!
In 1866, when God
revealed to me this risen Christ,
this Life that knows no death, that
saith, "Because he
Page
180 |
| 1 |
lives, I live," I awoke from the dream of
Spirit in the
flesh so far as to take the side of Spirit, and strive to
cease |
| 3 |
my warfare.
When, through this
consciousness, I was delivered from
the dark shadow and portal of death, my
friends were |
| 6 |
frightened at beholding me restored to
health.
A dear old lady
asked me, "How is it that you are
restored to us? Has Christ come again on
earth?" |
| 9 |
"Christ never left," I replied; "Christ is
Truth, and
Truth is always here, - the impersonal Saviour."
Then another person,
more material, met me, and I |
| 12 |
said, in the words of my Master, "Touch me
not." I
shuddered at her material approach; then my heart went
out to
God, and I found the open door from this sepulchre |
| 15 |
of matter.
I love the
Easter service: it speaks to me of Life, and
not of death. |
| 18 |
Let us do our work; then we shall have
part in his
resurrection.
BIBLE LESSONS |
| 21 |
But as many as received him, to them
gave he power to become the
sons of God, even to them that believe on his
name: which were born,
not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of
the will of man, but of |
| 24 |
God. - JOHN i. 12, 13.
Here, the apostle
assures us that man has power to
become the son of God. In the Hebrew text,
the word |
| 27 |
"son" is defined variously; a month is
called the son
of a year. This term, as applied to man, is used in both
a material and a spiritual sense. The Scriptures speak |
| 30 |
of Jesus as the Son of God and the Son of
man; but
Page
181 |
| 1 |
Jesus said to call no man father; "for one
is your Father,"
even God. |
| 3 |
Is man's spiritual sonship a personal gift
to man, or
is it the reality of his being, in divine Science? Man's
knowledge of this grand verity gives him power to dem- |
| 6 |
onstrate his divine Principle, which in
turn is requisite
in order to understand his sonship, or unity with
God,
good. A personal requirement of blind obedience to |
| 9 |
the law of being, would tend to obscure the
order of
Science, unless that requirement should express the claims
of
the divine Principle. Infinite Principle and infinite |
| 12 |
Spirit must be one. What avail, then, to
quarrel over
what is the person of Spirit, - if we recognize
infinitude
as personality,-for who can tell what is the form of |
| 15 |
infinity ? When we understand man's true
birthright, that
he is "born, not . . . of the will of the flesh, nor of
the
will of man, but of God," we shall understand that man |
| 18 |
is the offspring of Spirit, and not of the
flesh; recognize
him through spiritual, and not material laws; and
regard
him as spiritual, and not material. His sonship, referred |
| 21 |
to in the text, is his spiritual relation
to Deity: it is not,
then, a personal gift, but is the order of divine
Science.
The apostle urges upon our acceptance this great fact: |
| 24 |
"But as many as received him, to them gave
he power
to become the sons of God." Mortals will lose their sense
of
mortality - disease, sickness, sin, and death - in |
| 27 |
the proportion that they gain the sense of
man's spirit-
ual preexistence as God's child; as the offspring of
good, and not of God's opposite, - evil, or a fallen |
| 30 |
man.
John the Baptist had
a clear discernment of divine
Science: being born not of the human will or
flesh, he
Page
182 |
| 1 |
antedated his own existence, began
spiritually instead
of materially to reckon himself logically; hence the
im- |
| 3 |
possibility of putting him to death, only
in belief, through
violent means or material methods.
"As many as received
him;" that is, as many as per- |
| 6 |
ceive man's actual existence in and of his
divine Princi-
ple, receive the Truth of existence; and these have no
other God, no other Mind, no other origin; therefore, in |
| 9 |
time they lose their false sense of
existence, and find
their adoption with the Father; to wit, the
redemption
of the body. Through divine Science man gains the |
| 12 |
power to become the son of God, to
recognize his perfect
and eternal estate.
"Which were born,
not of blood, nor of the will of |
| 15 |
the flesh." This passage refers to man's
primal, spirit-
ual existence, created neither from dust nor carnal de-
sire. "Nor of the will of man." Born of no doctrine, |
| 18 |
no human faith, but beholding the truth of
being; even
the understanding that man was never lost in Adam,
since he
is and ever was the image and likeness of God, |
| 21 |
good. But no mortal hath seen the spiritual
man, more
than he hath seen the Father. The apostle indicates
no
personal plan of a personal Jehovah, partial and finite; |
| 24 |
but the possibility of all finding their
place in God's great
love, the eternal heritage of the Elohim, His sons
and
daughters. The text is a metaphysical statement of exist- |
| 27 |
ence as Principle and idea, wherein man
and his Maker
are inseparable and eternal.
When the Word is
made flesh, - that is, rendered |
| 30 |
practical, - this eternal Truth will be
understood; and
sickness, sin, and death will yield to it, even as they
did
more than eighteen centuries ago. The lusts of the flesh
Page
183 |
| 1 |
and the pride of life will then be quenched
in the divine
Science of being; in the ever-present good, omnipotent |
| 3 |
Love, and eternal Life, that know no death.
In the great
forever, the verities of being exist, and must be
acknowl-
edged and demonstrated. Man must love his neighbor |
| 6 |
as himself, and the power of Truth must be
seen and
felt in health, happiness, and holiness: then it will be
found that Mind is All-in-all, and there is no matter to |
| 9 |
cope with.
Man is free born: he
is neither the slave of sense, nor a
silly ambler to the so-called
pleasures and pains of self- |
| 12 |
conscious matter. Man is God's image and
likeness;
whatever is possible to God, is possible to man as God's
reflection. Through the transparency of Science we learn |
| 15 |
this, and receive it: learn that man can
fulfil the Scrip-
tures in every instance; that if he open his mouth it
shall
be filled - not by reason of the schools, or learning, but |
| 18 |
by the natural ability, that reflection
already has bestowed
on him, to give utterance to Truth.
"Who hath believed
our report?" Who understands |
| 21 |
these sayings? He to whom the arm of the
Lord is re-
vealed; to whom divine Science unfolds omnipotence,
that
equips man with divine power while it shames human |
| 24 |
pride. Asserting a selfhood apart from God,
is a denial
of man's spiritual sonship; for it claims another father.
As many as do receive a knowledge of God through |
| 27 |
Science, will have power to reflect His
power, in proof of
man's "dominion over all the earth." He is bravely
brave who dares at this date refute the evidence of material |
| 30 |
sense with the facts of Science, and will
arrive at the true
status of man because of it. The material senses
would
make man, that the Scriptures declare reflects his Maker,
Page
184
the very opposite of
that Maker, by claiming that God is
Spirit, while man is matter; that God
is good, but man is |
| 3 |
evil; that Deity is deathless, but man
dies. Science and
sense conflict, from the revolving of worlds to the
death
of a sparrow. |
| 6 |
The Word will be made flesh and dwell among
mortals,
only when man reflects God in body as well as in mind.
The
child born of a woman has the formation of his |
| 9 |
parents; the man born of Spirit is
spiritual, not material.
Paul refers to this when speaking of presenting
our bodies
holy and acceptable, which is our reasonable service; |
| 12 |
and this brings to remembrance the Hebrew
strain,
"Who healeth all thy diseases."
If man should say of
the power to be perfect which he |
| 15 |
possesses, "I am the power," he would
trespass upon
divine Science, yield to material sense, and lose his
power;
even as when saying, "I have the power to sin and be |
| 18 |
sick," and persisting in believing that he
is sick and a
sinner. If he says, "I am of God, therefore good," yet
persists in evil, he has denied the power of Truth, and |
| 21 |
must suffer for this error until he learns
that all power is
good because it is of God, and so destroys his
self-de-
ceived sense of power in evil. The Science of being gives |
| 24 |
back the lost likeness and power of God as
the seal of
man's adoption. Oh, for that light and love ineffable,
which casteth out all fear, all sin, sickness, and death; |
| 27 |
that seeketh not her own, but another's
good; that saith
Abba, Father, and is born of God!
John came baptizing
with water. He employed a type |
| 30 |
of physical cleanliness to foreshadow
metaphysical purity,
even mortal mind purged of the animal and human,
and
submerged in the humane and divine, giving back the
Page
185 |
| 1 |
lost sense of man in unity with, and
reflecting, his Maker.
None but the pure in heart shall see God, - shall be
able |
| 3 |
to discern fully and demonstrate fairly the
divine Principle
of Christian Science. The will of God, or power of
Spirit,
is made manifest as Truth, and through righteousness, - |
| 6 |
not as or through matter, - and it strips
matter of all
claims, abilities or disabilities, pains or pleasures.
Self-
renunciation of all that constitutes a so-called material |
| 9 |
man, and the acknowledgment and achievement
of his
spiritual identity as the child of God, is Science that
opens
the very flood-gates of heaven; whence good |
| 12 |
flows into every avenue of being, cleansing
mortals of
all uncleanness, destroying all suffering, and demon-
strating the true image and likeness. There is no other |
| 15 |
way under heaven whereby we can be saved,
and man
be clothed with might, majesty, and immortality.
