0.0 – Mary Baker Eddy’s Other Writings – Prose Works + Manual

                             Preface 

It was the purpose of each edition of this pamphlet to benefit no favored class..., but, according to the apostle's admonition, to "reprove, rebuke, exhort," and with the power and self-sacrificing spirit of Love to correct involuntary as well as voluntary error. 
By a modification of the language, the import of this edition is, we trust, transparent to the hearts of all conscientious laborers in the realm of Mind-healing. To those who are athirst for the life-giving waters of a true divinity, it saith tenderly, "Come and drink;" and if you are babes in Christ, leave the meat and take the unadulterated milk of the Word, until you grow to apprehend the pure spirituality of Truth.                                               MARY BAKER EDDY

                                                    Contents
 
	v               PREFACE 
	
      1               INT...RODUCTION  
	
      4               DISEASE UNREAL
	
      7               SCIENCE OF MIND-HEALING
	
    13               IS CHRISTIAN SCIENCE OF THE SAME LINEAGE AS
	                            SPIRITUALISM OR THEOSOPHY?
	
    14               IS CHRISTIAN SCIENCE FROM BENEATH, AND NOT 
	                            FROM ABOVE?
	
    15               IS CHRISTIAN SCIENCE PANTHEISTIC? 
	
    18               IS CHRISTIAN SCIENCE BLASPHEMOUS? 
	
    19               IS THERE A PERSONAL DEITY? 
	
    22               IS THERE A PERSONAL DEVIL? 
	
    25               IS MAN A PERSON? 
	
    28               HAS MAN A SOUL? 
	
    30               IS SIN FORGIVEN? 
	
    32                IS THERE ANY SUCH THING AS SIN? 
	
    33               IS THERE NO SACRIFICIAL ATONEMENT? 
	
    38               IS THERE NO INTERCESSORY PRAYER? 
	
    41               SHOULD CHRISTIANS BEWARE OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE?

Preface 

It was the purpose of each edition of this pamphlet to benefit no favored class, but, according to the apost...le's admonition, to "reprove, rebuke, exhort," and with the power and self-sacrificing spirit of Love to correct involuntary as well as voluntary error. 
By a modification of the language, the import of this edition is, we trust, transparent to the hearts of all conscientious laborers in the realm of Mind-healing. To those who are athirst for the life-giving waters of a true divinity, it saith tenderly, "Come and drink;" and if you are babes in Christ, leave the meat and take the unadulterated milk of the Word, until you grow to apprehend the pure spirituality of Truth.   
MARY BAKER EDDY

  	                    INTRODUCTION 

 1	    To kindle in all minds a common sentiment of regard
  	for the spiritual... idea emanating from the infinite, is
 3	a most needful work; but this must be done gradually, for
  	Truth is as "the still, small voice," which comes to our
  	recognition only as our natures are changed by its silent
 6	influence. 
  	    Small streams are noisy and rush precipitately; and
  	babbling brooks fill the rivers till they rise in floods, de-
 9	molishing bridges and overwhelming cities. So men, when
  	thrilled by a new idea, are sometimes impatient; and,
  	when public sentiment is aroused, are liable to be borne
12	on by the current of feeling. They should then turn tem-
  	porarily from the tumult, for the silent cultivation of the
  	true idea and the quiet practice of its virtues. When
15	the noise and stir of contending sentiments cease, and
  	the flames die away on the mount of revelation, we can
  	read more clearly the tablets of Truth. 
18	    The theology and medicine of Jesus were one, — in the
  	divine oneness of the trinity, Life, Truth, and Love, which
  	healed the sick and cleansed the sinful. This trinity in
21	unity, correcting the individual thought, is the only Mind-
 
   
No and Yes by Mary Baker Eddy                                                  2


 1	healing I vindicate; and on its standard have emblazoned
  	that crystallized expression, CHRISTIAN SCIENCE. 
 3	    A spurious and hydra-headed mind-healing is naturally
  	glared at by the pulpit, ostracized by the medical faculty,
  	and scorned by people of common sense. To aver that
 6	disease is normal, a God-bestowed and stubborn reality,
  	but that you can heal it, leaves you to work against that
  	which is natural and a law of being. It is scientific to rob
 9	disease of all reality; and to accomplish this, you cannot
  	begin by admitting its reality. Our Master taught his
  	students to deny self, sense, and take up the cross. Men-
12	tal healers who admit that disease is real should be made
  	to test the feasibility of what they say by healing one case
  	audibly, through such an admission, — if this is possible. 
15	I have healed more disease by the spoken than the un-
  	spoken word. 
  	    The honest student of Christian Science is modest in his
18	claims and conscientious in duty, waiting and working to
  	mature what he has been taught. Institutes furnished
  	with such teachers are becoming beacon-lights along the
21	shores of erudition; and many who are not teachers have
  	large practices and some marked success in healing the
  	most defiant forms of disease. 
24	    Dishonesty destroys one's ability to heal mentally. Con-
  	ceit cannot avert the effects of deceit. Taking advantage
  	of the present ignorance in relation to Christian Science
27	Mind-healing, many are flooding our land with conflict-
  	ing theories and practice. We should not spread abroad
 
   
No and Yes by Mary Baker Eddy                                                  3


 1	patchwork ideas that in some vital points lack Science. 
  	How sad it is that envy will bend its bow and shoot its
 3	arrow at the idea which claims only its inheritance, is nat-
  	urally modest, generous, and sincere! while the trespass-
  	ing error murders either friend or foe who stands in its
 6	way. Truly it is better to fall into the hands of God, than
  	of man. 
  	    When I revised "Science and Health with Key to the
 9	Scriptures," in 1878, some irresponsible people insisted
  	that my manual of the practice of Christian Science Mind-
  	healing should not be made public; but I obeyed a diviner
12	rule. People dependent on the rules of this practice for
  	their healing, not having lost the Spirit which sustains the
  	genuine practice, will put that book in the hands of their
15	patients, whom it will heal, and recommend it to their
  	students, whom it would enlighten. Every teacher must
  	pore over it in secret, to keep himself well informed. The
18	Nemesis of the history of Mind-healing notes this hour. 
  	    Dishonesty necessarily stultifies the spiritual sense which
  	Mind-healers specially need; and which they must pos-
21	sess, in order to be safe members of the community. How
  	good and pleasant a thing it is to seek not so much thine
  	own as another's good, to sow by the wayside for the way-
24	weary, and trust Love's recompense of love. 
  	    Plagiarism from my writings is so common it is be-
  	coming odious to honest people; and such compilations,
27	instead of possessing the essentials of Christian Science,
  	are tempting and misleading. 
 
   
No and Yes by Mary Baker Eddy                                                  4


 1	    Reading Science and Health has restored the sick to
  	health; but the task of learning thoroughly the Science
 3	of Mind-healing and demonstrating it understandingly
  	had better be undertaken in health than sickness. 

  	                                     DISEASE UNREAL 

 6	    Disease is more than imagination; it is a human error,...
  	a constituent part of what comprise the whole of mortal
  	existence, — namely, material sensation and mental delu-
 9	sion. But an erring sense of existence, or the error of
  	belief, named disease, never made sickness a stubborn
  	reality. On the ground that harmony is the truth of be-
12	ing, the Science of Mind-healing destroys the feasibility
  	of disease; hence error of thought becomes fable instead
  	of fact. Science demonstrates the reality of Truth and
15	the unreality of the error. A self-evident proposition, in
  	the Science of Mind-healing, is that disease is unreal;
  	and the efficacy of my system, beyond other systems of
18	medicine, vouches for the validity of that statement. Sin
  	and disease are not scientific, because they embody not
  	the idea of divine Principle, and are not the phenomena
21	of the immutable laws of God; and they do not arise
  	from the divine consciousness and true constituency of
  	being. 
24	    The unreality of sin, disease, and death, rests on the
  	exclusive truth that being, to be eternal, must be harmo-
  	nious. All disease must be — and can only be — healed
 
