Trustees under the Will of Mary
Baker G. Eddy
Boston, U.S.A.
| 1 |
How would you define Christian Science?
AS the law of God,
the law of good, interpreting and |
| 3 |
demonstrating the divine Principle and
rule of
universal harmony.
What is the
Principle of Christian Science? |
| 6 |
It is God, the Supreme Being, infinite and
immortal
Mind, the Soul of man and the universe. It is our Father
which
is in heaven. It is substance, Spirit, Life, Truth, |
| 9 |
and Love, - these are the deific
Principle.
Do you mean by this that God is a
person?
The word person affords a large
margin for misappre- |
| 12 |
hension, as well as definition. In French
the equivalent
word is personne. In Spanish, Italian, and Latin, it
is
persona. The Latin verb personare is compounded of |
| 15 |
the prefix per (through) and
sonare (to sound).
In law, Blackstone applies the word
personal to bodily
presence, in distinction from one's
appearance (in court,
for example) by deputy or proxy.
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2 |
| 1 |
Other definitions of person, as
given by Webster, are
"a living soul; a self-conscious being; a moral
agent; |
| 3 |
especially, a living human being, a
corporeal man, woman,
or child; an individual of the human race." He
adds,
that among Trinitarian Christians the word stands for one |
| 6 |
of the three subjects, or agents,
constituting the Godhead.
In Christian Science
we learn that God is definitely indi-
vidual, and not a person, as
that word is used by the best |
| 9 |
authorities, if our lexicographers are
right in defining
person as especially a finite human being;
but God is
personal, if by person is meant infinite Spirit. |
| 12 |
We do not conceive rightly of God, if we
think of Him
as less than infinite. The human person is finite; and
therefore I prefer to retain the proper sense of Deity by |
| 15 |
using the phrase an individual God,
rather than a per-
sonal God; for there is and can be but one
infinite indi-
vidual Spirit, whom mortals have named God. |
| 18 |
Science defines the individuality of God as
supreme
good, Life, Truth, Love. This term enlarges our sense
of Deity,
takes away the trammels assigned to God by |
| 21 |
finite thought, and introduces us to
higher definitions.
Is healing the
sick the whole of Science?
Healing physical sickness is the smallest
part of Chris- |
| 24 |
tian Science. It is only the bugle-call to
thought and
action, in the higher range of infinite goodness. The
emphatic purpose of Christian Science is the healing of |
| 27 |
sin; and this task, sometimes, may be
harder than the
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3 |
| 1 |
cure of disease; because, while mortals
love to sin, they
do not love to be sick. Hence their comparative
acqui- |
| 3 |
escence in your endeavors to heal them of
bodily ills, and
their obstinate resistance to all efforts to save them
from
sin through Christ, spiritual Truth and Love, which |
| 6 |
redeem them, and become their Saviour,
through the
flesh, from the flesh, - the material world and evil.
This Life, Truth,
and Love - this trinity of good - was |
| 9 |
individualized, to the perception of mortal
sense, in the
man Jesus. His history is emphatic in our hearts, and it
lives more because of his spiritual than his physical healing. |
| 12 |
His example is, to Christian Scientists,
what the models
of the masters in music and painting are to artists.
Genuine Christian
Scientists will no more deviate mor- |
| 15 |
ally from that divine digest of Science
called the Sermon
on the Mount, than they will manipulate invalids,
prescribe
drugs, or deny God. Jesus' healing was spiritual in its |
| 18 |
nature, method, and design. He wrought the
cure of
disease through the divine Mind, which gives all true
volition, impulse, and action; and destroys the mental |
| 21 |
error made manifest physically, and
establishes the oppo-
site manifestation of Truth upon the body in
harmony
and health. |
| 24 |
By the individuality of God, do you
mean that God has
a finite form?
No. I mean the
infinite and divine Principle of all |
| 27 |
being, the ever-present I AM, filling all
space, including
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4 |
| 1 |
in itself all Mind, the one Father-Mother
God. Life,
Truth, and Love are this trinity in unity, and their uni- |
| 3 |
verse is spiritual, peopled with perfect
beings, harmonious
and eternal, of which our material universe and men
are
the counterfeits. |
| 6 |
Is God the Principle of all science, or
only of Divine or
Christian Science?
Science is Mind manifested. It is not
material; neither |
| 9 |
is it of human origin.
All true Science represents a moral and
spiritual force,
which holds the earth in its orbit. This force is
Spirit, |
| 12 |
that can "bind the sweet influences of the
Pleiades," and
"loose the bands of Orion."