"As many as received
him," - as accept the truth |
| 18 |
of being, - "to them gave he power to
become the sons
of God." The spiritualization of our sense of man
opens
the gates of paradise that the so-called material senses |
| 21 |
would close, and reveals man infinitely
blessed, upright,
pure, and free; having no need of statistics by which
to
learn his origin and age, or to measure his manhood, or to |
| 24 |
know how much of a man he ever has been:
for, "as
many as received him, to them gave he power to become
the
sons of God." |
| 27 |
And so it is written, The first man
Adam was made a living soul;
the last Adam was made a quickening spirit.
- I COR. xv. 45.
When reasoning on
this subject of man with the Corin- |
| 30 |
thian brethren, the apostle first spake
from their stand-
point of thought; namely, that creation is material:
Page
186 |
| 1 |
he was not at this point giving the history
of the spiritual
man who originates in God, Love, who created man |
| 3 |
in His own image and likeness. In the
creation of Adam
from dust, - in which Soul is supposed to enter the
embryo-man after his birth, - we see the material self- |
| 6 |
constituted belief of the Jews as referred
to by St. Paul.
Their material belief has fallen far below man's
original
standard, the spiritual man made in the image and like- |
| 9 |
ness of God; for this erring belief even
separates its
conception of man from God, and ultimates in the op-
posite of immortal man, namely, in a sick and sinning |
| 12 |
a mortal.
We learn in the
Scriptures, as in divine Science, that
God made all; that He is the
universal Father and Mother |
| 15 |
of man; that God is divine Love: therefore
divine Love
is the divine Principle of the divine idea named man;
in
other words, the spiritual Principle of spiritual man. |
| 18 |
Now let us not lose this Science of man,
but gain it clearly;
then we shall see that man cannot be separated
from
his perfect Principle, God, inasmuch as an idea cannot |
| 21 |
be torn apart from its fundamental basis.
This scien-
tific knowledge affords self-evident proof of immortality;
proof, also, that the Principle of man cannot produce a |
| 24 |
less perfect man than it produced in the
beginning. A
material sense of existence is not the scientific fact of
being; whereas, the spiritual sense of God and His uni- |
| 27 |
verse is the immortal and true sense of
being.
As the apostle
proceeds in this line of thought, he
undoubtedly refers to the last Adam
represented by the |
| 30 |
Messias, whose demonstration of God
restored to mortals
the lost sense of man's perfection, even the sense of
the
real man in God's likeness, who restored this sense by
Page
187 |
| 1 |
the spiritual regeneration of both mind and
body, -
casting out evils, healing the sick, and raising the
dead. |
| 3 |
The man Jesus demonstrated over sin,
sickness, disease,
and death. The great Metaphysician wrought, over
and
above every sense of matter, into the proper sense of the |
| 6 |
possibilities of Spirit. He established
health and har-
mony, the perfection of mind and body, as the reality
of
man; while discord, as seen in disease and death, was to |
| 9 |
him the opposite of man, hence the
unreality; even as in
Science a chord is manifestly the reality of music,
and
discord the unreality. This rule of harmony must be ac- |
| 12 |
cepted as true relative to man.
The translators of
the older Scriptures presuppose a
material man to be the first man, solely
because their |
| 15 |
transcribing thoughts were not lifted to
the inspired sense
of the spiritual man, as set forth in original Holy
Writ.
Had both writers and translators in that age fully com- |
| 18 |
prehended the later teachings and
demonstrations of
our human and divine Master, the Old Testament might
have been as spiritual as the New. |
| 21 |
The origin, substance, and life of man are
one, and
that one is God, - Life, Truth, Love. The self-existent,
perfect, and eternal are God; and man is their reflection |
| 24 |
and glory. Did the substance of God,
Spirit, become a
clod, in order to create a sick, sinning, dying man?
The
primal facts of being are eternal; they are never extin- |
| 27 |
guished in a night of discord.
That man must be
evil before he can be good; dying,
before deathless; material, before
spiritual; sick and a |
| 30 |
sinner in order to be healed and saved, is
but the declara-
tion of the material senses transcribed by pagan
religion-
ists, by wicked mortals such as crucified our Master, -
Page
188 |
| 1 |
whose teachings opposed the doctrines of
Christ that
demonstrated the opposite, Truth. |
| 3 |
Man is as perfect now, and henceforth, and
forever,
as when the stars first sang together, and creation joined
in
the grand chorus of harmonious being. It is the trans- |
| 6 |
lator, not the original Word, who presents
as being first
that which appears second, material, and mortal; and
as
last, that which is primal, spiritual, and eternal. Be- |
| 9 |
cause of human misstatement and
misconception of God
and man, of the divine Principle and idea of being,
there
seems to be a war between the flesh and Spirit, a contest |
| 12 |
between Truth and error; but the apostle
says, "There
is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in
Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the |
| 15 |
Spirit."
On our subject, St.
Paul first reasons upon the basis
of what is seen, the effects of Truth on
the material senses; |
| 18 |
thence, up to the unseen, the testimony of
spiritual sense;
and right there he leaves the subject.
Just there, in the
intermediate line of thought, is where |
| 21 |
the present writer found it, when she
discovered Christian
Science. And she has not left it, but continues
the ex-
planation of the power of Spirit up to its infinite meaning, |
| 24 |
its allness. The recognition of this power
came to her
through a spiritual sense of the real, and of the unreal
or
mortal sense of things; not that there is, or can |
| 27 |
be, an actual change in the realities of
being, but
that we can discern more of them. At the moment
of her
discovery, she knew that the last Adam, namely, |
| 30 |
the true likeness of God, was the first,
the only man.
This knowledge did become to her "a quickening
spirit;"
for she beheld the meaning of those words
Page
189 |
| 1 |
of our Master, "The last shall be first,
and the first
last." |
| 3 |
When, as little children, we are receptive,
become
willing to accept the divine Principle and rule of being,
as
unfolded in divine Science, the interpretation therein |
| 6 |
will be found to be the Comforter that
leadeth into all
truth.
The meek Nazarene's
steadfast and true knowledge of |
| 9 |
preexistence, of the nature and the
inseparability of God
and man, - made him mighty. Spiritual insight of
Truth and Love antidotes and destroys the errors of flesh, |
| 12 |
and brings to light the true reflection:
man as God's
image, or "the first man," for Christ plainly declared,
through Jesus, "Before Abraham was, I am." |
| 15 |
The supposition that Soul, or Mind, is
breathed into
matter, is a pantheistic doctrine that presents a false
sense of existence, and the quickening spirit takes it |
| 18 |
away: revealing, in place thereof, the
power and per-
fection of a released sense of Life in God and Life
as
God. The Scriptures declare Life to be the infinite I |
| 21 |
AM, - not a dweller in matter. For man to
know Life
as it is, namely God, the eternal good, gives him not
merely
a sense of existence, but an accompanying con- |
| 24 |
sciousness of spiritual power that
subordinates matter
and destroys sin, disease, and death. This, Jesus
demon-
strated; insomuch that St. Matthew wrote, "The people |
| 27 |
were astonished at his doctrine: for he
taught them
as one having authority, and not as the scribes." This
spiritual power, healing sin and sickness, was not con- |
| 30 |
fined to the first century; it extends to
all time, inhabits
eternity, and demonstrates Life without beginning
or
end.
Page
190 |
| 1 |
Atomic action is Mind, not matter. It is
neither the
energy of matter, the result of organization, nor the out- |
| 3 |
come of life infused into matter: it is
infinite Spirit, Truth,
Life, defiant of error or matter. Divine Science
demon-
strates Mind as dispelling a false sense and giving the |
| 6 |
true sense of itself, God, and the
universe; wherein the
mortal evolves not the immortal, nor does the
material
ultimate in the spiritual; wherein man is coexistent with |
| 9 |
Mind, and is the recognized reflection of
infinite Life and
Love.
And he was
casting out a devil, and it was dumb. And it came to |
| 12 |
pass, when the devil was gone out, the
dumb spake. - LUKE xi. 14.
The meaning of the
term "devil" needs yet to be
learned. Its definition as an individual is
too limited |
| 15 |
and contradictory. When the Scripture is
understood,
the spiritual signification of its terms will be
understood,
and will contradict the interpretations that the senses |
| 18 |
give them; and these terms will be found
to include the
inspired meaning.
It could not have
been a person that our great Master |
| 21 |
cast out of another person; therefore the
devil herein
referred to was an impersonal evil, or whatever worketh
ill. In this case it was the evil of dumbness, an error of |
| 24 |
material sense, cast out by the spiritual
truth of being;
namely, that speech belongs to Mind instead of matter,
and the wrong power, or the lost sense, must yield to the |
| 27 |
right sense, and exist in Mind.
