Science and Health with Key to The Scriptures
CHAPTER XI
SOME OBJECTIONS ANSWERED
And because I tell you the truth, ye
believe me not. Which of you convinceth me of sin? And if I say the truth, why
do ye not believe me? - JESUS.
|
But if the spirit of Him that raised
up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, He that raised up Christ from the dead
shall also quicken your mortal bodies by His spirit that dwelleth in you.
- PAUL. |
THE strictures on this volume would condemn to
oblivion the truth, which is raising up thousands from helplessness to strength
and elevating them from a theoretical to a practical Christianity. These
criticisms are generally based on detached sentences or clauses separated from
their context. Even the Scriptures, which grow in beauty and consistency from
one grand root, ap pear contradictory when subjected to such usage. Jesus said,
"Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God" [Truth]. |
Supported by facts |
In Christian Science mere opinion is valueless. Proof
is essential to a due estimate of this subject. Sneers at the application of
the word Science to Christianity cannot prevent that from being
scientific which is based on divine Principle, demonstrated ac cording to a
divine given rule, and subjected to proof. The facts are so absolute and
numerous in support of Christian Science, that misrepresentation and
denunciation cannot overthrow it. Paul alludes to "doubtful dis putations." The
hour has struck when proof and demonstration, instead of opinion and dogma, are
summoned to the support of Christianity, "making wise the simple." |
Commands of Jesus |
In the result of some unqualified
condemnations of scientific Mindhealing, one may see with sorrow the sad
effects on the sick of denying Truth. He that decries this Science does it
presumptuously, in the face of Bible history and in defiance of the direct
command of Jesus, "Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel," to which
command was added the promise that his students should cast out evils and heal
the sick. He bade the seventy disciples, as well as the twelve, heal the sick
in any town where they should be hospitably received. |
Christianity scientific
|
If Christianity is not scientific, and
Science is not of God, then there is no invariable law, and truth becomes an
accident. Shall it be denied that a system which works according to the
Scriptures has Scriptural authority? |
Argument of good works
|
Christian Science awakens the sinner,
reclaims the infidel, and raises from the couch of pain the helpless invalid.
It speaks to the dumb the words of Truth, and they answer with rejoicing. It
causes the deaf to hear, the lame to walk, and the blind to see. Who would be
the first to disown the Christliness of good works, when our Master says, "By
their fruits ye shall know them"? If Christian Scientists were teaching or
practising pharmacy or obstetrics according to the common theories, no
denunciations would follow them, even if their treatment resulted in the death
of a patient. The people are taught in such cases to say, Amen. Shall I then be
smitten for healing and for teaching Truth as the Principle of healing, and for
proving my word by my deed? James said: "Show me thy faith without thy works,
and I will show thee my faith by my works." |
Personal experience |
Is not finite mind ignorant of God's
method? This makes it doubly unfair to impugn and misrepresent the facts,
although, without this crossbearing, one might not be able to say with the
apostle, "None of these things move me." The sick, the halt, and the blind look
up to Christian Science with blessings, and Truth will not be forever hidden by
unjust parody from the quickened sense of the people. |
Proof from miracles |
Jesus strips all disguise from error,
when his teachings are fully understood. By parable and argument he ex plains
the impossibility of good producing evil; and he also scientifically
demonstrates this great fact, proving by what are wrongly called miracles, that
sin, sickness, and death are beliefs illusive errors which he could and did
destroy. It would sometimes seem as if truth were rejected be cause meekness
and spirituality are the conditions of its acceptance, while Christendom
generally demands so much less. |
Example of the disciples
|
Anciently those apostles who were Jesus'
students, as well as Paul who was not one of his students, healed the sick and
reformed the sinner by their religion. Hence the mistake which allows words,
rather than works, to follow such examples! Whoever is the first meekly and
conscientiously to press along the line of gospelhealing, is often accounted a
heretic. |
Strong position |
It is objected to Christian Science that it claims God
as the only absolute Life and Soul, and man to be His idea, that is, His image.
