The Project Gutenberg EBook of Miscellaneous Writings, 1883-1896 by Mary Baker Eddy

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Miscellaneous Writings

1883-1896

by

Mary Baker Eddy

Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science

and Author of Science and Health with

Key to the Scriptures

Published by the

Trustees under the Will of Mary Baker G. Eddy

Boston, U. S. A.

Copyright, 1896

By Mary Baker G. Eddy

Copyright renewed, 1924

Contents

• Dedication.
• Epigrams.
• Preface.
• Chapter I. Introductory.
• Prospectus.
• A Timely Issue.
• Love Your Enemies.
• Christian Theism.
• The New Birth.
• Chapter II. One Cause And Effect.
• Chapter III. Questions And Answers.
• Chapter IV. Addresses.
• Christian Science In Tremont Temple.
• Science And The Senses.
• Extract From My First Address In The Mother Church, May 26, 1895
• Address Before The Alumni Of The Massachusetts Metaphysical College, 1895
• Address Before The Christian Scientist Association Of The Massachusetts Metaphysical College, In 1893
• Communion Address, January, 1896
• Message To The Annual Meeting Of The Mother Church, Boston, 1896
• Chapter V. Letters.
• To The Mother Church.
• To ——, On Prayer.
• To The National Christian Scientist Association.
• To The College Association.
• To The National Christian Scientist Association.
• To The First Church Of Christ, Scientist, Boston.
• To Donors Of Boat, From Toronto, Canada.
• Address,—Laying The Corner-Stone.
• To The First Church Of Christ, Scientist, Boston
• The First Members Of The First Church Of Christ, Scientist, Boston, Massachusetts
• Extract From A Letter
• To The Mother Church
• To First Church Of Christ, Scientist, In Oconto
• To First Church Of Christ, Scientist, In Scranton
• To First Church Of Christ, Scientist, In Denver
• To First Church Of Christ, Scientist, In Lawrence
• To Correspondents
• To Students
• To A Student
• To A Student
• Extract From A Christmas Letter
• Chapter VI. Sermons.
• A Christmas Sermon
• Editor's Extracts From Sermon
• Extract From A Sermon Delivered In Boston, January 18, 1885
• Sunday Services on July Fourth
• Easter Services
• Bible Lessons
• Chapter VII. Pond And Purpose.
• Chapter VIII. Precept Upon Precept
• “Thy Will Be Done”
• “Put Up Thy Sword”
• Scientific Theism
• Mental Practice
• Taking Offense
• Hints To The Clergy
• Perfidy And Slander
• Contagion
• Improve Your Time
• Thanksgiving Dinner
• Christian Science
• Injustice
• Reformers
• Mrs. Eddy Sick
• “I've Got Cold”
• “Prayer And Healing”
• Veritas Odium Parit
• Falsehood
• Love
• Address On The Fourth Of July At Pleasant View, Concord, N. H., Before 2,500 Members Of The Mother Church, 1897
• Well Doinge Is The Fruite Of Doinge Well
• Little Gods
• Advantage Of Mind-Healing
• A Card
• Spirit And Law
• Truth-Healing
• Heart To Heart
• Things To Be Thought Of
• Unchristian Rumor
• Vainglory
• Compounds
• Close Of The Massachusetts Metaphysical College
• Malicious Reports
• Loyal Christian Scientists
• The March Primary Class
• Obtrusive Mental Healing
• Wedlock
• Judge Not
• New Commandment
• A Cruce Salus
• Comparison to English Barmaids
• A Christian Science Statute
• Advice To Students
• Notice
• Angels
• Deification Of Personality
• A Card
• Overflowing Thoughts
• A Great Man And His Saying
• Words Of Commendation
• Church And School
• Class, Pulpit, Students' Students
• My Students And Thy Students
• Unseen Sin
• A Word To The Wise
• Christmas
• Card
• Message To The Mother Church
• Chapter IX. The Fruit Of Spirit
• An Allegory
• Voices Of Spring
• “Where Art Thou?”
• Divine Science
• Fidelity
• True Philosophy And Communion
• Origin Of Evil
• Truth Versus Error
• Fallibility Of Human Concepts
• The Way
• Science And Philosophy
• “Take Heed!”
• The Cry Of Christmas-Tide
• Blind Leaders
• “Christ And Christmas”
• Sunrise At Pleasant View
• Chapter X. Inklings Historic
• Chapter XI. Poems
• Come Thou
• Meeting Of My Departed Mother And Husband
• Love
• Woman's Rights
• The Mother's Evening Prayer
• June
• Wish And Item
• The Oak On The Mountain's Summit
• Isle Of Wight
• Hope
• Rondelet
• To Mr. James T. White
• Autumn
• Christ My Refuge
• “Feed My Sheep”
• Communion Hymn
• Laus Deo!
• A Verse
• Chapter XII. Testimonials
• Footnotes

[pg v]

Dedication.

To

Loyal Christian Scientists

In This And Every Land

I Lovingly Dedicate These Practical Teachings

Indispensable To The Culture And Achievements Which

Constitute The Success Of A Student

And Demonstrate The Ethics

Of Christian Science

Mary Baker Eddy

[pg vii]

Epigrams.

Pray thee, take care, that tak'st my book in hand,

To read it well; that is, to understand.

Ben Jonson: Epigram 1

When I would know thee ... my thought looks

Upon thy well made choice of friends and books;

Then do I love thee, and behold thy ends

In making thy friends books, and thy books friends.

Ben Jonson: Epigram 86

If worlds were formed by matter,

And mankind from the dust;

Till time shall end more timely,

There's nothing here to trust.

Thenceforth to evolution's

Geology, we say,—

Nothing have we gained therefrom,

And nothing have to pray:

My world has sprung from Spirit,

In everlasting day;

Whereof, I've more to glory,

Wherefor, have much to pay.

Mary Baker Eddy

[pg ix]

Preface.

[Transcriber's Note: The original book includes line numbers throughout the text, for easy reference to the text by page number and line number. This transcription retains those page and line numbers; the numbers in [square brackets] at the right ends of lines are the original book's line numbers. The paragraphs are not adjusted as is customary for text in e-books, nor are words split by hyphens rejoined, so that the lines shown below have the same words as the lines in the original book.]

A certain apothegm of a Talmudical philosopher [1]

suits my sense of doing good. It reads thus: “The

noblest charity is to prevent a man from accepting

charity; and the best alms are to show and to enable a

man to dispense with alms.” [5]

In the early history of Christian Science, among my

thousands of students few were wealthy. Now, Christian

Scientists are not indigent; and their comfortable fortunes

are acquired by healing mankind morally, physically,

spiritually. The easel of time presents pictures—once [10]

fragmentary and faint—now rejuvenated by the touch

of God's right hand. Where joy, sorrow, hope, disap-

pointment, sigh, and smile commingled, now hope sits

dove-like.

To preserve a long course of years still and uniform, [15]

amid the uniform darkness of storm and cloud and

tempest, requires strength from above,—deep draughts

from the fount of divine Love. Truly may it be said:

There is an old age of the heart, and a youth that never

grows old; a Love that is a boy, and a Psyche who is [20]

ever a girl. The fleeting freshness of youth, however,

is not the evergreen of Soul; the coloring glory of

[pg x]

perpetual bloom; the spiritual glow and grandeur of [1]

a consecrated life wherein dwelleth peace, sacred and

sincere in trial or in triumph.

The opportunity has at length offered itself for me to

comply with an oft-repeated request; namely, to collect [5]

my miscellaneous writings published in The Christian

Science Journal, since April, 1883, and republish them

in book form,—accessible as reference, and reliable as

old landmarks. Owing to the manifold demands on my

time in the early pioneer days, most of these articles [10]

were originally written in haste, without due preparation.

To those heretofore in print, a few articles are herein

appended. To some articles are affixed data, where these

are most requisite, to serve as mile-stones measuring the

distance,—or the difference between then and now,— [15]

in the opinions of men and the progress of our Cause.

My signature has been slightly changed from my

Christian name, Mary Morse Baker. Timidity in early

years caused me, as an author, to assume various noms

de plume. After my first marriage, to Colonel Glover [20]

of Charleston, South Carolina, I dropped the name of

Morse to retain my maiden name,—thinking that other-

wise the name would be too long.

In 1894, I received from the Daughters of the American

Revolution a certificate of membership made out to Mary [25]

Baker Eddy, and thereafter adopted that form of signature,

except in connection with my published works.

[pg xi]

The first edition of Science and Health having been [1]

copyrighted at the date of its issue, 1875, in my name

of Glover, caused me to retain the initial “G” on my

subsequent books.

These pages, although a reproduction of what has [5]

been written, are still in advance of their time; and are

richly rewarded by what they have hitherto achieved for

the race. While no offering can liquidate one's debt of

gratitude to God, the fervent heart and willing hand are

not unknown to nor unrewarded by Him. [10]

May this volume be to the reader a graphic guide-

book, pointing the path, dating the unseen, and enabling

him to walk the untrodden in the hitherto unexplored

fields of Science. At each recurring holiday the Christian

Scientist will find herein a “canny” crumb; and thus [15]

may time's pastimes become footsteps to joys eternal.

Realism will at length be found to surpass imagination,

and to suit and savor all literature. The shuttlecock of

religious intolerance will fall to the ground, if there be

no battledores to fling it back and forth. It is reason for [20]

rejoicing that the vox populi is inclined to grant us peace,

together with pardon for the preliminary battles that

purchased it.

With tender tread, thought sometimes walks in memory,

through the dim corridors of years, on to old battle- [25]

grounds, there sadly to survey the fields of the slain and

the enemy's losses. In compiling this work, I have tried

[pg xii]

to remove the pioneer signs and ensigns of war, and to [1]

retain at this date the privileged armaments of peace.

With armor on, I continue the march, command and

countermand; meantime interluding with loving thought

this afterpiece of battle. Supported, cheered, I take my [5]

pen and pruning-hook, to “learn war no more,” and with

strong wing to lift my readers above the smoke of conflict

into light and liberty.

Mary Baker Eddy

Concord, N.H.
January, 1897

[pg 001]

Chapter I. Introductory.

Prospectus.

The ancient Greek looked longingly for the Olym- [1]

piad. The Chaldee watched the appearing of a

star; to him, no higher destiny dawned on the dome

of being than that foreshadowed by signs in the heav- [5]

ens. The meek Nazarene, the scoffed of all scoffers,

said, “Ye can discern the face of the sky; but can ye

not discern the signs of the times?”—for he forefelt

and foresaw the ordeal of a perfect Christianity, hated

by sinners. [10]

To kindle all minds with a gleam of gratitude, the

new idea that comes welling up from infinite Truth needs

to be understood. The seer of this age should be a

sage.

Humility is the stepping-stone to a higher recognition [15]

of Deity. The mounting sense gathers fresh forms and

strange fire from the ashes of dissolving self, and drops

the world. Meekness heightens immortal attributes

only by removing the dust that dims them. Goodness

reveals another scene and another self seemingly rolled [20]

up in shades, but brought to light by the evolutions of

[pg 002]

advancing thought, whereby we discern the power of [1]

Truth and Love to heal the sick.

Pride is ignorance; those assume most who have the

least wisdom or experience; and they steal from their

neighbor, because they have so little of their own. [5]

The signs of these times portend a long and strong

determination of mankind to cleave to the world, the

flesh, and evil, causing great obscuration of Spirit.