In the Hebrew,
"devil" is denominated Abaddon; in
the Greek, Apollyon, serpent, liar, the
god of this world, |
| 30 |
etc. The apostle Paul refers to this
personality of evil
as "the god of this world;" and then defines this god
Page
191 |
| 1 |
as "dishonesty, craftiness, handling the
word of God
deceitfully." The Hebrew embodies the term "devil" |
| 3 |
in another term, serpent, - which the
senses are supposed
to take in, - and then defines this serpent as
"more
subtle than all the beasts of the field." Subsequently, |
| 6 |
the ancients changed the meaning of the
term, to their
sense, and then the serpent became a symbol of wisdom.
The Scripture in
John, sixth chapter and seventieth |
| 9 |
verse, refers to a wicked man as the devil:
"Have not
I chosen you twelve, and one of you is a devil ?" Accord-
ing to the Scripture, if devil is an individuality, there is |
| 12 |
more than one devil. In Mark, ninth chapter
and thirty-
eighth verse, it reads: "Master, we saw one casting out
devils in thy name." Here is an assertion indicating |
| 15 |
the existence of more than one devil; and
by omitting the
first letter, the name of his satanic majesty is found
to be evils, apparent wrong traits, that Christ, Truth, |
| 18 |
casts out. By no possible interpretation
can this passage
mean several individuals cast out of another
individual
no bigger than themselves. The term, being here em- |
| 21 |
ployed in its plural number, destroys all
consistent sup-
position of the existence of one personal devil. Again,
our text refers to the devil as dumb; but the original |
| 24 |
devil was a great talker, and was supposed
to have out-
talked even Truth, and carried the question with Eve.
Also, the original texts define him as an "accuser," a |
| 27 |
"calumniator," which would be impossible if
he were
speechless. These two opposite characters ascribed to
him
could only be possible as evil beliefs, as different |
| 30 |
phases of sin or disease made manifest.
Let us obey St.
Paul's injunction to reject fables, and
accept the Scriptures in their
broader, more spiritual
Page
192 |
| 1 |
and practical sense. When we speak of a
good man, we
do not mean that man is God because the Hebrew term |
| 3 |
for Deity was "good," and vice
versa; so, when referring
to a liar, we mean not that he is a personal
devil, because
the original text defines devil as a "liar." |
| 6 |
It is of infinite importance to man's
spiritual progress,
and to his demonstration of Truth in casting out
error,
- sickness, sin, disease, and death, in all their forms, - |
| 9 |
that the terms and nature of Deity and
devil be understood.
He that believeth
on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and
greater works than these
shall he do; because I go unto my Father. - |
| 12 |
JOHN xiv. 12.
Such are the words
of him who spake divinely, well
knowing the omnipotence of Truth. The
Hebrew bard |
| 15 |
saith, "His name shall endure forever: His
name shall
be continued as long as the sun." Luminous with the
light of
divine Science, his words reveal the great Principle |
| 18 |
of a full salvation. Neither can we
question the practi-
cability of the divine Word, who have learned its
adapta-
bility to human needs, and man's ability to prove the |
| 21 |
truth of prophecy.
The fulfilment of
the grand verities of Christian healing
belongs to every period; as the
above Scripture plainly |
| 24 |
declares, and as primitive Christianity
confirms. Also,
the last chapter of Mark is emphatic on this subject;
making healing a condition of salvation, that extends to |
| 27 |
all ages and throughout all Christendom.
Nothing can
be more conclusive than this: "And these signs shall
follow
them that believe; . . . they shall lay hands on |
| 30 |
the sick, and they shall recover." This
declaration of
our Master settles the question; else we are
entertaining
Page
193 |
| 1 |
the startling inquiries, Are the Scriptures
inspired? Are
they true? Did Jesus mean what he said? |
| 3 |
If this be the cavil, we reply in the
affirmative that the
Scripture is true; that Jesus did mean all, and even
more
than he said or deemed it safe to say at that time. His |
| 6 |
words are unmistakable, for they form
propositions of
self-evident demonstrable truth. Doctrines that deny
the substance and practicality of all Christ's teachings |
| 9 |
cannot be evangelical; and evangelical
religion can be
established on no other claim than the authenticity of
the Gospels, which support unequivocally the proof that |
| 12 |
Christian Science, as defined and
practised by Jesus,
heals the sick, casts out error, and will destroy
death.
Referring to The
Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, |
| 15 |
of which I am pastor, a certain clergyman
charitably
expressed it, "the so-called Christian Scientists."
I am thankful even
for his allusion to truth; it being |
| 18 |
a modification of silence on this subject,
and also of what
had been said when critics attacked me for supplying
the
word Science to Christianity, - a word which the people |
| 21 |
are now adopting.
The next step for
ecclesiasticism to take, is to admit
that all Christians are properly
called Scientists who |
| 24 |
follow the commands of our Lord and His
Christ, Truth;
and that no one is following his full command without
this enlarged sense of the spirit and power of Christianity. |
| 27 |
"He that believeth on me, the works that I
do shall he do,"
is a radical and unmistakable declaration of the right
and
power of Christianity to heal; for this is Christlike, |
| 30 |
and includes the understanding of man's
capabilities and
spiritual power. The condition insisted upon is,
first,
"belief;" the Hebrew of which implies understanding.
Page
194 |
| 1 |
How many to-day believe that the power of
God equals
even the power of a drug to heal the sick! Divine Science |
| 3 |
reveals the Principle of this power, and
the rule whereby
sin, sickness, disease, and death are destroyed; and
God
is this Principle. Let us, then, seek this Science; that we |
| 6 |
may know Him better, and love Him more.
Though a man were
begirt with the Urim and Thum-
mim of priestly office, yet should deny the
validity or |
| 9 |
permanence of Christ's command to heal in
all ages,
this denial would dishonor that office and misinterpret
evangelical religion. Divine Science is not an interpo- |
| 12 |
lation of the Scriptures, but is redolent
with love, health,
and holiness, for the whole human race. It only
needs
the prism of this Science to divide the rays of Truth, and |
| 15 |
bring out the entire hues of Deity, which
scholastic theol-
ogy has hidden. The lens of Science magnifies the
divine
power to human sight; and we then see the supremacy |
| 18 |
of Spirit and the nothingness of matter.
The context of the
foregoing Scriptural text explains
Jesus' words, "because I go unto my
Father." "Because" |
| 21 |
in following him, you understand God and
how to turn
from matter to Spirit for healing; how to leave
self, the
sense material, for the sense spiritual; how to
accept |
| 24 |
God's power and guidance, and become imbued
with
divine Love that casts out all fear. Then are you bap-
tized in
the Truth that destroys all error, and you receive |
| 27 |
the sense of Life that knows no death, and
you know that
God is the only Life.
To reach the
consummate naturalness of the Life that |
| 30 |
is God, good, we must comply with the
first condition
set forth in the text, namely, believe; in other words,
understand God sufficiently to exclude all faith in any
Page
195 |
| 1 |
other remedy than Christ, the Truth that
antidotes all
error. Thence will follow the absorption of all action, |
| 3 |
motive, and mind, into the rules and
divine Principle of
metaphysical healing.
Whosoever learns the
letter of Christian Science but |
| 6 |
possesses not its spirit, is unable to
demonstrate this
Science; or whosoever hath the spirit without the
letter,
is held back by reason of the lack of understanding. Both |
| 9 |
the spirit and the letter are requisite;
and having these,
every one can prove, in some degree, the validity of
those
words of the great Master, "For the Son of man is come |
| 12 |
to save that which was lost."
It has been said
that the New Testament does not au-
thorize us to expect the ministry of
healing at this period. |
| 15 |
We ask what is the authority for such a
conclusion,
the premises whereof are not to be found in the Scriptures.
The Master's divine logic, as seen in our text, contradicts |
| 18 |
this inference, - these are his words: "He
that believeth
on me, the works that I do shall he do also." That per-
fect syllogism of Jesus has but one correct premise and |
| 21 |
conclusion, and it cannot fall to the
ground beneath the
stroke of unskilled swordsmen. He who never
unsheathed
his blade to try the edge of truth in Christian Science, is |
| 24 |
unequal to the conflict, and unfit to judge
in the case;
the shepherd's sling would slay this Goliath. I once be-
lieved that the practice and teachings of Jesus relative to |
| 27 |
healing the sick, were spiritual
abstractions, impractical
and impossible to us; but deed, not creed, and
practice
more than theory, have given me a higher sense of |
| 30 |
Christianity.
The "I" will go to
the Father when meekness, purity,
and love, informed by divine Science, the
Comforter,
Page
196 |
| 1 |
lead to the one God: then the ego is found
not in
matter but in Mind, for there is but one God, one |
| 3 |
Mind; and man will then claim no mind apart
from God.