It should be added that this is claimed to represent the normal, healthful, and
sinless condition of man in divine Science, and that this claim is made because
the Scrip tures say that God has created man in His own image and after His
likeness. Is it sacrilegious to assume that God's likeness is not found in
matter, sin, sickness, and death? |
Efficacy may be attested
|
Were it more fully understood that Truth
heals and that error causes disease, the opponents of a demonstrable Science
would perhaps mercifully withhold their misrepresentations, which harm the
sick; and until the enemies of Christian Science test its efficacy according to
the rules which disclose its merits or de merits, it would be just to observe
the Scriptural precept, "Judge not." |
The one divine method
|
There are various methods of treating
disease, which are not included in the commonly accepted systems; but there is
only one which should be presented to the whole world, and that is the
Christian Science which Jesus preached and practised and left to us as his rich
legacy. Why should one refuse to investigate this method of treating disease?
Why support the popular systems of medicine, when the physician may perchance
be an infidel and may lose ninetyandnine patients, while Christian Science
cures its hundred? Is it because allopathy and homoeopathy are more fashionable
and less spiritual? |
Omnipotence set forth
|
In the Bible the word Spirit is so
commonly applied to Deity, that Spirit and God are often regarded as syn
onymous terms; and it is thus they are uniformly used and understood in
Christian Science. As it is evident that the likeness of Spirit cannot be
material, does it not follow that God cannot be in His unlikeness and work
through drugs to heal the sick? When the omnipotence of God is preached and His
ab soluteness is set forth, Christian sermons will heal the sick. |
Contradictions not found
|
It is sometimes said, in criticising
Christian Science, that the mind which contradicts itself neither knows itself
nor what it is saying. It is indeed no small matter to know one's self; but in
this volume of mine there are no contradictory statements, at least none which
are apparent to those who understand its propositions well enough to pass
judgment upon them. One who understands Christian Science can heal the sick on
the divine Principle of Chris tian Science, and this practical proof is the
only feasible evidence that one does understand this Science. Anybody, who is
able to perceive the incongruity be tween God's idea and poor humanity, ought
to be able to discern the distinction (made by Christian Science) between God's
man, made in His image, and the sinning race of Adam. The apostle says: "For if
a man think himself to be something, when he is nothing, he deceiveth himself."
This thought of human, material nothingness, which Science inculcates, enrages
the carnal mind and is the main cause of the carnal mind's antagonism.
|
God's idea the ideal man
|
It is not the purpose of Christian
Science to "educate the idea of God, or treat it for disease," as is alleged by
one critic. I regret that such criticism confounds man with
Adam. When man is spoken of as made in God's image, it is not sinful and sickly
mortal man who is referred to, but the ideal man, reflecting God's likeness.
|
Nothingness of error
|
It is sometimes said that Christian
Science teaches the nothingness of sin, sickness, and death, and then teaches
how this nothingness is to be saved and healed. The nothingness of nothing is
plain; but we need to understand that error is nothing, and that its
nothingness is not saved, but must be demonstrated in order to prove the
somethingness yea, the allness of Truth. It is selfevident that we are
harmonious only as we cease to manifest evil or the belief that we suffer from
the sins of others. Disbelief in error destroys error, and leads to the
discernment of Truth. There are no vacuums. How then can this demonstration be
"fraught with falsities painful to behold"? |
Truth antidotes error
|
We treat error through the understanding of Truth,
because Truth is error's antidote. If a dream ceases, it is selfdestroyed, and
the terror is over. When a sufferer is convinced that there is no reality in
his belief of pain, because matter has no sensation, hence pain in matter is a
false belief, how can he suffer longer? Do you feel the pain of toothpulling,
when you believe that nitrousoxide gas has made you unconscious? Yet, in your
concept, the tooth, the operation, and the forceps are unchanged. |
Serving two masters |
Material beliefs must be expelled to make room for
spiritual understanding. We cannot serve both God and mammon at the same time;
but is not this what frail mortals are trying to do? Paul says: "The flesh
lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh." Who is ready to
admit this? It is said by one critic, that to verify this wonderful philosophy
Christian Science declares that whatever is mortal or discordant has no origin,
existence, nor realness. Nothing really has Life but God, who is infinite Life;
hence all is Life, and death has no dominion. This writer infers that if
anything needs to be doctored, it must be the one God, or Mind. Had he stated
his syllo gism correctly, the conclusion would be that there is noth ing left
to be doctored. |
Essential element of Christianity
|
Critics should consider that the
socalled mortal man is not the reality of man. Then they would behold the signs
of Christ's coming. Christ, as the spiritual or true idea of God, comes now as
of old, preaching the gospel to the poor, heal ing the sick, and casting out
evils. Is it error which is restoring an essential element of Christianity,
namely, apostolic, divine healing? No; it is the Science of Christianity which
is restoring it, and is the light shining in darkness, which the darkness
comprehends not. If Christian Science takes away the popular gods, sin,
sickness, and death, it is Christ, Truth, who de stroys these evils, and so
proves their nothingness.
