0.0 – Science & Health by Mary Baker Eddy Chapter 12 – Section 2 of 3 – Christian Science Practice – 1910 Edition

In answering the objections, by putting everything back into God and acknowledging that there is a divine plan where everything relates with everything else, we are in fact practising Christian Science. We are removing the objections of the human mind by working from the unbroken wholeness of being, seeing everything slotted back into its proper place and value in the divine purpose and plan.
"Christian Science Practice" is a long and very practical healing chapter, finishing with an allegorical account of  a law case. The prisoner on trial is accused of transgressing the laws of matter. He has watched with and tended a sick friend, but in doing this he has broken the laws of health that claim to govern the material body. This is his crime and he is condemned to death. But then permission is obtained for a retrial in the Court of Spirit. Christian Science, appearing as counsel for the defence, argues for man's freedom under the law of God. God's law liberates him from the bogus laws of mortality. The law case finishes with the commanding sentence, "Christian Scientists, be a law to yourselves that mental malpractice cannot harm you either when asleep or when awake" (442:30). Be a law to yourselves!
~ DISSOLVING BARRIERS, The Healing Work of Christian Science by John L. MorganSHOW ALL

  	MENTAL TREATMENT ILLUSTRATED 

  	    The Science of mental practice is susceptible of no
24	misuse. Selfishness does not appear in the practice of
  	Truth or Christian Science. If mental prac-	Be not
  	tice is abused or is used in any way except to	afraid 
27	promote right thinking and doing, the power to heal
  	mentally will diminish, until the practitioner's healing
  	ability is wholly lost. Christian scientific practice be-
30	gins with Christ's keynote of harmony, "Be not afraid!" 
 
      Science and Health – Christian Science Practice                            411

 1	Said Job: "The thing which I greatly feared is come
  	upon me." 
 3	    My first discovery in the student's practice was this:
  	If the student silently called the disease by name, when
  	he argued against it, as a general rule the body	Naming
 6	would respond more quickly, — just as a per-	diseases 
  	son replies more readily when his name is spoken; but
  	this was because the  student was not perfectly attuned to
 9	divine Science, and needed the arguments of truth for
  	reminders. If Spirit or the power of divine Love bear
  	witness to the truth, this is the ultimatum, the scientific
12	way, and the healing is instantaneous. 
  	    It is recorded that once Jesus asked the name of a dis-
  	ease, — a disease which moderns would call dementia. 
15	The demon, or evil, replied that his name was	Evils cast
  	Legion. Thereupon Jesus cast out the evil,	out 
  	and the insane man was changed and straightway be-
18	came whole. The Scripture seems to import that Jesus
  	caused the evil to be self-seen and so destroyed. 
  	    The procuring cause and foundation of all sickness is
21	fear, ignorance, or sin. Disease is always induced by a
  	false sense mentally entertained, not destroyed. 	Fear as the
  	Disease is an image of thought externalized. 	foundation 
24	The mental state is called a material state. Whatever
  	is cherished in mortal mind as the physical condition is
  	imaged forth on the body. 
27	    Always begin your treatment by allaying the fear
  	of patients. Silently reassure them as to their exemp-
  	tion from disease and danger. Watch the re-	Unspoken
30	sult of this simple rule of Christian Science,	pleading 
  	and you will find that it alleviates the symptoms of every
  	disease. If you succeed in wholly removing the fear,
 
      Science and Health – Christian Science Practice                            412

 1	your patient is healed. The great fact that God lovingly
  	governs all, never punishing aught but sin, is your stand-
 3	point, from which to advance and destroy the human fear
  	of sickness. Mentally and silently plead the case scien-
  	tifically for Truth. You may vary the arguments to meet
 6	the peculiar or general symptoms of the case you treat,
  	but be thoroughly persuaded in your own mind concern-
  	ing the truth which you think or speak, and you will be
 9	the victor. 
  	    You may call the disease by name when you mentally
  	deny it; but by naming it audibly, you are liable under
12	some circumstances to impress it upon the	Eloquent
  	thought. The power of Christian Science and	silence 
  	divine Love is omnipotent. It is indeed adequate to un-
15	clasp the hold and to destroy disease, sin, and death. 
  	    To prevent disease or to cure it, the power of Truth,
  	of divine Spirit, must break the dream of the material
18	senses. To heal by argument, find the type	Insistence
  	of the ailment, get its name, and array your	requisite 
  	mental plea against the physical. Argue at first men-
21	tally, not audibly, that the patient has no disease, and
  	conform the argument so as to destroy the evidence of
  	disease. Mentally insist that harmony is the fact, and
24	that sickness is a temporal dream. Realize the presence
  	of health and the fact of harmonious being, until the
  	body corresponds with the normal conditions of health
27	and harmony. 
  	    If the case is that of a young child or an infant, it needs
  	to be met mainly through the parent's thought, silently
30	or audibly on the aforesaid basis of Christian	The cure
  	Science. The Scientist knows that there can	of infants 
  	be no hereditary disease, since matter is not intelligent
 