Idolatry, the supposition of the existence of many minds
and
more than one God, has repeated itself in all manner |
| 6 |
of subtleties through the entire centuries,
saying as in
the beginning, "Believe in me, and I will make you as
gods;" that is, I will give you a separate mind from God |
| 9 |
(good), named evil; and this so-called mind
shall open
your eyes and make you know evil, and thus become
material,
sensual, evil. But bear in mind that a serpent |
| 12 |
said that; therefore that saying came not
from Mind,
good, or Truth. God was not the author of it; hence the
words of our Master: "He is a liar, and the father of it;" |
| 15 |
also, the character of the votaries to
"other gods" which
sprung from it.
The sweet, sacred
sense and permanence of man's |
| 18 |
unity with his Maker, in Science, illumines
our present
existence with the ever-presence and power of God, good.
It
opens wide the portals of salvation from sin, sickness, |
| 21 |
and death. When the Life that is God, good,
shall ap-
pear, "we shall be like Him;" we shall do the works of
Christ, and, in the words of David, "the stone which the |
| 24 |
builders refused is become the head stone
of the corner,"
because the "I" does go unto the Father, the ego does
arise to spiritual recognition of being, and is exalted, - |
| 27 |
not through death, but Life, God
understood.
Believe on the
Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved. -
ACTS
xvi. 31. |
| 30 |
The Scriptures require more than a simple
admission
and feeble acceptance of the truths they present; they
Page
197 |
| 1 |
require a living faith, that so
incorporates their lessons
into our lives that these truths become the
motive-power |
| 3 |
of every act.
Our chosen text is
one more frequently used than
many others, perhaps, to exhort people to
turn from sin |
| 6 |
and to strive after holiness; but we fear
the full import
of this text is not yet recognized. It means a full
salva-
tion, - man saved from sin, sickness, and death; for, |
| 9 |
unless this be so, no man can be wholly
fitted for heaven
in the way which Jesus marked out and bade his
followers
pursue. |
| 12 |
In order to comprehend the meaning of the
text, let
us see what it is to believe. It means more than an opinion
entertained concerning Jesus as a man, as the Son of God, |
| 15 |
or as God; such an action of mind would be
of no more
help to save from sin, than would a belief in any historical
event or person. But it does mean so to understand the |
| 18 |
beauty of holiness, the character and
divinity which Jesus
presented in his power to heal and to save, that it
will
compel us to pattern after both; in other words, to "let |
| 21 |
this Mind be in you, which was also in
Christ Jesus."
(Phil. ii. 5.)
Mortal man believes
in, but does not understand life |
| 24 |
in, Christ. He believes there is another
power or intelli-
gence that rules over a kingdom of its own, that is
both
good and evil; yea, that is divided against itself, and there- |
| 27 |
fore cannot stand. This belief breaks the
First Command-
ment of God.
Let man abjure a
theory that is in opposition to God, |
| 30 |
recognize God as omnipotent, having
all-power; and,
placing his trust in this grand Truth, and working
from
no other Principle, he can neither be sick nor forever a
Page
198 |
| 1 |
sinner. When wholly governed by the one
perfect Mind,
man has no sinful thoughts and will have no desire |
| 3 |
to sin.
To arrive at this
point of unity of Spirit, God, one must
commence by turning away from
material gods; denying |
| 6 |
material so-called laws and material
sensation, - or mind
in matter, in its varied forms of pleasure and pain.
This
must be done with the understanding that matter has no |
| 9 |
sense; thus it is that consciousness
silences the mortal
claim to life, substance, or mind in matter, with the
words
of Jesus: "When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his |
| 12 |
own." (John viii. 44.)
When tempted to sin,
we should know that evil pro-
ceedeth not from God, good, but is a false
belief of the |
| 15 |
personal senses; and if we deny the claims
of these senses
and recognize man as governed by God, Spirit, not by
material laws, the temptation will disappear. |
| 18 |
On this Principle, disease also is treated
and healed.
We know that man's body, as matter, has no power to
govern
itself; and a belief of disease is as much the prod- |
| 21 |
uct of mortal thought as sin is. All
suffering is the fruit
of the tree of the knowledge of both good and
evil; of
adherence to the "doubleminded" senses, to some belief, |
| 24 |
fear, theory, or bad deed, based on
physical material law,
so-called as opposed to good, - all of which is
corrected
alone by Science, divine Principle, and its spiritual laws. |
| 27 |
Suffering is the supposition of another
intelligence than
God; a belief in self-existent evil, opposed to good;
and
in whatever seems to punish man for doing good, - |
| 30 |
by saying he has overworked, suffered from
inclement
weather, or violated a law of matter in doing good, there-
fore he must suffer for it.
Page
199 |
| 1 |
God does not reward benevolence and love
with pen-
alties; and because of this, we have the right to deny the |
| 3 |
supposed power of matter to do it, and to
allege that only
mortal, erring mind can claim to do thus, and dignify
the
result with the name of law: thence comes man's ability |
| 6 |
to annul his own erring mental law, and to
hold himself
amenable only to moral and spiritual law, - God's gov-
ernment. By so doing, male and female come into their |
| 9 |
rightful heritage, "into the glorious
liberty of the children
of God."
Therefore I take
pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in neces- |
| 12 |
sities, in persecutions, in distresses for
Christ's sake. - 2 COR.
xii. 10.
The miracles
recorded in the Scriptures illustrate the |
| 15 |
life of Jesus as nothing else can; but they
cost him the
hatred of the rabbis. The rulers sought the life of Jesus;
they would extinguish whatever denied and defied their |
| 18 |
superstition. We learn somewhat of the
qualities of the
divine Mind through the human Jesus. The power of
his
transcendent goodness is manifest in the control it |
| 21 |
gave him over the qualities opposed to
Spirit which mor-
tals name matter.
The Principle of
these marvellous works is divine; but |
| 24 |
the actor was human. This divine Principle
is discerned
in Christian Science, as we advance in the spiritual
under-
standing that all substance, Life, and intelligence are |
| 27 |
God. The so-called miracles contained in
Holy Writ are
neither supernatural nor preternatural; for God is good,
and goodness is more natural than evil. The marvellous |
| 30 |
healing-power of goodness is the
outflowing life of Chris-
tianity, and it characterized and dated the
Christian era.
Page
200 |
| 1 |
It was the consummate naturalness of Truth
in the
mind of Jesus, that made his healing easy and instan- |
| 3 |
taneous. Jesus regarded good as the normal
state of man,
and evil as the abnormal; holiness, life, and health as
the better representatives of God than sin, disease, and |
| 6 |
death. The master Metaphysician understood
omnipo-
tence to be All-power: because Spirit was to him All-
in-all,
matter was palpably an error of premise and |
| 9 |
conclusion, while God was the only
substance, Life,
and intelligence of man.
The apostle Paul
insists on the rare rule in Christian |
| 12 |
Science that we have chosen for a text; a
rule that is sus-
ceptible of proof, and is applicable to every stage
and
state of human existence. The divine Science of this rule |
| 15 |
is quite as remote from the general
comprehension of man-
kind as are the so-called miracles of our Master, and
for
the sole reason that it is their basis. The foundational |
| 18 |
facts of Christian Science are gathered
from the supremacy
of spiritual law and its antagonism to every supposed
ma-
terial law. Christians to-day should be able to say, with |
| 21 |
the sweet sincerity of the apostle, "I take
pleasure in
infirmities," - I enjoy the touch of weakness, pain, and
all suffering of the flesh, because it compels me to seek the |
| 24 |
remedy for it, and to find happiness, apart
from the per-
sonal senses. The holy calm of Paul's well-tried hope
met
no obstacle or circumstances paramount to the tri- |
| 27 |
umph of a reasonable faith in the
omnipotence of good,
involved in its divine Principle, God: the so-called
pains
and pleasures of matter were alike unreal to Jesus; for he |
| 30 |
regarded matter as only a vagary of mortal
belief, and sub-
dued it with this understanding.
The abstract
statement that all is Mind, supports the
Page
201 |
| 1 |
entire wisdom of the text; and this
statement receives
the mortal scoff only because it meets the immortal
de- |
| 3 |
mands of Truth. The Science of Paul's
declaration re-
solves the element misnamed matter into its original
sin,
or human will; that will which would oppose bringing the |
| 6 |
qualities of Spirit into subjection to
Spirit. Sin brought
death; and death is an element of matter, or
material
falsity, never of Spirit. |
| 9 |
When Jesus reproduced his body after its
burial, he
revealed the myth or material falsity of evil; its power-
lessness to destroy good, and the omnipotence of the |
| 12 |
Mind that knows this: he also showed forth
the error
and nothingness of supposed life in matter, and the great
somethingness of the good we possess, which is of Spirit, |
| 15 |
and immortal.
Understanding this,
Paul took pleasure in infirmities,
for it enabled him to triumph over them,
- he declared |
| 18 |
that "the law of the Spirit of life in
Christ Jesus hath
made me free from the law of sin and death;" he took
pleasure in "reproaches" and "persecutions," because |
| 21 |
they were so many proofs that he had
wrought the prob-
lem of being beyond the common apprehension of
sinners;
he took pleasure in "necessities," for they tested and de- |
| 24 |
veloped latent power.