When we remember that God is just, and admit the

total depravity of mortals, alias mortal mind,—and that [10]

this Adam legacy must first be seen, and then must be

subdued and recompensed by justice, the eternal attri-

bute of Truth,—the outlook demands labor, and the

laborers seem few. To-day we behold but the first

faint view of a more spiritual Christianity, that embraces [15]

a deeper and broader philosophy and a more rational and

divine healing. The time approaches when divine Life,

Truth, and Love will be found alone the remedy for sin,

sickness, and death; when God, man's saving Principle,

and Christ, the spiritual idea of God, will be revealed. [20]

Man's probation after death is the necessity of his

immortality; for good dies not and evil is self-destruc-

tive, therefore evil must be mortal and self-destroyed.

If man should not progress after death, but should re-

main in error, he would be inevitably self-annihilated. [25]

Those upon whom “the second death hath no power”

are those who progress here and hereafter out of evil,

their mortal element, and into good that is immortal;

thus laying off the material beliefs that war against

Spirit, and putting on the spiritual elements in divine [30]

Science.

While we entertain decided views as to the best method

[pg 003]

for elevating the race physically, morally, and spiritually, [1]

and shall express these views as duty demands, we

shall claim no especial gift from our divine origin, no

supernatural power. If we regard good as more natural

than evil, and spiritual understanding—the true knowl- [5]

edge of God—as imparting the only power to heal the

sick and the sinner, we shall demonstrate in our lives the

power of Truth and Love.

The lessons we learn in divine Science are applica-

ble to all the needs of man. Jesus taught them for this [10]

very purpose; and his demonstration hath taught us

that “through his stripes”—his life-experience—and

divine Science, brought to the understanding through

Christ, the Spirit-revelator, is man healed and saved.

No opinions of mortals nor human hypotheses enter this [15]

line of thought or action. Drugs, inert matter, never are

needed to aid spiritual power. Hygiene, manipulation,

and mesmerism are not Mind's medicine. The Principle

of all cure is God, unerring and immortal Mind.

We have learned that the erring or mortal thought holds [20]

in itself all sin, sickness, and death, and imparts these

states to the body; while the supreme and perfect Mind,

as seen in the truth of being, antidotes and destroys these

material elements of sin and death.

Because God is supreme and omnipotent, materia [25]

medica, hygiene, and animal magnetism are impotent;

and their only supposed efficacy is in apparently delud-

ing reason, denying revelation, and dethroning Deity.

The tendency of mental healing is to uplift mankind; but

this method perverted, is “Satan let loose.” Hence the [30]

deep demand for the Science of psychology to meet sin,

and uncover it; thus to annihilate hallucination.

[pg 004]

Thought imbued with purity, Truth, and Love, in- [1]

structed in the Science of metaphysical healing, is the

most potent and desirable remedial agent on the earth.

At this period there is a marked tendency of mortal

mind to plant mental healing on the basis of hypnotism, [5]

calling this method “mental science.” All Science is

Christian Science; the Science of the Mind that is God,

and of the universe as His idea, and their relation to each

other. Its only power to heal is its power to do good,

not evil.

A Timely Issue.

At this date, 1883, a newspaper edited and published

by the Christian Scientists has become a necessity. Many

questions important to be disposed of come to the Col-

lege and to the practising students, yet but little time [15]

has been devoted to their answer. Further enlight-

enment is necessary for the age, and a periodical de-

voted to this work seems alone adequate to meet the

requirement. Much interest is awakened and expressed

on the subject of metaphysical healing, but in many [20]

minds it is confounded with isms, and even infidelity, so

that its religious specialty and the vastness of its worth

are not understood.

It is often said, “You must have a very strong will-

power to heal,” or, “It must require a great deal of faith [25]

to make your demonstrations.” When it is answered

that there is no will-power required, and that something

more than faith is necessary, we meet with an expression

of incredulity. It is not alone the mission of Christian

Science to heal the sick, but to destroy sin in mortal [30]

[pg 005]

thought. This work well done will elevate and purify [1]

the race. It cannot fail to do this if we devote our best

energies to the work.

Science reveals man as spiritual, harmonious, and eter-

nal. This should be understood. Our College should [5]

be crowded with students who are willing to consecrate

themselves to this Christian work. Mothers should be

able to produce perfect health and perfect morals in their

children—and ministers, to heal the sick—by study-

ing this scientific method of practising Christianity. [10]

Many say, “I should like to study, but have not suffi-

cient faith that I have the power to heal.” The healing

power is Truth and Love, and these do not fail in the

greatest emergencies.

Materia medica says, “I can do no more. I have [15]

done all that can be done. There is nothing to build

upon. There is no longer any reason for hope.” Then

metaphysics comes in, armed with the power of Spirit,

not matter, takes up the case hopefully and builds on

the stone that the builders have rejected, and is suc- [20]

cessful.

Metaphysical therapeutics can seem a miracle and a

mystery to those only who do not understand the grand

reality that Mind controls the body. They acknowledge

an erring or mortal mind, but believe it to be brain mat- [25]

ter. That man is the idea of infinite Mind, always perfect

in God, in Truth, Life, and Love, is something not easily

accepted, weighed down as is mortal thought with mate-

rial beliefs. That which never existed, can seem solid

substance to this thought. It is much easier for people [30]

to believe that the body affects the mind, than that the

mind affects the body.

[pg 006]

We hear from the pulpits that sickness is sent as a [1]

discipline to bring man nearer to God,—even though

sickness often leaves mortals but little time free from

complaints and fretfulness, and Jesus cast out disease as

evil. [5]

The most of our Christian Science practitioners have

plenty to do, and many more are needed for the ad-

vancement of the age. At present the majority of the

acute cases are given to the M. D.'s, and only those

cases that are pronounced incurable are passed over to [10]

the Scientist. The healing of such cases should cer-

tainly prove to all minds the power of metaphysics over

physics; and it surely does, to many thinkers, as the

rapid growth of the work shows. At no distant day,

Christian healing will rank far in advance of allopathy [15]

and homœopathy; for Truth must ultimately succeed

where error fails.

Mind governs all. That we exist in God, perfect,

there is no doubt, for the conceptions of Life, Truth, and

Love must be perfect; and with that basic truth we con- [20]

quer sickness, sin, and death. Frequently it requires

time to overcome the patient's faith in drugs and mate-

rial hygiene; but when once convinced of the uselessness

of such material methods, the gain is rapid.

It is a noticeable fact, that in families where laws [25]

of health are strictly enforced, great caution is observed

in regard to diet, and the conversation chiefly confined

to the ailments of the body, there is the most sickness.

Take a large family of children where the mother has

all that she can attend to in keeping them clothed and

fed, and health is generally the rule; whereas, in small

families of one or two children, sickness is by no means

[pg 007]

the exception. These children must not be allowed to [1]

eat certain food, nor to breathe the cold air, because

there is danger in it; when they perspire, they must be

loaded down with coverings until their bodies become

dry,—and the mother of one child is often busier than [5]

the mother of eight.

Great charity and humility is necessary in this work

of healing. The loving patience of Jesus, we must

strive to emulate. “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as

thyself” has daily to be exemplified; and, although [10]

skepticism and incredulity prevail in places where

one would least expect it, it harms not; for if serving

Christ, Truth, of what can mortal opinion avail? Cast

not your pearls before swine; but if you cannot bring

peace to all, you can to many, if faithful laborers in His [15]

vineyard.

Looking over the newspapers of the day, one naturally

reflects that it is dangerous to live, so loaded with disease

seems the very air. These descriptions carry fears to

many minds, to be depicted in some future time upon [20]

the body. A periodical of our own will counteract to

some extent this public nuisance; for through our paper,

at the price at which we shall issue it, we shall be able

to reach many homes with healing, purifying thought.

A great work already has been done, and a greater work [25]

yet remains to be done. Oftentimes we are denied the

results of our labors because people do not understand

the nature and power of metaphysics, and they think

that health and strength would have returned natu-

rally without any assistance. This is not so much from [30]

a lack of justice, as it is that the mens populi is not suffi-

ciently enlightened on this great subject. More thought

[pg 008]

is given to material illusions than to spiritual facts. If [1]

we can aid in abating suffering and diminishing sin,

we shall have accomplished much; but if we can bring

to the general thought this great fact that drugs do not,

cannot, produce health and harmony, since “in Him [5]

[Mind] we live, and move, and have our being,” we shall

have done more.”

Love Your Enemies.

Who is thine enemy that thou shouldst love him? Is

it a creature or a thing outside thine own creation? [10]

Can you see an enemy, except you first formulate this

enemy and then look upon the object of your own conception?

What is it that harms you? Can height, or

depth, or any other creature separate you from the

Love that is omnipresent good,—that blesses infinitely [15]

one and all?

Simply count your enemy to be that which defiles,

defaces, and dethrones the Christ-image that you should

reflect. Whatever purifies, sanctifies, and consecrates

human life, is not an enemy, however much we suffer in [20]

the process. Shakespeare writes: “Sweet are the uses

of adversity.” Jesus said: “Blessed are ye, when men

shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all

manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake; ... for

so persecuted they the prophets which were before [25]

you.”

The Hebrew law with its “Thou shalt not,” its de-

mand and sentence, can only be fulfilled through the

gospel's benediction. Then, “Blessed are ye,” inso-

[pg 009]

much as the consciousness of good, grace, and peace, [1]

comes through affliction rightly understood, as sanctified

by the purification it brings to the flesh,—to pride, self-

ignorance, self-will, self-love, self-justification. Sweet,

indeed, are these uses of His rod! Well is it that the [5]

Shepherd of Israel passes all His flock under His rod

into His fold; thereby numbering them, and giving them

refuge at last from the elements of earth.

“Love thine enemies” is identical with “Thou hast

no enemies.” Wherein is this conclusion relative to [10]

those who have hated thee without a cause? Simply, in

that those unfortunate individuals are virtually thy best

friends. Primarily and ultimately, they are doing thee

good far beyond the present sense which thou canst entertain

of good. [15]

Whom we call friends seem to sweeten life's cup and

to fill it with the nectar of the gods. We lift this cup

to our lips; but it slips from our grasp, to fall in frag-

ments before our eyes. Perchance, having tasted its

tempting wine, we become intoxicated; become lethar- [20]

gic, dreamy objects of self-satisfaction; else, the con-

tents of this cup of selfish human enjoyment having lost

its flavor, we voluntarily set it aside as tasteless and

unworthy of human aims.

And wherefore our failure longer to relish this fleet- [25]

ing sense, with its delicious forms of friendship,

wherewith mortals become educated to gratification in

personal pleasure and trained in treacherous peace?

Because it is the great and only danger in the path

that winds upward. A false sense of what consti- [30]

tutes happiness is more disastrous to human progress

than all that an enemy or enmity can obtrude upon

[pg 010]

the mind or engraft upon its purposes and achievements [1]

wherewith to obstruct life's joys and enhance its sor-

rows.

We have no enemies. Whatever envy, hatred, revenge

—the most remorseless motives that govern mortal mind [5]

—whatever these try to do, shall “work together for good

to them that love God.”

Why?

Because He has called His own, armed them, equipped

them, and furnished them defenses impregnable. Their [10]

God will not let them be lost; and if they fall they shall

rise again, stronger than before the stumble. The good

cannot lose their God, their help in times of trouble.

If they mistake the divine command, they will recover

it, countermand their order, retrace their steps, and [15]

reinstate His orders, more assured to press on safely.

The best lesson of their lives is gained by crossing

swords with temptation, with fear and the besetments

of evil; insomuch as they thereby have tried their

strength and proven it; insomuch as they have found [20]

their strength made perfect in weakness, and their fear

is self-immolated.