      Science and Health – Christian Science Practice                            413

 1	and cannot transmit good or evil intelligence to man, and
  	God, the only Mind, does not produce pain in matter. 
 3	The act of yielding one's thoughts to the undue contem-
  	plation of physical wants or conditions induces those very
  	conditions. A single requirement, beyond what is neces-
 6	sary to meet the simplest needs of the babe is harmful. 
  	Mind regulates the condition of the stomach, bowels, and
  	food, the temperature of children and of men, and matter
 9	does not. The wise or unwise views of parents and other
  	persons on these subjects produce good or bad effects on
  	the health of children. 
12	    The daily ablutions of an infant are no more natural
  	nor necessary than would be the process of taking a fish
  	out of water every day and covering it with dirt	Ablutions for
15	in order to make it thrive more vigorously in its	cleanliness 
  	own element. "Cleanliness is next to godliness," but
  	washing should be only for the purpose of keeping the
18	body clean, and this can be effected without scrubbing the
  	whole surface daily. Water is not the natural habitat of
  	humanity. I insist on bodily cleanliness within and with-
21	out. I am not patient with a speck of dirt; but in caring
  	for an infant one need not wash his little body all over each
  	day in order to keep it sweet as the new-blown flower. 
24	    Giving drugs to infants, noticing every symptom of
  	flatulency, and constantly directing the mind to such
  	signs, — that mind being laden with illusions	Juvenile
27	about disease, health-laws, and death, — these	ailments 
  	actions convey mental images to children's budding
  	thoughts, and often stamp them there, making it probable
30	at any time that such ills may be reproduced in the very
  	ailments feared. A child may have worms, if you say so,
  	or any other malady, timorously held in the beliefs con-
 
      Science and Health – Christian Science Practice                            414

 1	cerning his body. Thus are laid the foundations of the
  	belief in disease and death, and thus are children educated
 3	into discord. 
  	    The treatment of insanity is especially interesting. 
  	However obstinate the case, it yields more readily than
 6	do most diseases to the salutary action of	Cure of
  	truth, which counteracts error. The argu-	insanity 
  	ments to be used in curing insanity are the same as in
 9	other diseases:  namely, the impossibility that matter,
  	brain, can control or derange mind, can suffer or cause
  	suffering; also the fact that truth and love will establish
12	a healthy state, guide and govern mortal mind or the
  	thought of the patient, and destroy all error, whether it is
  	called dementia, hatred, or any other discord. 
15	    To fix truth steadfastly in your patients' thoughts, ex-
  	plain Christian Science to them, but not too soon, — not
  	until your patients are prepared for the explanation, — 
18	lest you array the sick against their own interests by troub-
  	ling and perplexing their thought. The Christian Scien-
  	tist's argument rests on the Christianly scientific basis of
21	being. The Scripture declares, "The Lord He is God
  	[good]; there is none else beside Him." Even so, harmony
  	is universal, and discord is unreal. Christian Science de-
24	clares that Mind is substance, also that matter neither
  	feels, suffers, nor enjoys. Hold these points strongly in
  	view. Keep in mind the verity of being, — that man is
27	the image and likeness of God, in whom all being is
  	painless and permanent. Remember that man's perfec-
  	tion is real and unimpeachable, whereas imperfection is
30	blameworthy, unreal, and is not brought about by divine
  	Love. 
  	    Matter cannot be inflamed. Inflammation is fear, an
 