We protect our
dwellings more securely after a robbery,
and our jewels have been stolen;
so, after losing those |
| 27 |
jewels of character, - temperance, virtue,
and truth, -
the young man is awakened to bar his door against further
robberies. |
| 30 |
Go to the bedside of pain, and there you
can demon-
strate the triumph of good that has pleasure in
infirmities;
because it illustrates through the flesh the divine power
Page
202 |
| 1 |
of Spirit, and reaches the basis of all
supposed miracles;
whereby the sweet harmonies of Christian Science
are |
| 3 |
found to correct the discords of sense,
and to lift man's
being into the sunlight of Soul.
"The
chamber where the good man meets his fate |
| 6 |
Is
privileged beyond the walks of common life,
Quite on the verge of
heaven."
Page
203
CHAPTER VII
POND AND PURPOSE |
| 1 |
BELOVED STUDENTS: - In thanking you for
your
gift of the pretty pond contributed to Pleasant View, |
| 3 |
in Concord, New Hampshire, I make no
distinction be-
tween my students and your students; for here, thine
becomes mine through gratitude and affection. |
| 6 |
From my tower window, as I look on this
smile of
Christian Science, this gift from my students and their
students, it will always mirror their love, loyalty, and |
| 9 |
good works. Solomon saith, "As in water
face answereth
to face, so the heart of man to man."
The waters that run
among the valleys, and that |
| 12 |
you have coaxed in their course to call on
me, have
served the imagination for centuries. Theology religiously
bathes in water, medicine applies it physically, hydrology |
| 15 |
handles it with so-called science, and
metaphysics appro-
priates it topically as type and shadow.
Metaphysically,
baptism serves to rebuke the senses and illustrate
Christian |
| 18 |
Science.
First: The baptism of
repentance is indeed a stricken
state of human consciousness, wherein
mortals gain |
| 21 |
severe views of themselves; a state of
mind which rends
the veil that hides mental deformity. Tears flood the
eyes,
Page
204 |
| 1 |
agony struggles, pride rebels, and a mortal
seems a
monster, a dark, impenetrable cloud of error; and falling |
| 3 |
on the bended knee of prayer, humble before
God, he
cries, "Save, or I perish." Thus Truth, searching the
heart,
neutralizes and destroys error. |
| 6 |
This mental period is sometimes chronic,
but oftener
acute. It is attended throughout with doubt, hope, sorrow,
joy, defeat, and triumph. When the good fight is fought, |
| 9 |
error yields up its weapons and kisses the
feet of Love,
while white-winged peace sings to the heart a song of
angels. |
| 12 |
Second: The baptism of the Holy
Ghost is the spirit
of Truth cleansing from all sin; giving mortals new
motives, new purposes, new affections, all pointing up- |
| 15 |
ward. This mental condition settles into
strength, free-
dom, deep-toned faith in God; and a marked loss of
faith
in evil, in human wisdom, human policy, ways, and means. |
| 18 |
It develops individual capacity, increases
the intellectual
activities, and so quickens moral sensibility that the
great demands of spiritual sense are recognized, and they |
| 21 |
rebuke the material senses, holding sway
over human
consciousness.
By purifying human
thought, this state of mind per- |
| 24 |
meates with increased harmony all the
minutiae of human
affairs. It brings with it wonderful foresight,
wisdom,
and power; it unselfs the mortal purpose, gives steadi- |
| 27 |
ness to resolve, and success to endeavor.
Through the
accession of spirituality, God, the divine Principle of
Christian Science, literally governs the aims, ambition, |
| 30 |
and acts of the Scientist. The divine
ruling gives pru-
dence and energy; it banishes forever all envy,
rivalry,
evil thinking, evil speaking and acting; and mortal
Page
205 |
| 1 |
mind, thus purged, obtains peace and power
outside of
itself. |
| 3 |
This practical Christian Science is the
divine Mind,
the incorporeal Truth and Love, shining through the mists
of materiality and melting away the shadows called sin, |
| 6 |
disease, and death.
In mortal
experience, the fire of repentance first sepa-
rates the dross from the
gold, and reformation brings |
| 9 |
the light which dispels darkness. Thus the
operation
of the spirit of Truth and Love on the human thought,
in the
words of St. John, "shall take of mine and show it |
| 12 |
unto you."
Third: The baptism of Spirit,
or final immersion of
human consciousness in the infinite ocean of Love, is
the |
| 15 |
last scene in corporeal sense. This
omnipotent act drops
the curtain on material man and mortality. After
this,
man's identity or consciousness reflects only Spirit, good, |
| 18 |
whose visible being is invisible to the
physical senses: eye
hath not seen it, inasmuch as it is the disembodied
in-
dividual Spirit-substance and consciousness termed in |
| 21 |
Christian metaphysics the ideal man -
forever permeated
with eternal life, holiness, heaven. This order of
Science
is the chain of ages, which maintain their obvious corre- |
| 24 |
spondence, and unites all periods in the
divine design.
Mortal man's repentance and absolute abandonment of
sin
finally dissolves all supposed material life or physical |
| 27 |
sensation, and the corporeal or mortal man
disappears
forever. The encumbering mortal molecules, called man,
vanish as a dream; but man born of the great Forever, |
| 30 |
lives on, God-crowned and blest.
Mortals who on the
shores of time learn Christian
Science, and live what they learn, take
rapid transit to
Page
206 |
| 1 |
heaven, - the hinge on which have turned
all revolu-
tions, natural, civil, or religious, the former being
servant |
| 3 |
to the latter, - from flux to permanence,
from foul to
pure, from torpid to serene, from extremes to
intermediate.
Above the waves of Jordan, dashing against the receding |
| 6 |
shore, is heard the Father and Mother's
welcome, saying
forever to the baptized of Spirit: "This is my beloved
Son." What but divine Science can interpret man's |
| 9 |
eternal existence, God's allness, and the
scientific inde-
structibility of the universe?
The advancing stages
of Christian Science are gained |
| 12 |
through growth, not accretion; idleness is
the foe of
progress. And scientific growth manifests no weakness,
no
emasculation, no illusive vision, no dreamy absentness, |
| 15 |
no insubordination to the laws that be, no
loss nor lack
of what constitutes true manhood.
Growth is governed
by intelligence; by the active, |
| 18 |
all-wise, law-creating, law-disciplining,
law-abiding Prin-
ciple, God. The real Christian Scientist is
constantly
accentuating harmony in word and deed, mentally and |
| 21 |
orally, perpetually repeating this diapason
of heaven:
"Good is my God, and my God is good. Love is my God,
and my
God is Love." |
| 24 |
Beloved students, you have entered the
path. Press
patiently on; God is good, and good is the reward of all
who diligently seek God. Your growth will be rapid, if |
| 27 |
you love good supremely, and understand and
obey the
Way-shower, who, going before you, has scaled the steep
ascent
of Christian Science, stands upon the mount of |
| 30 |
holiness, the dwelling-place of our God,
and bathes in the
baptismal font of eternal Love.
As you journey, and
betimes sigh for rest "beside the
Page
207 |
| 1 |
still waters," ponder this lesson of love.
Learn its pur-
pose; and in hope and faith, where heart meets heart |
| 3 |
reciprocally blest, drink with me the
living waters of the
spirit of my life-purpose, - to impress humanity
with
the genuine recognition of practical, operative Christian |
| 6 |
Science.
Page
208
CHAPTER VIII - PRECEPT UPON PRECEPT
"THY WILL BE DONE"
THIS is the law of
Truth to error, "Thou shalt surely |
| 3 |
die." This law is a divine energy. Mortals
cannot
prevent the fulfilment of this law; it covers all sin and
its
effects. God is All, and by virtue of this nature and |
| 6 |
allness He is cognizant only of good. Like
a legislative
bill that governs millions of mortals whom the
legislators
know not, the universal law of God has no knowledge |
| 9 |
of evil, and enters unconsciously the
human heart and
governs it.
Mortals have only to
submit to the law of God, come |
| 12 |
into sympathy with it, and to let His will
be done. This
unbroken motion of the law of divine Love gives, to the
weary and heavy-laden, rest. But who is willing to do |
| 15 |
His will or to let it be done? Mortals
obey their own
wills, and so disobey the divine order.
All states and
stages of human error are met and |
| 18 |
mastered by divine Truth's negativing error
in the way
of God's appointing. Those "whom the Lord loveth He
chasteneth." His rod brings to view His love, and inter- |
| 21 |
prets to mortals the gospel of healing.
David said, "Be-
fore I was afflicted I went astray: but now have I
kept Thy word." He who knows the end from the be-
Page
209 |
| 1 |
ginning, attaches to sin due penalties as
its antidotes and
remedies. |
| 3 |
Who art thou, vain mortal, that usurpest
the preroga-
tive of divine wisdom, and wouldst teach God not to pun-
ish sin? that wouldst shut the mouth of His prophets, |
| 6 |
and cry, "Peace, peace; when there is no
peace," - yea,
that healest the wounds of my people slightly?