The dream that matter and error are something must
yield to reason and revelation. Then mortals will behold the nothingness of
sickness and sin, and sin and sickness will disappear from consciousness. The
harmonious will appear real, and the inharmo nious unreal. These critics will
then see that error is indeed the nothingness, which they chide us for naming
nothing and which we desire neither to honor nor to fear. Medical theories
virtually admit the nothingness of hallucinations, even while treating them as
disease; and who objects to this? Ought we not, then, to approve any cure,
which is effected by making the disease appear to be what it really is an
illusion? |
All disease a delusion
|
Here is the difficulty: it is not generally understood
how one disease can be just as much a delusion as another. It is a pity that
the medical faculty and clergy have not learned this, for Jesus established
this foundational fact, when devils, delusions, were cast out and the dumb
spake. |
Elimination of sickness
|
Are we irreverent towards sin, or imputing too much
power to God, when we ascribe to Him almighty Life and Love? I deny His
cooperation with evil, because I desire to have no faith in evil or in any
power but God, good. Is it not well to eliminate from socalled mortal mind that
which, so long as it remains in mortal mind, will show itself in forms of sin,
sickness, and death? Instead of tenaciously defending the supposed rights of
disease, while complaining of the suffering, dis ease brings, would it not be
well to abandon the defence, especially when by so doing our own condition can
be im proved and that of other persons as well? |
Full fruitage yet to come
|
I have never supposed the world would immediately
witness the full fruitage of Christian Science, or that sin, disease, and death
would not be believed for an indefinite time; but this I do aver, that, as a
result of teaching Christian Science, ethics and temperance have received all
impulse, health has been restored, and longevity increased. If such are the
present fruits, what will the harvest be, when this Science is more generally
understood? |
Law and gospel |
As Paul asked of the unfaithful in ancient days, so
the rabbis of the present day ask concerning our heal ing and teaching,
"Through breaking the law, dishonorest thou God?" We have the gospel, however,
and our Master annulled material law by heal ing contrary to it. We propose to
follow the Master's example. We should subordinate material law to spirit ual
law. Two essential points of Christian Science are, that neither Life nor man
dies, and that God is not the author of sickness. |
Language inadequate |
The chief difficulty in conveying the teachings of
divine Science accurately to human thought lies in this, that like all other
languages, English is inadequate to the expression of spiritual conceptions and
propositions, because one is obliged to use material terms in dealing with
spiritual ideas. The elucidation of Chris tian Science lies in its spiritual
sense, and this sense must be gained by its disciples in order to grasp the
meaning of this Science. Out of this condition grew the prophecy concerning the
Christian apostles, "They shall speak with new tongues." Speaking of the things
of Spirit while dwelling on a material plane, material terms must be generally
em ployed. Mortal thought does not at once catch the higher meaning, and can do
so only as thought is edu cated up to spiritual apprehension. To a certain
extent this is equally true of all learning, even that which is wholly
material. |
Substance spiritual |
In Christian Science, substance is understood to be
Spirit, while the opponents of Christian Science believe substance to be
matter. They think of matter as some thing and almost the only thing, and of
the things which pertain to Spirit as next to nothing, or as very far removed
from daily experience. Christian Science takes exactly the opposite view.
|
Both words and works
|
To understand all our Master's sayings as
recorded in the New Testament, sayings infinitely important, his followers must
grow into that stature of manhood in Christ Jesus which enables them to
interpret his spiritual meaning. Then they know how Truth casts out error and
heals the sick. His words were the offspring of his deeds, both of which must
be understood. Unless the works are com prehended which his words explained,
the words are blind.
