Chapter 11. Some Objections Answered (Science and Health) (Eddy, Mary Baker)

And because I tell you the truth, ye believe me not. Which of you convinceth me of sin? And if I say the truth, why do ye not believe me? Jesus.

But if the spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, He that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by His spirit that dwelleth in you. Paul.

THE strictures on this volume would condemn to oblivion the truth, which is raising up thousands from helplessness to strength and elevating them from a theoretical to a practical Christianity. These criticisms are generally based on detached sentences or clauses separated from their context. Even the Scriptures, which grow in beauty and consistency from one grand root, appear contradictory when subjected to such usage. Jesus said, "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God" [Truth].

Supported by facts

In Christian Science mere opinion is valueless. Proof is essential to a due estimate of this subject. Sneers at the application of the word/ Science /to Christianity cannot prevent that from being scientific which is based on divine Principle, demonstrated according to a divine given rule, and subjected to proof. The facts are so absolute and numerous in support of Christian Science, that misrepresentation and denunciation cannot overthrow it. Paul alludes to "doubtful disputations." The hour has struck when proof and demonstration, instead of opinion and dogma, are summoned to the support of Christianity, "making wise the simple."

Commands of Jesus

In the result of some unqualified condemnations of scientific Mind-healing, one may see with sorrow the sad effects on the sick of denying Truth. He that decries this Science does it presumptuously, in the face of Bible history and in defiance of the direct command of Jesus, "Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel," to which command was added the promise that his students should cast out evils and heal the sick. He bade the seventy disciples, as well as the twelve, heal the sick in any town where they should be hospitably received.

Christianity scientific

If Christianity is not scientific, and Science is not of God, then there is no invariable law, and truth becomes an accident. Shall it be denied that a system which works according to the Scriptures has Scriptural authority?

Argument of good works

Christian Science awakens the sinner, reclaims the infidel, and raises from the couch of pain the helpless invalid. It speaks to the dumb the words of Truth, and they answer with rejoicing. It causes the deaf to hear, the lame to walk, and the blind to see. Who would be the first to disown the Christliness of good works, when our Master says, "By their fruits ye shall know them"?

If Christian Scientists were teaching or practising pharmacy or obstetrics according to the common theories, no denunciations would follow them, even if their treatment resulted in the death of a patient. The people are taught in such cases to say, Amen. Shall I then be smitten for healing and for teaching Truth as the Principle of healing, and for proving my word by my deed? James saShow me your faith without your works, and I will show you my faith by my works."

Personal experience

Is not finite mind ignorant of God's method? This makes it doubly unfair to impugn and misrepresent the facts, although, without this cross-bearing, one might not be able to say with the apostle, "None of these things move me." The sick, the halt, and the blind look up to Christian Science with blessings, and Truth will not be forever hidden by unjust parody from the quickened sense of the people.

Proof from miracles

Jesus strips all disguise from error, when his teachings are fully understood. By parable and argument he explains the impossibility of good producing evil; and he also scientifically demonstrates this great fact, proving by what are wrongly called miracles, that sin, sickness, and death are beliefs illusive errors which he could and did destroy. It would sometimes seem as if truth were rejected because meekness and spirituality are the conditions of its acceptance, while Christendom generally demands so much less.

Example of the disciples

Anciently those apostles who were Jesus' students, as well as Paul who was not one of his students, healed the sick and reformed the sinner by their religion. Hence the mistake which allows words, rather than works, to follow such examples! Whoever is the first meekly and conscientiously to press along the line of gospel-healing, is often accounted a heretic.

Strong position

It is objected to Christian Science that it claims God as the only absolute Life and Soul, and man to be His idea, that is, His image. It should be added that this is claimed to represent the normal, healthful, and sinless condition of man in divine Science, and that this claim is made because the Scriptures say that God has created man in His own image and after His likeness. Is it sacrilegious to assume that God's likeness is not found in matter, sin, sickness, and death?

Efficacy may be attested

Were it more fully understood that Truth heals and that error causes disease, the opponents of a demonstrable Science would perhaps mercifully withhold their misrepresentations, which harm the sick; and until the enemies of Christian Science test its efficacy according to the rules which disclose its merits or demerits, it would be just to observe the Scriptural precept, "Judge not."

The one divine method

There are various methods of treating disease, which are not included in the commonly accepted systems; but there is only one which should be presented to the whole world, and that is the Christian Science which Jesus preached and practised and left to us as his rich legacy.

Why should one refuse to investigate this method of treating disease? Why support the popular systems of medicine, when the physician may perchance be an infidel and may lose ninety-and-nine patients, while Christian Science cures its hundred? Is it because allopayour and homoeopayour are more fashionable and less spiritual?

Omnipotence set forth

In the Bible the word /Spirit /is so commonly applied to Deity, that Spirit and God are often regarded as synonymous terms; and it is thus they are uniformly used and understood in Christian Science. As it is evident that the likeness of Spirit cannot be material, does it not follow that God cannot be in His unlikeness and work through drugs to heal the sick? When the omnipotence of God is preached and His absoluteness is set forth, Christian sermons will heal the sick.

Contradictions not found

It is sometimes said, in criticising Christian Science, that the mind which contradicts itself neither knows itself nor what it is saying. It is indeed no small matter to know one's self; but in this volume of mine there are no contradictory statements, at least none which are apparent to those who understand its propositions well enough to pass judgment upon them. One who understands Christian Science can heal the sick on the divine Principle of Christian Science, and this practical proof is the only feasible evidence that one does understand this Science.