      Science and Health – Christian Science Practice                            415

 1	excited state of mortals which is not normal. Immor-
  	tal Mind is the only cause; therefore disease is neither a
 3	cause nor an effect. Mind in every case is the	Matter is
  	eternal God, good. Sin, disease, and death	not inflamed 
  	have no foundations in Truth. Inflammation as a mor-
 6	tal belief quickens or impedes the action of the system,
  	because thought moves quickly or slowly, leaps or halts
  	when it contemplates unpleasant things, or when the in-
 9	dividual looks upon some object which he dreads. In-
  	flammation never appears in a part which mortal thought
  	does not reach. That is why opiates relieve inflammation. 
12	They quiet the thought by inducing stupefaction and by
  	resorting to matter instead of to Mind. Opiates do not
  	remove the pain in any scientific sense. They only ren-
15	der mortal mind temporarily less fearful, till it can master
  	an erroneous belief. 
  	    Note how thought makes the face pallid. It either re-
18	tards the circulation or quickens it, causing a pale or
  	flushed cheek. In the same way thought in-	Truth calms
  	creases or diminishes the secretions, the action	the thought 
21	of the lungs, of the bowels, and of the heart. The mus-
  	cles, moving quickly or slowly and impelled or palsied by
  	thought, represent the action of all the organs of the hu-
24	man system, including brain and viscera. To remove
  	the error producing disorder, you must calm and instruct
  	mortal mind with immortal Truth. 
27	    Etherization will apparently cause the body to dis-
  	appear. Before the thoughts are fully at rest, the limbs
  	will vanish from consciousness. Indeed, the	Effects of
30	whole frame will sink from sight along with	etherization 
  	surrounding objects, leaving the pain standing forth as
  	distinctly as a mountain-peak, as if it were a separate
 
      Science and Health – Christian Science Practice                            416

 1	bodily member. At last the agony also vanishes. This
  	process shows the pain to be in the mind, for the inflam-
 3	mation is not suppressed; and the belief of pain will
  	presently return, unless the mental image occasioning
  	the pain be removed by recognizing the truth of being. 
 6	    A hypodermic injection of morphine is administered
  	to a patient, and in twenty minutes the sufferer is qui-
  	etly asleep. To him there is no longer any	Sedatives
 9	pain. Yet any physician — allopathic, homoe-	valueless 
  	opathic, botanic, eclectic — will tell you that the trouble-
  	some material cause is unremoved, and that when the
12	soporific influence of the opium is exhausted, the pa-
  	tient will find himself in the same pain, unless the belief
  	which occasions the pain has meanwhile been changed. 
15	Where is the pain while the patient sleeps? 
  	    The material body, which you call me, is mortal mind,
  	and this mind is material in sensation, even as the body,
18	which has originated from this material sense	The so-called
  	and been developed according to it, is mate-	physical ego 
  	rial. This materialism of parent and child is only in
21	mortal mind, as the dead body proves; for when the
  	mortal has resigned his body to dust, the body is no
  	longer the parent, even in appearance. 
24	    The sick know nothing of the mental process by
  	which they are depleted, and next to nothing of the
  	metaphysical method by which they can be	Evil thought
27	healed. If they ask about their disease, tell	depletes 
  	them only what is best for them to know. Assure them
  	that they think too much about their ailments, and
30	have already heard too much on that subject. Turn
  	their thoughts away from their bodies to higher ob-
  	jects. Teach them that their being is sustained by
 

      Science and Health – Christian Science Practice                            417


 1	Spirit, not by matter, and that they find health, peace,
  	and harmony in God, divine Love. 
 3	    Give sick people credit for sometimes knowing more
  	than their doctors. Always support their trust in the
  	power of Mind to sustain the body. Never	Helpful 
 6	tell the sick that they have more courage	encouragement 
  	than strength. Tell them rather, that their strength
  	is in proportion to their courage. If you make the sick
 9	realize this great truism, there will be no reaction from
  	over-exertion or from excited conditions. Maintain
  	the facts of Christian Science, — that Spirit is God, and
12	therefore cannot be sick; that what is termed matter
  	cannot be sick; that all causation is Mind, acting
  	through spiritual law. Then hold your ground with
15	the unshaken understanding of Truth and Love, and
  	you will win. When you silence the witness against your
  	plea, you destroy the evidence, for the disease disap-
18	pears. The evidence before the corporeal senses is not
  	the Science of immortal man. 
  	    To the Christian Science healer, sickness is a dream
21	from which the patient needs to be awakened. Dis-
  	ease should not appear real to the physician,	Disease to be
  	since it is demonstrable that the way to	made unreal 
24	cure the patient is to make disease unreal to him. To
  	do this, the physician must understand the unreality
  	of disease in Science. 
27	    Explain audibly to your patients, as soon as they can
  	bear it, the complete control which Mind holds over the
  	body. Show them how mortal mind seems to induce
30	disease by certain fears and false conclusions, and how
  	divine Mind can cure by opposite thoughts. Give your
  	patients an underlying understanding to support them
 
