0.0 – Christian Science Publication Contents

27	SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY 

  	    Men give counsel; but they give not the wisdom to
  	profit by it. To ask wisdom of God, is the beginning of
30	wisdom. 
 
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 1	    Meekness, moderating human desire, inspires wisdom
  	and procures divine power. Human lives are yet un-
 3	carved, — in the rough marble, encumbered with crude,
  	rude fragments, and awaiting the hammering, chiselling,
  	and transfiguration from His hand. 
 6	    Great only as good, because fashioned divinely, were
  	those unpretentious yet colossal characters, Paul and
  	Jesus. Theirs were modes of mind cast in the moulds
 9	of Christian Science:  Paul's, by the supremely natural
  	transforming power of Truth; and the character of
  	Jesus, by his original scientific sonship with God. Phi-
12	losophy never has produced, nor can it reproduce, these
  	stars of the first magnitude — fixed stars in the heavens
  	of Soul. When shall earth be crowned with the true
15	knowledge of Christ? 
  	    When Christian Science has melted away the cloud of
  	false witnesses; and the dews of divine grace, fall-
18	ing upon the blighted flowers of fleeting joys, shall
  	lift every thought-leaflet Spiritward; and "Israel after
  	the flesh," who partaketh of its own altars, shall be
21	no more, — then, "the Israel according to Spirit"
  	shall fill earth with the divine energies, understanding,
  	and ever-flowing tides of spiritual s...ensation and con-
24	sciousness. 
  	    When mortal mind is silenced by the "still, small voice"
  	of Truth that regenerates philosophy and logic; and
27	Jesus, as the true idea of Him, is heard as of yore saying
  	to sensitive ears and dark disciples, "I came from the
  	Father," "Before Abraham was, I am," coexistent and
30	coeternal with God, — and this idea is understood, — 
  	then will the earth be filled with the true knowledge of
  	Christ. No advancing modes of human mind made
 
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 1	Jesus; rather was it their subjugation, and the pure
  	heart that sees God. 
 3	    When the belief in material origin, mortal mind, sen-
  	sual conception, dissolves through self-imposed suffering,
  	and its substances are found substanceless, — then its
 6	miscalled life ends in death, and death itself is swallowed
  	up in Life, — spiritual Life, whose myriad forms are
  	neither material nor mortal. 
 9	    When every form and mode of evil disappear to hu-
  	man thought, and mollusk and radiate are spiritual con-
  	cepts testifying to one creator, — then, earth is full of
12	His glory, and Christian Science has overshadowed all
  	human philosophy, and being is understood in startling
  	contradiction of human hypotheses; and Socrates, Plato,
15	Kant, Locke, Berkeley, Tyndall, Darwin, and Spencer
  	sit at the feet of Jesus. 
  	    To this great end, Paul admonished, "Let us lay aside
18	every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us,
  	and let us run with patience the race that is set before
  	us, looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our
21	faith." So shall mortals soar to final freedom, and rest
  	from the subtlety of speculative wisdom and human
  	woe. 
24	    God is the only Mind, and His manifestation is the
  	spiritual universe, including man and all eternal indi-
  	viduality. God, the only substance and divine Principle
27	of creation, is by no means a creative partner in the firm
  	of error, named matter, or mortal mind. He elucidates
  	His own idea, wherein Principle and idea, God and man,
30	are not one, but are inseparable as cause and effect. If
  	one, who could say which that "one" was? 
  	    His ways are not as our ways. The divine modes
 
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 1	and manifestations are not those of the material senses;
  	for instance, intelligent matter, or mortal mind, material
 3	birth, growth, and decay:  they are the forever-existing
  	realities of divine Science; wherein God and man are
  	perfect, and man's reason is at rest in God's wisdom, — 
 6	who comprehends and reflects all real mode, form, indi-
  	viduality, identity. 
  	    Scholastic dogma has made men blind. Christ's logos
 9	gives sight to these blind, ears to these deaf, feet to these
  	lame, — physically, morally, spiritually. Theologians
  	make the mortal mistake of believing that God, having
12	made all, made evil; but the Scriptures declare that all
  	that He made was good. Then, was evil part and parcel
  	of His creation? 
15	    Philosophy hypothetically regards creation as its own
  	creator, puts cause into effect, and out of nothing would
  	create something, whose noumenon is mortal mind,
18	with its phenomenon matter, — an evil mind already
  	doomed, whose modes are material manifestations of
  	evil, and that continually, until self-extinguished by
21	suffering! 
  	    Here revelation must come to the rescue of mortals,
  	to remove this mental millstone that is dragging them
24	downward, and refute erring reason with the spiritual
  	cosmos and Science of Soul. We all must find shelter
  	from the storm and tempest in the tabernacle of Spirit. 
27	Truth is won through Science or suffering:  O vain mor-
  	tals! which shall it be? And suffering has no reward,
  	except when it is necessary to prevent sin or reform
30	the sinner. And pleasure is no crime except when it
  	strengthens the influence of bad inclinations or lessens
  	the activities of virtue. The more nearly an erring so-
 