Anybody, who is able to perceive the incongruity between God's idea and poor humanity, ought to be able to discern the distinction (made by Christian Science) between God's man, made in His image, and the sinning race of Adam.

The apostle saFor if a man think himself to be something, when he is nothing, he deceiveth himself." This thought of human, material nothingness, which Science inculcates, enrages the carnal mind and is the main cause of the carnal mind's antagonism.

God's idea the ideal man

It is not the purpose of Christian Science to "educate the idea of God, or treat it for disease," as is alleged by one critic. I regret that such criticism confounds /man/ with Adam. When man is spoken of as made in God's image, it is not sinful and sickly mortal man who is referred to, but the ideal man, reflecting God's likeness.

Nothingness of error

It is sometimes said that Christian Science teaches the nothingness of sin, sickness, and death, and then teaches how this nothingness is to be saved and healed. The nothingness of nothing is plain; but we need to understand that error is nothing, and that its nothingness is not saved, but must be demonstrated in order to prove the somethingness yea, the allness of Truth. It is self-evident that we are harmonious only as we cease to manifest evil or the belief that we suffer from the sins of others. Disbelief in error destroys error, and leads to the discernment of Truth. There are no vacuums. How then can this demonstration be "fraught with falsities painful to behold"?

Truth antidotes error

We treat error through the understanding of Truth, because Truth is error's antidote. If a dream ceases, it is self-destroyed, and the terror is over. When a sufferer is convinced that there is no reality in his belief of pain, because matter has no sensation, hence pain in matter is a false belief, how can he suffer longer? Do you feel the pain of tooth-pulling, when you believe that nitrous-oxide gas has made you unconscious? Yet, in your concept, the tooth, the operation, and the forceps are unchanged.

Serving two masters

Material beliefs must be expelled to make room for spiritual understanding. We cannot serve both God and mammon at the same time; but is not this what frail mortals are trying to do? Paul sa3 "The flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh." Who is ready to admit this?

It is said by one critic, that to verify this wonderful philosophy Christian Science declares that whatever is mortal or discordant has no origin, existence, nor realness. Nothing really has Life but God, who is infinite Life; hence all is Life, and death has no dominion. This writer infers that if anything needs to be doctored, it must be the one God, or Mind. Had he stated his syllogism correctly, the conclusion would be that there is nothing left to be doctored.

Essential element of Christianity

Critics should consider that the so-called mortal man is not the reality of man. Then they would behold the signs of Christ's coming. Christ, as the spiritual or true idea of God, comes now as of old, preaching the gospel to the poor, healing the sick, and casting out evils. Is it error which is restoring an essential element of Christianity, namely, apostolic, divine healing? No; it is the Science of Christianity which is restoring it, and is the light shining in darkness, which the darkness comprehends not.

If Christian Science takes away the popular gods, sin, sickness, and death, it is Christ, Truth, who destroys these evils, and so proves their nothingness.

The dream that matter and error are something must yield to reason and revelation. Then mortals will behold the nothingness of sickness and sin, and sin and sickness will disappear from consciousness. The harmonious will appear real, and the inharmonious unreal. These critics will then see that error is indeed the nothingness, which they chide us for naming nothing and which we desire neither to honor nor to fear.

Medical theories virtually admit the nothingness of hallucinations, even while treating them as disease; and who objects to this? Ought we not, then, to approve any cure, which is effected by making the disease appear to be what it really is an illusion?

All disease a delusion

Here is the difficult is not generally understood how one disease can be just as much a delusion as another. It is a pity that the medical faculty and clergy have not learned this, for Jesus established this foundational fact, when devils, delusions, were cast out and the dumb said.

Elimination of sickness

Are we irreverent towards sin, or imputing too much power to God, when we ascribe to Him almighty Life and Love? I deny His cooperation with evil, because I desire to have no faith in evil or in any power but God, good. Is it not well to eliminate from so-called mortal mind that which, so long as it remains in mortal mind, will show itself in forms of sin, sickness, and death? Instead of tenaciously defending the supposed rights of disease, while complaining of the suffering, disease brings, would it not be well to abandon the defence, especially when by so doing our own condition can be improved and that of other persons as well?

Full fruitage yet to come

I have never supposed the world would immediately witness the full fruitage of Christian Science, or that sin, disease, and death would not be believed for an indefinite time; but this I do aver, that, as a result of teaching Christian Science, ethics and temperance have received all impulse, health has been restored, and longevity increased. If such are the present fruits, what will the harvest be, when this Science is more generally understood?

Law and gospel

As Paul asked of the unfaithful in ancient days, so the rabbis of the present day ask concerning our healing and teaching, "Through breaking the law, dishonorest you God?" We have the gospel, however, and our Master annulled material law by healing contrary to it. We propose to follow the Master's example. We should subordinate material law to spiritual law. Two essential points of Christian Science are, that neither Life nor man dies, and that God is not the author of sickness.

Language inadequate

The chief difficulty in conveying the teachings of divine Science accurately to human thought lies in this, that like all other languages, English is inadequate to the expression of spiritual conceptions and propositions, because one is obliged to use material terms in dealing with spiritual ideas. The elucidation of Christian Science lies in its spiritual sense, and this sense must be gained by its disciples in order to grasp the meaning of this Science. Out of this condition grew the prophecy concerning the Christian apostles, "They shall speak with new tongues."