There is no material science, if by that
term you mean |
| 15 |
material intelligence. God is infinite
Mind, hence there
is no other Mind. Good is Mind, but evil is not Mind.
Good is not in evil, but in God only. Spirit is not in matter, |
| 18 |
but in Spirit only. Law is not in matter,
but in Mind only.
Is there no matter?
All is Mind.
According to the Scriptures and Christian |
| 21 |
Science, all is God, and there is naught
beside Him. "God
is Spirit;" and we can only learn and love Him
through
His spirit, which brings out the fruits of Spirit and ex- |
| 24 |
tinguishes forever the works of darkness
by His marvel-
lous light.
The five material senses testify to the
existence of
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5 |
| 1 |
matter. The spiritual senses afford no such
evidence,
but deny the testimony of the material senses. Which |
| 3 |
testimony is correct? The Bible says: "Let
God be
true, and every man a liar." If, as the Scriptures imply,
God
is All-in-all, then all must be Mind, since God is |
| 6 |
Mind. Therefore in divine Science there is
no material
mortal man, for man is spiritual and eternal, he being
made in the image of Spirit, or God. |
| 9 |
There is no material sense. Matter is
inert, inanimate,
and sensationless, - considered apart from Mind.
Lives
there a man who has ever found Soul in the body or in |
| 12 |
matter, who has ever seen spiritual
substance with the
eye, who has found sight in matter, hearing in the
material
ear, or intelligence in non-intelligence? If there is any |
| 15 |
such thing as matter, it must be either
mind which is
called matter, or matter without Mind.
Matter without Mind
is a moral impossibility. Mind |
| 18 |
in matter is pantheism. Soul is the only
real conscious-
ness which cognizes being. The body does not see,
hear,
smell, or taste. Human belief says that it does; but |
| 21 |
destroy this belief of seeing with the eye,
and we could
not see materially; and so it is with each of the physical
senses. |
| 24 |
Accepting the verdict of these material
senses, we should
believe man and the universe to be the football of
chance
and sinking into oblivion. Destroy the five senses as |
| 27 |
organized matter, and you must either
become non-exist-
ent, or exist in Mind only; and this latter conclusion
is
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6 |
| 1 |
the simple solution of the problem of
being, and leads to
the equal inference that there is no matter. |
| 3 |
The sweet sounds and glories of earth
and sky, assum-
ing manifold forms and colors, - are they not tangible and
material? |
| 6 |
As Mind they are real, but not as matter.
All beauty
and goodness are in and of Mind, emanating from God;
but
when we change the nature of beauty and goodness |
| 9 |
from Mind to matter, the beauty is marred,
through a
false conception, and, to the material senses, evil takes
the
place of good. |
| 12 |
Has not the truth in Christian Science met
a response
from Prof. S. P. Langley, the young American astronomer?
He
says that "color is in us," not "in the rose;" and he |
| 15 |
adds that this is not "any metaphysical
subtlety," but a
fact "almost universally accepted, within the last few
years, by physicists." |
| 18 |
Is not the basis of Mind-healing a
destruction of the evi-
dence of the material senses, and restoration of
the true
evidence of spiritual sense? |
| 21 |
It is, so far as you perceive and
understand this predi-
cate and postulate of Mind-healing; but the Science
of
Mind-healing is best understood in practical demonstra- |
| 24 |
tion. The proof of what you apprehend, in
the simplest
definite and absolute form of healing, can alone answer
this question of how much you understand of Christian
Page
7 |
| 1 |
Science Mind-healing. Not that all healing
is Science,
by any means; but that the simplest case, healed in
Science, |
| 3 |
is as demonstrably scientific, in a small
degree, as the most
difficult case so treated.
The infinite and
subtler conceptions and consistencies |
| 6 |
of Christian Science are set forth in my
work Science and
Health.
Is man material
or spiritual? |
| 9 |
In Science, man is the manifest reflection
of God, per-
fect and immortal Mind. He is the likeness of God; and
His likeness would be lost if inverted or perverted. |
| 12 |
According to the evidence of the so-called
physical
senses, man is material, fallen, sick, depraved, mortal.
Science and spiritual sense contradict this, and they afford |
| 15 |
the only true evidence of the being of God
and man, the
material evidence being wholly false.
Jesus said of personal evil, that "the
truth abode not |
| 18 |
in him," because there is no material
sense. Matter, as
matter, has neither sensation nor personal
intelligence.
As a pretension to be Mind, matter is a lie, and "the |
| 21 |
father of lies;" Mind is not in matter,
and Spirit cannot
originate its opposite, named matter.