The Principle of
divine Science being Love, the divine |
| 9 |
rule of this Principle demonstrates Love,
and proves that
human belief fulfils the law of belief, and dies of its
own
physics. Metaphysics also demonstrates this Principle of |
| 12 |
cure when sin is self-destroyed.
Short-sighted physics
admits the so-called pains of matter that destroy its
more
dangerous pleasures. |
| 15 |
Insomnia compels mortals to learn that
neither obliv-
ion nor dreams can recuperate the life of man, whose
Life is God, for God neither slumbers nor sleeps. The |
| 18 |
loss of gustatory enjoyment and the ills of
indigestion
tend to rebuke appetite and destroy the peace of a false
sense. False pleasure will be, is, chastened; it has no |
| 21 |
right to be at peace. To suffer for having
"other gods
before me," is divinely wise. Evil passions die in their
own flames, but are punished before extinguished. Peace |
| 24 |
has no foothold on the false basis that
evil should be
concealed and that life and happiness should still
attend
it. Joy is self-sustained; goodness and blessedness are |
| 27 |
one: suffering is self-inflicted, and good
is the master of
evil.
To this scientific
logic and the logic of events, egotism |
| 30 |
and false charity say, " 'Not so, Lord;'
it is wise to
cover iniquity and punish it not, then shall mortals have
peace." Divine Love, as unconscious as incapable of
Page
210 |
| 1 |
error, pursues the evil that hideth itself,
strips off its
disguises, and - behold the result: evil, uncovered, is |
| 3 |
self-destroyed.
Christian Science
never healed a patient without prov-
ing with mathematical certainty that
error, when found |
| 6 |
out, is two-thirds destroyed, and the
remaining third
kills itself. Do men whine over a nest of serpents, and
post around it placards warning people not to stir up |
| 9 |
these reptiles because they have stings?
Christ said,
"They shall take up serpents;" and, "Be ye therefore
wise
as serpents and harmless as doves." The wisdom |
| 12 |
of a serpent is to hide itself. The wisdom
of God, as
revealed in Christian Science, brings the serpent out of
its
hole, handles it, and takes away its sting. Good deeds |
| 15 |
are harmless. He who has faith in woman's
special adapt-
ability to lead on Christian Science, will not be
shocked
when she puts her foot on the head of the serpent, as it |
| 18 |
biteth at the heel.
Intemperance begets
a belief of disordered brains,
membranes, stomach, and nerves; and this
belief serves |
| 21 |
to uncover and kill this lurking serpent,
intemperance,
that hides itself under the false pretense of human need,
innocent enjoyment, and a medical prescription. The |
| 24 |
belief in venereal diseases tears the black
mask from the
shameless brow of licentiousness, torments its victim,
and
thus may save him from his destroyer. |
| 27 |
Charity has the courage of conviction; it
may suffer
long, but has neither the cowardice nor the foolhardiness
to
cover iniquity. Charity is Love; and Love opens |
| 30 |
the eyes of the blind, rebukes error, and
casts it out.
Charity never flees before error, lest it should suffer
from an encounter. Love your enemies, or you will not
Page
211 |
| 1 |
loose them; and if you love them, you will
help to reform
them. |
| 3 |
Christ points the way of salvation. His
mode is not
cowardly, uncharitable, nor unwise, but it teaches mor-
tals to handle serpents and cast out evil. Our own vision |
| 6 |
must be clear to open the eyes of others,
else the blind
will lead the blind and both shall fall. The sickly
charity
that supplies criminals with bouquets has been dealt |
| 9 |
with summarily by the good judgment of
people in
the old Bay State. Inhuman medical bills, class legisla-
tion, and Salem witchcraft, are not indigenous to her |
| 12 |
son.
"Out of the depths
have I delivered thee." The
drowning man just rescued from the merciless
wave is |
| 15 |
unconscious of suffering. Why, then, do you
break his
peace and cause him to suffer in coming to life? Because
you
wish to save him from death. Then, if a criminal |
| 18 |
is at peace is he not to be pitied and
brought back to
life? Or, are you afraid to do this lest he suffer,
trample
on your pearls of thought, and turn on you and rend you? |
| 21 |
Cowardice is selfishness. When one protects
himself at
his neighbor's cost, let him remember, "Whosoever will
save
his life shall lose it." He risks nothing who obeys |
| 24 |
the law of God, and shall find the Life
that cannot be
lost.
Our Master said, "Ye
shall drink indeed of my cup." |
| 27 |
Jesus stormed sin in its citadels and kept
peace with
God. He drank this cup giving thanks, and he said to
his
followers, "Drink ye all of it," - drink it all, and let |
| 30 |
all drink of it. He lived the spirit of
his prayer, - "Thy
kingdom come." Shall we repeat our Lord's Prayer
when the heart denies it, refuses to bear the cross and
Page
212 |
| 1 |
to fulfil the conditions of our petition?
Human policy
is a fool that saith in his heart, "No God" - a caressing |
| 3 |
Judas that betrays you, and commits
suicide. This god-
less policy never knows what happiness is, and how it
is
obtained. |
| 6 |
Jesus did his work, and left his glorious
career for our
example. On the shore of Gennesaret he tersely re-
minded his students of their worldly policy. They had |
| 9 |
suffered, and seen their error. This
experience caused
them to remember the reiterated warning of their Mas-
ter and cast their nets on the right side. When they |
| 12 |
were fit to be blest, they received the
blessing. The
ultimatum of their human sense of ways and means
ought to
silence ours. One step away from the direct |
| 16 |
line of divine Science cost them - what? A
speedy re-
turn under the reign of difficulties, darkness, and unre-
quited toil. |
| 18 |
The currents of human nature rush in
against the right
course; health, happiness, and life flow not into one
of
their channels. The law of Love saith, "Not my will, |
| 21 |
but Thine, be done," and Christian Science
proves that
human will is lost in the divine; and Love, the white
Christ, is the remunerator. |
| 24 |
If, consciously or unconsciously, one is at
work in a
wrong direction, who will step forward and open his
eyes to
see this error? He who is a Christian Scientist, |
| 27 |
who has cast the beam out of his own eye,
speaks plainly
to the offender and tries to show his errors to him
before
letting another know it. |
| 30 |
Pitying friends took down from the cross
the fainting
form of Jesus, and buried it out of their sight. His dis-
ciples, who had not yet drunk of his cup, lost sight of
Page
213 |
| 1 |
him; they could not behold his immortal
being in the
form of Godlikeness. |
| 3 |
All that I have written, taught, or lived,
that is good,
flowed through cross-bearing, self-forgetfulness, and my
faith in the right. Suffering or Science, or both, in the |
| 6 |
proportion that their instructions are
assimilated, will
point the way, shorten the process, and consummate
the
joys of acquiescence in the methods of divine Love. The |
| 9 |
Scripture saith, "He that covereth his sins
shall not pros-
per." No risk is so stupendous as to neglect opportuni-
ties which God giveth, and not to forewarn and forearm |
| 12 |
our fellow-mortals against the evil which,
if seen, can
be destroyed.
May my friends and
my enemies so profit by these |
| 15 |
waymarks, that what has chastened and
illumined
another's way may perfect their own lives by gentle
benedictions. In every age, the pioneer reformer must |
| 18 |
pass through a baptism of fire. But the
faithful adher-
ents of Truth have gone on rejoicing. Christian Science
gives a fearless wing and firm foundation. These are |
| 21 |
its inspiring tones from the lips of our
Master, "My
sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow
me:
and I give unto them eternal life; and they shall |
| 24 |
never perish, neither shall any man pluck
them out of
my hand." He is but "an hireling" who fleeth when he
seeth
the wolf coming. |
| 27 |
Loyal Christian Scientists, be of good
cheer: the night
is far spent, the day dawns; God's universal kingdom
will appear, Love will reign in every heart, and His will |
| 30 |
be done on earth as in heaven.
Page
214
"PUT UP THY SWORD"
While Jesus' life
was full of Love, and a demonstra- |
| 3 |
tion of Love, it appeared hate to the
carnal mind, or
mortal thought, of his time. He said, "Think not that
I
am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send |
| 6 |
peace, but a sword. For I am come to set a
man at
variance against his father, and the daughter against her
mother, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in- |
| 9 |
law. And a man's foes shall be they of his
own house-
hold."
This action of Jesus
was stimulated by the same Love |
| 12 |
that closed - to the senses - that wondrous
life, and
that summed up its demonstration in the command,
"Put up thy
sword. " The very conflict his Truth brought, |
| 15 |
in accomplishing its purpose of Love,
meant, all
the way through, "Put up thy sword;" but the sword
must have
been drawn before it could be returned into |
| 18 |
the scabbard.
My students need to
search the Scriptures and "Science
and Health with Key to the Scriptures,"
to understand |
| 21 |
the personal Jesus' labor in the flesh for
their salvation:
they need to do this even to understand my works,
their
motives, aims, and tendency. |
| 24 |
The attitude of mortal mind in being healed
morally,
is the same as its attitude physically. The Christian
Scientist cannot heal the sick, and take error along with |
| 27 |
Truth, either in the recognition or
approbation of it.