Speaking of the things of Spirit while dwelling on a material plane, material terms must be generally employed. Mortal thought does not at once catch the higher meaning, and can do so only as thought is educated up to spiritual apprehension. To a certain extent this is equally true of all learning, even that which is wholly material.

Substance spiritual

In Christian Science, substance is understood to be Spirit, while the opponents of Christian Science believe substance to be matter. They think of matter as something and almost the only thing, and of the things which pertain to Spirit as next to nothing, or as very far removed from daily experience. Christian Science takes exactly the opposite view.

Both words and works

To understand all our Master's sayings as recorded in the New Testament, sayings infinitely important, his followers must grow into that stature of manhood in Christ Jesus which enables them to interpret his spiritual meaning. Then they know how Truth casts out error and heals the sick. His words were the offspring of his deeds, both of which must be understood. Unless the works are comprehended which his words explained, the words are blind.

The Master often refused to explain his words, because it was difficult in a material age to apprehend spiritual Truth. He saThis people's heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed; lest at any time they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and should understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them."

The divine life-link

"The Word was made flesh." Divine Truth must be known by its effects on the body as well as on the mind, before the Science of being can be demonstrated. Hence its embodiment in the incarnate Jesus, that life-link forming the connection through which the real reaches the unreal, Soul rebukes sense, and Truth destroys error.

Truth a present help

In Jewish worship the Word was materially explained, and the spiritual sense was scarcely perceived. The religion which sprang from half-hidden Israelitish history was pedantic and void of healing power. When we lose faith in God's power to heal, we distrust the divine Principle which demonstrates Christian Science, and then we cannot heal the sick. Neither can we heal through the help of Spirit, if we plant ourselves on a material basis.

The author became a member of the orthodox Congregational Church in early years. Later she learned that her own prayers failed to heal her as did the prayers of her devout parents and the church; but when the spiritual sense of the creed was discerned in the Science of Christianity, this spiritual sense was a/ present help/. It was the living, palpitating presence of Christ, Truth, which healed the sick.

Fatal premises

We cannot bring out the practical proof of Christianity, which Jesus required, while error seems as potent and real to us as Truth, and while we make a personal devil and an anthropomorphic God our starting-points, especially if we consider Satan as a being coequal in power with Deity, if not superior to Him. Because such starting-points are neither spiritual nor scientific, they cannot work out the Spirit-rule of Christian healing, which proves the nothingness of error, discord, by demonstrating the all-inclusiveness of harmonious Truth.

Fruitless worship

The Israelites centred their thoughts on the material in their attempted worship of the spiritual. To them matter was substance, and Spirit was shadow. They thought to worship Spirit from a material standpoint, but this was impossible. They might appeal to Jehovah, but their prayer brought down no proof that it was heard, because they did not sufficiently understand God to be able to demonstrate His power to heal, to make harmony the reality and discord the unreality.

Spirit the tangible

Our Master declared that his material body was not spirit, evidently considering it a mortal and material belief of flesh and bones, whereas the Jews took a diametrically opposite view. To Jesus, not materiality, but spirituality, was the reality of man's existence, while to the rabbis the spiritual was the intangible and uncertain, if not the unreal.

Ghosts not realities

Would a mother say to her child, who is frightened at imaginary ghosts and sick in consequence of the fe "I know that ghosts are real. They exist, and are to be feared; but you must not be afraid of them"?

Children, like adults, /ought/ to fear a reality which can harm them and which they do not understand, for at any moment they may become its helpless victims; but instead of increasing children's fears by declaring ghosts to be real, merciless, and powerful, thus watering the very roots of childish timidity, children should be assured that their fears are groundless, that ghosts are not realities, but traditional beliefs, erroneous and man-made.

In short, children should be told not to believe in ghosts, because there are no such things. If belief in their reality is destroyed, terror of ghosts will depart and health be restored. The objects of alarm will then vanish into nothingness, no longer seeming worthy of fear or honor. To accomplish a good result, it is certainly not irrational to tell the truth about ghosts.

The real and the unreal

The Christianly scientific real is the sensuous unreal. Sin, disease, whatever seems real to material sense, is unreal in divine Science. The physical senses and Science have ever been antagonistic, and they will so continue, till the testimony of the physical senses yields entirely to Christian Science.

How can a Christian, having the stronger evidence of Truth which contradicts the evidence of error, think of the latter as real or true, either in the form of sickness or of sin? All must admit that Christ is "the way, the truth, and the life," and that omnipotent Truth certainly does destroy error.

Superstition obsolete

The age has not wholly outlived the sense of ghostly beliefs. It still holds them more or less. Time has not yet reached eternity, immortality, complete reality. All the real is eternal. Perfection underlies reality. Without perfection, nothing is wholly real. All things will continue to disappear, until perfection appears and reality is reached. We must give up the spectral at all points. We must not continue to admit the somethingness of superstition, but we must yield up all belief in it and be wise. When we learn that error is not real, we shall be ready for progress, "forgetting those things which are behind."