   
No and Yes by Mary Baker Eddy                                                  5


 1	on this basis. All true Christian Scientists are vindicat-
  	ing, fearlessly and honestly, the Principle of this grand
 3	verity of Mind-healing. 
  	    In erring mortal thought the reality of Truth has an
  	antipode, — the reality of error; and disease is one of the
 6	severe realities of this error. God has no opposite in
  	Science. To Truth there is no error. As Truth alone is
  	real, then it follows that to declare error real would be to
 9	make it Truth. Disease arises from a false and material
  	sense, from the belief that matter has sensation. There-
  	fore this material sense, which is untrue, is of necessity
12	unreal. Moreover, this unreal sense substitutes for Truth
  	an unreal belief, — namely, that life and health are inde-
  	pendent of God, and dependent on material conditions. 
15	Material sense also avers that Spirit, or Truth, cannot
  	restore health and perpetuate life, but that material con-
  	ditions can and do destroy both human health and life. 
18	    If disease is as real as health, and is itself a state of
  	being, and yet is arrayed against being, then Mind, or
  	God, does not meddle with it. Disease becomes indeed a
21	stubborn reality, and man is mortal. A "kingdom divided
  	against itself is brought to desolation;" therefore the mind
  	that attacks a normal and real condition of man, is pro-
24	fanely tampering with the realities of God and His laws. 
  	Metaphysical healing is a lost jewel in this misconception
  	of reality. Any contradictory fusion of Truth with error,
27	in both theory and practice, prevents one from healing
  	scientifically, and makes the last state of one's patients
 
   
No and Yes by Mary Baker Eddy                                                  6


 1	worse than the first. If disease is real it is not illusive,
  	and it certainly would contradict the Science of Mind-
 3	healing to attempt to destroy the realities of Mind in order
  	to heal the sick. 
  	    On the theory that God's formations are spiritual, har-
 6	monious, and eternal, and that God is the only creator,
  	Christian Science refutes the validity of the testimony of
  	the senses, which take cognizance of their own phenomena,
 9	 — sickness, disease, and death. This refutation is indis-
  	pensable to the destruction of false evidence, and the
  	consequent cure of the sick, — as all understand who
12	practise the true Science of Mind-healing. If, as the
  	error indicates, the evidence of disease is not false, then
  	disease cannot be healed by denying its validity; and this
15	is why the mistaken healer is not successful, trying to heal
  	on a material basis. 
  	    The evidence that the earth is motionless and the sun
18	revolves around our planet, is as sensible and real as the
  	evidence for disease; but Science determines the evidence
  	in both cases to be unreal. To material sense it is plain
21	also that the error of the revolution of the sun around the
  	earth is more apparent than the adverse but true Science
  	of the stellar universe. Copernicus has shown that what
24	appears real, to material sense and feeling, is absolutely
  	unreal. Astronomy, optics, acoustics, and hydraulics are
  	all at war with the testimony of the physical senses. This
27	fact intimates that the laws of Science are mental, not
  	material; and Christian Science demonstrates this. 

No and Yes by Mary Baker Eddy                                                  7


 1	                       SCIENCE ...OF MIND-HEALING 

  	    The rule of divinity is golden; to be wise and true re-
 3	joices every heart. But evil influences waver the scales
  	of justice and mercy. No personal considerations should
  	allow any root of bitterness to spring up between Chris-
 6	tian Scientists, nor cause any misapprehension as to the
  	motives of others. We must love our enemies, and con-
  	tinue to do so unto the end. By the love of God we can
 9	cancel error in our own hearts, and blot it out of others. 
  	    Sooner or later the eyes of sinful mortals must be opened
  	to see every error they possess, and the way out of it; and
12	they will "flee as a bird to your mountain," away from
  	the enemy of sinning sense, stubborn will, and every im-
  	perfection in the land of Sodom, and find rescue and refuge
15	in Truth and Love. 
  	    Every loving sacrifice for the good of others is known
  	to God, and the wrath of man cannot hide it from Him. 
18	God has appointed for Christian Scientists high tasks,
  	and will not release them from the strict performance of
  	each one of them. The students must now fight their
21	own battles. I recommend that Scientists draw no lines
  	whatever between one person and another, but think,
  	speak, teach, and write the truth of Christian Science
24	without reference to right or wrong personality in this
  	field of labor. Leave the distinctions of individual char-
  	acter and the discriminations and guidance thereof to
 
   
No and Yes by Mary Baker Eddy                                                  8


 1	the Father, whose wisdom is unerring and whose love is
  	universal. 
 3	    We should endeavor to be long-suffering, faithful, and
  	charitable with all. To this small effort let us add one
  	more privilege — namely, silence whenever it can substi-
 6	tute censure. Avoid voicing error; but utter the truth of
  	God and the beauty of holiness, the joy of Love and "the
  	peace of God, that passeth all understanding," recom-
 9	mending to all men fellowship in the bonds of Christ. 
  	Advise students to rebuke each other always in love, as
  	I have rebuked them. Having discharged this duty, coun-
12	sel each other to work out his own salvation, without fear
  	or doubt, knowing that God will make the wrath of man
  	to praise Him, and that the remainder thereof He will
15	restrain. We can rejoice that every germ of goodness will
  	at last struggle into freedom and greatness, and every sin
  	will so punish itself that it will bow down to the command-
18	ments of Christ, — Truth and Love. 
  	    I enjoin it upon my students to hold no controversy or
  	enmity over doctrines and traditions, or over the miscon-
21	ceptions of Christian Science, but to work, watch, and
  	pray for the amelioration of sin, sickness, and death. If
  	one be found who is too blind for instruction, no longer cast
24	your pearls before this state of mortal mind, lest it turn
  	and rend you; but quietly, with benediction and hope,
  	let the unwise pass by, while you walk on in equanimity,
27	and with increased power, patience, and understanding,
  	gained from your forbearance. This counsel is not new,
 
   
No and Yes by Mary Baker Eddy                                                  9


 1	as my Christian students can testify; and if it had been
  	heeded in times past it would have prevented, to a great
 3	extent, the factions which have sprung up among Scientists
  	to the hindrance of the Cause of Truth. It is true that the
  	mistakes, prejudices, and errors of one class of thinkers
 6	must not be introduced or established among another class
  	who are clearer and more conscientious in their convic-
  	tions; but this one thing can be done, and should be:  let
 9	your opponents alone, and use no influence to prevent
  	their legitimate action from their own standpoint of ex-
  	perience, knowing, as you should, that God will well
12	regenerate and separate wisely and finally; whereas you
  	may err in effort, and lose your fruition. 
  	    Hoping to pacify repeated complaints and murmurings
15	against too great leniency, on my part, towards some of
  	my students who fall into error, I have opposed occa-
  	sionally and strongly — especially in the first edition of
18	this little work — existing wrongs of the nature referred
  	to. But I now point steadfastly to the power of grace to
  	overcome evil with good. God will "furnish a table in
21	the wilderness" and show the power of Love. 
  	    Science is not the shibboleth of a sect or the caba-
  	listic insignia of philosophy; it excludes all error and
24	includes all Truth. More mistakes are made in its name
  	than this period comprehends. Divinely defined, Science
  	is the atmosphere of God; humanly construed, and ac-
27	cording to Webster, it is "knowledge, duly arranged and
  	referred to general truths and principles on which it is
 
   
No and Yes by Mary Baker Eddy                                                 10


 1	founded, and from which it is derived." I employ this
  	awe-filled word in both a divine and human sense; but
 3	I insist that Christian Science is demonstrably as true,
  	relative to the unseen verities of being, as any proof that
  	can be given of the completeness of Science. 
 6	    The two largest words in the vocabulary of thought are
  	"Christian" and "Science." The former is the highest
  	style of man; the latter reveals and interprets God and
 9	man; it aggregates, amplifies, unfolds, and expresses the
  	ALL-God. The life of Christ is the predicate and postu-
  	late of all that I teach, and there is but one standard
12	statement, one rule, and one Principle for all scientific
  	truth. 
  	    My hygienic system rests on Mind, the eternal Truth. 
15	What is termed matter, or relates to its so-called attributes,
  	is a self-destroying error. When a so-called material sense
  	is lost, and Truth restores that lost sense, — on the basis
18	that all consciousness is Mind and eternal, — the former
  	position, that sense is organic and material, is proven
  	erroneous. 
21	    The feasibility and immobility of Christian Science
  	unveil the true idea, — namely, that earth's discords have
  	not the reality of Mind in the Science of being; and this
24	idea — dematerializing and spiritualizing mortals — turns
  	like the needle to the pole all hope and faith to God, based
  	as it is on His omnipotence and omnipresence. 
27	    Eternal harmony, perpetuity, and perfection, constitute
  	the phenomena of being, governed by the immutable and
 
   
No and Yes by Mary Baker Eddy                                                 11


 1	eternal laws of God; whereas matter and human will,
  	intellect, desire, and fear, are not the creators, controllers,
 3	nor destroyers of life or its harmonies. Man has an im-
  	mortal Soul, a divine Principle, and an eternal being. 
  	Man has perpetual individuality; and God's laws, and
 6	their intelligent and harmonious action, constitute his in-
  	dividuality in the Science of Soul. 
  	    In its literary expression, my system of Christian meta-
 9	physics is hampered by material terms, which must be
  	used to indicate thoughts that are to be understood meta-
  	physically. As a Science, this system is held back by the
12	common ignorance of what it is and what it does, and
  	(worse still) by those who come falsely in its name. To
  	be appreciated, Science must be understood and consci-
15	entiously introduced. If the Bible and Science and Health
  	had the place in schools of learning that physiology oc-
  	cupies, they would revolutionize and reform the world,
18	through the power of Christ. It is true that it requires
  	more study to understand and demonstrate what these
  	works teach, than to learn theology, physiology, or physics;
21	because they teach divine Science, with fixed Principle,
  	given rule, and unmistakable proof. 
  	    Ancient and modern human philosophy are inadequate
24	to grasp the Principle of Christian Science, or to demon-
  	strate it. Revelation shows this Principle, and will rescue
  	reason from the thrall of error. Revelation must subdue
27	the sophistry of intellect, and spiritualize consciousness
  	with the dictum and the demonstration of Truth and Love. 
 