According to divine Science, Spirit no
more changes its |
| 24 |
species, by evolving matter from Spirit,
than natural
science, so-called, or material laws, bring about altera-
tion of species by transforming minerals into vegetables |
| 27 |
or plants into animals, - thus confusing
and confounding
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8 |
| 1 |
the three great kingdoms. No rock brings
forth an apple;
no pine-tree produces a mammal or provides breast-milk |
| 3 |
for babes.
To sense, the lion
of to-day is the lion of six thousand
years ago; but in Science, Spirit
sends forth its own harm- |
| 6 |
less likeness.
How should I
undertake to demonstrate Christian Science
in healing the
sick? |
| 9 |
As I have given you only an epitome of the
Principle,
so I can give you here nothing but an outline of the prac-
tice. Be honest, be true to thyself, and true to others; |
| 12 |
then it follows thou wilt be strong in God,
the eternal
good. Heal through Truth and Love; there is no other
healer. |
| 15 |
In all moral revolutions, from a lower to a
higher con-
dition of thought and action, Truth is in the minority and
error has the majority. It is not otherwise in the field |
| 18 |
of Mind-healing. The man who calls himself
a Christian
Scientist, yet is false to God and man, is also uttering
falsehood about good. This falsity shuts against him the |
| 21 |
Truth and the Principle of Science, but
opens a way
whereby, through will-power, sense may say the unchris-
tian practitioner can heal; but Science shows that he makes |
| 24 |
morally worse the invalid whom he is
supposed to cure.
By this I mean that mortal mind should not
be falsely
impregnated. If by such lower means the health is seem- |
| 27 |
ingly restored, the restoration is not
lasting, and the patient
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9 |
| 1 |
is liable to a relapse, - "The last state
of that man is
worse than the first." |
| 3 |
The teacher of Mind-healing who is not a
Christian,
in the highest sense, is constantly sowing the seeds of
discord and disease. Even the truth he speaks is more |
| 6 |
or less blended with error; and this error
will spring up
in the mind of his pupil. The pupil's imperfect knowl-
edge will lead to weakness in practice, and he will be a |
| 9 |
poor practitioner, if not a
malpractitioner.
The basis of
malpractice is in erring human will, and
this will is an outcome of what I
call mortal mind, - a |
| 12 |
false and temporal sense of Truth, Life,
and Love. To
heal, in Christian Science, is to base your practice on
immortal Mind, the divine Principle of man's being; and |
| 15 |
this requires a preparation of the heart
and an answer
of the lips from the Lord.
The Science of
healing is the Truth of healing. If |
| 18 |
one is untruthful, his mental state weighs
against his
healing power; and similar effects come from pride,
envy,
lust, and all fleshly vices. |
| 21 |
The spiritual power of a scientific, right
thought, with-
out a direct effort, an audible or even a mental
argument,
has oftentimes healed inveterate diseases. |
| 24 |
The thoughts of the practitioner should be
imbued with
a clear conviction of the omnipotence and omnipresence
of
God; that He is All, and that there can be none beside |
| 27 |
Him; that God is good, and the producer
only of good;
and hence, that whatever militates against health, har-
Page
10 |
| 1 |
mony, or holiness, is an unjust usurper of
the throne of
the controller of all mankind. Note this, that if you
have |
| 3 |
power in error, you forfeit the power that
Truth bestows,
and its salutary influence on yourself and others.
You must feel and
know that God alone governs man; |
| 6 |
that His government is harmonious; that He
is too pure
to behold iniquity, and divides His power with nothing
evil
or material; that material laws are only human be- |
| 9 |
liefs, which govern mortals wrongfully.
These beliefs arise
from the subjective states of thought, producing the
be-
liefs of a mortal material universe, - so-called, and of |
| 12 |
material disease and mortality. Mortal ills
are but errors
of thought, - diseases of mortal mind, and not of
matter;
for matter cannot feel, see, or report pain or disease. |
| 15 |
Disease is a thing of thought manifested on
the body;
and fear is the procurator of the thought which causes
sickness and suffering. Remove this fear by the true |
| 18 |
sense that God is Love, - and that Love
punishes nothing
but sin, - and the patient can then look up to the
loving
God, and know that He afflicteth not willingly the children |
| 21 |
of men, who are punished because of
disobedience to His
spiritual law. His law of Truth, when obeyed,
removes
every erroneous physical and mental state. The belief |
| 24 |
that matter can master Mind, and make you
ill, is an
error which Truth will destroy.