This would prevent the possibility of destroying the
tares: they must be separated from the wheat before |
| 30 |
they can be burned, and Jesus foretold the
harvest hour
Page
215 |
| 1 |
and the final destruction of error through
this very pro-
cess, - the sifting and the fire. The tendency of
mortal |
| 3 |
mind is to go from one extreme to another:
Truth comes
into the intermediate space, saying, "I wound to heal;
I
punish to reform; I do it all in love; my peace I leave |
| 6 |
with thee: not as the world giveth, give I
unto thee.
Arise, let us go hence; let us depart from the material
sense of God's ways and means, and gain a spiritual |
| 9 |
understanding of them."
But let us not seek
to climb up some other way, as we
shall do if we take the end for the
beginning or start |
| 12 |
from wrong motives. Christian Science
demands order
and truth. To abide by these we must first understand
the
Principle and object of our work, and be clear that |
| 15 |
it is Love, peace, and good will toward
men. Then we
shall demonstrate the Principle in the way of His ap-
pointment, and not according to the infantile concep- |
| 18 |
tion of our way; as when a child in sleep
walks on the
summit of the roof of the house because he is a som-
nambulist, and thinks he is where he is not, and would |
| 21 |
fall immediately if he knew where he was
and what he
was doing.
My students are at
the beginning of their demonstra- |
| 24 |
tion; they have a long warfare with error
in themselves
and in others to finish, and they must at this stage use
the sword of Spirit. |
| 27 |
They cannot in the beginning take the
attitude, nor
adopt the words, that Jesus used at the end of his
demonstration. |
| 30 |
If you would follow in his footsteps, you
must not try
to gather the harvest while the corn is in the blade, nor
yet when it is in the ear; a wise spiritual discernment
Page
216 |
| 1 |
must be used in your application of his
words and infer-
ence from his acts, to guide your own state of combat |
| 3 |
with error. There remaineth, it is
true, a Sabbath rest
for the people of God; but we must first have done
our
work, and entered into our rest, as the Scriptures give |
| 6 |
example.
SCIENTIFIC THEISM
In the May number of
our Journal, there appeared a |
| 9 |
review of, and some extracts from,
"Scientific Theism,"
by Phare Pleigh.
Now, Phare Pleigh
evidently means more than "hands |
| 12 |
off." A live lexicographer, given to the
Anglo-Saxon
tongue, might add to the above definition the "laying
on of
hands," as well. Whatever his nom de plume |
| 15 |
means, an acquaintance with the author
justifies one
in the conclusion that he is a power in criticism, a
big
protest against injustice; but, the best may be |
| 18 |
mistaken.
One of these
extracts is the story of the Cheshire Cat,
which "vanished quite slowly,
beginning with the end |
| 21 |
of the tail, and ending with the grin,
which remained
some time after the rest of it had gone." Was this a witty
or a happy hit at idealism, to illustrate the author's |
| 24 |
lowing point? -
"When philosophy
becomes fairy-land, in which neither
laws of nature nor the laws of reason
hold good, the |
| 27 |
attempt of phenomenism to conceive the
universe as a
phenomenon without a noumenon may succeed, but not
before; for it is an attempt to conceive a grin without |
| 30 |
a cat."
Page
217 |
| 1 |
True idealism is a divine Science, which
combines in
logical sequence, nature, reason, and revelation. An |
| 3 |
effect without a cause is inconceivable;
neither philoso-
phy nor reason attempts to find one; but all should
con-
ceive and understand that Spirit cannot become less than |
| 6 |
Spirit; hence that the universe of God is
spiritual, - even
the ideal world whose cause is the self-created
Principle,
with which its ideal or phenomenon must correspond in |
| 9 |
quality and quantity.
The fallacy of an
unscientific statement is this: that
matter and Spirit are one and eternal;
or, that the phe- |
| 12 |
nomenon of Spirit is the antipode of
Spirit, namely, mat-
ter. Nature declares, throughout the mineral,
vegetable,
and animal kingdoms, that the specific nature of all things |
| 15 |
is unchanged, and that nature is
constituted of and by
Spirit.
Sensuous and
material realistic views presuppose that |
| 18 |
nature is matter, and that Deity is a
finite person con-
taining infinite Mind; and that these opposites, in
sup-
positional unity and personality, produce matter, - a |
| 21 |
third quality unlike God. Again, that
matter is both
cause and effect, but that the effect is antagonistic to
its
cause; that death is at war with Life, evil with good, - |
| 24 |
and man a rebel against his Maker. This is
neither
Science nor theism. According to Holy Writ, it is a
kingdom
divided against itself, that shall be brought |
| 27 |
to desolation.
The nature of God
must change in order to become
matter, or to become both finite and
infinite; and matter |
| 30 |
must disappear, for Spirit to
appear. To the material
sense, everything is matter; but spiritualize
human
thought, and our convictions change: for spiritual sense
Page
218 |
| 1 |
takes in new views, in which nature becomes
Spirit; and
Spirit is God, and God is good. Science unfolds the fact |
| 3 |
that Deity was forever Mind, Spirit; that
matter never
produced Mind, and vice versa.
The visible universe
declares the invisible only by re- |
| 6 |
version, as error declares Truth. The
testimony of mate-
rial sense in relation to existence is false; for matter
can
neither see, hear, nor feel, and mortal mind must change |
| 9 |
all its conceptions of life, substance, and
intelligence,
before it can reach the immortality of Mind and its
ideas.
It is erroneous to accept the evidence of the material |
| 12 |
senses whence to reason out God, when it is
conceded
that the five personal senses can take no cognizance of
Spirit
or of its phenomena. False realistic views sap the |
| 15 |
Science of Principle and idea; they make
Deity unreal
and inconceivable, either as mind or matter; but Truth
comes to the rescue of reason and immortality, and un- |
| 18 |
folds the real nature of God and the
universe to the spirit-
ual sense, which beareth witness of things
spiritual, and
not material. |
| 21 |
To begin with, the notion of Spirit as
cause and end,
with matter as its effect, is more ridiculous than the "grin
without a cat;" for a grin expresses the nature of a cat, |
| 24 |
and this nature may linger in memory: but
matter does
not express the nature of Spirit, and matter's graven
grins
are neither eliminated nor retained by Spirit. What |
| 27 |
can illustrate Dr. - 's views better than
Pat's echo,
when he said "How do you do?" and echo answered,
"Pretty
well, I thank you!" |
| 30 |
Dr. - says: "The recognition of teleology
in nature
is necessarily the recognition of purely spiritual person-
ality in God."
Page
219 |
| 1 |
According to lexicography, teleology is the
science of
the final cause of things; and divine Science (and all |
| 3 |
Science is divine) neither reveals God in
matter, cause
in effect, nor teaches that nature and her laws are the
material universe, or that the personality of infinite Spirit |
| 6 |
is finite or material. Jesus said, "Ye do
err, not know-
ing the Scriptures, nor the power of God." Now, what
saith the Scripture? "God is a Spirit: and they that |
| 9 |
worship Him must worship Him in spirit and
in
truth."
MENTAL PRACTICE |
| 12 |
It is admitted that mortals think wickedly
and act
wickedly: it is beginning to be seen by thinkers, that
mortals
think also after a sickly fashion. In common |
| 15 |
parlance, one person feels sick, another
feels wicked. A
third person knows that if he would remove this feeling
in either case, in the one he must change his patient's |
| 18 |
consciousness of dis-ease and suffering to
a consciousness
of ease and loss of suffering; while in the other he
must
change the patient's sense of sinning at ease to a sense of |
| 21 |
discomfort in sin and peace in goodness.
This is Christian
Science: that mortal mind makes
sick, and immortal Mind makes well; that
mortal mind |
| 24 |
makes sinners, while immortal Mind makes
saints; that
a state of health is but a state of consciousness made
mani-
fest on the body, and vice versa; that while one person |
| 27 |
feels wickedly and acts wickedly, another
knows that if
he can change this evil sense and consciousness to a good
sense, or conscious goodness, the fruits of goodness will |
| 30 |
follow, and he has reformed the sinner.
Page
220 |
| 1 |
Now, demonstrate this rule, which obtains
in every
line of mental healing, and you will find that a good rule |
| 3 |
works one way, and a false rule the
opposite way.
Let us suppose that
there is a sick person whom an-
other would heal mentally. The healer
begins by mental |
| 6 |
argument. He mentally says, "You are well,
and you
know it;" and he supports this silent mental force by
audible
explanation, attestation, and precedent. His |
| 9 |
mental and oral arguments aim to refute the
sick man's
thoughts, words, and actions, in certain directions, and
turn them into channels of Truth. He persists in this |
| 12 |
course until the patient's mind yields, and
the harmonious
thought has the full control over this mind on the point
at issue. The end is attained, and the patient says and |
| 15 |
feels, "I am well, and I know it."