      Science and Health – Christian Science Practice                            418

1	and to shield them from the baneful effects of their own
  	conclusions. Show them that the conquest over sickness,
 3	as well as over sin, depends on mentally destroying all
  	belief in material pleasure or pain. 
  	    Stick to the truth of being in contradistinction to the
 6	error that life, substance, or intelligence can be in matter. 
  	Plead with an honest conviction of truth and	Christian
  	a clear perception of the unchanging, unerr-	pleading 
 9	ing, and certain effect of divine Science. Then, if your
  	fidelity is half equal to the truth of your plea, you will
  	heal the sick. 
12	    It must be clear to you that sickness is no more
  	the reality of being than is sin. This mortal dream
  	of sickness, sin, and death should cease	Truthful
15	through Christian Science. Then one dis-	arguments 
  	ease would be as readily destroyed as another. What-
  	ever the belief is, if arguments are used to destroy it,
18	the belief must be repudiated, and the negation must ex-
  	tend to the supposed disease and to whatever decides its
  	type and symptoms. Truth is affirmative, and confers
21	harmony. All metaphysical logic is inspired by this sim-
  	ple rule of Truth, which governs all reality. By the
  	truthful arguments you employ, and especially by the
24	spirit of Truth and Love which you entertain, you will
  	heal the sick. 
  	    Include moral as well as physical belief in your efforts
27	to destroy error. Cast out all manner of evil. "Preach
  	the gospel to every creature." Speak the	Morality
  	truth to every form of error. Tumors, ulcers,	required 
30	tubercles, inflammation, pain, deformed joints, are wak-
  	ing dream-shadows, dark images of mortal thought, which
  	flee before the light of Truth. 
 
      Science and Health – Christian Science Practice                            419

 1	    A moral question may hinder the recovery of the sick. 
  	Lurking error, lust, envy, revenge, malice, or hate will
 3	perpetuate or even create the belief in disease. Errors
  	of all sorts tend in this direction. Your true course is
  	to destroy the foe, and leave the field to God, Life, Truth,
 6	and Love, remembering that God and His ideas alone
  	are real and harmonious. 
  	    If your patient from any cause suffers a relapse, meet
 9	the cause mentally and courageously, knowing that
  	there can be no reaction in Truth. Neither	Relapse
  	disease itself, sin, nor fear has the power to	unnecessary 
12	cause disease or a relapse. Disease has no intelligence
  	with which to move itself about or to change itself from
  	one form to another. If disease moves, mind, not mat-
15	ter, moves it; therefore be sure that you move it off. 
  	Meet every adverse circumstance as its master. Ob-
  	serve mind instead of body, lest aught unfit for develop-
18	ment enter thought. Think less of material conditions
  	and more of spiritual. 
  	    Mind produces all action. If the action proceeds from
21	Truth, from immortal Mind, there is harmony; but mor-
  	tal mind is liable to any phase of belief. A	Conquer
  	relapse cannot in reality occur in mortals or	beliefs and
24	so-called mortal minds, for there is but one	fears 
  	Mind, one God. Never fear the mental malpractitioner,
  	the mental assassin, who, in attempting to rule mankind,
27	tramples upon the divine Principle of metaphysics, for God
  	is the only power. To succeed in healing, you must con-
  	quer your own fears as well as those of your patients, and
30	rise into higher and holier consciousness. 
  	    If it is found necessary to treat against relapse, know
  	that disease or its symptoms cannot change forms, nor
 