The grave does not banish the ghost of materiality. So long as there are supposed limits to Mind, and those limits are human, so long will ghosts seem to continue. Mind is limitless. It never was material. The true idea of being is spiritual and immortal, and from this it follows that whatever is laid off is the ghost, some unreal belief. Mortal beliefs can neither demonstrate Christianity nor apprehend the reality of Life.

Christian warfare

Are the protests of Christian Science against the notion that there can be material life, substance, or mind "utter falsities and absurdities," as some aver? Why then do Christians try to obey the Scriptures and war against "the world, the flesh, and the devil"? Why do they invoke the divine aid to enable them to leave all for Christ, Truth? Why do they use this phraseology, and yet deny Christian Science, when it teaches precisely this thought? The words of divine Science find their immortality in deeds, for their Principle heals the sick and spiritualizes humanity.

Healing omitted

On the other hand, the Christian opponents of Christian Science neither give nor offer any proofs that their Master's religion can heal the sick. Surely it is not enough to cleave to barren and desultory dogmas, derived from the traditions of the elders who thereunto have set their seals.

Scientific consistency

Consistency is seen in example more than in precept. Inconsistency is shown by words without deeds, which are like clouds without rain. If our words fail to express our deeds, God will redeem that weakness, and out of the mouth of babes He will perfect praise. The night of materiality is far spent, and with the dawn Truth will waken men spiritually to hear and to speak the new tongue.

Sin should become unreal to every one. It is in itself inconsistent, a divided kingdom. Its supposed realism has no divine authority, and I rejoice in the apprehension of this grand verity.

Spiritual meaning

The opponents of divine Science must be charitable, if they would be Christian. If the letter of Christian Science appears inconsistent, they should gain the spiritual meaning of Christian Science, and then the ambiguity will vanish.

Practical arguments

The charge of inconsistency in Christianly scientific methods of dealing with sin and disease is met by something practical, namely, the proof of the utility of these methods; and proofs are better than mere verbal arguments or prayers which evince no spiritual power to heal.

As for sin and disease, Christian Science says, in the language of the Master, "Follow me; and let the dead bury their dead." Let discord of every name and nature be heard no more, and let the harmonious and true sense of Life and being take possession of human consciousness.

What is the relative value of the two conflicting theories regarding Christian healing? One, according to the commands of our Master, heals the sick. The other, popular religion, declines to admit that Christ's religion has exercised any systematic healing power since the first century.

Conditions of criticism

The statement that the teachings of Christian Science in this work are "absolutely false, and the most egregious fallacies ever offered for acceptance," is an opinion wholly due to a misapprehension both of the divine Principle and practice of Christian Science and to a consequent inability to demonstrate this Science. Without this understanding, no one is capable of impartial or correct criticism, because demonstration and spiritual understanding are God's immortal keynotes, proved to be such by our Master and evidenced by the sick who are cured and by the sinners who are reformed.

Weakness of material theories

Strangely enough, we ask for material theories in support of spiritual and eternal truths, when the two are so antagonistic that the material thought must become spiritualized before the spiritual fact is attained. So-called material existence affords no evidence theories of spiritual existence and immortality. Sin, sickness, and death do not prove man's entity or immortality. Discord can never establish the facts of harmony. Matter is not the vestibule of Spirit.

Irreconciliable differences

Jesus reasoned on this subject practically, and controlled sickness, sin, and death on the basis of his spirituality. Understanding the nothingness of material things, he spoke of flesh and Spirit as the two opposites, as error and Truth, not contributing in any way to each other's happiness and existence. Jesus knew, "It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing."

Copartnership impossible

There is neither a present nor an eternal copartnership between error and Truth, between flesh and Spirit. God is as incapable of producing sin, sickness, and death as He is of experiencing these errors. How then is it possible for Him to create man subject to this triad of errors, man who is made in the divine likeness?

Does God create a material man out of Himself, Spirit? Does evil proceed from good? Does divine Love commit a fraud on humanity by making man inclined to sin, and then punishing him for it? Would any one call it wise and good to create the primitive, and then punish its derivative?

Two infinite creators absurd

Does subsequent follow its antecedent? It does. Was there original self-creative sin? Then there must have been more than one creator, more than one God. In common justice, we must admit that God will not punish man for doing what He created man capable of doing, and knew from the outset that man would do. God is "of purer eyes than to behold evil." We sustain Truth, not by accepting, but by rejecting a lie.

Jesus said of personified evil, that it was "a liar, and the father of it." Truth creates neither a lie, a capacity to lie, nor a liar. If mankind would relinquish the belief that God makes sickness, sin, and death, or makes man capable of suffering on account of this malevolent triad, the foundations of error would be sapped and error's destruction ensured; but if we theoretically endow mortals with the creativeness and authority of Deity, how dare we attempt to destroy what He hasmade, or even to deny that God made man evil and made evil good?

Anthropomorphism

History teaches that the popular and false notions about the Divine Being and character have originated in the human mind. As there is in reality but one God, one Mind, wrong notions about God must have originated in a false supposition, not in immortal Truth, and they are fading out. They are false claims, which will eventually disappear, according to the vision of St. John in the Apocalypse.

One supremacy

If what opposes God is real, there must be two powers, and God is not supreme and infinite. Can Deity be almighty, if another mighty and self-creative cause exists and sways mankind? Has the Father "Life in Himself," as the Scriptures say, and, if so, can Life, or God, dwell in evil and create it? Can matter drive Life, Spirit, hence, and so defeat omnipotence?