This destruction is a moral chemicalization, wherein

old things pass away and all things become new. The

worldly or material tendencies of human affections and [25]

pursuits are thus annihilated; and this is the advent of

spiritualization. Heaven comes down to earth, and

mortals learn at last the lesson, “I have no enemies.”

Even in belief you have but one (that, not in reality),

and this one enemy is yourself—your erroneous belief [30]

that you have enemies; that evil is real; that aught but

good exists in Science. Soon or late, your enemy will

[pg 011]

wake from his delusion to suffer for his evil intent; to [1]

find that, though thwarted, its punishment is tenfold.

Love is the fulfilling of the law: it is grace, mercy,

and justice. I used to think it sufficiently just to abide

by our State statutes; that if a man should aim a ball at [5]

my heart, and I by firing first could kill him and save

my own life, that this was right. I thought, also, that

if I taught indigent students gratuitously, afterwards

assisting them pecuniarily, and did not cease teachi

ing the wayward ones at close of the class term, but [10]

followed them with precept upon precept; that if my

instructions had healed them and shown them the sure way

of salvation,—I had done my whole duty to students.

Love metes not out human justice, but divine mercy.

If one's life were attacked, and one could save it only [15]

in accordance with common law, by taking another's,

would one sooner give up his own? We must love our

enemies in all the manifestations wherein and whereby

we love our friends; must even try not to expose their

faults, but to do them good whenever opportunity [20]

occurs. To mete out human justice to those who per-

secure and despitefully use one, is not leaving all retribu-

tion to God and returning blessing for cursing. If special

opportunity for doing good to one's enemies occur not,

one can include them in his general effort to benefit the [25]

race. Because I can do much general good to such as

hate me, I do it with earnest, special care—since they

permit me no other way, though with tears have I striven

for it. When smitten on one cheek, I have turned the

other: I have but two to present. [30]

I would enjoy taking by the hand all who love me not,

and saying to them, “I love you, and would not know-

[pg 012]

ingly harm you.” Because I thus feel, I say to others: [1]

Hate no one; for hatred is a plague-spot that spreads

its virus and kills at last. If indulged, it masters us;

brings suffering upon suffering to its possessor, through-

out time and beyond the grave. If you have been badly [5]

wronged, forgive and forget: God will recompense this

wrong, and punish, more severely than you could, him

who has striven to injure you. Never return evil for evil;

and, above all, do not fancy that you have been wronged

when you have not been. [10]

The present is ours; the future, big with events.

Every man and woman should be to-day a law to him-

self, herself,—a law of loyalty to Jesus' Sermon on the

Mount. The means for sinning unseen and unpunished

have so increased that, unless one be watchful and stead- [15]

fast in Love, one's temptations to sin are increased a

hundredfold. Mortal mind at this period mutely works

in the interest of both good and evil in a manner least

understood; hence the need of watching, and the danger

of yielding to temptation from causes that at former [20]

periods in human history were not existent. The action

and effects of this so-called human mind in its silent argu-

ments, are yet to be uncovered and summarily dealt with

by divine justice.

In Christian Science, the law of Love rejoices the heart; [25]

and Love is Life and Truth. Whatever manifests aught

else in its effects upon mankind, demonstrably is not Love.

We should measure our love for God by our love for man;

and our sense of Science will be measured by our obedience

to God,—fulfilling the law of Love, doing good to all; [30]

imparting, so far as we reflect them, Truth, Life, and Love

to all within the radius of our atmosphere of thought.

[pg 013]

The only justice of which I feel at present capable, [1]

is mercy and charity toward every one,—just so far as

one and all permit me to exercise these sentiments toward

them,—taking special care to mind my own business.

The falsehood, ingratitude, misjudgment, and sharp [5]

return of evil for good—yea, the real wrongs (if wrong

can be real) which I have long endured at the hands of

others—have most happily wrought out for me the law

of loving mine enemies. This law I now urge upon the

solemn consideration of all Christian Scientists. Jesus [10]

said, “If ye love them which love you, what thank have

ye? for sinners also love those that love them.”

Christian Theism.

Scholastic theology elaborates the proposition that

evil is a factor of good, and that to believe in the reality [15]

of evil is essential to a rounded sense of the existence of

good.

This frail hypothesis is founded upon the basis of mate-

rial and mortal evidence—only upon what the shifting

mortal senses confirm and frail human reason accepts. [20]

The Science of Soul reverses this proposition, overturns

the testimony of the five erring senses, and reveals in

clearer divinity the existence of good only; that is, of

God and His idea.

This postulate of divine Science only needs to be con- [25]

ceded, to afford opportunity for proof of its correctness

and the clearer discernment of good.

Seek the Anglo-Saxon term for God, and you will

find it to be good; then define good as God, and you

will find that good is omnipotence, has all power; it fills [30]

[pg 014]

all space, being omnipresent; hence, there is neither place [1]

nor power left for evil. Divest your thought, then, of

the mortal and material view which contradicts the ever-

presence and all-power of good; take in only the immor-

tal facts which include these, and where will you see or [5]

feel evil, or find its existence necessary either to the origin

or ultimate of good?

It is urged that, from his original state of perfec-

tion, man has fallen into the imperfection that requires

evil through which to develop good. Were we to [10]

admit this vague proposition, the Science of man could

never be learned; for in order to learn Science, we

begin with the correct statement, with harmony and

its Principle; and if man has lost his Principle and

its harmony, from evidences before him he is inca- [15]

pable of knowing the facts of existence and its con-

comitants: therefore to him evil is as real and eternal

as good, God! This awful deception is evil's umpire

and empire, that good, God, understood, forcibly

destroys. [20]

What appears to mortals from their standpoint to be

the necessity for evil, is proven by the law of opposites

to be without necessity. Good is the primitive Princi-

ple of man; and evil, good's opposite, has no Principle,

and is not, and cannot be, the derivative of good. [25]

Thus evil is neither a primitive nor a derivative, but

is suppositional; in other words, a lie that is incapable

of proof—therefore, wholly problematical.

The Science of Truth annihilates error, deprives evil

of all power, and thereby destroys all error, sin, sickness, [30]

disease, and death. But the sinner is not sheltered from

suffering from sin: he makes a great reality of evil, iden-

[pg 015]

tifies himself with it, fancies he finds pleasure in it, and [1]

will reap what he sows; hence the sinner must endure

the effects of his delusion until he awakes from it.

The New Birth.

St. Paul speaks of the new birth as “waiting for the [5]

adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.” The

great Nazarene Prophet said, “Blessed are the pure in

heart: for they shall see God.” Nothing aside from the

spiritualization—yea, the highest Christianization—of

thought and desire, can give the true perception of God [10]

and divine Science, that results in health, happiness, and

holiness.

The new birth is not the work of a moment. It begins

with moments, and goes on with years; moments of sur-

render to God, of childlike trust and joyful adoption [15]

of good; moments of self-abnegation, self-consecration,

heaven-born hope, and spiritual love.

Time may commence, but it cannot complete, the

new birth: eternity does this; for progress is the law

of infinity. Only through the sore travail of mortal mind [20]

shall soul as sense be satisfied, and man awake in His

likeness. What a faith-lighted thought is this! that

mortals can lay off the “old man,” until man is found

to be the image of the infinite good that we name God,

and the fulness of the stature of man in Christ appears. [25]

In mortal and material man, goodness seems in em-

bryo. By suffering for sin, and the gradual fading out

of the mortal and material sense of man, thought is de-

veloped into an infant Christianity; and, feeding at first

on the milk of the Word, it drinks in the sweet revealings [30]

[pg 016]

of a new and more spiritual Life and Love. These nourish [1]

the hungry hope, satisfy more the cravings for immor-

tality, and so comfort, cheer, and bless one, that he saith:

In mine infancy, this is enough of heaven to come down

to earth. [5]

But, as one grows into the manhood or womanhood

of Christianity, one finds so much lacking, and so very

much requisite to become wholly Christlike, that one

saith: The Principle of Christianity is infinite: it is

indeed God; and this infinite Principle hath infinite [10]

claims on man, and these claims are divine, not human;

and man's ability to meet them is from God; for, being

His likeness and image, man must reflect the full

dominion of Spirit—even its supremacy over sin, sick-

ness, and death. [15]

Here, then, is the awakening from the dream of life

in matter, to the great fact that God is the only Life;

that, therefore, we must entertain a higher sense of both

God and man. We must learn that God is infinitely

more than a person, or finite form, can contain; that [20]

God is a divine Whole, and All, an all-pervading in-

telligence and Love, a divine, infinite Principle; and

that Christianity is a divine Science. This newly

awakened consciousness is wholly spiritual; it emanates

from Soul instead of body, and is the new birth begun [25]

in Christian Science.

Now, dear reader, pause for a moment with me, earn-

estly to contemplate this new-born spiritual altitude; for

this statement demands demonstration.

Here you stand face to face with the laws of infinite [30]

Spirit, and behold for the first time the irresistible con-

flict between the flesh and Spirit. You stand before the

[pg 017]

awful detonations of Sinai. You hear and record the [1]

thunderings of the spiritual law of Life, as opposed to

the material law of death; the spiritual law of Love, as

opposed to the material sense of love; the law of om-

nipotent harmony and good, as opposed to any supposi- [5]

titious law of sin, sickness, or death. And, before the

flames have died away on this mount of revelation, like

the patriarch of old, you take off your shoes—lay aside

your material appendages, human opinions and doc-

trines, give up your more material religion with its rites [10]

and ceremonies, put off your materia medica and hygiene

as worse than useless—to sit at the feet of Jesus. Then,

you meekly bow before the Christ, the spiritual idea

that our great Master gave of the power of God to heal

and to save. Then it is that you behold for the first [15]

time the divine Principle that redeems man from under

the curse of materialism,—sin, disease, and death.

This spiritual birth opens to the enraptured understand-

ing a much higher and holier conception of the supremacy

of Spirit, and of man as His likeness, whereby man reflects [20]

the divine power to heal the sick.

A material or human birth is the appearing of a mor-

tal, not the immortal man. This birth is more or less

prolonged and painful, according to the timely or un-

timely circumstances, the normal or abnormal material [25]

conditions attending it.

With the spiritual birth, man's primitive, sinless,

spiritual existence dawns on human thought,—through

the travail of mortal mind, hope deferred, the perishing

pleasure and accumulating pains of sense,—by which [30]

one loses himself as matter, and gains a truer sense of

Spirit and spiritual man.

[pg 018]

The purification or baptismals that come from Spirit, [1]

develop, step by step, the original likeness of perfect man,

and efface the mark of the beast. “Whom the Lord

loveth He chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom

He receiveth;” therefore rejoice in tribulation, and wel- [5]

come these spiritual signs of the new birth under the law

and gospel of Christ, Truth.

The prominent laws which forward birth in the divine

order of Science, are these: “Thou shalt have no other

gods before me;” “Love thy neighbor as thyself,” [10]

These commands of infinite wisdom, translated into

the new tongue, their spiritual meaning, signify: Thou

shalt love Spirit only, not its opposite, in every God-

quality, even in substance; thou shalt recognize thy-

self as God's spiritual child only, and the true man [15]

and true woman, the all-harmonious “male and female,”

as of spiritual origin, God's reflection,—thus as chil-

dren of one common Parent,—wherein and whereby

Father, Mother, and child are the divine Principle and

divine idea, even the divine “Us”—one in good, and [20]

good in One.