      Science and Health – Christian Science Practice                            420

 1	go from one part to another, for Truth destroys disease. 
  	There is no metastasis, no stoppage of harmonious
 3	action, no paralysis. Truth not error, Love	True
  	not hate, Spirit not matter, governs man. If	government
  	students do not readily heal themselves, they should	of man 
 6	early call an experienced Christian Scientist to aid
  	them. If they are unwilling to do this for themselves,
  	they need only to know that error cannot produce this
 9	unnatural reluctance. 
  	    Instruct the sick that they are not helpless victims,
  	for if they will only accept Truth, they can resist disease
12	and ward it off, as positively as they can the	Positive
  	temptation to sin. This fact of Christian Sci-	reassurance 
  	ence should be explained to invalids when they are in a
15	fit mood to receive it, — when they will not array them-
  	selves against it, but are ready to become receptive to the
  	new idea. The fact that Truth overcomes both disease
18	and sin reassures depressed hope. It imparts a healthy
  	stimulus to the body, and regulates the system. It in-
  	creases or diminishes the action, as the case may require,
21	better than any drug, alterative, or tonic. 
  	    Mind is the natural stimulus of the body, but erro-
  	neous belief, taken at its best, is not promotive of health
24	or happiness. Tell the sick that they can	Proper
  	meet disease fearlessly, if they only realize	stimulus 
  	that divine Love gives them all power over every physical
27	action and condition. 
  	    If it becomes necessary to startle mortal mind to break
  	its dream of suffering, vehemently tell your patient that
30	he must awake. Turn his gaze from the false	Awaken the
  	evidence of the senses to the harmonious facts	patient 
  	of Soul and immortal being. Tell him that he suffers  

      Science and Health – Christian Science Practice                            421

1	only as the insane suffer, from false beliefs. The only
  	difference is, that insanity implies belief in a diseased
 3	brain, while physical ailments (so-called) arise from the
  	belief that other portions of the body are deranged. De-
  	rangement, or disarrangement, is a word which conveys
 6	the true definition of all human belief in ill-health, or dis-
  	turbed harmony. Should you thus startle mortal mind
  	in order to remove its beliefs, afterwards make known
 9	to the patient your motive for this shock, showing him
  	that it was to facilitate recovery. 
  	    If a crisis occurs in your treatment, you must treat
12	the patient less for the disease and more for the mental
  	disturbance or fermentation, and subdue the	How to
  	symptoms by removing the belief that this	treat a crisis 
15	chemicalization produces pain or disease. Insist vehe-
  	mently on the great fact which covers the whole ground,
  	that God, Spirit, is all, and that there is none beside
18	Him. There is no disease. When the supposed suffer-
  	ing is gone from mortal mind, there can be no pain; and
  	when the fear is destroyed, the inflammation will sub-
21	side. Calm the excitement sometimes induced by chemi-
  	calization, which is the alterative effect produced by
  	Truth upon error, and sometimes explain the symptoms
24	and their cause to the patient. 
  	    It is no more Christianly scientific to see disease than
  	it is to experience it. If you would destroy the sense
27	of disease, you should not build it up by	No perversion
  	wishing to see the forms it assumes or by	of
  	employing a single material application for	Mind-science 
30	its relief. The perversion of Mind-science is like as-
  	serting that the products of eight multiplied by five, and
  	of seven by ten, are both forty, and that their combined
 
      Science and Health – Christian Science Practice                            422

 1	sum is fifty, and then calling the process mathematics. 
  	Wiser than his persecutors, Jesus said: "If I by Beelze-
 3	bub cast out devils, by whom do your children cast them
  	out?" 
  	    If the reader of this book observes a great stir through-
 6	out his whole system, and certain moral and physical
  	symptoms seem aggravated, these indications	Effect of
  	are favorable. Continue to read, and the book	this book 
 9	will become the physician, allaying the tremor which
  	Truth often brings to error when destroying it. 
  	    Patients, unfamiliar with the cause of this commotion
12	and ignorant that it is a favorable omen, may be alarmed. 
  	If such be the case, explain to them the law	Disease
  	of this action. As when an acid and alkali	neutralized 
15	meet and bring out a third quality, so mental and moral
  	chemistry changes the material base of thought, giving
  	more spirituality to consciousness and causing it to depend
18	less on material evidence. These changes which go on
  	in mortal mind serve to reconstruct the body. Thus
  	Christian Science, by the alchemy of Spirit, destroys sin
21	and death. 
  	    Let us suppose two parallel cases of bone-disease, both
  	similarly produced and attended by the same symptoms. 
24	A surgeon is employed in one case, and a	Bone-healing
  	Christian Scientist in the other. The sur-	by surgery 
  	geon, holding that matter forms its own conditions and
27	renders them fatal at certain points, entertains fears and
  	doubts as to the ultimate outcome of the injury. Not
  	holding the reins of government in his own hands, he
30	believes that something stronger than Mind — namely,
  	matter — governs the case. His treatment is therefore
  	tentative. This mental state invites defeat. The belief
 