Matter impotent

Is the woodman's axe, which destroys a tree's so-called life, superior to omnipotence? Can a leaden bullet deprive a man of Life, that is, of God, who is man's Life? If God is at the mercy of matter, then matter is omnipotent. Such doctrines are "confusion worse confounded." If two statements directly contradict each other and one is true, the other must be false. Is Science thus contradictory?

Scientific and Biblical facts

Christian Science, understood, coincides with the Scriptures, and sustains logically and demonstratively every point it presents. Otherwise it would not be Science, and could not present its proofs. Christian Science is neither made up of contradictory aphorisms nor of the inventions of those who scoff at God. It presents the calm and clear verdict of Truth against error, uttered and illustrated by the prophets, by Jesus, by his apostles, as is recorded throughout the Scriptures.

Why are the words of Jesus more frequently cited for our instruction than are his remarkable works? Is it not because there are few who have gained a true knowledge of the great import to Christianity of those works?

Personal confidence

Sometimes it is said; "Rest assured that whatever effect Christian Scientists may have on the sick, comes through rousing within the sick a belief that in the removal of disease these healers have wonderful power, derived from the Holy Ghost." Is it likely that church-members have more faith in some Christian Scientist, whom they have perhaps never seen and against whom they have been warned, than they have in their own accredited and orthodox pastors, whom they have seen and have been taught to love and to trust?

Let any clergyman try to cure his friends by their faith in him. Will that faith heal them? Yet Scientists will take the same cases, and cures will follow. Is this because the patients have more faith in the Scientist than in their pastor? I have healed infidels whose only objection to this method was, that I as a Christian Scientist believed in the Holy Spirit, while they, the patients, did not.

Even though you aver that the material senses are indispensable to man's existence or entity, you must change the human concept of life, and must at length know yourself spiritually and scientifically. The evidence of the existence of Spirit, Soul, is palpable only to spiritual sense, and is not apparent to the material senses, which cognize only that which is the opposite of Spirit.

True Christianity is to be honored wherever found, but when shall we arrive at the goal which that word implies? From Puritan parents, the discoverer of Christian Science early received her religious education. In childhood, she often listened with joy to these words, falling from the lips of her saintly mother, "God is able to raise you up from sickness;" and she pondered the meaning of that Scripture she so often quotAnd these signs shall follow them that believe; . . . they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover."

Two different artists

A Christian Scientist and an opponent are like two artists. One saI have spiritual ideals, indestructible and glorious. When others see them as I do, in their true light and loveliness, and know that these ideals are real and eternal because drawn from Truth, they will find that nothing is lost, and all is won, by a right estimate of what is real."

The other artist repliYou wrong my experience. I have no mind-ideals except those which are both mental and material. It is true that materiality renders these ideals imperfect and destructible; yet I would not exchange mine for your, for mine give me such personal pleasure, and they are not so shockingly transcendental. They require less self-abnegation, and keep Soul well out of sight. Moreover, I have no notion of losing my old doctrines or human opinions."

Choose ye to-day

Dear reader, which mind-picture or externalized thought shall be real to you, the material or the spiritual? Both you cannot have. You are bringing out your own ideal. This ideal is either temporal or eternal. Either Spirit or matter is your model. If you try to have two models, then you practically have none. Like a pendulum in a clock, you will be thrown back and forth, striking the ribs of matter and swinging between the real and the unreal.

Hear the wisdom of Job, as given in the excellent translation of the late Rev. George R. Noyes, D. Shall mortal man be more just than God? Shall man be more pure than his Maker? Behold, He puts no trust in His ministering spirits, And His angels He chargeth with frailty.

Of old, the Jews put to death the Galilean Prophet, the best Christian on earth, for the truth he spoke and demonstrated, while to-day, Jew and Christian can unite in doctrine and denomination on the very basis of Jesus' words and works. The Jew believes that the Messiah or Christ has not yet come; the Christian believes that Christ is God. Here Christian Science intervenes, explains these doctrinal points, cancels the disagreement, and settles the question. Christ, as the true spiritual idea, is the ideal of God now and forever, here and everywhere. The Jew who believes in the First Commandment is a monotheist; he has one omnipresent God. Thus the Jew unites with the Christian's doctrine that God is come and is present now and forever. The Christian who believes in the First Commandment is a monotheist. This he virtually unites with the Jew's belief in one God, and recognizes that Jesus Christ is not God, as Jesus himself declared, but is the Son of God. This declaration of Jesus, understood, conflicts notat all with another of his sayinI and my Father are one," that is, one in quality, not in quantity. As a drop of water is one with the ocean, a ray of light one with the, sun, even so God and man, Father and son, are one in being. The Scripture reaFor in Him we live, and move, and have our being."

I have revised /Science and Health/ only to give a clearer and fuller expression of its original meaning. Spiritual ideas unfold as we advance. A human perception of divine Science, however limited, must be correct in order to be Science and subject to demonstration. A germ of infinite Truth, though least in the kingdom of heaven is the higher hope on earth, but it will be rejected and reviled until God prepares the soil for the seed. That which when sown bears immortal fruit, enriches mankind only when it is understood, hence the many readings given the Scriptures, and the requisite revisions of /Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures/.

Why are you cast down, O my soul [sense]? And why are you disquieted within me? Hope you in God; for I shall yet praise Him, Who is the health of my countenance and my God. PSALMS.