   
No and Yes by Mary Baker Eddy                                                 12


 1	Christian Science Mind-healing can only be gained by
  	working from a purely Christian standpoint. Then it
 3	heals the sick and exalts the race. The essence of this
  	Science is right thinking and right acting — leading us to
  	see spirituality and to be spiritual, to understand and to
 6	demonstrate God. 
  	    The Massachusetts Metaphysical College and Church
  	of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, were the outgrowth of the
 9	author's religious experience. After a lifetime of ortho-
  	doxy on the platform of doctrines, rites, and ceremonies,
  	it became a sacred duty for her to impart to others this
12	new-old knowledge of God. 
  	    The same affection, desire, and motives which have stim-
  	ulated true Christianity in all ages, and given impulse to
15	goodness, in or out of the Church, have nerved her pur-
  	pose to build on the new-born conception of the Christ, as
  	Jesus declared himself, — namely, "the way, the truth,
18	and the life." Living a true life, casting out evil, healing
  	the sick, and preaching the gospel of Truth, — these are
  	the ends of Christianity. This divine way impels a spirit-
21	ualization of thought and method, beyond doctrine and
  	ritual; and in nothing else has she departed from the old
  	landmarks. 
24	    The unveiled spiritual signification of the Word so en-
  	larges our sense of God that it makes both sense and Soul,
  	man and Life, immaterial, though still individual. It re-
27	moves all limits from divine power. God must be found
  	all instead of a part of being, and man the reflection of
 
   
No and Yes by Mary Baker Eddy                                                 13


 1	His power and goodness. This Science rebukes sin with
  	its own nothingness, and thus destroys sin quickly and
 3	utterly. It makes disease unreal, and this heals it. 
  	    The demonstration of moral and physical growth, and a
  	scientific deduction from the Principle of all harmony, de-
 6	clare both the Principle and idea to be divine. If this be
  	true, then death must be swallowed up in Life, and the
  	prophecy of Jesus fulfilled, "Whosoever liveth and be-
 9	lieveth in me shall never die." Though centuries passed
  	after those words were originally uttered, before this re-
  	appearing of Truth, and though the hiatus be longer still
12	before that saying is demonstrated in Life that knows no
  	death, the declaration is nevertheless true, and remains
  	a clear and profound deduction from Christian Science. 

15	     IS CHRISTIAN SCIENCE OF THE SAME LINEAGE AS
  	                         SPIRITUALISM OR THEOSOPHY? 

  	    S...cience is not susceptible of being held as a mere theory. 
18	It is hoary with time. It takes hold of eternity, voices the
  	infinite, and governs the universe. No greater opposites
  	can be conceived of, physically, morally, and spiritually,
21	than Christian Science, spiritualism, and theosophy. 
  	    Science and Health has effected a revolution in the
  	minds of thinkers on the subject of mediumship, and given
24	impulse to reason and revelation, goodness and virtue. A
  	theory may be sound in spots, and sparkle like a diamond,
  	while other parts of it have no lustre. Christian Science
 
   
No and Yes by Mary Baker Eddy                                                 14


 1	is sound in every part. It is neither warped nor miscon-
  	ceived, when properly demonstrated. If a spiritualist
 3	medium understood the Science of Mind-healing, he
  	would know that between those who have and those who
  	have not passed the transition called death, there can be
 6	no interchange of consciousness, and that all sensible phe-
  	nomena are merely subjective states of mortal mind. 
  	    Theosophy is a corruption of Judaism. This corruption
 9	had a renewal in the Neoplatonic philosophy; but it sprang
  	from the Oriental philosophy of Brahmanism, and blends
  	with its magic and enchantments. Theosophy is no more
12	allied to Christian Science than the odor of the upas-tree
  	is to the sweet breath of springtide, or the brilliant cor-
  	uscations of the northern sky are to solar heat and
15	light. 

  	     IS CHRISTIAN SCIENCE FROM BENEATH, AND NOT
  	                                           FROM ABOVE? 

18	   ... Hear the words of our Master: "Go ye into all the
  	world"! "Heal the sick, cast out devils"! Christian
  	Scientists, perhaps more than any other religious sect, are
21	obeying these commands; and the injunctions are not
  	confined to Jesus' students in that age, but they extend
  	to this age, — to as many as shall believe on him. The
24	demand and example of Jesus were not from beneath. 
  	Are frozen dogmas, persistent persecution, and the doc-
  	trine of eternal damnation, from above? Are the dews
 
   
No and Yes by Mary Baker Eddy                                                 15


 1	of divine Truth, falling on the sick and sinner, to heal
  	them, from beneath? "By their fruits ye shall know
 3	them." 
  	    Reading my books, without prejudice, would convince
  	all that their purpose is right. The comprehension of my
 6	teachings would enable any one to prove these books to
  	be filled with blessings for the whole human family. Fa-
  	tiguing Bible translations and voluminous commentaries
 9	are employed to explain and prop old creeds, and they
  	have the civil and religious arms in their defense; then
  	why should not these be equally extended to support the
12	Christianity that heals the sick? The notions of person-
  	ality to be found in creeds are far more mystic than
  	Mind-healing. It is no easy matter to believe there are
15	three persons in one person, and that one person is cast
  	out of another person. These conceptions of Deity and
  	devil presuppose an impotent God and an incredible
18	Satan. 

  	              IS CHRISTIAN SCIENCE PANTHEISTIC? 

  	    Christian Science refutes pantheism, finds Spirit neither
...
21	in matter nor in the modes of mortal mind. It shows
  	that matter and mortal mind have neither origin nor ex-
  	istence in the eternal Mind. Thinking otherwise is what
24	estranges mortals from divine Life and Love. God is
  	All-in-all. He is Spirit; and in nothing is He unlike Him-
  	self. Nothing that "worketh or maketh a lie" is to be
 
   
No and Yes by Mary Baker Eddy                                                 16


 1	found in the divine consciousness. For God to know,
  	is to be; that is, what He knows must truly and eternally
 3	exist. If He knows matter, and matter can exist in Mind,
  	then mortality and discord must be eternal. He is Mind;
  	and whatever He knows is made manifest, and must be
 6	Truth. 
  	    If God knows evil even as a false claim, this knowledge
  	would manifest evil in Him and proceeding from Him. 
 9	Christian Science shows that matter, evil, sin, sickness, and
  	death are but negations of Spirit, Truth, and Life, which
  	are positives that cannot be gainsaid. The subjective
12	states of evil, called mortal mind or matter, are negatives
  	destitute of time and space; for there is none beside God
  	or Spirit and the idea of Spirit. 
15	    This infinite logic is the infinite light, — uncompre-
  	hended, yet forever giving forth more light, because it
  	has no darkness to emit. Mortals do not understand the
18	All; hence their inference of some other existence beside
  	God and His true likeness, — of something unlike Him. 
  	He who is All, understands all. He can have no knowl-
21	edge or inference but His own consciousness, and can take
  	in no more than all. 
  	    The mists of matter — sin, sickness, and death — dis-
24	appear in proportion as mortals approach Spirit, which
  	is the reality of being. It is not enough to say that matter
  	is the substratum of evil, and that its highest attenuation is
27	mortal mind; for there is, strictly speaking, no mortal
  	mind. Mind is immortal. Death is the consequent of an
  
   
No and Yes by Mary Baker Eddy                                                 17


1	antecedent false assumption of the realness of something
  	unreal, material, and mortal. If God knows the antece-
 3	dent, He must produce its consequences. From this logic
  	there is no escape. Matter, or evil, is the absence of Spirit
  	or good. Their nothingness is thus proven; for God is
 6	good, ever-present, and All. 
  	    "In Him we live, and move, and have our being;" con-
  	sequently it is impossible for the true man — who is a
 9	spiritual and individual being, created in the eternal
  	Science of being — to be conscious of aught but good. 
  	God's image and likeness can never be less than a good
12	man; and for man to be more than God's likeness is
  	impossible. Man is the climax of creation; and God is
  	not without an ever-present witness, testifying of Himself. 
15	Matter, or any mode of mortal mind, is neither part nor
  	parcel of divine consciousness and God's verity. 
  	    In Science there is no fallen state of being; for therein
18	is no inverted image of God, no escape from the focal
  	radiation of the infinite. Hence the unreality of error,
  	and the truth of the Scripture, that there is "none beside
21	Him." If mortals could grasp these two words all and
  	nothing, this mystery of a God who has no knowledge of
  	sin would disappear, and the eternal, infinite harmony
24	would be fathomed. If God could know a false claim,
  	false knowledge would be a part of His consciousness. 
  	Then evil would be as real as good, sickness as real as
27	health, death as real as Life; and sickness, sin, and death
  	would be as eternal as God. 