      Science and Health – Christian Science Practice                            423

 1	that he has met his master in matter and may not be
  	able to mend the bone, increases his fear; yet this belief
 3	should not be communicated to the patient, either ver-
  	bally or otherwise, for this fear greatly diminishes the
  	tendency towards a favorable result. Remember that the
 6	unexpressed belief oftentimes affects a sensitive patient
  	more strongly than the expressed thought. 
  	    The Christian Scientist, understanding scientifically
 9	that all is Mind, commences with mental causation, the
  	truth of being, to destroy the error. This cor-	Scientific
  	rective is an alterative, reaching to every part	corrective 
12	of the human system. According to Scripture, it searches
  	"the joints and marrow," and it restores the harmony of
  	man. 
15	    The matter-physician deals with matter as both his foe
  	and his remedy. He regards the ailment as weakened or
  	strengthened according to the evidence which	Coping with
18	matter presents. The metaphysician, making	difficulties 
  	Mind his basis of operation irrespective of matter and
  	regarding the truth and harmony of being as superior to
21	error and discord, has rendered himself strong, instead
  	of weak, to cope with the case; and he proportionately
  	strengthens his patient with the stimulus of courage and
24	conscious power. Both Science and consciousness are
  	now at work in the economy of being according to the law
  	of Mind, which ultimately asserts its absolute supremacy. 
27	    Ossification or any abnormal condition or derange-
  	ment of the body is as directly the action of mortal
  	mind as is dementia or insanity. Bones have	Formation
30	only the substance of thought which forms	from thought 
  	them. They are only phenomena of the mind of mor-
  	tals. The so-called substance of bone is formed first
 
      Science and Health – Christian Science Practice                            424

 1	by the parent's mind, through self-division. Soon the
  	child becomes a separate, individualized mortal mind,
 3	which takes possession of itself and its own thoughts of
  	bones. 
  	    Accidents are unknown to God, or immortal Mind,
 6	and we must leave the mortal basis of belief	Accidents
  	and unite with the one Mind, in order to	unknown
  	change the notion of chance to the proper sense	to God 
 9	of God's unerring direction and thus bring out harmony. 
  	    Under divine Providence there can be no accidents,
  	since there is no room for imperfection in perfection. 
12	    In medical practice objections would be raised if one
  	doctor should administer a drug to counteract the work-
  	ing of a remedy prescribed by another doctor. 	Opposing
15	It is equally important in metaphysical prac-	mentality 
  	tice that the minds which surround your patient should
  	not act against your influence by continually expressing
18	such opinions as may alarm or discourage, — either by
  	giving antagonistic advice or through unspoken thoughts
  	resting on your patient. While it is certain that the
21	divine Mind can remove any obstacle, still you need the
  	ear of your auditor. It is not more difficult to make your-
  	self heard mentally while others are thinking about your
24	patients or conversing with them, if you understand
  	Christian Science — the oneness and the allness of divine
  	Love; but it is well to be alone with God and the sick
27	when treating disease. 
  	    To prevent or to cure scrofula and other so-called he-
  	reditary diseases, you must destroy the belief in these ills
30	and the faith in the possibility of their trans-	Mind removes
  	mission. The patient may tell you that he	scrofula 
  	has a humor in the blood, a scrofulous diathesis. His
 