This mental
practitioner has changed his patient's
consciousness from sickness to
health. The patient's |
| 18 |
mental state is now the diametrical
opposite of what it
was when the mental practitioner undertook to
transform
it, and he is improved morally and physically. |
| 21 |
That this mental method has power and bears
fruit,
is patent both to the conscientious Christian Scientist and
the
observer. Both should understand with equal clear- |
| 24 |
ness, that if this mental process and power
be reversed,
and people believe that a man is sick and knows it, and
speak of him as being sick, put it into the minds of others |
| 27 |
that he is sick, publish it in the
newspapers that he is
failing, and persist in this action of mind over
mind, it
follows that he will believe that he is sick, - and Jesus |
| 30 |
said it would be according to the woman's
belief; but if
with the certainty of Science he knows that an error of
belief has not the power of Truth, and cannot, does
Page
221 |
| 1 |
not, produce the slightest effect, it has
no power over
him. Thus a mental malpractitioner may lose his |
| 3 |
power to harm by a false mental argument;
for it
gives one opportunity to handle the error, and when
mastering it
one gains in the rules of metaphysics, and |
| 6 |
thereby learns more of its divine
Principle. Error pro-
duces physical sufferings, and these sufferings
show
the fundamental Principle of Christian Science; namely, |
| 9 |
that error and sickness are one, and Truth
is their
remedy.
The evil-doer can do
little at removing the effect of sin |
| 12 |
on himself, unless he believes that sin has
produced the
effect and knows he is a sinner; or, knowing that he is a
sinner, if he denies it, the good effect is lost. Either of |
| 15 |
these states of mind will stultify the
power to heal men-
tally. This accounts for many helpless mental
practi-
tioners and mysterious diseases. |
| 18 |
Again: If error is the cause of disease,
Truth being
the cure, denial of this fact in one instance and
acknowledgment of it in another saps one's under- |
| 21 |
standing of the Science of Mind-healing.
Such denial
dethrones demonstration, baffles the student of Mind-
healing, and divorces his work from Science. Such de- |
| 24 |
nial also contradicts the doctrine that we
must mentally
struggle against both evil and disease, and is like
saying
that five times ten are fifty while ten times five are not |
| 27 |
fifty; as if the multiplication of the same
two numbers
would not yield the same product whichever might serve
as
the multiplicand. |
| 30 |
Who would tell another of a crime that he
himself is
committing, or call public attention to that crime ? The
belief in evil and in the process of evil, holds the issues
Page
222 |
| 1 |
of death to the evil-doer. It takes away a
man's proper
sense of good, and gives him a false sense of both evil |
| 3 |
and good. It inflames envy, passion,
evil-speaking, and
strife. It reverses Christian Science in all things.
It
causes the victim to believe that he is advancing while |
| 6 |
injuring himself and others. This state of
false conscious-
ness in many cases causes the victim great physical
suffer-
ing; and conviction of his wrong state of feeling reforms |
| 9 |
him, and so heals him: or, failing of
conviction and re-
form, he becomes morally paralyzed - in other words,
a moral idiot. |
| 12 |
In this state of misled consciousness, one
is ready to
listen complacently to audible falsehoods that once he
would have resisted and loathed; and this, because the |
| 15 |
false seems true. The malicious mental
argument and
its action on the mind of the perpetrator, is fatal,
morally
and physically. From the effects of mental malpractice |
| 18 |
the subject scarcely awakes in time, and
must suffer its
full penalty after death. This sin against divine
Science
is cancelled only through human agony: the measure it |
| 21 |
has meted must be remeasured to it.
The crimes committed
under this new régime of mind-
power, when brought to light,
will make stout hearts quail. |
| 24 |
Its mystery protects it now, for it is not
yet known. Error
is more abstract than Truth. Even the healing
Principle,
whose power seems inexplicable, is not so obscure; for |
| 27 |
this is the power of God, and good should
seem more
natural than evil.
I shall not forget
the cost of investigating, for this age, |
| 30 |
the methods and power of error. While the
ways, means,
and potency of Truth had flowed into my consciousness
as
easily as dawns the morning light and shadows flee,
Page
223 |
| 1 |
the metaphysical mystery of error - its
hidden paths,
purpose, and fruits - at first defied me. I was say- |
| 3 |
ing all the time, "Come not thou into the
secret" -
but at length took up the research according to God's
command. |
| 6 |
Streams which purify, necessarily have pure
fountains;
while impure streams flow from corrupt sources. Here,
divine
light, logic, and revelation coincide. |
| 9 |
Science proves, beyond cavil, that the tree
is known
by its fruit; that mind reaches its own ideal, and cannot
be
separated from it. I respect that moral sense which |
| 12 |
is sufficiently strong to discern what it
believes, and to say,
if it must, "I discredit Mind with having the power
to
heal." This individual disbelieves in Mind-healing, and |
| 15 |
is consistent. But, alas! for the mistake
of believing in
mental healing, claiming full faith in the divine
Principle,
and saying, "I am a Christian Scientist," while doing |
| 18 |
unto others what we would resist to the
hilt if done unto
ourselves.
May divine Love so
permeate the affections of all those |
| 21 |
who have named the name of Christ in its
fullest sense,
that no counteracting influence can hinder their growth
or taint their examples.
TAKING OFFENSE
There is immense
wisdom in the old proverb, "He
that is slow to anger is better than the
mighty." Hannah |
| 27 |
More said, "If I wished to punish my
enemy, I should
make him hate somebody."
To punish ourselves
for others' faults, is superlative |
| 30 |
folly. The mental arrow shot from
another's bow is
Page
224 |
| 1 |
practically harmless, unless our own
thought barbs it.
It is our pride that makes another's criticism rankle,
our |
| 3 |
self-will that makes another's deed
offensive, our egotism
that feels hurt by another's self-assertion. Well
may we
feel wounded by our own faults; but we can hardly afford |
| 6 |
to be miserable for the faults of others.
A courtier told
Constantine that a mob had broken
the head of his statue with stones. The
emperor lifted |
| 9 |
his hands to his head, saying: "It is very
surprising, but
I don't feel hurt in the least."
We should remember
that the world is wide; that there |
| 12 |
are a thousand million different human
wills, opinions,
ambitions, tastes, and loves; that each person has a
differ-
ent history, constitution, culture, character, from all the |
| 15 |
rest; that human life is the work, the
play, the ceaseless
action and reaction upon each other of these
different
atoms. Then, we should go forth into life with the smallest |
| 18 |
expectations, but with the largest
patience; with a keen
relish for and appreciation of everything beautiful,
great,
and good, but with a temper so genial that the friction |
| 21 |
of the world shall not wear upon our
sensibilities; with
an equanimity so settled that no passing breath nor
accidental disturbance shall agitate or ruffle it; with a |
| 24 |
charity broad enough to cover the whole
world's evil, and
sweet enough to neutralize what is bitter in it, -
de-
termined not to be offended when no wrong is meant, nor |
| 27 |
even when it is, unless the offense be
against God.
Nothing short of our
own errors should offend us. He
who can wilfully attempt to injure another,
is an object |
| 30 |
of pity rather than of resentment; while
it is a question
in my mind, whether there is enough of a flatterer, a
fool,
or a liar, to offend a whole-souled woman.
Page
225
HINTS TO THE CLERGY
At the residence of
Mr. Rawson, of Arlington, Massa- |
| 3 |
chusetts, a happy concourse of friends had
gathered to
celebrate the eighty-second birthday of his mother - a
friend of mine, and a Christian Scientist. |
| 6 |
Among the guests, were an orthodox
clergyman, his
wife and child.
In the course of the
evening, conversation drifted to |
| 9 |
the seventh modern wonder, Christian
Science; where-
upon the mother, Mrs. Rawson, who had drunk at its
fount, firmly bore testimony to the power of Christ, Truth, |
| 12 |
to heal the sick.
Soon after this
conversation, the clergyman's son
was taken violently ill. Then was the
clergyman's |
| 15 |
opportunity to demand a proof of what the
Christian
Scientist had declared; and he said to this venerable
Christian: - |
| 18 |
"If you heal my son, when seeing, I may be
led to
believe."
Mrs. Rawson then
rose from her seat, and sat down |
| 21 |
beside the sofa whereon lay the lad with
burning brow,
moaning in pain.
Looking away from
all material aid, to the spiritual |
| 24 |
source and ever-present help, silently,
through the divine
power, she healed him.
The
deep flush faded from the face, a cool perspira- |
| 27 |
tion spread over it, and he slept.
In about one hour he
awoke, and was hungry.
The parents said: - |
| 30 |
"Wait until we get home, and you shall
have some
gruel."
Page
226 |
| 1 |
But Mrs. Rawson said: -
"Give the child what he relishes, and doubt not
that |
| 3 |
the Father of all will care for him."
Thus, the unbiased youth and the aged Christian
carried the case on the side of God; and, after eating |
| 6 |
several ice-creams, the clergyman's son
returned home
- well. |