No and Yes by Mary Baker Eddy                                                 18


 1	           IS CHRISTIAN SCIENCE... BLASPHEMOUS? 

  	    Blasphemy has never diminished sin and sickness, nor
 3	acknowledged God in all His ways. Blasphemy rebukes
  	not the godless lie that denies Him as All-in-all, nor does
  	it ascribe to Him all presence, power, and glory. Chris-
 6	tian Science does this. If Science lacked the proof of its
  	origin in God, it would be self-destructive, for it rests alone
  	on the demonstration of God's supremacy and omnipo-
 9	tence. Right thinking and right acting, physical and
  	moral harmony, come with Science, and the secret of
  	its presence lies in the universal need of better health and
12	morals. 
  	    Human theories, when weighed in the balance, are
  	found unequal to the demonstration of divine Life and
15	Love; and their highest endeavors are, to divine Science,
  	what a child's love of pictures is to art. A child, in his
  	ignorance, may imagine the face of Dante to be the rapt
18	face of Jesus. Thus falsely may the human conceive of
  	the Divine. If the schoolmaster is not Christ, the school
  	gets things wrong, and knows it not; but the teacher is
21	morally responsible. 
  	    Good health and a more spiritual religion are the com-
  	mon wants; and these wants have wrought this moral
24	result, — that the so-called mortal mind asks for what
  	Mind alone can supply. This demand militates against
  	the so-called demands of matter, and regulates the present
 
   
No and Yes by Mary Baker Eddy                                                 19


 1	high premium on Mind-healing. If the uniform moral
  	and spiritual, as well as physical, effects of Christian Sci-
 3	ence were lacking, the premium would go down. That
  	it continues to rise, and the demand to increase, shows its
  	real value to the race. Even doctors will agree that in-
 6	fidelity, ignorance, and quackery have never met the grow-
  	ing wants of humanity. Christian Science is no "Boston
  	craze;" it is the sober second thought of advancing
 9	humanity. 

  	                    IS THERE A PERSONAL DEITY? 

  	    God is infinite. He is neither a limited mind nor a
12	lim...ited body. God is Love; and Love is Principle, not
  	person. What the person of the infinite is, we know not;
  	but we are gratefully and lovingly conscious of the father-
15	liness of this Supreme Being. God is individual, and man
  	is His individualized idea. While material man and the
  	physical senses receive no spiritual idea, and feel no sen-
18	sation of divine Love, spiritual man and his spiritual
  	senses are drinking in the nature and essence of the indi-
  	vidual infinite. A sinful sense is incompetent to understand
21	the realities of being, — that Life is God, and that man
  	is in His image and likeness. A sinner can take no cog-
  	nizance of the noumenon or the phenomena of Spirit;
24	but leaving sin, sense rises to the fulness of the stature of
  	man in Christ. 
  	    Person is formed after the manner of mortal man, so
 
   
No and Yes by Mary Baker Eddy                                                 20


 1	far as he can conceive of personality. Limitless person-
  	ality is inconceivable. His person and perfection are
 3	neither self-created, nor discerned through imperfection;
  	and of God as a person, human reason, imagination, and
  	revelation give us no knowledge. Error would fashion
 6	Deity in a manlike mould, while Truth is moulding a
  	Godlike man. 
  	    When the term divine Principle is used to signify Deity
 9	it may seem distant or cold, until better apprehended. 
  	This Principle is Mind, substance, Life, Truth, Love. 
  	When understood, Principle is found to be the only term
12	that fully conveys the ideas of God, — one Mind, a perfect
  	man, and divine Science. As the divine Principle is com-
  	prehended, God's omnipotence and omnipresence will
15	dawn on mortals, and the notion of an everywhere-present
  	body — or of an infinite Mind starting from a finite body,
  	and returning to it — will disappear. 
18	    Ever-present Love must seem ever absent to ever-present
  	selfishness or material sense. Hence this asking amiss
  	and receiving not, and the common idolatry of man-
21	worship. In divine Science, God is recognized as the
  	only power, presence, and glory. 
  	    Adam's mistiness and Satan's reasoning, ever since the
24	flood, — when specimens of every kind emerged from the
  	ark, — have run through the veins of all human philoso-
  	phy. Human reason is a blind guide, a continued series
27	of mortal hypotheses, antagonistic to Revelation and Sci-
  	ence. It is continually straying into forbidden by-paths
 
   
No and Yes by Mary Baker Eddy                                                 21


 1	of sensualism, contrary to the life and teachings of Jesus
  	and Paul, and the vision of the Apocalypse. Human
 3	philosophy has ninety-nine parts of error to the one-
  	hundredth part of Truth, — an unsafe decoction for the
  	race. The Science that Jesus demonstrated, whose views
 6	of Truth Confucius and Plato but dimly discerned, Science
  	and Health interprets. It was not a search after wisdom;
  	it was wisdom, and it grasped in spiritual law the uni-
 9	verse, — all time, space, immortality, thought, extension. 
  	This Science demonstrated the Principle of all phenomena,
  	identity, individuality, law; and showed man as reflect-
12	ing God and the divine capacity. Human philosophy
  	would dethrone perfection, and substitute matter and evil
  	for divine means and ends. 
15	    Human philosophy has an undeveloped God, who un-
  	folds Himself through material modes, wherein the human
  	and divine mingle in the same realm and consciousness. 
18	This is rank infidelity; because by it we lose God's ways
  	and perpetuate the supposed power and reality of evil ad
  	infinitum. Christian Science rends this veil in the pantheon
21	of many gods, and reproduces the teachings of Jesus, whose
  	philosophy is incontestable, bears the strain of time, and
  	brings in the glories of eternity; "for other foundation
24	can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ." 
  	    Divine philosophy is demonstrably the true idea of the
  	Christ, wherein Principle heals and saves. A philosophy
27	which cannot heal the sick has little resemblance to Sci-
  	ence, and is, to say the least, like a cloud without rain,
 
   
No and Yes by Mary Baker Eddy                                                 22


 1	"driven about by every wind of doctrine." Such phi-
  	losophy has certainly not touched the hem of the Christ
 3	garment. 
  	    Leibnitz, Descartes, Fichte, Hegel, Spinoza, Bishop
  	Berkeley, were once clothed with a "brief authority;"
 6	but Berkeley ended his metaphysical theory with a treatise
  	on the healing properties of tar-water, and Hegel was an
  	inveterate snuff-taker. The circumlocution and cold cate-
 9	gories of Kant fail to improve the conditions of mortals,
  	morally, spiritually, or physically. Such miscalled meta-
  	physical systems are reeds shaken by the wind. Com-
12	pared with the inspired wisdom and infinite meaning of
  	the Word of Truth, they are as moonbeams to the sun, or
  	as Stygian night to the kindling dawn. 