      Science and Health – Christian Science Practice                            425

 1	parents or some of his progenitors farther back have so
  	believed. Mortal mind, not matter, induces this con-
 3	clusion and its results. You will have humors, just so
  	long as you believe them to be safety-valves or to be
  	ineradicable. 
 6	    If the case to be mentally treated is consumption, take
  	up the leading points included (according to belief) in
  	this disease. Show that it is not inherited;	Nothing to
 9	that inflammation, tubercles, hemorrhage, and	consume 
  	decomposition are beliefs, images of mortal thought su-
  	perimposed upon the body; that they are not the truth
12	of man; that they should be treated as error and put out
  	of thought. Then these ills will disappear. 
  	    If the body is diseased, this is but one of the beliefs of
15	mortal mind. Mortal man will be less mortal, when he
  	learns that matter never sustained existence	The lungs
  	and can never destroy God, who is man's Life. 	re-formed 
18	When this is understood, mankind will be more spiritual
  	and know that there is nothing to consume, since Spirit,
  	God, is All-in-all. What if the belief is consumption? 
21	God is more to a man than his belief, and the less we ac-
  	knowledge matter or its laws, the more immortality we
  	possess. Consciousness constructs a better body when
24	faith in matter has been conquered. Correct material
  	belief by spiritual understanding, and Spirit will form
  	you anew. You will never fear again except to offend
27	God, and you will never believe that heart or any por-
  	tion of the body can destroy you. 
  	    If you have sound and capacious lungs and want
30	them to remain so, be always ready with the	Soundness
  	mental protest against the opposite belief in	maintained 
  	heredity. Discard all notions about lungs, tubercles, in-
 
      Science and Health – Christian Science Practice                            426

 1	herited consumption, or disease arising from any cir-
  	cumstance, and you will find that mortal mind, when
 3	instructed by Truth, yields to divine power, which steers
  	the body into health. 
  	    The discoverer of Christian Science finds the path less
 6	difficult when she has the high goal always before her
  	thoughts, than when she counts her footsteps	Our footsteps
  	in endeavoring to reach it. When the desti-	heavenward 
 9	nation is desirable, expectation speeds our progress. The
  	struggle for Truth makes one strong instead of weak,
  	resting instead of wearying one. If the belief in death
12	were obliterated, and the understanding obtained that
  	there is no death, this would be a "tree of life," known
  	by its fruits. Man should renew his energies and en-
15	deavors, and see the folly of hypocrisy, while also learn-
  	ing the necessity of working out his own salvation. When
  	it is learned that disease cannot destroy life, and that
18	mortals are not saved from sin or sickness by death, this
  	understanding will quicken into newness of life. It will
  	master either a desire to die or a dread of the grave,
21	and thus destroy the great fear that besets mortal
  	existence. 
  	    The relinquishment of all faith in death and also of
24	the fear of its sting would raise the standard of health
  	and morals far beyond its present elevation,	Christian
  	and would enable us to hold the banner of	standard 
27	Christianity aloft with unflinching faith in God, in Life
  	eternal. Sin brought death, and death will disappear
  	with the disappearance of sin. Man is immortal, and
30	the body cannot die, because matter has no life to sur-
  	render. The human concepts named matter, death, dis-
  	ease, sickness, and sin are all that can be destroyed. 
 

      Science and Health – Christian Science Practice                            427


 1	    If it is true that man lives, this fact can never change
  	in Science to the opposite belief that man dies. Life is
 3	the law of Soul, even the law of the spirit of	Life not
  	Truth, and Soul is never without its represent-	contingent
  	ative. Man's  individual being can no more	on matter 
 6	die nor disappear in unconsciousness than can Soul, for
  	both are immortal. If man believes in death now, he
  	must disbelieve in it when learning that there is no reality
 9	in death, since the truth of being is deathless. The be-
  	lief that existence is contingent on matter must be met
  	and mastered by Science, before Life can be understood
12	and harmony obtained. 
  	    Death is but another phase of the dream that exist-
  	ence can be material. Nothing can interfere with the
15	harmony of being nor end the existence of	Mortality
  	man in Science. Man is the same after as	vanquished 
  	before a bone is broken or the body guillotined. If man
18	is never to overcome death, why do the Scriptures say,
  	"The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death"? The
  	tenor of the Word shows that we shall obtain the victory
21	over death in proportion as we overcome sin. The great
  	difficulty lies in ignorance of what God is. God, Life,
  	Truth, and Love make man undying. Immortal Mind,
24	governing all, must be acknowledged as supreme in the
  	physical realm, so-called, as well as in the spiritual. 
  	    Called to the bed of death, what material remedy has
27	man when all such remedies have failed? Spirit is his
  	last resort, but it should have been his first	No death
  	and only resort. The dream of death must	nor inaction 
30	be mastered by Mind here or hereafter. Thought
  	will waken from its own material declaration, "I am
  	dead," to catch this trumpet-word of Truth, "There
 