The Master often refused to explain his words,
because it was difficult in a material age to apprehend spiritual Truth. He
said: "This people's heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing,
and their eyes they have closed; lest at any time they should see with their
eyes, and hear with their ears, and should understand with their heart, and
should be converted, and I should heal them." |
The divine lifelink |
"The Word was made flesh." Divine Truth
must be known by its effects on the body as well as on the mind, before the
Science of being can be demonstrated. Hence its embodiment in the incar nate
Jesus, that lifelink forming the connection through which the real reaches the
unreal, Soul rebukes sense, and Truth destroys error. |
Truth a present help
|
In Jewish worship the Word was materially explained,
and the spiritual sense was scarcely perceived. The religion which sprang from
half-hidden Israelitish history was pedantic and void of healing power. When we
lose faith in God's power to heal, we distrust the divine Principle which
demonstrates Christian Science, and then we cannot heal the sick. Neither can
we heal through the help of Spirit, if we plant ourselves on a material
basis.
The author became a member of the orthodox
Congregational Church in early years. Later she learned that her own prayers
failed to heal her as did the prayers of her devout parents and the church; but
when the spiritual sense of the creed was discerned in the Science of
Christianity, this spiritual sense was a present help. It was the
living, palpitating presence of Christ, Truth, which healed the sick. |
Fatal premises |
We cannot bring out the practical proof of
Christianity, which Jesus required, while error seems as potent and real to us
as Truth, and while we make a per sonal devil and an anthropomorphic God our
startingpoints, especially if we consider Satan as a being coequal in power
with Deity, if not superior to Him. Because such startingpoints are neither
spiritual nor scientific, they cannot work out the Spiritrule of Christian
healing, which proves the nothingness of error, discord, by demonstrating the
allinclusiveness of harmonious Truth. |
Fruitless worship |
The Israelites centred their thoughts on
the material in their attempted worship of the spiritual. To them matter was
substance, and Spirit was shadow. They thought to worship Spirit from a ma
terial standpoint, but this was impossible. They might appeal to Jehovah, but
their prayer brought down no proof that it was heard, because they did not
sufficiently understand God to be able to demonstrate His power to heal, to
make harmony the reality and discord the unreality. |
Spirit the tangible |
Our Master declared that his material
body was not spirit, evidently considering it a mortal and material be lief of
flesh and bones, whereas the Jews took a diametrically opposite view. To Jesus,
not materiality, but spirituality, was the reality of man's ex istence, while
to the rabbis the spiritual was the intangi ble and uncertain, if not the
unreal. |
Ghosts not realities
|
Would a mother say to her child, who is
frightened at imaginary ghosts and sick in consequence of the fear: "I know
that ghosts are real. They exist, and are to be feared; but you must not be
afraid of them"? Children, like adults, ought to fear a reality which
can harm them and which they do not understand, for at any moment they may
become its helpless victims; but instead of increasing children's fears by
declaring ghosts to be real, merciless, and powerful, thus water ing the very
roots of childish timidity, children should be assured that their fears are
groundless, that ghosts are not realities, but traditional beliefs, erroneous
and manmade. In short, children should be told not to believe in ghosts,
because there are no such things. If belief in their reality is destroyed,
terror of ghosts will depart and health be re stored. The objects of alarm will
then vanish into nothingness, no longer seeming worthy of fear or honor. To
accomplish a good result, it is certainly not irrational to tell the truth
about ghosts. |
The real and the unreal
|
The Christianly scientific real is the
sensuous unreal. Sin, disease, whatever seems real to material sense, is un
real in divine Science. The physical senses and Science have ever been
antagonistic, and they will so continue, till the testimony of the physical
senses yields entirely to Christian Science. How can a Christian, having the
stronger evidence of Truth which contradicts the evidence of error, think of
the latter as real or true, either in the form of sickness or of sin? All must
admit that Christ is "the way, the truth, and the life," and that omnipotent
Truth certainly does destroy error. |
Superstition obsolete
|
The age has not wholly outlived the sense of ghostly
beliefs. It still holds them more or less. Time has not yet reached eternity,
immortality, complete reality. All the real is eternal. Perfection underlies
reality. Without perfection, nothing is wholly real. All things will continue
to disappear, until per fection appears and reality is reached. We must give up
the spectral at all points. We must not continue to admit the somethingness of
superstition, but we must yield up all belief in it and be wise. When we learn
that error is not real, we shall be ready for progress, "forgetting those
things which are behind."