15	                    IS THERE A PERSONAL DEVIL? 

  	    No man hath seen the person of good or of evil. Each
  	is... greater than the corporeality we behold. 
18	    "He cast out devils." This record shows that the term
  	devil is generic, being used in the plural number. From
  	this it follows that there is more than one devil. That
21	Jesus cast several persons out of another person, is not
  	stated, and is impossible. Hence the passage must refer
  	to the evils which were cast out. 
24	    Jesus defined devil as a mortal who is full of evil. "Have
  	I not chosen you twelve, and one of you is a devil?" His
  	definition of evil indicated his ability to cast it out. An
 
   
No and Yes by Mary Baker Eddy                                                 23


 1	incorrect concept of the nature of evil hinders the destruc-
  	tion of evil. To conceive of God as resembling — in per-
 3	sonality, or form — the personality that Jesus condemned
  	as devilish, is fraught with spiritual danger. Evil can
  	neither grasp the prerogative of God nor make evil om-
 6	nipotent and omnipresent. 
  	    Jesus said to Peter, "Get thee behind me, Satan;" but
  	he to whom our Lord gave the keys of the kingdom could
 9	not have been wholly evil, and therefore was not a devil,
  	after the accepted definition. Out of the Magdalen, Jesus
  	cast seven devils; but not one person was named among
12	them. According to Crabtre, these devils were the dis-
  	eases Jesus cast out. 
  	    The most eminent divines, in Europe and America, con-
15	cede that the Scriptures have both a literal and a moral
  	meaning. Which of the two is the more important to gain,
  	 — the literal or the moral sense of the word devil, — in
18	order to cast out this devil? Evil is a quality, not an
  	individual. 
  	    As mortals, we need to discern the claims of evil, and to
21	fight these claims, not as realities, but as illusions; but
  	Deity can have no such warfare against Himself. Knowl-
  	edge of a man's physical personality is not sufficient to
24	inform us as to the amount of good or evil he possesses. 
  	Hence we cannot understand God or man, through the
  	person of either. God is All-in-all; but He is definite and
27	individual, the omnipresent and omniscient Mind; and
  	man's individuality is God's own image and likeness, — 
 
   
No and Yes by Mary Baker Eddy                                                 24


 1	even the immeasurable idea of divine Mind. In the
  	Science of good, evil loses all place, person, and power. 
 3	    According to Spinoza's philosophy God is amplification. 
  	He is in all things, and therefore He is in evil in human
  	thought. He is extension, of whatever character. Also,
 6	according to Spinoza, man is an animal vegetable, devel-
  	oped through the lower orders of matter and mortal mind. 
  	All these vagaries are at variance with my system of meta-
 9	physics, which rests on God as One and All, and denies
  	the actual existence of both matter and evil. According to
  	false philosophy and scholastic theology, God is three
12	persons in one person. By the same token, evil is not only
  	as real as good, but much more real, since evil subordi-
  	nates good in personality. 
15	    The claims of evil become both less and more in Chris-
  	tian Science, than in human philosophies or creeds: more,
  	because the evil that is hidden by dogma and human rea-
18	son is uncovered by Science; and less, because evil, being
  	thus uncovered, is found out, and exposure is nine points
  	of destruction. Then appears the grand verity of Chris-
21	tian Science:  namely, that evil has no claims and was
  	never a claimant; for behold evil (or devil) is, as Jesus
  	said, "a murderer from the beginning, and the truth abode
24	not in him." 
  	    There was never a moment in which evil was real. This
  	great fact concerning all error brings with it another and
27	more glorious truth, that good is supreme. As there is
  	none beside Him, and He is all good, there can be no evil. 
 
   
No and Yes by Mary Baker Eddy                                                 25


 1	Simply uttering this great thought is not enough! We
  	must live it, until God becomes the All and Only of our
 3	being. Having won through great tribulation this cardinal
  	point of divine Science, St. Paul said, "But now we are
  	delivered from the law, that being dead wherein we were
 6	held; that we should serve in newness of spirit, and not
  	in the oldness of the letter." 

  	                                IS MAN A PERSON? 

 9	    Man is more than physical personality, or what we cog-
 ... 	nize through the material senses. Mind is more than mat-
  	ter, even as the infinite idea of Truth is beyond a finite
12	belief. Man outlives finite mortal definitions of himself,
  	according to a law of "the survival of the fittest." Man is
  	the eternal idea of his divine Principle, or Father. He is
15	neither matter nor a mode of mortal mind, for he is spir-
  	itual and eternal, an immortal mode of the divine Mind. 
  	Man is the image and likeness of God, coexistent and
18	coeternal with Him. 
  	    Man is not absorbed in Deity; for he is forever individ-
  	ual; but what this everlasting individuality is, remains to
21	be learned. Mortals have not seen it. That which is born
  	of the flesh is not man's eternal identity. Spiritual and
  	immortal man alone is God's likeness, and that which is
24	mortal is not man in a spiritually scientific sense. A
  	material, sinful mortal is but the counterfeit of immortal
  	man. 
 
   
No and Yes by Mary Baker Eddy                                                 26


 1	    The mind-quacks believe that mortal man is identical
  	with immortal man, and that the immortal is inside the
 3	mortal; that good and evil blend; that matter and Spirit
  	are one; and that Soul, or Spirit, is subdivided into spirits,
  	or souls, — alias gods. This infantile talk about Mind-
 6	healing is no more identical with Christian Science than
  	the babe is identical with the adult, or the human belief
  	resembles the divine idea. Hence it is impossible for those
 9	holding such material and mortal views to demonstrate
  	my metaphysics. Theirs is the sensuous thought, which
  	brings forth its own sensuous conception. Mine is the
12	spiritual idea which transfigures thought. 
  	    All real being represents God, and is in Him. In this
  	Science of being, man can no more relapse or collapse
15	from perfection, than his divine Principle, or Father, can
  	fall out of Himself into something below infinitude. Man's
  	real ego, or selfhood, is goodness. If man's individuality
18	were evil, he would be annihilated, for evil is self-destroying. 
  	    Man's individual being must reflect the supreme indi-
  	vidual Being, to be His image and likeness; and this
21	individuality never originated in molecule, corpuscle, ma-
  	teriality, or mortality. God holds man in the eternal
  	bonds of Science, — in the immutable harmony of divine
24	law. Man is a celestial; and in the spiritual universe
  	he is forever individual and forever harmonious. "If
  	God so clothe the grass of the field, . . . shall He not
27	much more clothe you, O ye of little faith?" 
  	    Sin must be obsolete, — dust returning to dust, noth-
 
   
No and Yes by Mary Baker Eddy                                                 27


 1	ingness to nothingness. Sin is not Mind; it is but the sup-
  	position that there is more than one Mind. It issues
 3	a false claim; and the claim, being worthless, is in reality
  	no claim whatever. Matter is not Mind, to claim aught;
  	but Mind is God, and evil finds no place in good. When
 6	we get near enough to God to see this, the springtide
  	of Truth in Christian Science will burst upon us in the
  	similitude of the Apocalyptic pictures. No night will be
 9	there, and there will be no more sea. There will be no
  	need of the sun, for Spirit will be the light of the city, and
  	matter will be proved a myth. Until centuries pass, and
12	this vision of Truth is fully interpreted by divine Science,
  	this prophecy will be scoffed at; but it is just as veritable
  	now as it can be then. Science, divine Science, presents
15	the grand and eternal verities of God and man as the
  	divine Mind and that Mind's idea. 
  	    Mortal man is the antipode of immortal man, and the
18	two should not be confounded. Bishop Foster said, in a
  	lecture in Boston, "No man living hath yet seen man." 
  	This material sinful personality, which we misname man,
21	is what St. Paul terms "the old man and his deeds," to
  	be "put off." 
  	    Who can say what the absolute personality of God or
24	man is? Who living hath seen God or a perfect man? 
  	In presence of such thoughts take off thy shoes and
  	tread lightly, for this is holy ground. Surely the probation
27	of mortals must go on after the change called death, that
  	they may learn the definition of immortal being; or else
 
   
No and Yes by Mary Baker Eddy                                                 28


 1	their present mistakes would extinguish human existence. 
  	How long this false sense remains after the transition called
 3	death, no mortal knoweth; but this is sure, that the mists
  	of error, sooner or later, will melt in the fervent heat of
  	suffering, mortality will burst the barriers of sense, and
 6	man be found perfect and eternal. Of his intermediate
  	conditions — the purifying processes and terrible revolu-
  	tions necessary to effect this end — I am ignorant. 
 9	    Inasmuch as these momentous facts in the Science of
  	being must be learned some time, now is the most accept-
  	able time for beginning the lesson. If Science is pointing
12	the way, and is found to bring with it health, holiness, and
  	immortality, then to-day is none too soon for entering this
  	path. The proof that Christian Science is the way of sal-
15	vation given by Christ, I consider well established. The
  	present, as well as the future, reveals the fact that Truth
  	is never understood too soon. 
18	    Has Truth, as demonstrated by Jesus, reappeared? 
  	Study Christian Science and practise it, and you will
  	know that Truth has reappeared. What is demonstrably
21	true cannot be gainsaid; but getting the letter and omitting
  	the spirit of this Science is neither the comprehension of
  	its Principle nor the practice of its Life. 