      Science and Health – Christian Science Practice                            428

 1	is no death, no inaction, diseased action, overaction, nor
  	reaction." 
 3	    Life is real, and death is the illusion. A demonstra-
  	tion of the facts of Soul in Jesus' way resolves the dark
  	visions of material sense into harmony and	Vision
 6	immortality. Man's  privilege at this supreme	opening 
  	moment is to prove the words of our Master: "If a man
  	keep my saying, he shall never see death." To divest
 9	thought of false trusts and material evidences in order
  	that the spiritual facts of being may appear, — this is
  	the great attainment by means of which we shall sweep
12	away the false and give place to the true. Thus we may
  	establish in truth the temple, or body, "whose builder
  	and maker is God." 
15	    We should consecrate existence, not "to the unknown
  	God" whom we "ignorantly worship," but to the eternal
  	builder, the everlasting Father, to the Life	Intelligent
18	which mortal sense cannot impair nor mortal	consecration 
  	belief destroy. We must realize the ability of mental
  	might to offset human misconceptions and to replace them
21	with the life which is spiritual, not material. 
  	    The great spiritual fact must be brought out that man
  	is, not shall be, perfect and immortal. We must hold
24	forever the consciousness of existence, and	The present
  	sooner or later, through Christ and Christian	immortality 
  	Science, we must master sin and death. The evidence
27	of man's immortality will become more apparent, as ma-
  	terial beliefs are given up and the immortal facts of being
  	are admitted. 
30	    The author has healed hopeless organic disease, and
  	raised the dying to life and health through the under-
  	standing of God as the only Life. It is a sin to believe

      Science and Health – Christian Science Practice                            429

 1	that aught can overpower omnipotent and eternal Life,
  	and this Life must be brought to light by the understand-
 3	ing that there is no death, as well as by other	Careful
  	graces of Spirit. We must begin, however,	guidance 
  	with the more simple demonstrations of control, and
 6	the sooner we begin the better. The final demonstration
  	takes time for its accomplishment. When walking, we
  	are guided by the eye. We look before our feet, and if
 9	we are wise, we look beyond a single step in the line of
  	spiritual advancement. 
  	    The corpse, deserted by thought, is cold and decays,
12	but it never suffers. Science declares that man is sub-
  	ject to Mind. Mortal mind affirms that mind	Clay
  	is subordinate to the body, that the body is	replying to
15	dying, that it must be buried and decomposed	the potter 
  	into dust; but mortal mind's affirmation is not true. 
  	Mortals waken from the dream of death with bodies un-
18	seen by those who think that they bury the body. 
  	    If man did not exist before the material organization
  	began, he could not exist after the body is disintegrated. 
21	If we live after death and are immortal, we	Continuity
  	must have lived before birth, for if Life ever	of existence 
  	had any beginning, it must also have an ending, even ac-
24	cording to the calculations of natural science. Do you
  	believe this? No! Do you understand it? No! This
  	is why you doubt the statement and do not demonstrate
27	the facts it involves. We must have faith in all the say-
  	ings of our Master, though they are not included in the
  	teachings of the schools, and are not understood gener-
30	ally by our ethical instructors. 
  	    Jesus said (John viii. 51), "If a man keep my saying,
  	he shall never see death." That statement is not con-
 
      Science and Health – Christian Science Practice                            430

 1	fined to spiritual life, but includes all the phenomena of
  	existence. Jesus demonstrated this, healing the dying
 3	and raising the dead. Mortal mind must part	Life
  	with error, must put off itself with its deeds,	all-inclusive 
  	and immortal manhood, the Christ ideal, will appear. 
 6	Faith should enlarge its borders and strengthen its base
  	by resting upon Spirit instead of matter. When man
  	gives up his belief in death, he will advance more rapidly
 9	towards God, Life, and Love. Belief in sickness and
  	death, as certainly as belief in sin, tends to shut out the
  	true sense of Life and health. When will mankind wake
12	to this great fact in Science? SHOW ALL