With this recognition man could never separate him-

self from good, God; and he would necessarily entertain

habitual love for his fellow-man. Only by admitting

evil as a reality, and entering into a state of evil [25]

thoughts, can we in belief separate one man's interests

from those of the whole human family, or thus attempt

to separate Life from God. This is the mistake that

causes much that must be repented of and overcome.

Not to know what is blessing you, but to believe that [30]

aught that God sends is unjust,—or that those whom

He commissions bring to you at His demand that which

[pg 019]

is unjust,—is wrong and cruel. Envy, evil thinking, [1]

evil speaking, covetousness, lust, hatred, malice, are

always wrong, and will break the rule of Christian

Science and prevent its demonstration; but the rod of

God, and the obedience demanded of His servants in [5]

carrying out what He teaches them,—these are never

unmerciful, never unwise.

The task of healing the sick is far lighter than that

of so teaching the divine Principle and rules of Chris-

tian Science as to lift the affections and motives of men [10]

to adopt them and bring them out in human lives. He

who has named the name of Christ, who has virtually

accepted the divine claims of Truth and Love in divine

Science, is daily departing from evil; and all the wicked

endeavors of suppositional demons can never change the [15]

current of that life from steadfastly flowing on to God,

its divine source.

But, taking the livery of heaven wherewith to cover

iniquity, is the most fearful sin that mortals can commit.

I should have more faith in an honest drugging-doctor, [20]

one who abides by his statements and works upon as

high a basis as he understands, healing me, than I could

or would have in a smooth-tongued hypocrite or mental

malpractitioner.

Between the centripetal and centrifugal mental forces [25]

of material and spiritual gravitations, we go into or we

go out of materialism or sin, and choose our course and

its results. Which, then, shall be our choice,—the sin-

ful, material, and perishable, or the spiritual, joy-giving,

and eternal? [30]

The spiritual sense of Life and its grand pursuits is

of itself a bliss, health-giving and joy-inspiring. This

[pg 020]

sense of Life illumes our pathway with the radiance of [1]

divine Love; heals man spontaneously, morally and

physically,—exhaling the aroma of Jesus' own words,

“Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden,

and I will give you rest.” [5]

[pg 021]

Chapter II. One Cause And Effect.

Christian Science begins with the First Com- [1]

mandment of the Hebrew Decalogue, “Thou

shalt have no other gods before me.” It goes on in

perfect unity with Christ's Sermon on the Mount, and

in that age culminates in the Revelation of St. John, [5]

who, while on earth and in the flesh, like ourselves,

beheld “a new heaven and a new earth,”—the spiritual

universe, whereof Christian Science now bears testimony.

Our Master said, “The works that I do shall ye do

also;” and, “The kingdom of God is within you.” This [10]

makes practical all his words and works. As the ages

advance in spirituality, Christian Science will be seen

to depart from the trend of other Christian denomina-

tions in no wise except by increase of spirituality.

My first plank in the platform of Christian Science [15]

is as follows: “There is no life, truth, intelligence, nor

substance in matter. All is infinite Mind and its infinite

manifestation, for God is All-in-all. Spirit is immortal

Truth; matter is mortal error. Spirit is the real and

eternal; matter is the unreal and temporal. Spirit is [20]

God, and man is His image and likeness. Therefore man

is not material; he is spiritual.”1

[pg 022]

I am strictly a theist—believe in one God, one Christ [1]

or Messiah.

Science is neither a law of matter nor of man. It is

the unerring manifesto of Mind, the law of God, its

divine Principle. Who dare say that matter or [5]

mortals can evolve Science? Whence, then, is it, if not

from the divine source, and what, but the contempor-

ary of Christianity, so far in advance of human knowl-

edge that mortals must work for the discovery of even a

portion of it? Christian Science translates Mind, God, [10]

to mortals. It is the infinite calculus defining the line,

plane, space, and fourth dimension of Spirit. It abso-

lutely refutes the amalgamation, transmigration, absorp-

tion, or annihilation of individuality. It shows the

impossibility of transmitting human ills, or evil, from one [15]

individual to another; that all true thoughts revolve

in God's orbits: they come from God and return to

Him,—and untruths belong not to His creation, there-

fore these are null and void. It hath no peer, no comp-

petitor, for it dwelleth in Him besides whom “there is [20]

none other.”

That Christian Science is Christian, those who have

demonstrated it, according to the rules of its divine

Principle,—together with the sick, the lame, the deaf, and

the blind, healed by it,—have proven to a waiting world. [25]

He who has not tested it, is incompetent to condemn it;

and he who is a willing sinner, cannot demonstrate it.

A falling apple suggested to Newton more than the

simple fact cognized by the senses, to which it seemed

to fall by reason of its own ponderosity; but the primal [30]

cause, or Mind-force, invisible to material sense, lay

concealed in the treasure-troves of Science. True,

[pg 023]

Newton named it gravitation, having learned so much; [1]

but Science, demanding more, pushes the question:

Whence or what is the power back of gravitation,—the

intelligence that manifests power? Is pantheism true?

Does mind “sleep in the mineral, or dream in the [5]

animal, and wake in man”? Christianity answers this

question. The prophets, Jesus, and the apostles, demon-

strated a divine intelligence that subordinates so-called

material laws; and disease, death, winds, and waves,

obey this intelligence. Was it Mind or matter that spake [10]

in creation, “and it was done”? The answer is self-

evident, and the command remains, “Thou shalt have

no other gods before me.”

It is plain that the Me spoken of in the First Com-

mandment, must be Mind; for matter is not the Chris- [15]

tian's God, and is not intelligent. Matter cannot even

talk; and the serpent, Satan, the first talker in its behalf,

lied. Reason and revelation declare that God is both

noumenon and phenomena,—the first and only cause.

The universe, including man, is not a result of atomic [20]

action, material force or energy; it is not organized dust.

God, Spirit, Mind, are terms synonymous for the one

God, whose reflection is creation, and man is His image

and likeness. Few there are who comprehend what Chris-

tian Science means by the word reflection. God is seen [25]

only in that which reflects good, Life, Truth, Love—

yea, which manifests all His attributes and power, even

as the human likeness thrown upon the mirror repeats

precisely the looks and actions of the object in front of it.

All must be Mind and Mind's ideas; since, according to [30]

natural science, God, Spirit, could not change its species

and evolve matter.

[pg 024]

These facts enjoin the First Commandment; and [1]

knowledge of them makes man spiritually minded. St.

Paul writes: “For to be carnally minded is death; but to

be spiritually minded is life and peace.” This knowl-

edge came to me in an hour of great need; and I give it [5]

to you as death-bed testimony to the daystar that dawned

on the night of material sense. This knowledge is

practical, for it wrought my immediate recovery from

an injury caused by an accident, and pronounced fatal

by the physicians. On the third day thereafter, I called [10]

for my Bible, and opened it at Matthew ix. 2. As I

read, the healing Truth dawned upon my sense; and

the result was that I rose, dressed myself, and ever after

was in better health than I had before enjoyed. That

short experience included a glimpse of the great fact [15]

that I have since tried to make plain to others, namely,

Life in and of Spirit; this Life being the sole reality of

existence. I learned that mortal thought evolves a sub-

jective state which it names matter, thereby shutting

out the true sense of Spirit. Per contra, Mind and man [20]

are immortal; and knowledge gained from mortal sense

is illusion, error, the opposite of Truth; therefore it

cannot be true. A knowledge of both good and evil

(when good is God, and God is All) is impossible. Speak-

ing of the origin of evil, the Master said: “When he [25]

speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar,

and the father of it.” God warned man not to believe

the talking serpent, or rather the allegory describing

it. The Nazarene Prophet declared that his followers

should handle serpents; that is, put down all subtle falsi- [30]

ties or illusions, and thus destroy any supposed effect

arising from false claims exercising their supposed power

[pg 025]

on the mind and body of man against his holiness and [1]

health.

That there is but one God or Life, one cause and

one effect, is the multum in parvo of Christian Science;

and to my understanding it is the heart of Christianity, [5]

the religion that Jesus taught and demonstrated. In

divine Science it is found that matter is a phase of

error, and that neither one really exists, since God is

Truth, and All-in-all. Christ's Sermon on the Mount,

in its direct application to human needs, confirms this [10]

conclusion.

Science, understood, translates matter into Mind,

rejects all other theories of causation, restores the spir-

itual and original meaning of the Scriptures, and ex-

plains the teachings and life of our Lord. It is religion's [15]

“new tongue,” with “signs following,” spoken of by

St. Mark. It gives God's infinite meaning to mankind,

healing the sick, casting out evil, and raising the spirit-

ually dead. Christianity is Christlike only as it re-

iterates the word, repeats the works, and manifests the [20]

spirit of Christ.

Jesus' only medicine was omnipotent and omniscient

Mind. As omni is from the Latin word meaning all,

this medicine is all-power; and omniscience means as

well, all-science. The sick are more deplorably situated [25]

than the sinful, if the sick cannot trust God for help and

the sinful can. If God created drugs good, they cannot be

harmful; if He could create them otherwise, then they

are bad and unfit for man; and if He created drugs for

healing the sick, why did not Jesus employ them and [30]

recommend them for that purpose?

No human hypotheses, whether in philosophy, medi-

[pg 026]

cine, or religion, can survive the wreck of time; but [1]

whatever is of God, hath life abiding in it, and ulti-

mately will be known as self-evident truth, as demonstra-

ble as mathematics. Each successive period of progress

is a period more humane and spiritual. The only logical [5]

conclusion is that all is Mind and its manifestation, from

the rolling of worlds, in the most subtle ether, to a potato-

patch.

The agriculturist ponders the history of a seed, and

believes that his crops come from the seedling and the [10]

loam; even while the Scripture declares He made “every

plant of the field before it was in the earth.” The Scien-

tist asks, Whence came the first seed, and what made

the soil? Was it molecules, or material atoms? Whence

came the infinitesimals,—from infinite Mind, or from [15]

matter? If from matter, how did matter originate? Was

it self-existent? Matter is not intelligent, and thus able

to evolve or create itself: it is the very opposite of Spirit,

intelligent, self-creative, and infinite Mind. The belief

of mind in matter is pantheism. Natural history shows [20]

that neither a genus nor a species produces its opposite.

God is All, in all. What can be more than All? Noth-

ing: and this is just what I call matter, nothing. Spirit,

God, has no antecedent; and God's consequent is the

spiritual cosmos. The phrase, “express image,” in the [25]

common version of Hebrews i. 3, is, in the Greek Tes-

tament, character.

The Scriptures name God as good, and the Saxon

term for God is also good. From this premise comes

the logical conclusion that God is naturally and divinely [30]

infinite good. How, then, can this conclusion change,

or be changed, to mean that good is evil, or the creator

[pg 027]

of evil? What can there be besides infinity? Nothing! [1]

Therefore the Science of good calls evil nothing. In

divine Science the terms God and good, as Spirit, are

synonymous. That God, good, creates evil, or aught

that can result in evil,—or that Spirit creates its oppo- [5]

site, named matter,—are conclusions that destroy their

premise and prove themselves invalid. Here is where

Christian Science sticks to its text, and other systems

of religion abandon their own logic. Here also is found

the pith of the basal statement, the cardinal point in [10]

Christian Science, that matter and evil (including all

inharmony, sin, disease, death) are unreal. Mortals

accept natural science, wherein no species ever pro-

duces its opposite. Then why not accept divine Sci-

ence on this ground? since the Scriptures maintain [15]

this fact by parable and proof, asking, “Do men

gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?” “Doth a

fountain send forth at the same place sweet water and

bitter?”