And these signs shall follow them that belien my name shall they cast out devihey shall speak with new tongues; they shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover. Jesus.

A gospel narrative

IT is related in the seventh chapter of Luke's Gospel that Jesus was once the honored guest of a certain Pharisee, by name Simon, though he was quite unlike Simon the disciple. While they were at meat, an unusual incident occurred, as if to interrupt the scene of Oriental festivity. A "strange woman" came in. Heedless of the fact that she was debarred from such a place and such society, especially under the stern rules of rabbinical law, as positively as if she were a Hindoo pariah intruding upon the household of a high-caste Brahman, this woman (Mary Magdalene, as she has since been called) approached Jesus. According to the custom of those days, he reclined on a couch with his head towards the table and his bare feet away from it. It was therefore easy for the Magdalen to come behind the couch and reach his feet. She bore an alabaster jar containing costly and fragrant oil, sandal oil perhaps, which is in such common use in the East. Breaking the sealed jar, she perfumed Jesus' feet with the oil, wiping tem with her long hair, which hung loosely about her shoulders, as was customary with women of her grade. Parable of the creditor

Did Jesus spurn the woman? Did he repel her adoration? No! He regarded her compassionately. Nor was this all. Knowing what those around him were saying in their hearts, especially his host, that they were wondering why, being a prophet, the exalted guest did not at once detect the woman's immoral status and bid her depart, knowing this, Jesus rebuked them with a short story or parable. He described two debtors, one for a large sum and one for a smaller, who were released from their obligations by their common creditor. "Which of them will love him most?" was the Master's question to Simon the Pharisee; and Simon replied, "He to whom he forgave most." Jesus approved the answer, and so brought home the lesson to all, following it with that remarkable declaration to the woman, "Your sins are forgiven."

Divine insight

Why did he thus summarize her debt to divine Love? Had she repented and reformed, and did his insight detect this unspoken moral uprising? She bathed his feet with her tears before she anointed them with the oil. In the absence of other proofs, was her grief sufficient evidence to warrant the expectation of her repentance, reformation, and growth in wisdom? Certainly there was encouragement in the mere fact that she was showing her affection for a man of undoubted goodness and purity, who has since been rightfully regarded as the best man that ever trod this planet. Her reverence was unfeigned, and it was manifested towards one who was soon, though they knew it not, to lay down his mortal existence in behalf of all sinners, that through his word and works they might be redeemed from sensuality and sin.

Penitence or hospitality

Which was the higher tribute to such ineffable affection, the hospitality of the Pharisee or the contrition of the Magdalen? This query Jesus answered by rebuking self-righteousness and declaring the absolution of the penitent. He even said that this poor woman had done what his rich entertainer had neglected to do, wash and anoint his guest's feet, a special sign of Oriental courtesy. Here is suggested a solemn question, a question indicated by one of the needs of this age. Do Christian Scientists seek Truth as Simon sought the Saviour, through material conservatism and for personal homage? Jesus told Simon that such seekers as he gave small reward in return for the spiritual purgation which came through the Messiah. If Christian Scientists are like Simon, then it must be said of them also that they /love/ little.

Genuine repentance

On the other hand, do they show their regard for Truth, or Christ, by their genuine repentance, by their broken hearts, expressed by meekness and human affection, as did this woman? If so, then it may be said of them, as Jesus said of the unwelcome visitor, that they indeed love much, because much is forgiven them.

Compassion requisite

Did the careless doctor, the nurse, the cook, and the brusque business visitor sympathetically know the thorns they plant in the pillow of the sick and the heavenly homesick looking away from earth, Oh, did they know! this knowledge would do much more towards healing the sick and preparing their helpers for the "midnight call," than all cries of "Lord, Lord!" The benign thought of Jesus, finding utterance in such words as "Take no thought for your life," would heal the sick, and so enable them to rise above the supposed necessity for physical thought-taking and doctoring; but if the unselfish affections be lacking, and common sense and common humanity are disregarded, what mental quality remains, with which to evoke healing from the outstretched arm of righteousness?

Speedy healing

If the Scientist reaches his patient through divine Love, the healing work will be accomplished at one visit, and the disease will vanish into its native nothingness like dew before the morning sunshine. If the Scientist has enough Christly affection to win his own pardon, and such commendation as the Magdalen gained from Jesus, then he is Christian enough to practise scientifically and deal with his patients compassionately; and the result will correspond with the spiritual intent.

Truth desecrated

If hypocrisy, stolidity, inhumanity, or vice finds its way into the chambers of disease through the would-be healer, it would, if it were possible, convert into a den of thieves the temple of the Holy Ghost, the patient's spiritual power to resuscitate himself. The unchristian practitioner is not giving to mind or body the joy and strength of Truth. The poor suffering heart needs its rightful nutriment, such as peace, patience in tribulation, and a priceless sense of the dear Father's loving-kindness.

Moral evils to be cast out

In order to cure his patient, the metaphysician must first cast moral evils out of himself and thus attain the spiritual freedom which will enable him to cast physical evils out of his patient; but heal he cannot, while his own spiritual barrenness debars him from giving drink to the thirsty and hinders him from reaching his patient's thought, yea, while mental penury chills his faith and understanding.