24                                              HAS MAN A SOUL? 

  	    The Scriptures inform us that "the soul that ...sinneth,
  	it shall die." Here soul means sense and organic life; and
 
   
No and Yes by Mary Baker Eddy                                                 29


 1	this passage refers to the Jewish law, that a mortal should
  	be put to death for his own sin, but not for another's. 
 3	Not Soul, but mortal sense, sins and dies. Immortal man
  	has immortal Soul and a deathless sense of being. Mortal
  	man has but a false sense of Soul and body. He believes
 6	that Spirit, or Soul, exists in matter. This is pantheism,
  	and is not the Science of Soul. The mind-quacks have
  	so slight a knowledge of Soul that they believe material
 9	and sinning sense to be soul; and then they doctor this
  	soul as if it were not even a material sense. 
  	    In Dr. Gordon's sermon on The Ministry of Healing,
12	he said, "The forgiven soul in a sick body is not half a
  	man." Is this pantheistic statement sound theology, — 
  	that Soul is in matter, and the immortal part of man a sin-
15	ner? Is not this a disparagement of the person of man and
  	a denial of God's power? Better far that we impute such
  	doctrines to mortal opinion than to the divine Word. 
18	    To my sense, such a statement is a shocking reflection
  	on the divine power. A mortal pardoned by God is not
  	sick, he is made whole. He in whom sin, disease, and
21	death are destroyed, is more than a fraction of himself. 
  	Such sermons, though clad in soft raiment, are spirit-
  	less waifs, literary driftwood on the ocean of thought;
24	while Truth walks triumphantly over the waves of sin,
  	sickness, and death. 

No and Yes by Mary Baker Eddy                                                 30


 1	                               ...   IS SIN FORGIVEN? 

  	    The law of Life and Truth is the law of Christ, destroy-
 3	ing all sense of sin and death. It does more than forgive
  	the false sense named sin, for it pursues and punishes it,
  	and will not let sin go until it is destroyed, — until nothing
 6	is left to be forgiven, to suffer, or to be punished. For-
  	given thus, sickness and sin have no relapse. God's law
  	reaches and destroys evil by virtue of the allness of God. 
 9	    He need not know the evil He destroys, any more than
  	the legislator need know the criminal who is punished by
  	the law enacted. God's law is in three words, "I am All;"
12	and this perfect law is ever present to rebuke any claim
  	of another law. God pities our woes with the love of a
  	Father for His child, — not by becoming human, and
15	knowing sin, or naught, but by removing our knowledge
  	of what is not. He could not destroy our woes totally
  	if He possessed any knowledge of them. His sympathy
18	is divine, not human. It is Truth's knowledge of its own
  	infinitude which forbids the genuine existence of even
  	a claim to error. This knowledge is light wherein there
21	is no darkness, — not light holding darkness within itself. 
  	The consciousness of light is like the eternal law of God,
  	revealing Him and nothing else. 
24	    Sympathy with sin, sorrow, and sickness would dethrone
  	God as Truth, for Truth has no sympathy for error. In
  	Science, the cure of the sick demonstrates this grand
 
   
No and Yes by Mary Baker Eddy                                                 31


 1	verity of Christian Science, that you cannot eradicate dis-
  	ease if you admit that God sends it or sees it. Material
 3	and mortal mind-healing (so-called) has for ages been
  	a pretender, but has not healed mortals; and they are
  	yet sick and sinful. 
 6	    Disease and sin appear to-day in subtler forms than
  	they did yesterday. They progress and will multiply into
  	worse forms, until it is understood that disease and sin are
 9	unreal, unknown to Truth, and never actual persons or
  	real facts. 
  	    Our phraseology varies. To me divine pardon is that
12	divine presence which is the sure destruction of sin; and
  	I insist on the destruction of sin as the only full proof of
  	its pardon. "For this purpose the Son of God was mani-
15	fested, that he might destroy the works of the devil"
  	(1 John iii. 8). 
  	    Jesus cast out evils, mediating between what is and is
18	not, until a perfect consciousness is attained. He healed
  	disease as he healed sin; but he treated them both,
  	not as in or of matter, but as mortal beliefs to be
21	exterminated. Physical and mental healing were one
  	and the same with this master Metaphysician. If the
  	evils called sin, sickness, and death had been forgiven
24	in the generally accepted sense, they would have returned,
  	to be again forgiven; but Jesus said to disease: "Come
  	out of him, and enter no more into him." He said also:
27	"If a man keep my saying, he shall never see death;"
  	and "Whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound
 
   
No and Yes by Mary Baker Eddy                                                 32


 1	in heaven." The misinterpretation of such passages has
  	retarded the progress of Christianity and the spirituali-
 3	zation of the race. 
  	    A magistrate's pardon may encourage a criminal to
  	repeat the offense; because forgiveness, in the popular
 6	sense of the word, can neither extinguish a crime nor the
  	motives leading to it. The belief in sin — its pleasure,
  	pain, or power — must suffer, until it is self-destroyed. 
 9	"Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap." 

                 IS THERE ANY SUCH THING AS SIN? 
   	
  	    Frequently when I touch this subject my meaning is
12	i...gnorantly or maliciously misconstrued. Christian Science
  	Mind-healing lifts with a steady arm, and cleaves sin with
  	a broad battle-axe. It gives the lie to sin, in the spirit of
15	Truth; but other theories make sin true. Jesus declared
  	that the devil was "a liar, and the father of it." A lie is
  	negation, — alias nothing, or the opposite of something. 
18	Good is great and real. Hence its opposite, named evil,
  	must be small and unreal. When this sense is attained,
  	we shall no longer be the servants of sin, and shall cease
21	to love it. 
  	    The domination of good destroys the sense of evil. To
  	illustrate:  It seems a great evil to belie and belittle Chris-
24	tian Science, and persecute a Cause which is healing its
  	thousands and rapidly diminishing the percentage of sin. 
  	But reduce this evil to its lowest terms, nothing, and slander
 
   
No and Yes by Mary Baker Eddy                                                 33


 1	loses its power to harm; for even the wrath of man shall
  	praise Him. The reduction of evil, in Science, gives the
 3	dominance to God, and must lead us to bless those who
  	curse, that thus we may overcome evil with good. 
  	    If the Bible and my work Science and Health had their
 6	rightful place in schools of learning, they would revolu-
  	tionize the world by advancing the kingdom of Christ. 
  	It requires sacrifice, struggle, prayer, and watchfulness
 9	to understand and demonstrate what these volumes teach,
  	because they involve divine Science, with fixed Principle,
  	a given rule, and unmistakable proof. 

12	        IS THERE NO SACRIFICIAL ATONEMENT? 

  	    Self-sacrifice is the highway to heaven. The sacri-
  	fice of... our blessed Lord is undeniable, and it was a million
15	times greater than the brief agony of the cross; for that
  	would have been insufficient to insure the glory his sacri-
  	fice brought and the good it wrought. The spilling of
18	human blood was inadequate to represent the blood of
  	Christ, the outpouring love that sustains man's at-one-
  	ment with God; though shedding human blood brought
21	to light the efficacy of divine Life and Love and its power
  	over death. Jesus' sacrifice stands preeminently amidst
  	physical suffering and human woe. The glory of human
24	life is in overcoming sickness, sin, and death. Jesus suf-
  	fered for all mortals to bring in this glory; and his pur-
  	pose was to show them that the way out of the flesh, out
 
   
No and Yes by Mary Baker Eddy                                                 34


 1	of the delusion of all human error, must be through the
  	baptism of suffering, leading up to health, harmony, and
 3	heaven. 
  	    We shall leave the ceremonial law when we gain the
  	truer sense of following Christ in spirit, and we shall no
 6	longer venture to materialize the spiritual and infinite
  	meaning and efficacy of Truth and Love, and the sacrifice
  	that Jesus made for us, by commemorating his death
 9	with a material rite. Jesus said: "The hour cometh, and
  	now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father
  	in spirit and in truth." They drink the cup of Christ and
12	are baptized in the purification of persecution who discern
  	his true merit, — the unseen glory of suffering for others. 
  	Physical torture affords but a slight illustration of the
15	pangs which come to one upon whom the world of sense
  	falls with its leaden weight in the endeavor to crush out
  	of a career its divine destiny. 
18	    The blood of Christ speaketh better things than that
  	of Abel. The real atonement — so infinitely beyond the
  	heathen conception that God requires human blood to
21	propitiate His justice and bring His mercy — needs to be
  	understood. The real blood or Life of Spirit is not yet
  	discerned. Love bruised and bleeding, yet mounting to
24	the throne of glory in purity and peace, over the steps of
  	uplifted humanity, — this is the deep significance of the
  	blood of Christ. Nameless woe, everlasting victories, are
27	the blood, the vital currents of Christ Jesus' life, purchas-
  	ing the freedom of mortals from sin and death. 
  