According to reason and revelation, evil and matter [20]

are negation: for evil signifies the absence of good, God,

though God is ever present; and matter claims some-

thing besides God, when God is really All. Creation,

evolution, or manifestation,—being in and of Spirit,

Mind, and all that really is,—must be spiritual and [25]

mental. This is Science, and is susceptible of proof.

But, say you, is a stone spiritual?

To erring material sense, No! but to unerring spiritual

sense, it is a small manifestation of Mind, a type of spirit-

ual substance, “the substance of things hoped for.” [30]

Mortals can know a stone as substance, only by first ad-

mitting that it is substantial. Take away the mortal sense

[pg 028]

of substance, and the stone itself would disappear, only [1]

to reappear in the spiritual sense thereof. Matter can

neither see, hear, feel, taste, nor smell; having no sen-

sation of its own. Perception by the five personal senses

is mental, and dependent on the beliefs that mortals [5]

entertain. Destroy the belief that you can walk, and

volition ceases; for muscles cannot move without mind.

Matter takes no cognizance of matter. In dreams, things

are only what mortal mind makes them; and the phe-

nomena of mortal life are as dreams; and this so-called [10]

life is a dream soon told. In proportion as mortals turn

from this mortal and material dream, to the true sense

of reality, everlasting Life will be found to be the only

Life. That death does not destroy the beliefs of the flesh,

our Master proved to his doubting disciple, Thomas. Also, [15]

he demonstrated that divine Science alone can overbear

materiality and mortality; and this great truth was shown

is by his ascension after death, whereby he arose above

the illusion of matter.

The First Commandment, “Thou shalt have no other [20]

gods before me,” suggests the inquiry, What meaneth

this Me,—Spirit, or matter? It certainly does not

signify a graven idol, and must mean Spirit. Then

the commandment means, Thou shalt recognize no

intelligence nor life in matter; and find neither pleasure [25]

nor pain therein. The Master's practical knowledge

of this grand verity, together with his divine Love,

healed the sick and raised the dead. He literally

annulled the claims of physique and of physical law,

by the superiority of the higher law; hence his decla- [30]

ration, “These signs shall follow them that believe;...

if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them;

[pg 029]

they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover.” [1]

Do you believe his words? I do, and that his prom-

ise is perpetual. Had it been applicable only to his

immediate disciples, the pronoun would be you, not them. [5]

The purpose of his life-work touches universal human-

ity. At another time he prayed, not for the twelve

only, but “for them also which shall believe on me through

their word.”

The Christ-healing was practised even before the Christ- [10]

ian era; “the Word was with God, and the Word was

God.” There is, however, no analogy between Christian

Science and spiritualism, or between it and any specu-

lative theory.

In 1867, I taught the first student in Christian Science. [15]

Since that date I have known of but fourteen deaths

in the ranks of my about five thousand students. The

census since 1875 (the date of the first publication of

my work, “Science and Health with Key to the Scrip-

tures”) shows that longevity has increased. Daily letters [20]

inform me that a perusal of my volume is healing the

writers of chronic and acute diseases that had defied medi-

cal skill.

Surely the people of the Occident know that esoteric

magic and Oriental barbarisms will neither flavor Chris- [25]

tianity nor advance health and length of days.

Miracles are no infraction of God's laws; on the

contrary, they fulfil His laws; for they are the signs fol-

lowing Christianity, whereby matter is proven power-

less and subordinate to Mind. Christians, like students [30]

in mathematics, should be working up to those higher

rules of Life which Jesus taught and proved. Do we

[pg 030]

really understand the divine Principle of Christianity [1]

before we prove it, in at least some feeble demonstra-

tion thereof, according to Jesus' example in healing the

sick? Should we adopt the “simple addition” in Chris-

tian Science and doubt its higher rules, or despair of [5]

ultimately reaching them, even though failing at first to

demonstrate all the possibilities of Christianity?

St. John spiritually discerned and revealed the sum

total of transcendentalism. He saw the real earth and

heaven. They were spiritual, not material; and they [10]

were without pain, sin, or death. Death was not the

door to this heaven. The gates thereof he declared were

inlaid with pearl,—likening them to the priceless under-

standing of man's real existence, to be recognized here

and now. [15]

The great Way-shower illustrated Life unconfined, un-

contaminated, untrammelled, by matter. He proved the

superiority of Mind over the flesh, opened the door to

the captive, and enabled man to demonstrate the law of

Life, which St. Paul declares “hath made me free from [20]

the law of sin and death.”

The stale saying that Christian Science “is neither

Christian nor science!” is to-day the fossil of wisdom-

less wit, weakness, and superstition. “The fool hath

said in his heart, There is no God.” [25]

Take courage, dear reader, for any seeming mysti-

cism surrounding realism is explained in the Scripture,

“There went up a mist from the earth [matter];” and

the mist of materialism will vanish as we approach spirit-

uality, the realm of reality; cleanse our lives in Christ's [30]

righteousness; bathe in the baptism of Spirit, and awake

in His likeness.

[pg 031]

Chapter III. Questions And Answers.

What do you consider to be mental malpractice? [1]

Mental malpractice is a bland denial of Truth,

and is the antipode of Christian Science. To

mentally argue in a manner that can disastrously

affect the happiness of a fellow-being—harm him [5]

morally, physically, or spiritually—breaks the Golden

Rule and subverts the scientific laws of being. This,

therefore, is not the use but the abuse of mental treat-

ment, and is mental malpractice. It is needless to

say that such a subversion of right is not scientific. Its [10]

claim to power is in proportion to the faith in evil, and

consequently to the lack of faith in good. Such false

faith finds no place in, and receives no aid from, the

Principle or the rules of Christian Science; for it denies

the grand verity of this Science, namely, that God, good, [15]

has all power.

This leaves the individual no alternative but to re-

linquish his faith in evil, or to argue against his own

convictions of good and so destroy his power to be or

to do good, because he has no faith in the omnipotence [20]

of God, good. He parts with his understanding of good,

in order to retain his faith in evil and so succeed with his

[pg 032]

wrong argument,—if indeed he desires success in this [1]

broad road to destruction.

How shall we demean ourselves towards the students

of disloyal students? And what about that clergyman's

remarks on “Christ and Christmas”? [5]

From this question, I infer that some of my students

seem not to know in what manner they should act towards

the students of false teachers, or such as have strayed

from the rules and divine Principle of Christian Science.

The query is abnormal, when “precept upon precept; [10]

line upon line” are to be found in the Scriptures, and in

my books, on this very subject.

In Mark, ninth chapter, commencing at the thirty-

third verse, you will find my views on this subject; love

alone is admissible towards friend and foe. My sym- [15]

pathies extend to the above-named class of students more

than to many others. If I had the time to talk with all

students of Christian Science, and correspond with them,

I would gladly do my best towards helping those un-

fortunate seekers after Truth whose teacher is straying [20]

from the straight and narrow path. But I have not mo-

ments enough in which to give to my own flock all the

time and attention that they need,—and charity must

begin at home.

Distinct denominational and social organizations and [25]

societies are at present necessary for the individual,

and for our Cause. But all people can and should be

just, merciful; they should never envy, elbow, slander,

hate, or try to injure, but always should try to bless their

fellow-mortals. [30]

To the query in regard to some clergyman's com-

[pg 033]

ments on my illustrated poem, I will say: It is the righteous [1]

prayer that avails with God. Whatever is wrong will

receive its own reward. The high priests of old caused

the crucifixion of even the great Master; and thereby

they lost, and he won, heaven. I love all ministers and [5]

ministries of Christ, Truth.

All clergymen may not understand the illustrations

in “Christ and Christmas;” or that these refer not to

personality, but present the type and shadow of Truth's

appearing in the womanhood as well as in the manhood [10]

of God, our divine Father and Mother.

Must I have faith in Christian Science in order to be

healed by it?

This is a question that is being asked every day. It

has not proved impossible to heal those who, when they [15]

began treatment, had no faith whatever in the Science,

—other than to place themselves under my care, and

follow the directions given. Patients naturally gain con-

fidence in Christian Science as they recognize the help

they derive therefrom. [20]

What are the advantages of your system of healing, over

the ordinary methods of healing disease?

Healing by Christian Science has the following advantages:—

First: It does away with all material medicines, and [25]

recognizes the fact that, as mortal mind is the cause of

all “the ills that flesh is heir to,” the antidote for sickness,

as well as for sin, may and must be found in mortal mind's

opposite,—the divine Mind.

Second: It is more effectual than drugs; curing where [30]

[pg 034]

these fail, and leaving none of the harmful “after effects” [1]

of these in the system; thus proving that metaphysics

is above physics.

Third: One who has been healed by Christian Sci-

ence is not only healed of the disease, but is improved [5]

morally. The body is governed by mind; and mortal

mind must be improved, before the body is renewed

and harmonious,—since the physique is simply thought

made manifest.

Is spiritualism or mesmerism included in Christian [10]

Science?

They are wholly apart from it. Christian Science is

based on divine Principle; whereas spiritualism, so far

as I understand it, is a mere speculative opinion and

human belief. If the departed were to communicate [15]

with us, we should see them as they were before death,

and have them with us; after death, they can no more

come to those they have left, than we, in our present state

of existence, can go to the departed or the adult can re-

turn to his boyhood. We may pass on to their state [20]

of existence, but they cannot return to ours. Man is

im-mortal, and there is not a moment when he ceases to

exist. All that are called “communications from spirits,”

lie within the realm of mortal thought on this present plane

of existence, and are the antipodes of Christian Science; [25]

the immortal and mortal are as direct opposites as light

and darkness.

Who is the Founder of mental healing?

The author of “Science and Health with Key to the

Scriptures,” who discovered the Science of healing em- [30]

[pg 035]

bodied in her works. Years of practical proof, through [1]

homœopathy, revealed to her the fact that Mind, in-

stead of matter, is the Principle of pathology; and

subsequently her recovery, through the supremacy of

Mind over matter, from a severe casualty pronounced [5]

by the physicians incurable, sealed that proof with the

signet of Christian Science. In 1883, a million of peo-

ple acknowledge and attest the blessings of this mental

system of treating disease. Perhaps the following

words of her husband, the late Dr. Asa G. Eddy, [10]

afford the most concise, yet complete, summary of the

matter:—

“Mrs, Eddy's works are the outgrowths of her life.

I never knew so unselfish an individual.”

Will the book Science and Health, that you offer for sale [15]

at three dollars, teach its readers to heal the sick,—or is

one obliged to become a student under your personal in-

struction? And if one is obliged to study under you, of

what benefit is your book?

Why do we read the Bible, and then go to church to [20]

hear it expounded? Only because both are important.

Why do we read moral science, and then study it at

college?

You are benefited by reading Science and Health, but

it is greatly to your advantage to be taught its Science [25]

by the author of that work, who explains it in detail.

What is immortal Mind?

In reply, we refer you to “Science and Health with

Key to the Scriptures,”2 Vol. I. page 14: “That which

[pg 036]

is erring, sinful, sick, and dying, termed material or [1]

mortal man, is neither God's man nor Mind; but to be

understood, we shall classify evil and error as mortal

mind, in contradistinction to good and Truth, or the

Mind which is immortal.” [5]

Do animals and beasts have a mind?