The true physician

The physician who lacks sympathy for his fellowbeing is deficient in human affection, and we have the apostolic warrant for ask "He that loveth not his brother whom he hasseen, how can he love God whom he hasnot seen?" Not having this spiritual affection, the physician lacks faith in the divine Mind and has not that recognition of infinite Love which alone confers the healing power. Such so-called Scientists will strain out gnats, while they swallow the camels of bigoted pedantry.

Source of calmness

The physician must also watch, lest he be overwhelmed by a sense of the odiousness of sin and by the unveiling of sin in his own thoughts. The sick are terrified by their sick beliefs, and sinners should be affrighted by their sinful beliefs; but the Christian Scientist will be calm in the presence of both sin and disease, knowing, as he does, that Life is God and God is All.

Genuine healing

If we would open their prison doors for the sick, we must first learn to bind up the broken-hearted. If we would heal by the Spirit, we must not hide the talent of spiritual healing under the napkin of its form, nor bury the /morale /of Christian Science in the grave-clothes of its letter. The tender word and Christian encouragement of an invalid, pitiful patience with his fears and the removal of them, are better than hecatombs of gushing theories, stereotyped borrowed speeches, and the doling of arguments, which are but so many parodies on legitimate Christian Science, aflame with divine Love.

Gratitude and humility

This is what is meant by seeking Truth, Christ, not "for the loaves and fishes," nor, like the Pharisee, with the arrogance of rank and display of scholarship, but like Mary Magdalene, from the summit of devout consecration, with the oil of gladness and the perfume of /gratitude/, with tears of repentance and with those hairs all numbered by the Father.

The salt of the earth

A Christian Scientist occupies the place at this period of which Jesus spoke to his disciples, when he saYe are the salt of the earth." "Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid." Let us watch, work, and pray that this salt lose not its saltness, and that this light be not hid, but radiate and glow into noontide glory.

The infinite Truth of the Christ-cure has come to this age through a "still, small voice," through silent utterances and divine anointing which quicken and increase the beneficial effects of Christianity. I long to see the consummation of my hope, namely, the student's higher attainments in this line of light.

Real and counterfeit

Because Truth is infinite, error should be known as nothing. Because Truth is omnipotent in goodness, error, Truth's opposite, has no might. Evil is but the counterpoise of nothingness. The greatest wrong is but a supposititious opposite of the highest right. The confidence inspired by Science lies in the fact that Truth is real and error is unreal. Error is a coward before Truth. Divine Science insists that time will prove all this. Both truth and error have come nearer than ever before to the apprehension of mortals, and truth will become still clearer as error is selfdestroyed.

Results of faith in Truth

Against the fatal beliefs that error is as real as Truth, that evil is equal in power to good if not superior, and that discord is as normal as harmony, even the hope of freedom from the bondage of sickness and sin has little inspiration to nerve endeavor. When we come to have more faith in the truth of being than we have in error, more faith in Spirit than in matter, more faith in living than in dying, more faith in God than in man, then no material suppositions can prevent us from healing the sick and destroying error.

Life independent of matter

That Life is not contingent on bodily conditions is proved, when we learn that life and man survive this body. Neither evil, disease, nor death can be spiritual, and the material belief in them disappears in the ratio of one's spiritual growth. Because matter has no consciousness or Ego, it cannot act; its conditions are illusions, and these false conditions are the source of all seeming sickness. Admit the existence of matter, and you admit that mortality (and therefore disease) has a foundation in fact. Deny the existence of matter, and you can destroy the belief in material conditions. When fear disappears, the foundation of disease is gone. Once let the mental physician believe in the reality of matter, and he is liable to admit also the reality of all discordant conditions, and this hinders his destroying them. Thus he is unfitted for the successful treatment of disease.

Man's entity

In proportion as matter loses to human sense all entity as man, in that proportion does man become its master. He enters into a diviner sense of the facts, and comprehends the theology of Jesus as demonstrated in healing the sick, raising the dead, and walking over the wave. All these deeds manifested Jesus' control over the belief that matter is substance, that it can be the arbiter of life or the constructor of any form of existence.

The Christ treatment

We never read that Luke or Paul made a reality of disease in order to discover some means of healing it. Jesus never asked if disease were acute or chronic, and he never recommended attention to laws of health, never give drugs, never prayed to know if God were willing that a man should live. He understood man, whose life is God, to be immortal, and knew that man has not two lives, one to be destroyed and the other to be made indestructible.

Matter not medicine

The prophylactic and therapeutic (that is, the preventive and curative) arts belong emphatically to Christian Science, as would be readily seen, if psychology, or the Science of Spirit, God, was understood. Unscientific methods are finding their dead level. Limited to matter by their own law, what have they of the advantages of Mind and immortality?

No healing in sin

No man is physically healed in wilful error or by it, any more than he is morally saved in or by sin. It is error even to murmur or to be angry over sin. To be every whit whole, man must be better spiritually as well as physically. To be immortal, we must forsake the mortal sense of things, turn from the lie of false belief to Truth, and gather the facts of being from the divine Mind. The body improves under the same regimen which spiritualizes the thought; and if health is not made manifest under this regimen, this proves that fear is governing the body. This is the law of cause and effect, or like producing like.