   
No and Yes by Mary Baker Eddy                                                 35


1	    This blood of Jesus is everything to human hope and
  	faith. Without it, how poor the precedents of Christian-
 3	ity! What manner of Science were Christian Science
  	without the power to demonstrate the Principle of such
  	Life; and what hope have mortals but through deep hu-
 6	mility and adoration to reach the understanding of this
  	Principle! When human struggles cease, and mortals
  	yield lovingly to the purpose of divine Love, there will be
 9	no more sickness, sorrow, sin, and death. He who pointed
  	the way of Life conquered also the drear subtlety of death. 
  	    It was not to appease the wrath of God, but to show the
12	allness of Love and the nothingness of hate, sin, and death,
  	that Jesus suffered. He lived that we also might live. He
  	suffered, to show mortals the awful price paid by sin, and
15	how to avoid paying it. He atoned for the terrible un-
  	reality of a supposed existence apart from God. He
  	suffered because of the shocking human idolatry that
18	presupposes Life, substance, Soul, and intelligence in
  	matter, — which is the antipode of God, and yet governs
  	mankind. The glorious truth of being — namely, that
21	God is the only Mind, Life, substance, Soul — needs no
  	reconciliation with God, for it is one with Him now and
  	forever. 
24	    Jesus came announcing Truth, and saying not only "the
  	kingdom of God is at hand," but "the kingdom of God
  	is within you." Hence there is no sin, for God's kingdom
27	is everywhere and supreme, and it follows that the human
  	kingdom is nowhere, and must be unreal. Jesus taught
 
   
No and Yes by Mary Baker Eddy                                                 36


 1	and demonstrated the infinite as one, and not as two. 
  	He did not teach that there are two deities, — one in-
 3	finite and the other finite; for that would be impossible. 
  	He knew God as infinite, and therefore as the All-in-all;
  	and we shall know this truth when we awake in the divine
 6	likeness. Jesus' true and conscious being never left
  	heaven for earth. It abode forever above, even while
  	mortals believed it was here. He once spoke of himself
 9	(John iii. 13) as "the Son of man which is in heaven," — 
  	remarkable words, as wholly opposed to the popular view
  	of Jesus' nature. 
12	    The real Christ was unconscious of matter, of sin,
  	disease, and death, and was conscious only of God, of
  	good, of eternal Life, and harmony. Hence the human
15	Jesus had a resort to his higher self and relation to the
  	Father, and there could find rest from unreal trials in
  	the conscious reality and royalty of his being, — holding
18	the mortal as unreal, and the divine as real. It was this
  	retreat from material to spiritual selfhood which recuper-
  	ated him for triumph over sin, sickness, and death. Had
21	he been as conscious of these evils as he was of God,
  	wherein there is no consciousness of human error, Jesus
  	could not have resisted them; nor could he have conquered
24	the malice of his foes, rolled away the stone from the
  	sepulchre, and risen from human sense to a higher con-
  	cept than that in which he appeared at his birth. 
27	    Mankind's concept of Jesus was a babe born in a manger,
  	even while the divine and ideal Christ was the Son of God,
 
   
No and Yes by Mary Baker Eddy                                                 37


 1	spiritual and eternal. In human conception God's off-
  	spring had to grow, develop; but in Science his divine
 3	nature and manhood were forever complete, and dwelt
  	forever in the Father. Jesus said, "Ye do err, not know-
  	ing the Scriptures, nor the power of God." Mortal thought
 6	gives the eternal God and infinite consciousness the license
  	of a short-lived sinner, to begin and end, to know both
  	evil and good; when evil is temporal and God is eternal, — 
 9	and when, as a sphere of Mind, He cannot know begin-
  	ning or end. 
  	    The spiritual interpretation of the vicarious atonement
12	of Jesus, in Christian Science, unfolds the full-orbed glory
  	of that event; but to regard this wonder of glory, this
  	most marvellous demonstration, as a personal and material
15	bloodgiving — or as a proof that sin is known to the
  	divine Mind, and that what is unlike God demands His
  	continual presence, knowledge, and power, to meet and
18	master it — would make the atonement to be less than
  	the at-one-ment, whereby the work of Jesus would lose
  	its efficacy and lack the "signs following." 
21	    From Genesis to Revelation the Scriptures teach an in-
  	finite God, and none beside Him; and on this basis
  	Messiah and prophet saved the sinner and raised the dead,
24	 — uplifting the human understanding, buried in a false
  	sense of being. Jesus rendered null and void whatever
  	is unlike God; but he could not have done this if error
27	and sin existed in the Mind of God. What God knows,
  	He also predestinates; and it must be fulfilled. Jesus
 
   
No and Yes by Mary Baker Eddy                                                 38


 1	proved to perfection, so far as this could be done in that
  	age, what Christian Science is to-day proving in a small
 3	degree, — the falsity of the evidence of the material senses
  	that sin, sickness, and death are sensible claims, and that
  	God substantiates their evidence by knowing their claim. 
 6	He established the only true idealism on the basis that God
  	is All, and He is good, and good is Spirit; hence there is
  	no intelligent sin, evil mind or matter:  and this is the only
 9	true philosophy and realism. This divine mystery of
  	godliness was the rock of Truth, on which he built his
  	Church of the new-born, against which the gates of hell
12	cannot prevail. 
  	    This Truth is the rock which the builders rejected; but
  	"the same is become the head of the corner." This is
15	the chief corner-stone, the basis and support of creation,
  	the interpreter of one God, the infinity and unity of good. 
  	    In proportion as mortals approximate the understand-
18	ing of Christian Science, they take hold of harmony, and
  	material incumbrance disappears. Having one God, one
  	Mind, one consciousness, — which includes only His own
21	nature, — and loving your neighbor as yourself, constitute
  	Christian Science, which must demonstrate the nothing-
  	ness of any other state or stage of being. 

24	          IS THERE NO INTERCESSORY PRAYER? 

  	    All prayer that is desire is intercessory; but kindling
  	des...ire loses a part of its purest spirituality if the lips try to
 
   
No and Yes by Mary Baker Eddy                                                 39


 1	express it. It is a truism that we can think more lucidly
  	and profoundly than we can write or speak. The silent
 3	intercession and unvoiced imploring is an honest and po-
  	tent prayer to heal and save. The audible prayer may be
  	offered to be heard of men, though ostensibly to catch
 6	God's ear, — after the fashion of Baal's prophets, — by
  	speaking loud enough to be heard; but when the heart
  	prays, and not the lips, no dishonesty or vanity influences
 9	the petition. 
  	    Prophet and apostle have glorified God in secret prayer,
  	and He has rewarded them openly. Prayer can neither
12	change God, nor bring His designs into mortal modes; but
  	it can and does change our modes and our false sense of
  	Life, Love, and Truth, uplifting us to Him. Such prayer
15	humiliates, purifies, and quickens activity, in the direction
  	that is unerring. 
  	    True prayer is not asking God for love; it is learning to
18	love, and to include all mankind in one affection. Prayer
  	is the utilization of the love wherewith He loves us. Prayer
  	begets an awakened desire to be and do good. It makes
21	new and scientific discoveries of God, of His goodness and
  	power. It shows us more clearly than we saw before,
  	what we already have and are; and most of all, it shows
24	us what God is. Advancing in this light, we reflect it;
  	and this light reveals the pure Mind-pictures, in silent
  	prayer, even as photography grasps the solar light to por-
27	tray the face of pleasant thought. 
  	    What but silent prayer can meet the demand, "Pray
 
   
No and Yes by Mary Baker Eddy                                                 40


 1	without ceasing"? The apostle James said: "Ye ask,
  	and receive not, because ye ask amiss, to consume it on
 3	your lusts." Because of vanity and self-righteousness,
  	mortals seek, and expect to receive, a material sense of
  	approval; and they expect also what is impossible, — a
 6	material and mortal sense of spiritual and immortal
  	Truth. 
  	    It is sometimes wise to hide from dull and base ears the
 9	pure pearls of awakened consciousness, lest your pearls
  	be trampled upon. Words may belie desire, and pour
  	forth a hypocrite's prayer; but thoughts are our honest
12	conviction. I have no objection to audible prayer of the
  	right kind; but the inaudible is more effectual. 
  	    I instruct my students to pursue their mental ministra-
15	tions very sacredly, and never to touch the human thought
  	save to issues of Truth; never to trespass mentally on in-
  	dividual rights; never to take away the rights, but only
18	the wrongs of mankind. Otherwise they forfeit their
  	ability to heal in Science. Only when sickness, sin, and
  	fear obstruct the harmony of Mind and body, is it right
21	for one mind to meddle with another mind, and control
  	aright the thought struggling for freedom. 
  	    It is Truth and Love that cast out fear and heal the sick,
24	and mankind are better because of this. If a change in
  	the religious views of the patient comes with the change to
  	health, our Father has done this; for the human mind
27	and body are made better only by divine influence. 