Beasts, as well as men, express Mind as their origin;

but they manifest less of Mind. The first and only

cause is the eternal Mind, which is God, and there is

but one God. The ferocious mind seen in the beast is [10]

mortal mind, which is harmful and proceeds not from

God; for His beast is the lion that lieth down with

the lamb. Appetites, passions, anger, revenge, subtlety,

are the animal qualities of sinning mortals; and the

beasts that have these propensities express the lower [15]

qualities of the so-called animal man; in other words,

the nature and quality of mortal mind,—not immortal

Mind.

What is the distinction between mortal mind and immortal

Mind? [20]

Mortal mind includes all evil, disease, and death;

also, all beliefs relative to the so-called material laws,

and all material objects, and the law of sin and death.

The Scripture says, “The carnal mind [in other words,

mortal mind] is enmity against God; for it is not sub- [25]

ject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.” Mortal

mind is an illusion; as much in our waking moments

as in the dreams of sleep. The belief that intelligence,

Truth, and Love, are in matter and separate from God,

is an error; for there is no intelligent evil, and no power [30]

[pg 037]

besides God, good. God would not be omnipotent if [1]

there were in reality another mind creating or governing

man or the universe.

Immortal Mind is God; and this Mind is made

manifest in all thoughts and desires that draw man- [5]

kind toward purity, health, holiness, and the spiritual

facts of being.

Jesus recognized this relation so clearly that he said,

“I and my Father are one.” In proportion as we oppose

the belief in material sense, in sickness, sin, and death, [10]

and recognize ourselves under the control of God,

spiritual and immortal Mind, shall we go on to leave the

animal for the spiritual, and learn the meaning of those

words of Jesus, “Go ye into all the world ... heal the

sick.” [15]

Can your Science cure intemperance?

Christian Science lays the axe at the root of the tree.

Its antidote for all ills is God, the perfect Mind, which

corrects mortal thought, whence cometh all evil. God

can and does destroy the thought that leads to moral [20]

or physical death. Intemperance, impurity, sin of every

sort, is destroyed by Truth. The appetite for alcohol

yields to Science as directly and surely as do sickness

and sin.

Does Mrs. Eddy take patients? [25]

She now does not. Her time is wholly devoted to in-

struction, leaving to her students the work of healing;

which, at this hour, is in reality the least difficult of the

labor that Christian Science demands.

[pg 038]

Why do you charge for teaching Christian Science, when [1]

all the good we can do must be done freely?

When teaching imparts the ability to gain and main-

tain health, to heal and elevate man in every line of

life,—as this teaching certainly does,—is it un- [5]

reasonable to expect in return something to support

one's self and a Cause? If so, our whole system

of education, secular and religious, is at fault, and the

instructors and philanthropists in our land should ex-

pect no compensation. “If we have sown unto you [10]

spiritual things, is it a great thing if we shall reap your

carnal things?”

How happened you to establish a college to instruct in

metaphysics, when other institutions find little interest in

such a dry and abstract subject? [15]

Metaphysics, as taught by me at the Massachusetts

Metaphysical College, is far from dry and abstract. It

is a Science that has the animus of Truth. Its practical

application to benefit the race, heal the sick, enlighten

and reform the sinner, makes divine metaphysics need- [20]

ful, indispensable. Teaching metaphysics at other col-

leges means, mainly, elaborating a man-made theory,

or some speculative view too vapory and hypothetical

for questions of practical import.

Is it necessary to study your Science in order to be healed [25]

by it and keep well?

It is not necessary to make each patient a student

in order to cure his present disease, if this is what

you mean. Were it so, the Science would be of less

[pg 039]

practical value. Many who apply for help are not [1]

prepared to take a course of instruction in Christian

Science.

To avoid being subject to disease, would require the

understanding of how you are healed. In 1885, this [5]

knowledge can be obtained in its genuineness at the

Massachusetts Metaphysical College. There are abroad

at this early date some grossly incorrect and false

teachers of what they term Christian Science; of such

beware. They have risen up in a day to make this claim; [10]

whereas the Founder of genuine Christian Science has

been all her years in giving it birth.

Can you take care of yourself?

God giveth to every one this puissance; and I have

faith in His promise, “Lo, I am with you alway”— [15]

all the way. Unlike the M. D.'s, Christian Scientists

are not afraid to take their own medicine, for this

medicine is divine Mind; and from this saving, ex-

haustless source they intend to fill the human mind with

enough of the leaven of Truth to leaven the whole lump. [20]

There may be exceptional cases, where one Christian

Scientist who has more to meet than others needs support

at times; then, it is right to bear “one another's burdens,

and so fulfil the law of Christ.”

In what way is a Christian Scientist an instrument by [25]

which God reaches others to heal them, and what most

obstructs the way?

A Christian, or a Christian Scientist, assumes no more

when claiming to work with God in healing the sick,

than in converting the sinner. Divine help is as neces-

[pg 040]

sary in the one case as in the other. The scientific Prin- [1]

ciple of healing demands such cooperation; but this

unison and its power would be arrested if one were to

mix material methods with the spiritual,—were to min-

gle hygienic rules, drugs, and prayers in the same pro- [5]

cess,—and thus serve “other gods.” Truth is as

effectual in destroying sickness as in the destruction

of sin.

It is often asked, “If Christian Science is the same

method of healing that Jesus and the apostles used, [10]

why do not its students perform as instantaneous cures

as did those in the first century of the Christian era?”

In some instances the students of Christian Science

equal the ancient prophets as healers. All true healing

is governed by, and demonstrated on, the same Princi- [15]

ple as theirs; namely, the action of the divine Spirit,

through the power of Truth to destroy error, discord

of whatever sort. The reason that the same results fol-

low not in every ease, is that the student does not in

every case possess sufficiently the Christ-spirit and its [20]

power to cast out the disease. The Founder of Chris-

tian Science teaches her students that they must possess

the spirit of Truth and Love, must gain the power

over sin in themselves, or they cannot be instantaneous

healers. [25]

In this Christian warfare the student or practitioner

has to master those elements of evil too common to other

minds. If it is hate that is holding the purpose to kill

his patient by mental means, it requires more divine

understanding to conquer this sin than to nullify either [30]

the disease itself or the ignorance by which one unin-

tentionally harms himself or another. An element of

[pg 041]

brute-force that only the cruel and evil can send forth, is [1]

given vent in the diabolical practice of one who, having

learned the power of liberated thought to do good, per-

verts it, and uses it to accomplish an evil purpose. This

mental malpractice would disgrace Mind-healing, were it [5]

not that God overrules it, and causes “the wrath of man”

to praise Him. It deprives those who practise it of the

power to heal, and destroys their own possibility of

progressing.

The honest student of Christian Science is purged [10]

through Christ, Truth, and thus is ready for victory in

the ennobling strife. The good fight must be fought by

those who keep the faith and finish their course. Mental

purgation must go on: it promotes spiritual growth,

scales the mountain of human endeavor, and gains the [15]

summit in Science that otherwise could not be reached,

—where the struggle with sin is forever done.

Can all classes of disease be healed by your method?

We answer, Yes. Mind is the architect that builds

its own idea, and produces all harmony that appears. [20]

There is no other healer in the case. If mortal mind,

through the action of fear, manifests inflammation and a

belief of chronic or acute disease, by removing the cause

in that so-called mind the effect or disease will disappear

and health will be restored; for health, alias harmony, [25]

is the normal manifestation of man in Science. The

divine Principle which governs the universe, including

man, if demonstrated, is sufficient for all emergencies.

But the practitioner may not always prove equal to

bringing out the result of the Principle that he knows to [30]

be true.

[pg 042]

After the change called death takes place, do we meet [1]

those gone before?—or does life continue in thought only

as in a dream?

Man is not annihilated, nor does he lose his identity,

by passing through the belief called death. After the [5]

momentary belief of dying passes from mortal mind, this

mind is still in a conscious state of existence; and the in-

dividual has but passed through a moment of extreme

mortal fear, to awaken with thoughts, and being, as

material as before. Science and Health clearly states [10]

that spiritualization of thought is not attained by the death

of the body, but by a conscious union with God. When

we shall have passed the ordeal called death, or destroyed

this last enemy, and shall have come upon the same plane

of conscious existence with those gone before, then we [15]

shall be able to communicate with and to recognize them.

If, before the change whereby we meet the dear de-

parted, our life-work proves to have been well done, we

shall not have to repeat it; but our joys and means of ad-

vancing will be proportionately increased. [20]

The difference between a belief of material existence

and the spiritual fact of Life is, that the former is a dream

and unreal, while the latter is real and eternal. Only

as we understand God, and learn that good, not evil,

lives and is immortal, that immortality exists only in [25]

spiritual perfection, shall we drop our false sense of Life

in sin or sense material, and recognize a better state of

existence.

Can I be treated without being present during treatment?

Mind is not confined to limits; and nothing but our [30]

own false admissions prevent us from demonstrating this

[pg 043]

great fact. Christian Science, recognizing the capabili- [1]

ties of Mind to act of itself, and independent of matter,

enables one to heal cases without even having seen the

individual,—or simply after having been made ac-

quainted with the mental condition of the patient. [5]

Do all who at present claim to be teaching Christian

Science, teach it correctly?

By no means: Christian Science is not sufficiently un-

derstood for that. The student of this Science who under-

stands it best, is the one least likely to pour into other [10]

minds a trifling sense of it as being adequate to make safe

and successful practitioners. The simple sense one gains

of this Science through careful, unbiased, contemplative

reading of my books, is far more advantageous to the

sick and to the learner than is or can be the spurious [15]

teaching of those who are spiritually unqualified. The

sad fact at this early writing is, that the letter is gained

sooner than the spirit of Christian Science: time is re-

quired thoroughly to qualify students for the great ordeal

of this century. [20]

If one student tries to undermine another, such sinister

rivalry does a vast amount of injury to the Cause. To

fill one's pocket at the expense of his conscience, or to

build on the downfall of others, incapacitates one to

practise or teach Christian Science. The occasional tem- [25]

porary success of such an one is owing, in part, to the im-

possibility for those unacquainted with the mighty Truth

of Christian Science to recognize, as such, the barefaced

errors that are taught—and the damaging effects these

leave on the practice of the learner, on the Cause, and [30]

on the health of the community.

[pg 044]

Honest students speak the truth “according to the [1]

pattern showed to thee in the mount,” and live it: these

are not working for emoluments, and may profitably

teach people, who are ready to investigate this subject,

the rudiments of Christian Science. [5]

Can Christian Science cure acute cases where there is

necessity for immediate relief, as in membranous croup?

The remedial power of Christian Science is positive,

and its application direct. It cannot fail to heal in

every case of disease, when conducted by one who un- [10]

derstands this Science sufficiently to demonstrate its

highest possibilities.

If I have the toothache, and nothing stops it until I

have the tooth extracted, and then the pain ceases, has

the mind, or extracting, or both, caused the pain to [15]

cease?

What you thought was pain in the bone or nerve, could

only have been a belief of pain in matter; for matter

has no sensation. It was a state of mortal thought made

manifest in the flesh. You call this body matter, when [20]

awake, or when asleep in a dream. That matter can re-

report pain, or that mind is in matter, reporting sensa-

tions, is but a dream at all times. You believed that if

the tooth were extracted, the pain would cease: this de-

mand of mortal thought once met, your belief assumed [25]

a new form, and said, There is no more pain. When

your belief in pain ceases, the pain stops; for matter

has no intelligence of its own. By applying this men-

tal remedy or antidote directly to your belief, you scien-

[pg 045]

tifically prove the fact that Mind is supreme. This is not [1]

done by will-power, for that is not Science but mesmerism.