The grave does not banish the ghost of materiality.
So long as there are supposed limits to Mind, and those limits are human, so
long will ghosts seem to continue. Mind is limitless. It never was material.
The true idea of being is spiritual and immortal, and from this it follows that
whatever is laid off is the ghost, some unreal belief. Mortal beliefs can
neither demonstrate Christianity nor apprehend the reality of Life. |
Christian warfare |
Are the protests of Christian Science
against the notion that there can be material life, substance, or mind "utter
falsities and absurdities," as some aver? Why then do Christians try to obey
the Scriptures and war against "the world, the flesh, and the devil"? Why do
they invoke the divine aid to enable them to leave all for Christ, Truth? Why
do they use this phraseology, and yet deny Christian Science, when it teaches
precisely this thought? The words of divine Science find their immortality in
deeds, for their Principle heals the sick and spiritualizes humanity. |
Healing omitted |
On the other hand, the Christian
opponents of Chris tian Science neither give nor offer any proofs that their
Master's religion can heal the sick. Surely it is not enough to cleave to
barren and desul tory dogmas, derived from the traditions of the elders who
thereunto have set their seals. |
Scientific consistency
|
Consistency is seen in example more than
in precept. Inconsistency is shown by words without deeds, which are like
clouds without rain. If our words fail to express our deeds, God will redeem
that weakness, and out of the mouth of babes He will perfect praise. The night
of materiality is far spent, and with the dawn Truth will waken men spiritually
to hear and to speak the new tongue. Sin should become unreal to every one. It
is in itself inconsistent, a divided kingdom. Its supposed realism has no
divine authority, and I rejoice in the apprehension of this grand verity.
|
Spiritual meaning |
The opponents of divine Science must be charitable, if
they would be Christian. If the letter of Christian Science appears
inconsistent, they should gain the spiritual meaning of Christian Science, and
then the ambiguity will vanish. |
Practical arguments |
The charge of inconsistency in Christianly scientific
methods of dealing with sin and disease is met by some thing practical, namely,
the proof of the utility of these methods; and proofs are better than mere
verbal arguments or prayers which evince no spiritual power to heal. As for sin
and disease, Christian Science says, in the language of the Master, "Follow me;
and let the dead bury their dead." Let discord of every name and nature be
heard no more, and let the harmonious and true sense of Life and being take
possession of human consciousness.
What is the relative value of the two conflicting
theories regarding Christian healing? One, according to the commands of our
Master, heals the sick. The other, popular religion, declines to admit that
Christ's religion has exercised any systematic healing power since the first
century. |
Conditions of criticism
|
The statement that the teachings of Christian Science
in this work are "absolutely false, and the most egregious fallacies ever
offered for accept ance," is an opinion wholly due to a mishapprehension both
of the divine Principle and practice of Christian Science and to a consequent
inability to demon strate this Science. Without this understanding, no one is
capable of impartial or correct criticism, because demon stration and spiritual
understanding are God's immortal keynotes, proved to be such by our Master and
evidenced by the sick who are cured and by the sinners who are reformed.
|
Weakness of material theories
|
Strangely enough, we ask for material theories in
support of spiritual and eternal truths, when the two are so antagonistic that
the material thought must become spirtualized before the spiritual fact is
attained. Socalled material existence affords no evidence theories of spiritual
existence and immortality. Sin, sickness, and death do not prove man's entity
or immor tality. Discord can never establish the facts of harmony. Matter is
not the vestibule of Spirit. |
Irreconciliable differences
|
Jesus reasoned on this subject practically, and con
trolled sickness, sin, and death on the basis of his spir ituality.