No and Yes by Mary Baker Eddy                                                 41


 1	    SHOULD CHRISTIANS BEWARE OF... CHRISTIAN
  	                                          SCIENCE? 

 3	    History repeats itself. The Pharisees of old warned
  	the people to beware of Jesus, and contemptuously called
  	him "this fellow." Jesus said, "For which of these
 6	works do ye stone me?" as much as to ask, Is it the
  	work most derided and envied that is most acceptable to
  	God? Not that he would cease to do the will of his Father
 9	on account of persecution, but he would repeat his work
  	to the best advantage for mankind and the glory of his
  	Father. 
12	    There are sinners in all societies, and it is vain to look
  	for perfection in churches or associations. The life of
  	Christ is the perfect example; and to compare mortal
15	lives with this model is to subject them to severe scrutiny. 
  	Without question, the subtlest forms of sin are trying to
  	force the doors of Science and enter in; but this white
18	sanctuary will never admit such as come to steal and to
  	rob. Through long ages people have slumbered over
  	Christ's commands, "Go ye into all the world, and preach
21	the gospel;" "Heal the sick, cast out devils;" and now
  	the Church seems almost chagrined that by new discoveries
  	of Truth sin is losing prestige and power. 
24	    The Rev. Dr. A. J. Gordon, a Boston Baptist clergyman,
  	said in a sermon: "The prayer of faith shall save the
  	sick, and it is doing it to-day; and as the faith of the Church
 
   
No and Yes by Mary Baker Eddy                                                 42


 1	increases, and Christians more and more learn their duty
  	to believe all things written in the Scriptures, will such
 3	manifestations of God's power increase among us." Such
  	sentiments are wholesome avowals of Christian Science. 
  	God is not unable or unwilling to heal, and mortals are not
 6	compelled to have other gods before Him, and employ
  	material forms to meet a mental want. The divine Spirit
  	supplies all human needs. Jesus said to the sick, "Thy
 9	sins are forgiven thee; rise up and walk!" God's pardon
  	is the destruction of all "the ills that flesh is heir to." 
  	    All power belongs to God; and it is not in all the vain
12	power of dogma and philosophy to dispossess the divine
  	Mind of healing power, or to cast out error with error,
  	even in the name and for the sake of Christ, and so heal
15	the sick. While Science is engulfing error in bottomless
  	oblivion, the material senses would enthrone error as om-
  	nipotent and omnipresent, with power to determine the
18	fact and fate to being. It is said that the devil is the ape
  	of God. The lie of evil holds its own by declaring itself
  	both true and good. The path of Christian Science is be-
21	set with false claimants, aping its virtues, but cleaving to
  	their own vices. Denial of the authorship of "Science
  	and Health with Key to the Scriptures" would make a
24	lie the author of Truth, and so make Truth itself a lie. 
  	    A distinguished clergyman came to be healed. He said:
  	"I am suffering from nervous prostration, and have to eat
27	beefsteak and drink strong coffee to support me through
  	a sermon." Here a skeptic might well ask if the atone-
 
   
No and Yes by Mary Baker Eddy                                                 43


 1	ment had lost its efficacy for him, and if Christ's power to
  	heal was not equal to the power of daily meat and drink. 
 3	The power of Truth is not contingent on matter. Our
  	Master said, "Come unto me, all ye that labor and are
  	heavy laden, and I will give you rest." Truth rebukes
 6	error; and whether stall-fed or famishing, theology needs
  	Truth to stimulate and sustain a good sermon. 
  	    A lady said: "Only He who knows all things can esti-
 9	mate the good your books are doing." 
  	    A distinguished Doctor of Divinity said: "Your book
  	leavens my sermons." 
12	    The following extract from a letter is a specimen of
  	those received daily: "Your book Science and Health is
  	healing the sick, binding up the broken-hearted, preach-
15	ing deliverance to the captive, convicting the infidel, alarm-
  	ing the hypocrite, and quickening the Christian." 
  	    Christian Science Mind-healing is dishonored by those
18	who take it up from mercenary motives, for wealth and
  	fame, or think to build a baseless fabric of their own on
  	another's foundation. They cannot put the "new wine
21	into old bottles;" they can never engraft Truth into error. 
  	Such students come to my College to learn a system which
  	they go away to disgrace. Stealing or garbling my state-
24	ments of Mind-science will never prevent or reconstruct
  	the wrecks of "isms" and help humanity. 
  	    Science often suffers blame through the sheer ignorance
27	of people, while envy and hatred bark and bite at its heels. 
  	A man's inability to heal, on the Principle of Christian
 
   
No and Yes by Mary Baker Eddy                                                 44


 1	Science, substantiates his ignorance of its Principle and
  	practice, and incapacitates him for correct comment. 
 3	This failure should make him modest. 
  	    Christian Science involves a new language, and a higher
  	demonstration of medicine and religion. It is the "new
 6	tongue" of Truth, having its best interpretation in the
  	power of Christianity to heal. My system of Mind-heal-
  	ing swerves not from the highest ethics and from the spirit-
 9	ual goal. To climb up by some other way than Truth is
  	to fall. Error has no hobby, however boldly ridden or
  	brilliantly caparisoned, that can leap into the sanctum
12	of Christian Science. 
  	    In Queen Elizabeth's time Protestantism could sentence
  	men to the dungeon or stake for their religion, and so
15	abrogate the rights of conscience and choke the channels
  	of God. Ecclesiastical tyranny muzzled the mouth lisping
  	God's praise; and instead of healing, it palsied the weak
18	hand outstretched to God. Progress, legitimate to the
  	human race, pours the healing balm of Truth and Love
  	into every wound. It reassures us that no Reign of Terror
21	or rule of error will again unite Church and State, or re-
  	enact, through the civil arm of government, the horrors of
  	religious persecution. 
24	    The Rev. S. E. Herrick, a Congregational clergyman of
  	Boston, says: "Heretics of yesterday are martyrs to-day." 
  	In every age and clime, "On earth peace, good will to-
27	ward men" must be the watchword of Christianity. 
  	    Jesus said: "I thank Thee, O Father, Lord of heaven
 
   
No and Yes by Mary Baker Eddy                                                 45


 1	and earth, that Thou hast hid these things from the wise
  	and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes." 
 3	    St. Paul said that without charity we are "as sound-
  	ing brass, or a tinkling cymbal;" and he added: "Charity
  	suffereth long, and is kind; . . . doth not behave itself
 6	unseemly, . . . thinketh no evil, . . . but rejoiceth in the
  	truth." 
  	    To hinder the unfolding truth, to ostracize whatever
 9	uplifts mankind, is of course out of the question. Such an
  	attempt indicates weakness, fear, or malice; and such
  	efforts arise from a spiritual lack, felt, though unacknowl-
12	edged. 
  	    Let it not be heard in Boston that woman, "last at the
  	cross and first at the sepulchre," has no rights which man
15	is bound to respect. In natural law and in religion the
  	right of woman to fill the highest measure of enlightened
  	understanding and the highest places in government, is
18	inalienable, and these rights are ably vindicated by the
  	noblest of both sexes. This is woman's hour, with all its
  	sweet amenities and its moral and religious reforms. 
21	    Drifting into intellectual wrestlings, we should agree to
  	disagree; and this harmony would anchor the Church in
  	more spiritual latitudes, and so fulfil her destiny. 
24	    Let the Word have free course and be glorified. The
  	people clamor to leave cradle and swaddling-clothes. The
  	spiritual status is urging its highest demands on mortals,
27	and material history is drawing to a close. Truth cannot
  	be stereotyped; it unfoldeth forever. "One on God's
 
   
No and Yes by Mary Baker Eddy                                                 46


 1	side is a majority;" and "Lo, I am with you alway," is
  	the pledge of the Master. 
 3	    The question now at issue is:  Shall we have a prac-
  	tical, spiritual Christianity, with its healing power, or
  	shall we have material medicine and superficial religion? 
 6	The advancing hope of the race, craving health and holi-
  	ness, halts for a reply; and the reappearing Christ, whose
  	life-giving understanding Christian Science imparts, must
 9	answer the constant inquiry: "Art thou he that should
  	come?" Woman should not be ordered to the rear, or
  	laid on the rack, for joining the overture of angels. Theo-
12	logians descant pleasantly upon free moral agency; but
  	they should begin by admitting individual rights. 
  	    The author's ancestors were among the first settlers of
15	New Hampshire. They reared there the Puritan standard
  	of undefiled religion. As dutiful descendants of Puritans,
  	let us lift their standard higher, rejoicing, as Paul did,
18	that we are free born. 
  	    Man has a noble destiny; and the full-orbed significance
  	of this destiny has dawned on the sick-bound and sin-
21	enslaved. For the unfolding of this upward tendency to
  	health, greatness, and goodness, I shall continue to labor
         and wait.