The full understanding that God is Mind, and that mat-

ter is but a belief, enables you to control pain. Chris-

tian Science, by means of its Principle of metaphysical [5]

healing, is able to do more than to heal a toothache;

although its power to allay fear, prevent inflammation,

and destroy the necessity for ether—thereby avoiding

the fatal results that frequently follow the use of that

drug—render this Science invaluable in the practice [10]

of dentistry.

Can an atheist or a profane man be cured by metaphysics,

or Christian Science?

The moral status of the man demands the remedy of

Truth more in this than in most cases; therefore, under [15]

the deific law that supply invariably meets demand, this

Science is effectual in treating moral ailments. Sin is

not the master of divine Science, but vice versa; and

when Science in a single instance decides the conflict,

the patient is better both morally and physically. [20]

If God made all that was made, and it was good, where

did evil originate?

It never originated or existed as an entity. It is but a

false belief; even the belief that God is not what the

Scriptures imply Him to be, All-in-all, but that there [25]

is an opposite intelligence or mind termed evil. This

error of belief is idolatry, having “other gods before me.”

In John i. 3 we read, “All things were made by Him;

and without Him was not anything made that was made.”

[pg 046]

The admission of the reality of evil perpetuates the belief [1]

or faith in evil. The Scriptures declare, “To whom ye

yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are.”

The leading self-evident proposition of Christian Science

is: good being real, evil, good's opposite, is unreal. This [5]

truism needs only to be tested scientifically to be found

true, and adapted to destroy the appearance of evil to an

extent beyond the power of any doctrine previously

entertained.

Do you teach that you are equal with God? [10]

A reader of my writings would not present this ques-

tion. There are no such indications in the premises or

conclusions of Christian Science, and such a misconcep-

tion of Truth is not scientific. Man is not equal with

his Maker; that which is formed is not cause, but effect, [15]

and has no power underived from its creator. It is pos-

sible, and it is man's duty, so to throw the weight of his

thoughts and acts on the side of Truth, that he be ever

found in the scale with his creator; not weighing

equally with Him, but comprehending at every point, in [20]

divine Science, the full significance of what the apostle

meant by the declaration, “The Spirit itself beareth wit-

ness with our spirit, that we are the children of God: and

if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with

Christ.” In Science, man represents his divine Prin- [25]

ciple,—the Life and Love that are God,—even as the

idea of sound, in tones, represents harmony; but thought

has not yet wholly attained unto the Science of being,

wherein man is perfect even as the Father, his divine

Principle, is perfect. [30]

[pg 047]

How can I believe that there is no such thing as matter, [1]

when I weigh over two hundred pounds and carry about

this weight daily?

By learning that matter is but manifest mortal mind.

You entertain an adipose belief of yourself as substance; [5]

whereas, substance means more than matter: it is the

glory and permanence of Spirit: it is that which is

hoped for but unseen, that which the material senses

cannot take in. Have you never been so preoccupied in

thought when moving your body, that you did this with- [10]

out consciousness of its weight? If never in your waking

hours, you have been in your night-dreams; and these

tend to elucidate your day-dream, or the mythical nature

of matter, and the possibilities of mind when let loose

from its own beliefs. In sleep, a sense of the body ac- [15]

companies thought with less impediment than when

awake, which is the truer sense of being. In Science,

body is the servant of Mind, not its master: Mind is

supreme. Science reverses the evidence of material

sense with the spiritual sense that God, Spirit, is the only [20]

substance; and that man, His image and likeness, is

spiritual, not material. This great Truth does not de-

stroy but substantiates man's identity,—together with

his immortality and preexistence, or his spiritual co-

existence with his Maker. That which has a beginning [25]

must have an ending.

What should one conclude as to Professor Carpenter's

exhibitions of mesmerism?

That largely depends upon what one accepts as either

useful or true. I have no knowledge of mesmerism, [30]

[pg 048]

practically or theoretically, save as I measure its demon- [1]

strations as a false belief, and avoid all that works ill. If

mesmerism has the power attributed to it by the gentle-

man referred to, it should neither be taught nor practised,

but should be conscientiously condemned. One thing [5]

is quite apparent; namely, that its so-called power is

despotic, and Mr. Carpenter deserves praise for his public

exposure of it. If such be its power, I am opposed to it,

as to every form of error,—whether of ignorance or

fanaticism, prompted by money-making or malice. It [10]

is enough for me to know that animal magnetism is neither

of God nor Science.

It is alleged that at one of his recent lectures in Bos-

ton Mr. Carpenter made a man drunk on water, and

then informed his audience that he could produce the [15]

effect of alcohol, or of any drug, on the human system,

through the action of mind alone. This honest declara-

tion as to the animus of animal magnetism and the pos-

sible purpose to which it can be devoted, has, we trust,

been made in season to open the eyes of the people to the [20]

hidden nature of some tragic events and sudden deaths

at this period.

Was ever a person made insane by studying meta-

physics?

Such an occurrence would be impossible, for the [25]

proper study of Mind-healing would cure the insane.

That persons have gone away from the Massachusetts

Metaphysical College “made insane by Mrs. Eddy's

teachings,” like a hundred other stories, is a baseless

fabrication offered solely to injure her or her school. [30]

The enemy is trying to make capital out of the follow-

[pg 049]

ing case. A young lady entered the College class who, [1]

I quickly saw, had a tendency to monomania, and re-

quested her to withdraw before its close. We are cred-

ibly informed that, before entering the College, this

young lady had manifested some mental unsoundness, [5]

and have no doubt she could have been restored by

Christian Science treatment. Her friends employed a

homœopathist, who had the skill and honor to state, as his

opinion given to her friends, that “Mrs. Eddy's teach-

ings had not produced insanity.” This is the only case [10]

that could be distorted into the claim of insanity ever

having occurred in a class of Mrs. Eddy's; while ac-

knowledged and notable cases of insanity have been

cured in her class.

If all that is mortal is a dream or error, is not [15]

our capacity for formulating a dream, real; is it not

God-made; and if God-made, can it be wrong, sinful, or

an error?

The spirit of Truth leads into all truth, and enables

man to discern between the real and the unreal. Enter- [20]

taining the common belief in the opposite of goodness,

and that evil is as real as good, opposes the leadings of

the divine Spirit that are helping man Godward: it pre-

vents a recognition of the nothingness of the dream, or

belief, that Mind is in matter, intelligence in non-intel- [25]

ligence, sin, and death. This belief presupposes not

only a power opposed to God, and that God is not All-

in-all, as the Scriptures imply Him to be, but that the

capacity to err proceeds from God.

That God is Truth, the Scriptures aver; that Truth [30]

never created error, or such a capacity, is self-evident;

[pg 050]

that God made all that was made, is again Scriptural; [1]

therefore your answer is, that error is an illusion of

mortals; that God is not its author, and it cannot be

real.

Does “Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures” [5]

explain the entire method of metaphysical healing, or is

there a secret back of what is contained in that book, as

some say?

“Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures”

is a complete textbook of Christian Science; and its [10]

metaphysical method of healing is as lucid in presenta-

tion as can be possible, under the necessity to express

the metaphysical in physical terms. There is absolutely

no additional secret outside of its teachings, or that gives

one the power to heal; but it is essential that the student [15]

gain the spiritual understanding of the contents of this

book, in order to heal.

Do you believe in change of heart?

We do believe, and understand—which is more—

that there must be a change from human affections, de- [20]

sires, and aims, to the divine standard, “Be ye therefore

perfect;” also, that there must be a change from the be-

lief that the heart is matter and sustains life, to the

understanding that God is our Life, that we exist in

Mind, live thereby, and have being. This change of [25]

heart would deliver man from heart-disease, and ad-

vance Christianity a hundredfold. The human affections

need to be changed from self to benevolence and love

for God and man; changed to having but one God and

loving Him supremely, and helping our brother man. [30]

[pg 051]

This change of heart is essential to Christianity, and [1]

will have its effect physically as well as spiritually,

healing disease. Burnt offerings and drugs, God does

not require.

Is a belief of nervousness, accompanied by great mental [5]

depression, mesmerism?

All mesmerism is of one of three kinds; namely, the

ignorant, the fraudulent, or the malicious workings of

error or mortal mind. We have not the particulars of

the case to which you may refer, and for this reason can- [10]

not answer your question professionally.

How can I govern a child metaphysically? Doesn't the

use of the rod teach him life in matter?

The use of the rod is virtually a declaration to the

child's mind that sensation belongs to matter. Motives [15]

govern acts, and Mind governs man. If you make clear

to the child's thought the right motives for action, and

cause him to love them, they will lead him aright: if you

educate him to love God, good, and obey the Golden

Rule, he will love and obey you without your having to [20]

resort to corporeal punishment.

“"When from the lips of Truth one mighty breath

Shall, like a whirlwind, scatter in its breeze

The whole dark pile of human mockeries;

Then shall the reign of Mind commence on earth, [25]

And starting fresh, as from a second birth,

Man in the sunshine of the world's new spring,

Shall walk transparent like some holy thing.”

Are both prayer and drugs necessary to heal?

The apostle James said, “Ye ask, and receive not, [30]

because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your

[pg 052]

lusts.” This text may refer to such as seek the material [1]

to aid the spiritual, and take drugs to support God's

power to heal them. It is difficult to say how much

one can do for himself, whose faith is divided be-

tween catnip and Christ; but not so difficult to know [5]

that if he were to serve one master, he could do vastly

more. Whosoever understands the power of Spirit, has

no doubt of God's power,—even the might of Truth,—

to heal, through divine Science, beyond all human means

and methods. [10]

What do you think of marriage?

That it is often convenient, sometimes pleasant, and

occasionally a love affair. Marriage is susceptible of

many definitions. It sometimes presents the most

wretched condition of human existence. To be normal, [15]

it must be a union of the affections that tends to lift

mortals higher.

If this life is a dream not dispelled, but only changed,

by death,—if one gets tired of it, why not commit

suicide? [20]

Man's existence is a problem to be wrought in divine

Science. What progress would a student of science

make, if, when tired of mathematics or failing to dem-

onstrate one rule readily, he should attempt to work

out a rule farther on and more difficult—and this, [25]

because the first rule was not easily demonstrated? In

that case he would be obliged to turn back and work

out the previous example, before solving the advanced

problem. Mortals have the sum of being to work out,

and up, to its spiritual standpoint. They must work [30]

[pg 053]

out of this dream or false claim of sensation and life [1]

in matter, and up to the spiritual realities of existence,

before this false claim can be wholly dispelled. Com-

mitting suicide to dodge the question is not working

it out. The error of supposed life and intelligence in [5]

matter, is dissolved only as we master error with Truth.

Not through sin or suicide, but by overcoming tempta-

tion and sin, shall we escape the weariness and wicked-

ness of mortal existence, and gain heaven, the harmony

of being. [10]

Do you sometimes find it advisable to use medicine to

assist in producing a cure, when it is difficult to start the

patient's recovery?

You only weaken your power to heal through Mind,

by any compromise with matter; which is virtually ac- [15]

knowledging that under difficulties the former is not equal

to the latter. He that resorts to physics, seeks what is

below instead of above the standard of metaphysics;

showing his ignorance of the meaning of the term and

of Christian Science. [20]

If Christian Science is the same as Jesus taught, why is

it not more simple, so that all can readily understand it?