Understanding the nothingness of material things, he spoke of flesh and Spirit
as the two opposites, as error and Truth, not contrib uting in any way to each
other's happiness and existence. Jesus knew, "It is the spirit that quickeneth;
the flesh profiteth nothing." |
Copartnership impossible
|
There is neither a present nor an eternal
copartnership between error and Truth, between flesh and Spirit. God is as
incapable of producing sin, sick ness, and death as He is of experiencing these
errors. How then is it possible for Him to create man subject to this triad of
errors, man who is made in the divine likeness? Does God create a material man
out of Himself, Spirit? Does evil proceed from good? Does divine Love com mit a
fraud on humanity by making man inclined to sin, and then punishing him for it?
Would any one call it wise and good to create the primitive, and then punish
its derivative? |
Two infinite creators absurd
|
Does subsequent follow its antecedent? It does. Was
there original selfcreative sin? Then there must have been more than one
creator, more than one God. In common justice, we must admit that God will not
punish man for doing what He created man capable of doing, and knew from the
outset that man would do. God is "of purer eyes than to behold evil." We
sustain Truth, not by accepting, but by rejecting a lie. Jesus said of
personified evil, that it was "a liar, and the father of it." Truth creates
neither a lie, a capacity to lie, nor a liar. If mankind would relinquish the
belief that God makes sickness, sin, and death, or makes man capable of
suffering on account of this malevolent triad, the foundations of error would
be sapped and error's de struction ensured; but if we theoretically endow
mortals with the creativeness and authority of Deity, how dare we attempt to
destroy what He hath made, or even to deny that God made man evil and made evil
good? |
Anthropomorphism |
History teaches that the popular and false notions
about the Divine Being and character have originated in the human mind. As
there is in reality but one God, one Mind, wrong notions about God must have
originated in a false supposition, not in im mortal Truth, and they are fading
out. They are false claims, which will eventually disappear, according to the
vision of St. John in the Apocalypse. |
One supremacy |
If what opposes God is real, there must be two
powers, and God is not supreme and infinite. Can Deity be almighty, if another
mighty and selfcreative cause exists and sways man kind? Has the Father "Life
in Himself," as the Scriptures say, and, if so, can Life, or God, dwell in evil
and create it? Can matter drive Life, Spirit, hence, and so defeat omnipotence?
|
Matter impotent |
Is the woodman's axe, which destroys a
tree's socalled life, superior to omnipotence? Can a leaden bullet deprive a
man of Life, that is, of God, who is man's Life? If God is at the mercy of
matter, then matter is omnipotent. Such doctrines are "confusion worse
confounded." If two statements directly contradict each other and one is true,
the other must be false. Is Science thus contradictory? |
Scientific and Biblical facts
|
Christian Science, understood, coincides
with the Scriptures, and sustains logically and demonstratively every point it
presents. Otherwise it would not be Science, and could not present its proofs.
Christian Science is neither made up of contra dictory aphorisms nor of the
inventions of those who scoff at God. It presents the calm and clear verdict of
Truth against error, uttered and illustrated by the prophets, by Jesus, by his
apostles, as is recorded throughout the Scriptures. Why are the words of Jesus
more frequently cited for our instruction than are his remarkable works? Is it
not because there are few who have gained a true knowledge of the great import
to Christianity of those works? |
Personal confidence |
Sometimes it is said; "Rest assured that
whatever effect Christian Scientists may have on the sick, comes through
rousing within the sick a belief that in the removal of disease these healers
have wonderful power, derived from the Holy Ghost." Is it likely that
churchmembers have more faith in some Christian Scientist, whom they have
perhaps never seen and against whom they have been warned, than they have in
their own accredited and orthodox pastors, whom they have seen and have been
taught to love and to trust?