You must learn to
acknowledge God in all His ways. |
| 27 |
It is only a lack of understanding of the
allness of God,
which leads you to believe in the existence of matter,
or
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11 |
| 1 |
that matter can frame its own conditions,
contrary to the
law of Spirit. |
| 3 |
Sickness is the schoolmaster, leading you
to Christ;
first to faith in Christ; next to belief in God as omnipo-
tent; and finally to the understanding of God and man |
| 6 |
in Christian Science, whereby you learn
that God is good,
and in Science man is His likeness, the forever
reflection of
goodness. Therefore good is one and All. |
| 9 |
This brings forward the next proposition in
Christian
Science, - namely, that there are no sickness, sin, and
death
in the divine Mind. What seem to be disease, vice, |
| 12 |
and mortality are illusions of the physical
senses. These
illusions are not real, but unreal. Health is the
conscious-
ness of the unreality of pain and disease; or, rather, the |
| 15 |
absolute consciousness of harmony and of
nothing else.
In a moment you may awake from a night-dream; just
so you
can awake from the dream of sickness; but the |
| 18 |
demonstration of the Science of
Mind-healing by no means
rests on the strength of human belief. This
demonstra-
tion is based on a true understanding of God and divine |
| 21 |
Science, which takes away every human
belief, and,
through the illumination of spiritual understanding, re-
veals the all-power and ever-presence of good, whence |
| 24 |
emanate health, harmony, and Life eternal.
The lecturer,
teacher, or healer who is indeed a Christian
Scientist, never introduces
the subject of human anatomy; |
| 27 |
never depicts the muscular, vascular, or
nervous opera-
tions of the human frame. He never talks about the
Page
12 |
| 1 |
structure of the material body. He never
lays his hands
on the patient, nor manipulates the parts of the body
sup- |
| 3 |
posed to be ailing. Above all, he keeps
unbroken the Ten
Commandments, and practises Christ's Sermon on the
Mount. |
| 6 |
Wrong thoughts and methods strengthen the
sense of
disease, instead of cure it; or else quiet the fear of the
sick on false grounds, encouraging them in the belief of |
| 9 |
error until they hold stronger than before
the belief that
they are first made sick by matter, and then restored
through its agency. This fosters infidelity, and is mental |
| 12 |
quackery, that denies the Principle of
Mind-healing. If
the sick are aided in this mistaken fashion, their
ailments
will return, and be more stubborn because the relief is |
| 15 |
unchristian and unscientific.
Christian Science
erases from the minds of invalids
their mistaken belief that they live in
or because of matter, |
| 18 |
or that a so-called material organism
controls the health
or existence of mankind, and induces rest in God,
divine
Love, as caring for all the conditions requisite for the well- |
| 21 |
being of man. As power divine is the
healer, why should
mortals concern themselves with the chemistry of
food?
Jesus said: "Take no thought what ye shall eat." |
| 24 |
The practitioner should also endeavor to
free the minds
of the healthy from any sense of subordination to their
bodies, and teach them that the divine Mind, not material |
| 27 |
law, maintains human health and life.
A Christian
Scientist knows that, in Science, disease
Page
13 |
| 1 |
is unreal; that Mind is not in matter; that
Life is God,
good; hence Life is not functional, and is neither matter |
| 3 |
nor mortal mind; knows that pantheism and
theosophy
are not Science. Whatever saps, with human belief,
this basis
of Christian Science, renders it impossible to |
| 6 |
demonstrate the Principle of this Science,
even in the
smallest degree.
A mortal and
material body is not the actual individuality |
| 9 |
of man made in the divine and spiritual
image of God.
The material body is not the likeness of Spirit; hence it
is not the truth of being, but the likeness of error - the |
| 12 |
human belief which saith there is more
than one God, -
there is more than one Life and one Mind.
In Deuteronomy (iv.
35) we read: "The Lord, He is |
| 15 |
God; there is none else beside Him." In
John (iv. 24)
we may read: "God is Spirit." These propositions, un-
derstood in their Science, elucidate my meaning. |
| 18 |
When treating a patient, it is not Science
to treat every
organ in the body. To aver that harmony is the real and
discord is the unreal, and then give special attention to |
| 21 |
what according to their own belief is
diseased, is scientific;
and if the healer realizes the truth, it
will free his patient.
What are the
means and methods of trustworthy Christian |
| 24 |
Scientists?
These people should
not be expected, more than others,
to give all their time to Christian
Science work, receiving |
| 27 |
no wages in return, but left to be fed,
clothed, and sheltered
Page
14 |
| 1 |
by charity. Neither can they serve two
masters, giving
only a portion of their time to God, and still be
Christian |
| 3 |
Scientists. They must give Him all their
services, and
"owe no man." To do this, they must at present ask a
suitable price for their services, and then conscientiously |
| 6 |
earn their wages, strictly
practising Divine Science, and
healing the sick.