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 1	called mind approaches purity, the more conscious it
  	becomes of its own unreality, and of the great reality of
 3	divine Mind and true happiness. 
  	    The "ego" that claims selfhood in error, and passes
  	from molecule and monkey up to man, is no ego, but is
 6	simply the supposition that the absence of good is mind
  	and makes men, — when its greatest flatterer, identifica-
  	tion, is piqued by Him who compensateth vanity with
 9	nothingness, dust with dust! 
  	    The mythology of evil and mortality is but the ma-
  	terial mode of a suppositional mind; while the immortal
12	modes of Mind are spiritual, and pass through none of
  	the changes of matter, or evil. Truth said, and said from
  	the beginning, "Let us [Spirit] make man perfect;" and
15	there is no other Maker:  a perfect man would not desire
  	to make himself imperfect, and God is not chargeable
  	with imperfection. His modes declare the beauty of holi-
18	ness, and His manifold wisdom shines through the visible
  	world in glimpses of the eternal verities. Even through
  	the mists of mortality is seen the brightness of His
21	coming. 
  	    We must avoid the shoals of a sensual religion or
  	philosophy that misguides reason and affection, and
24	hold fast to the Principle of Christian Science as the
  	Word that is God, Spirit, and Truth. This Word cor-
  	rects the philosopher, confutes the astronomer, exposes
27	the subtle sophist, and drives diviners mad. The Bible
  	is the learned man's masterpiece, the ignorant man's
  	dictionary, the wise man's directory. 
30	    I foresee and foresay that every advancing epoch of
  	Truth will be characterized by a more spiritual appre-
  	hension of the Scriptures, that will show their marked
  
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1	consonance with the textbook of Christian Science Mind-
  	healing, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures." 
 3	Interpreting the Word in the "new tongue," whereby
  	the sick are healed, naturally evokes new paraphrase
  	from the world of letters. "Wait patiently on the Lord,
 6	and He will renew your strength." In return for indi-
  	vidual sacrifice, what a recompense to have healed, through
  	Truth, the sick and sinful, made the public your friend,
 9	and posterity your familiar! 
  	    Christian Science refutes everything that is not a
  	postulate of the divine Principle, God. It is the soul of
12	divine philosophy, and there is no other philosophy. It
  	is not a search after wisdom, it is wisdom:  it is God's
  	right hand grasping the universe, — all time, space,
15	immortality, thought, extension, cause, and effect; con-
  	stituting and governing all identity, individuality, law,
  	and power. It stands on this Scriptural platform:
18	that He made all that was made, and it is good, reflects
  	the divine Mind, is governed by it; and that nothing
  	apart from this Mind, one God, is self-created or evolves
21	the universe. 
  	    Human hypotheses predicate matter of Spirit and
  	evil of good; hence these opposites must either cooperate
24	or quarrel throughout time and eternity, — or until
  	this impossible partnership is dissolved. If Spirit is the
  	lawgiver to matter, and good has the same power or
27	modes as evil, it has the same consciousness, and there
  	is no absolute good. This error, carried to its ultimate,
  	would either extinguish God and His modes, or give
30	reality and power to evil ad infinitum. 
  	    Christian Science rends this veil of the temple of gods,
  	and reproduces the divine philosophy of Jesus and Paul. 
 