Like curing like

Homoeopayour furnishes the evidence to the senses, that symptoms, which might be produced by a certain drug, are removed by using the same drug which might cause the symptoms. This confirms my theory that faith in the drug is the sole factor in the cure. The effect, which mortal mind produces through one belief, it removes through an opposite belief, but it uses the same medicine in both cases. The moral and spiritual facts of health, whispered into thought, produce very direct and marked effects on the body. A physical diagnosis of disease since mortal mind must be the cause of disease tends to induce disease.

Transient potency of drugs

According to both medical testimony and individual experience, a drug may eventually lose its supposed power and do no more for the patient. Hygienic treatment also loses its efficacy. Quackery likewise fails at length to inspire the credulity of the sick, and then they cease to improve. These lessons are useful. They should naturally and genuinely change our basis from sensation to Christian Science, from error to Truth, from matter to Spirit.

Diagnosis of matter

Physicians examine the pulse, tongue, lungs, to discover the condition of matter, when in fact all is Mind. The body is the substratum of mortal mind, and this so-called mind must finally yield to the mandate of immortal Mind.

Ghost-stories inducing fear

Disquisitions on disease have a mental effect similar to that produced on children by telling ghost-stories in the dark. By those uninstructed in Christian Science, nothing is really understood of material existence. Mortals are believed to be here without their consent and to be removed as involuntarily, not knowing why nor when. As frightened children look everywhere for the imaginary ghost, so sick humanity sees danger in every direction, and looks for relief in all ways except the right one. Darkness induces fear. The adult, in bondage to his beliefs, no more comprehends his real being than does the child; and the adult must be taken out of his darkness, before he can get rid of the illusive sufferings which throng the gloaming. The way in divine Science is the only way out of this condition.

Mind imparts purity, health, and beauty

I would not transform the infant at once into a man, nor would I keep the suckling a lifelong babe. No impossible thing do I ask when urging the claims of Christian Science; but because this teaching is in advance of the age, we should not deny our need of its spiritual unfoldment. Mankind will improve through Science and Christianity. The necessity for uplifting the race is father to the fact that Mind can do it; for Mind can impart purity instead of impurity, strength instead of weakness, and health instead of disease. Truth is an alterative in the entire system, and can make it "every whit whole."

Brain not intelligent

Remember, brain is not mind. Matter cannot be sick, and Mind is immortal. The mortal body is only an erroneous mortal belief of mind in matter. What you call matter was originally error in solution, elementary mortal mind, likened by Milton to "chaos and old night." One theory about this mortal mind is, that its sensations can reproduce man, can form blood, flesh, and bones. The Science of being, in which all is divine Mind, or God and His idea, would be clearer in this age, but for the belief that matter is the medium of man, or that man can enter his own embodied thought, bind himself with his own beliefs, and then call his bonds material and name them divine law.

Veritable success

When man demonstrates Christian Science absolutely, he will be perfect. He can neither sin, suffer, be subject to matter, nor disobey the law of God. Therefore he will be as the angels in heaven. Christian Science and Christianity are one. How, then, in Christianity any more than in Christian Science, can we believe in the reality and power of both Truth and error, Spirit and matter, and hope to succeed with contraries? Matter is not self-sustaining. Its false supports fail one after another. Matter succeeds for a period only by falsely parading in the vestments of law.

Recognition of benefits

"Whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before my Father which is in heaven." In Christian Science, a denial of Truth is fatal, while a just acknowledgment of Truth and of what it has done for us is an effectual help. If pride, superstition, or any error prevents the honest recognition of benefits received, this will be a hindrance to the recovery of the sick and the success of the student.

Disease far more docile than iniquity

If we are Christians on all moral questions, but are in darkness as to the physical exemption which Christianity includes, then we must have more faith in God on this subject and be more alive to His promises. It is easier to cure the most malignant disease than it is to cure sin. The author has raised up the dying, partly because they were willing to be restored, while she has struggled long, and perhaps in vain, to lift a student out of a chronic sin. Under all modes of pathological treatment, the sick recover more rapidly from disease than does the sinner from his sin. Healing is easier than teaching, if the teaching is faithfully done.

Love frees from fear

The fear of disease and the love of sin are the sources of man's enslavement. "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom," but the Scriptures also declare, through the exalted thought of John, that "perfect Love casts out fear."

The fear occasioned by ignorance can be cured; but to remove the effects of fear produced by sin, you must rise above both fear and sin. Disease is expressed not so much by the lips as in the functions of the body. Establish the scientific sense of health, and you relieve the oppressed organ. The inflammation, decomposition, or deposit will abate, and the disabled organ will resume its healthy functions.

Mind circulates blood

When the blood rushes madly through the veins or languidly creeps along its frozen channels, we call these conditions disease. This is a misconception. Mortal mind is producing the propulsion or the languor, and we prove this to be so when by mental means the circulation is changed, and returns to that standard which mortal mind has decided upon as essential for health. Anodynes, counter-irritants, and depletion never reduce inflammation scientifically, but the truth of being, whispered into the ear of mortal mind, will bring relief.

Mind can destroy all ills

Hatred and its effects on the body are removed by Love. Because mortal mind seems to be conscious, the sick sHow can my mind cause a disease I never thought of and knew nothing about, until it appeared on my body?" The author has answered this question in her explanation of disease as originating in human belief before it is consciously apparent on the body, which is in fact the objective state of mortal mind, though it is called matter. This mortal blindness and its sharp consequences show our need of divine metaphysics. Through immortal Mind, or Truth, we can destroy all ills which proceed from mortal mind.