0.0 – Christian Science Publication Contents

                    THE GREAT DISCOVERY 

 1	    It was in Massachusetts, in February, 1866, and after
  	the death of the magnetic doctor, Mr. P. P. Quimby,
 3	whom spiritualists would associate therewith, but who
  	was in no wise connected with this event, that I discov-
  	ered the Science of divine metaphysical healing which I
 6	afterwards named Christian Science. The discovery came
  	to pass in this way. During twenty years prior to my
  	discovery I had been trying to trace all physical effects to
 9	a mental cause; and in the latter part of 1866 I gained
  	the scientific certainty that all causation was Mind, and
  	every effect a mental phenomenon. 
12	    My immediate recovery from the effects of an injury
  	caused by an accident, an injury that neither medicine nor
  	surgery could reach, was the falling apple that led me to
15	the discovery how to be well myself, and how to make
  	others so. 
  	    Even to the homoeopathic physician who attended me,
18	and rejoiced in my recovery, I could not then explain the
  	modus of my relief. I could only assure him that the divine
  	Spirit had wrought the miracle — a miracle which later
21	I found to be in perfect scientific accord with divine law. 
  	    I then withdrew from society about three years, — to
  	ponder my mission, to search the Scriptures, to find the
24	Science of Mind that should take the things of God and
 
  
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 1	show them to the creature, and reveal the great curative
  	Principle, — Deity. 
 3	    The Bible was my textbook. It answered my questions
  	as to how I was healed; but the Scriptures had to me a
  	new meaning, a new tongue. Their spiritual significa-
 6	tion appeared; and I apprehended for the first time, in
  	their spiritual meaning, Jesus' teaching and demonstra-
  	tion, and the Principle and rule of spiritual Science and
 9	metaphysical healing, — in a word, Christian Science. 
  	    I named it Christian, because it is compassionate,
  	helpful, and spiritual. God I called immortal Mind. That
12	which sins, suffers, and dies, I named mortal mind. The
  	physical senses, or sensuous nature, I called error and
  	shadow. Soul I denominated substance, because Soul
15	alone is truly substantial. God I characterized as individ-
  	ual entity, but His corporeality I denied. The real I
  	claimed as eternal; and its antipodes, or the temporal,
18	I described as unreal. Spirit I called the reality; and
  	matter, the unreality. 
  	    I knew the human conception of God to be that He was
21	a physically personal being, like unto man; and that the
  	five physical senses are so many witnesses to the physical
  	personality of mind and the real existence of matter; but
24	I learned that these material senses testify falsely, that
  	matter neither sees, hears, nor feels Spirit, and is therefore
  	inadequate to form any proper conception of the infinite
27	Mind. "If I bear witness of myself, my witness is not
  	true.  (John v. 31.) 
  	    I beheld with ineffable awe our great Master's purpose
30	in not questioning those he healed as to their disease or
 
  
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 1	its symptoms, and his marvellous skill in demanding
  	neither obedience to hygienic laws, nor prescribing drugs
 3	to support the divine power which heals. Adoringly I
  	discerned the Principle of his holy heroism and Christian
  	example on the cross, when he refused to drink the "vine-
 6	gar and gall," a preparation of poppy, or aconite, to allay
  	the tortures of crucifixion. 
  	    Our great Way-shower, steadfast to the end in his obedi-
 9	ence to God's laws, demonstrated for all time and peoples
  	the supremacy of good over evil, and the superiority of
  	Spirit over matter. 
12	    The miracles recorded in the Bible, which had before
  	seemed to me supernatural, grew divinely natural and ap-
  	prehensible; though uninspired interpreters ignorantly
15	pronounce Christ's healing miraculous, instead of seeing
  	therein the operation of the divine law. 
  	    Jesus of Nazareth was a natural and divine Scientist. 
18	He was so before the material world saw him. He who
  	antedated Abraham, and gave the world a new date in the
  	Christian era, was a Christian Scientist, who needed no
21	discovery of the Science of being in order to rebuke the
  	evidence. To one "born of the flesh," however, divine
  	Science must be a discovery. Woman must give it birth. 
24	It must be begotten of spirituality, since none but the pure
  	in heart can see God, — the Principle of all things pure;
  	and none but the "poor in spirit" could first state this
27	Principle, could know yet more of the nothingness of mat-
  	ter and the allness of Spirit, could utilize Truth, and ab-
  	solutely reduce the demonstration of being, in Science, to
30	the apprehension of the age. 
 
  
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 1	    I wrote also, at this period, comments on the Scriptures,
  	setting forth their spiritual interpretation, the Science of
 3	the Bible, and so laid the foundation of my work called
  	Science and Health, published in 1875. 
  	    If these notes and comments, which have never been
 6	read by any one but myself, were published, it would
  	show that after my discovery of the absolute Science
  	of Mind-healing, like all great truths, this spiritual
 9	Science developed itself to me until Science and
  	Health was written. These early comments are valu-
  	able to me as waymarks of progress, which I would not
12	have effaced. 
  	    Up to that time I had not fully voiced my discov-
  	ery. Naturally, my first jottings were but efforts to
15	express in feeble diction Truth's ultimate. In Longfellow's
  	language, —  

  	     But the feeble hands and helpless,
18	     Groping blindly in the darkness,
  	     Touch God's right hand in that darkness,
  	     And are lifted up and strengthened.   


21	    As sweet music ripples in one's first thoughts of it like
  	the brooklet in its meandering midst pebbles and rocks,
  	before the mind can duly express it to the ear, — so the
24	harmony of divine Science first broke upon my sense,
  	before gathering experience and confidence to articulate
  	it. Its natural manifestation is beautiful and euphonious,
27	but its written expression increases in power and perfection
  	under the guidance of the great Master. 
  	    The divine hand led me into a new world of light and
30	Life, a fresh universe — old to God, but new to His "little
 
  
  Retrospection and Introspection --- The Great Discovery            28


 1	one." It became evident that the divine Mind alone must
  	answer, and be found as the Life, or Principle, of all being;
 3	and that one must acquaint himself with God, if he would
  	be at peace. He must be ours practically, guiding our
  	every thought and action; else we cannot understand
 6	the omnipresence of good sufficiently to demonstrate,
  	even in part, the Science of the perfect Mind and divine
  	healing. 
 9	    I had learned that thought must be spiritualized, in
  	order to apprehend Spirit. It must become honest, un-
  	selfish, and pure, in order to have the least understanding
12	of God in divine Science. The first must become last. 
  	Our reliance upon material things must be transferred to
  	a perception of and dependence on spiritual things. For
15	Spirit to be supreme in demonstration, it must be supreme
  	in our affections, and we must be clad with divine power. 
  	Purity, self-renunciation, faith, and understanding must
18	reduce all things real to their own mental denomina-
  	tion, Mind, which divides, subdivides, increases, dimin-
  	ishes, constitutes, and sustains, according to the law of
21	God. 
  	    I had learned that Mind reconstructed the body, and
  	that nothing else could. How it was done, the spiritual
24	Science of Mind must reveal. It was a mystery to me
  	then, but I have since understood it. All Science is a
  	revelation. Its Principle is divine, not human, reaching
27	higher than the stars of heaven. 
  	    Am I a believer in spiritualism? I believe in no ism. 
  	This is my endeavor, to be a Christian, to assimilate the
30	character and practice of the anointed; and no motive
 
  
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 1	can cause a surrender of this effort. As I understand it,
  	spiritualism is the antipode of Christian Science. I esteem
 3	all honest people, and love them, and hold to loving our
  	enemies and doing good to them that "despitefully use
         you and persecute you."
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