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 1	This philosophy alone will bear the strain of time and
  	bring out the glories of eternity; for "other founda-
 3	tion can no man lay than that is laid," which is Christ,
  	Truth. 
  	    Human theories weighed in the balances of God are
 6	found wanting; and their highest endeavors are to Science
  	what a child's love of pictures is to art. The school whose
  	schoolmaster is not Christ, gets things wrong, and is igno-
 9	rant thereof. 
  	    If Christian Science lacked the proof of its goodness
  	and utility, it would destroy itself; for it rests alone on
12	demonstration. Its genius is right thinking and right
  	acting, physical and moral harmony; and the secret of
  	its success lies in supplying the universal need of better
15	health and better men. 
  	    Good health and a more spiritual religion form the
  	common want, and this want has worked out a moral
18	result; namely, that mortal mind is calling for what im-
  	mortal Mind alone can supply. If the uniform moral
  	and spiritual, as well as physical, effects of divine Science
21	were lacking, the demand would diminish; but it con-
  	tinues, and increases, which shows the real value of
  	Christian Science to the race. Even doctors agree that
24	infidelity, bigotry, or sham has never met the growing
  	wants of humanity. 
  	    As a literature, Christian metaphysics is hampered by
27	lack of proper terms in which to express what it means. 
  	As a Science, it is held back by the common ignorance
  	of what it is and of what it does, — and more than all
30	else, by the impostors that come in its name. To be
  	appreciated, it must be conscientiously understood and
  	introduced. 
 
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 1	    If the Bible and "Science and Health with Key to the
  	Scriptures" had in our schools the time or attention that
 3	human hypotheses consume, they would advance the
  	world. True, it requires more study to understand and
  	demonstrate what they teach than to learn the doctrine
 6	of theology, philosophy, or physics, because they con-
  	tain and offer Science, with fixed Principle, given rule,
  	and unmistakable proof. 
 9	    The Scriptures give the keynote of Christian Science
  	from Genesis to Revelation, and this is the prolonged
  	tone: "For the Lord He is God, and there is
12	none beside Him." And because He is All-in-all,
  	He is in nothing unlike Himself; and nothing that
  	worketh or maketh a lie is in Him, or can be divine con-
15	sciousness. 
  	    At this date, poor jaded humanity needs to get her
  	eyes open to a new style of imposition in the field of
18	medicine and of religion, and to "beware of the leaven
  	of the scribes and Pharisees," the doctrines of men, even
  	as Jesus admonished. From first to last, evil insists on
21	the unity of good and evil as the purpose of God; and
  	on drugs, electricity, and animal magnetism as modes
  	of medicine. To a greater or less extent, all mortal con-
24	clusions start from this false premise, and they neces-
  	sarily culminate in sickness, sin, disease, and death. 
  	Erroneous doctrines never have abated and never will
27	abate dishonesty, self-will, envy, and lust. To destroy
  	sin and its sequence, is the office of Christ, Truth, — ac-
  	cording to His mode of Christian Science; and this is
30	being done daily. 
  	    The false theories whose names are legion, gilded with
  	sophistry and what Jesus had not, namely, mere book-
 
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 1	learning, — letter without law, gospel, or demonstration,
  	 — have no place in Christian Science. This Science re-
 3	quires man to be honest, just, pure; to love his neighbor
  	as himself, and to love God supremely. 
  	    Matter and evil are subjective states of error or mortal
 6	mind. But Mind is immortal; and the fact of there
  	being no mortal mind, exposes the lie of suppositional
  	evil, showing that error is not Mind, substance, or
 9	Life. Thus, whatever is wrongfully-minded will dis-
  	appear in the proportion that Science is understood,
  	and the reality of being — goodness and harmony — is
12	demonstrated. 
  	    Error says that knowing all things implies the neces-
  	sity of knowing evil, that it dishonors God to claim that
15	He is ignorant of anything; but God says of this fruit
  	of the tree of knowledge of both good and evil, "In the
  	day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die." If
18	God is infinite good, He knows nothing but good; if He
  	did know aught else, He would not be infinite. Infinite
  	Mind knows nothing beyond Himself or Herself. To
21	good, evil is never present; for evil is a different state of
  	consciousness. It was not against evil, but against know-
  	ing evil, that God forewarned. He dwelleth in light;
24	and in the light He sees light, and cannot see darkness. 
  	The opposite conclusion, that darkness dwelleth in light,
  	has neither precedent nor foundation in nature, in logic,
27	or in the character of Christ. 
  	    The senses would say that whatever saves from sin,
  	must know sin. Truth replies that God is too pure
30	to behold iniquity; and by virtue of His ignorance of
  	that which is not, He knoweth that which is, and
  	abideth in Himself, the only Life, Truth, and Love,
 
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 1	 — and is reflected by a universe in His own image
  	and likeness. 
 3	    Even so, Father, let the light that shineth in dark-
  	ness, and the darkness comprehendeth it not, dispel this
  	illusion of the senses, open the eyes of the blind, and cause
 6	the deaf to hear. 
  	 "Truth forever on the scaffold, Wrong forever on the throne.  
  	 Yet that scaffold sways the future, and, behind the dim unknown,
 9	 Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above His own." 
  	                                                                                                LOWELL
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