Let any clergyman try to cure his friends
by their faith in him. Will that faith heal them? Yet Scien tists will take the
same cases, and cures will follow. Is this because the patients have more faith
in the Scien tist than in their pastor? I have healed infidels whose only
objection to this method was, that I as a Christian Scientist believed in the
Holy Spirit, while they, the patients, did not. Even though you aver that the
material senses are indispensable to man's existence or entity, you must change
the human concept of life, and must at length know yourself spiritually and
scientifically. The evidence of the existence of Spirit, Soul, is palpable only
to spiritual sense, and is not apparent to the material senses, which cognize
only that which is the opposite of Spirit.
True Christianity is to be honored wherever found,
but when shall we arrive at the goal which that word implies? From Puritan
parents, the discoverer of Christian Science early received her religious
education. In childhood, she often listened with joy to these words, falling
from the lips of her saintly mother, "God is able to raise you up from sick
ness;" and she pondered the meaning of that Scripture she so often quotes: "And
these signs shall follow them that believe; . . . they shall lay hands on the
sick, and they shall recover." |
Two different artists
|
A Christian Scientist and an opponent are like two
artists. One says: "I have spiritual ideals, indestructible and glorious. When
others see them as I do, in their true light and loveliness, and know that
these ideals are real and eternal because drawn from Truth, they will find that
nothing is lost, and all is won, by a right estimate of what is real." The
other artist replies: "You wrong my experience. I have no mindideals except
those which are both mental and material. It is true that materiality renders
these ideals imperfect and destructible; yet I would not ex change mine for
thine, for mine give me such personal pleasure, and they are not so shockingly
transcendental. They require less selfabnegation, and keep Soul well out of
sight. Moreover, I have no notion of losing my old doctrines or human
opinions." |
Choose ye today |
Dear reader, which mindpicture or externalized thought
shall be real to you, the material or the spiritual? Both you cannot have. You
are bringing out your own ideal. This ideal is either temporal or eternal.
Either Spirit or matter is your model. If you try to have two models, then you
practically have none. Like a pendulum in a clock, you will be thrown back and
forth, striking the ribs of matter and swinging between the real and the
unreal. Hear the wisdom of Job, as given in the excellent trans lation of the
late Rev. George R. Noyes, D.D.: Shall mortal man be more just than God? Shall
man be more pure than his Maker? Behold, He putteth no trust in His ministering
spirits, And His angels He chargeth with frailty.
Of old, the Jews put to death the Galilean Prophet,
the best Christian on earth, for the truth he spoke and demonstrated, while
today, Jew and Christian can unite in doctrine and denomination on the very
basis of Jesus' words and works. The Jew believes that the Messiah or Christ
has not yet come; the Christian believes that Christ is God. Here Christian
Science intervenes, explains these doctrinal points, cancels the disagreement,
and settles the question. Christ, as the true spiritual idea, is the ideal of
God now and forever, here and everywhere. The Jew who believes in the First
Commandment is a monotheist; he has one omnipresent God. Thus the Jew unites
with the Christian's doctrine that God is come and is present now and forever.
The Christian who believes in the First Commandment is a monotheist. This he
virtually unites with the Jew's belief in one God, and recognizes that Jesus
Christ is not God, as Jesus himself declared, but is the Son of God. This
declaration of Jesus, understood, conflicts not at all with another of his
sayings: "I and my Father are one," that is, one in quality, not in quantity.
As a drop of water is one with the ocean, a ray of light one with the, sun,
even so God and man, Father and son, are one in being. The Scrip ture reads:
"For in Him we live, and move, and have our being."
I have revised Science and Health only to give
a clearer and fuller expression of its original meaning. Spir itual ideas
unfold as we advance. A human perception of divine Science, however limited,
must be correct in order to be Science and subject to demonstration. A germ of
in finite Truth, though least in the kingdom of heaven is the higher hope on
earth, but it will be rejected and reviled until God prepares the soil for the
seed. That which when sown bears immortal fruit, enriches mankind only when it
is understood, hence the many readings given the Scriptures, and the requisite
revisions of Science and Health with Key to the
Scriptures. |
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