The author never
sought charitable support, but gave |
| 9 |
fully seven-eighths of her time without
remuneration, ex-
cept the bliss of doing good. The only pay taken for
her
labors was from classes, and often those were put off for |
| 12 |
months, in order to do gratuitous work. She
has never
taught a Primary class without several, and sometimes
seventeen, free students in it; and has endeavored to take |
| 15 |
the full price of tuition only from those
who were able to
pay. The student who pays must of necessity do better
than he who does not pay, and yet will expect and require |
| 18 |
others to pay him. No discount on tuition
was made on
higher classes, because their first classes furnished students
with the means of paying for their tuition in the higher |
| 21 |
instruction, and of doing charity work
besides. If the
Primary students are still impecunious, it is their own
fault, and this ill-success of itself leaves them unprepared |
| 24 |
to enter higher classes.
People are being
healed by means of my instructions,
both in and out of class. Many
students, who have
27 passed through a regular course of
instruction from me,
have been invalids and were healed in the class; but
ex-
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15 |
| 1 |
perience has shown that this defrauds the
scholar, though
it heals the sick. |
| 3 |
It is seldom that a student, if healed in a
class, has left
it understanding sufficiently the Science of healing to
im-
mediately enter upon its practice. Why? Because the |
| 6 |
glad surprise of suddenly regained health
is a shock to
the mind; and this holds and satisfies the thought with
exuberant joy. |
| 9 |
This renders the mind less inquisitive,
plastic, and tract-
able; and deep systematic thinking is impracticable
until
this impulse subsides. |
| 12 |
This was the principal reason for advising
diseased
people not to enter a class. Few were taken besides inva-
lids
for students, until there were enough practitioners to |
| 15 |
fill in the best possible manner the
department of healing.
Teaching and healing should have separate
departments,
and these should be fortified on all sides with suitable
and |
| 18 |
thorough guardianship and grace.
Only a very limited
number of students can advanta-
geously enter a class, grapple with this
subject, and well |
| 21 |
assimilate what has been taught them. It is
impossible
to teach thorough Christian Science to promiscuous and
large
assemblies, or to persons who cannot be addressed |
| 24 |
individually, so that the mind of the pupil
may be dissected
more critically than the body of a subject laid bare
for
anatomical examination. Public lectures cannot be such |
| 27 |
lessons in Christian Science as are
required to empty and
to fill anew the individual mind.
Page
16 |
| 1 |
If publicity and material control are the
motives for
teaching, then public lectures can take the place of
private |
| 3 |
lessons; but the former can never give a
thorough knowledge
of Christian Science, and a Christian Scientist will
never
undertake to fit students for practice by such means. Lec- |
| 6 |
tures in public are needed, but they must
be subordinate
to thorough class instruction in any branch of
education.
None with an
imperfect sense of the spiritual significa- |
| 9 |
tion of the Bible, and its scientific
relation to Mind-
healing, should attempt overmuch in their translation
of
the Scriptures into the "new tongue;" but I see that |
| 12 |
some novices, in the truth of Science, and
some impostors
are committing this error.
Is there more
than one school of scientific healing? |
| 15 |
In reality there is, and can be, but one
school of the
Science of Mind-healing. Any departure from Science is
an
irreparable loss of Science. Whatever is said and |
| 18 |
written correctly on this Science
originates from the Princi-
ple and practice laid down in Science and
Health, a work
which I published in 1875. This was the first book, re- |
| 21 |
corded in history, which elucidates a
pathological Science
purely mental.
Minor shades of
difference in Mind-healing have origi- |
| 24 |
nated with certain opposing factions,
springing up among
unchristian students, who, fusing with a class of
aspirants
which snatch at whatever is progressive, call it their
first- |
| 27 |
fruits, or else post mortem
evidence.
Page
17 |
| 1 |
A slight divergence is fatal in Science.
Like certain
Jews whom St. Paul had hoped to convert from mere |
| 3 |
motives of self-aggrandizement to the love
of Christ, these
so-called schools are clogging the wheels of progress
by
blinding the people to the true character of Christian |
| 6 |
Science, - its moral power, and its divine
efficacy to
heal.
The true
understanding of Christian Science Mind- |
| 9 |
healing never originated in pride, rivalry,
or the deification
of self. The Discoverer of this Science could tell you
of
timidity, of self-distrust, of friendlessness, toil, agonies, and |
| 12 |
victories under which she needed miraculous
vision to
sustain her, when taking the first footsteps in this
Science. |
| 15 |
The ways of Christianity have not changed.
Meek-
ness, selflessness, and love are the paths of His testimony
and
the footsteps of His flock. |