The teachings of Jesus were simple; and yet he found

it difficult to make the rulers understand, because of

their great lack of spirituality. Christian Science is [25]

simple, and readily understood by the children; only

the thought educated away from it finds it abstract or

difficult to perceive. Its seeming abstraction is the

mystery of godliness; and godliness is simple to the

godly; but to the unspiritual, the ungodly, it is dark [30]

[pg 054]

and difficult. The carnal mind cannot discern spiritual [1]

things.

Has Mrs. Eddy lost her power to heal?

Has the sun forgotten to shine, and the planets to

revolve around it? Who is it that discovered, dem- [5]

onstrated, and teaches Christian Science? That one,

whoever it be, does understand something of what can-

not be lost. Thousands in the field of metaphysical

healing, whose lives are worthy testimonials, are her

students, and they bear witness to this fact. Instead [10]

of losing her power to heal, she is demonstrating the

power of Christian Science over all obstacles that envy

and malice would fling in her path. The reading of her

book, “Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures,”

is curing hundreds at this very time; and the sick, un- [15]

asked, are testifying thereto.

Must I study your Science in order to keep well all my

life? I was healed of a chronic trouble after one month's

treatment by one of your students.

When once you are healed by Science, there is no rea- [20]

son why you should be liable to a return of the disease

that you were healed of. But not to be subject again to

any disease whatsoever, would require an understanding

of the Science by which you were healed.

Because none of your students have been able to perform [25]

as great miracles in healing as Jesus and his disciples did,

does it not suggest the possibility that they do not heal on

the same basis?

You would not ask the pupil in simple equations to

solve a problem involving logarithms; and then, because [30]

[pg 055]

he failed to get the right answer, condemn the pupil [1]

and the science of numbers. The simplest problem

in Christian Science is healing the sick, and the least

understanding and demonstration thereof prove all its

possibilities. The ability to demonstrate to the extent [5]

that Jesus did, will come when the student possesses as

much of the divine Spirit as he shared, and utilizes its

power to overcome sin.

Opposite to good, is the universal claim of evil that

seeks the proportions of good. There may be those [10]

who, having learned the power of the unspoken thought,

use it to harm rather than to heal, and who are using

that power against Christian Scientists. This giant sin

is the sin against the Holy Ghost spoken of in Matt.

xii. 31, 32. [15]

Is Christian Science based on the facts of both Spirit

and matter?

Christian Science is based on the facts of Spirit and

its forms and representations, but these facts are the

direct antipodes of the so-called facts of matter; and [20]

the eternal verities of Spirit assert themselves over their

opposite, or matter, in the final destruction of all that

is unlike Spirit.

Man knows that he can have one God only, when

he regards God as the only Mind, Life, and substance. [25]

If God is Spirit, as the Scriptures declare, and All-in-

all, matter is mythology, and its laws are mortal

beliefs.

If Mind is in matter and beneath a skull bone, it is

in something unlike Him; hence it is either a godless and [30]

material Mind, or it is God in matter,—which are theo-

[pg 056]

ries of agnosticism and pantheism, the very antipodes [1]

of Christian Science

What is organic life?

Life is inorganic, infinite Spirit; if Life, or Spirit,

were organic, disorganization would destroy Spirit and [5]

annihilate man.

If Mind is not substance, form, and tangibility, God

is substanceless; for the substance of Spirit is divine

Mind. Life is God, the only creator, and Life is im-

mortal Mind, not matter. [10]

Every indication of matter's constituting life is mortal,

the direct opposite of immortal Life, and infringes the

rights of Spirit. Then, to conclude that Spirit consti-

tutes or ever has constituted laws to that effect, is a mor-

tal error, a human conception opposed to the divine [15]

government. Mind and matter mingling in perpetual

warfare is a kingdom divided against itself, that shall be

brought to desolation. The final destruction of this

false belief in matter will appear at the full revelation

of Spirit,—one God, and the brotherhood of man. [20]

Organic life is an error of statement that Truth destroys.

The Science of Life needs only to be understood; its dem-

onstration proves the correctness of my statements, and

brings blessings infinite.

Why did God command, “Be fruitful, and multiply, [25]

and replenish the earth,” if all minds (men) have existed

from the beginning, and have had successive stages of

existence to the present time?

Your question implies that Spirit, which first spirit-

ually created the universe, including man, created man [30]

[pg 057]

over again materially; and, by the aid of mankind, all [1]

was later made which He had made. If the first record

is true, what evidence have you—apart from the evi-

dence of that which you admit cannot discern spiritual

things—of any other creation? The creative “Us” [5]

made all, and Mind was the creator. Man originated

not from dust, materially, but from Spirit, spiritually.

This work had been done; the true creation was finished,

and its spiritual Science is alluded to in the first chapter

of Genesis. [10]

Jesus said of error, “That thou doest, do quickly.”

By the law of opposites, after the truth of man had been

demonstrated, the postulate of error must appear. That

this addendum was untrue, is seen when Truth, God,

denounced it, and said: “I will greatly multiply thy [15]

sorrow.” “In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt

surely die.” The opposite error said, “I am true,” and

declared, “God doth know ... that your eyes shall be

opened, and ye shall be as gods,” creators. This was false;

and the Lord God never said it. This history of a falsity [20]

must be told in the name of Truth, or it would have no

seeming. The Science of creation is the universe with man

created spiritually. The false sense and error of creation

is the sense of man and the universe created materially.

Why does the record make man a creation of the sixth [25]

and last day, if he was coexistent with God?

In its genesis, the Science of creation is stated in mathe-

matical order, beginning with the lowest form and ascend-

ing the scale of being up to man. But all that really is,

always was and forever is; for it existed in and of the Mind [30]

that is God, wherein man is foremost.

[pg 058]

If one has died of consumption, and he has no remem- [1]

brance of that disease or dream, does that disease have any

more power over him?

Waking from a dream, one learns its unreality; then

it has no power over one. Waking from the dream of [5]

death, proves to him who thought he died that it was a

dream, and that he did not die; then he learns that con-

sumption did not kill him. When the belief in the power

of disease is destroyed, disease cannot return.

How does Mrs. Eddy know that she has read and studied [10]

correctly, if one must deny the evidences of the senses?

She had to use her eyes to read.

Jesus said, “Having eyes, see ye not?” I read the in-

spired page through a higher than mortal sense. As

matter, the eye cannot see; and as mortal mind, it is a [15]

belief that sees. I may read the Scriptures through a

belief of eyesight; but I must spiritually understand

them to interpret their Science.

Does the theology of Christian Science aid its heal-

ing? [20]

Without its theology there is no mental science, no

order that proceeds from God. All Science is divine,

not human, in origin and demonstration. If God does

not govern the action of man, it is inharmonious: if He

does govern it, the action is Science. Take away the [25]

theology of mental healing and you take away its science,

leaving it a human “mind-cure,” nothing more nor less,

—even one human mind governing another; by which,

if you agree that God is Mind, you admit that there is

[pg 059]

more than one government and God. Having no true [1]

sense of the healing theology of Mind, you can neither

understand nor demonstrate its Science, and will prac-

tise your belief of it in the name of Truth. This is the

mortal “mind-cure” that produces the effect of mes- [5]

merism. It is using the power of human will, instead

of the divine power understood, as in Christian Science;

and without this Science there had better be no “mind-

cure,”—in which the last state of patients is worse than

the first. [10]

Is it wrong to pray for the recovery of the sick?

Not if we pray Scripturally, with the understanding

that God has given all things to those who love Him;

but pleading with infinite Love to love us, or to restore

health and harmony, and then to admit that it has been [15]

lost under His government, is the prayer of doubt and

mortal belief that is unavailing in divine Science.

Is not all argument mind over mind?

The Scriptures refer to God as saying, “Come now, and

let us reason together.” There is but one right Mind, and [20]

that one should and does govern man. Any copartnership

with that Mind is impossible; and the only benefit in

speaking often one to another, arises from the success that

one individual has with another in leading his thoughts

away from the human mind or body, and guiding them [25]

with Truth. That individual is the best healer who as-

serts himself the least, and thus becomes a transparency

for the divine Mind, who is the only physician; the divine

Mind is the scientific healer.

[pg 060]

How can you believe there is no sin, and that God does [1]

not recognize any, when He sent His Son to save from

sin, and the Bible is addressed to sinners? How can you

believe there is no sickness, when Jesus came healing the

sick? [5]

To regard sin, disease, and death with less deference,

and only as the woeful unrealities of being, is the only

way to destroy them; Christian Science is proving this by

healing cases of disease and sin after all other means have

failed. The Nazarene Prophet could make the unreality [10]

of both apparent in a moment.

Does it not limit the power of Mind to deny the possi-

bility of communion with departed friends—dead only in

belief?

Does it limit the power of Mind to say that addition [15]

is not subtraction in mathematics? The Science of Mind

reveals the impossibility of two individual sleepers, in

different phases of thought, communicating, even if touch-

ing each other corporeally; or for one who sleeps to

communicate with another who is awake. Mind's possi- [20]

bilities are not lessened by being confined and conformed

to the Science of being.

If mortal mind and body are myths, what is the con-

nection between them and real identity, and why are there

as many identities as mortal bodies? [25]

Evil in the beginning claimed the power, wisdom, and

utility of good; and every creation or idea of Spirit has

its counterfeit in some matter belief. Every material be-

lief hints the existence of spiritual reality; and if mortals

are instructed in spiritual things, it will be seen that ma- [30]

[pg 061]

terial belief, in all its manifestations, reversed, will be [1]

found the type and representative of verities priceless,

eternal, and just at hand.

The education of the future will be instruction, in spir-

itual Science, against the material symbolic counterfeit [5]

sciences. All the knowledge and vain strivings of mortal

mind, that lead to death,—even when aping the wisdom

and magnitude of immortal Mind,—will be swallowed

up by the reality and omnipotence of Truth over error,

and of Life over death. [10]

“Dear Mrs. Eddy:—In the October Journal I read

the following: “But the real man, who was created in the

image of God, does not commit sin.” What then does sin?

What commits theft? Or who does murder? For instance,

the man is held responsible for the crime; for I went once [15]

to a place where a man was said to be “hanged for mur-

der”—and certainly I saw him, or his effigy, dangling

at the end of a rope. This “man” was held responsible

for the ‘sin.’ ”

What sins? [20]

According to the Word, man is the image and likeness

of God. Does God's essential likeness sin, or dangle at

the end of a rope? If not, what does? A culprit, a sinner,

—anything but a man! Then, what is a sinner? A

mortal; but man is immortal. [25]

Again: mortals are the embodiments (or bodies, if

you please) of error, not of Truth; of sickness, sin, and

death. Naming these His embodiment, can neither make

them so nor overthrow the logic that man is God's like-

ness. Mortals seem very material; man in the likeness [30]

[pg 062]

of Spirit is spiritual. Holding the right idea of man in my [1]

mind, I can improve my own, and other people's individ-

uality, health, and morals; whereas, the opposite image

of man, a sinner, kept constantly in mind, can no more

improve health or morals, than holding in thought the [5]

form of a boa-constrictor can aid an artist in painting a

landscape.

Man is seen only in the true likeness of his Maker.

Believing a lie veils the truth from our vision; even as

in mathematics, in summing up positive and negative [10]

quantities, the negative quantity offsets an equal positive

quantity, making the aggregate positive, or true quantity,

by that much, less available.

Why do Christian Scientists hold that their theology is

essential to heal the sick, when the mind-cure claims to heal [15]

without it?

The theology of Christian Science is Truth; opposed

to which is the error of sickness, sin, and death, that

Truth destroys.

A “mind-cure” is a matter-cure. An adherent to this [20]

method honestly acknowledges this fact in her work

entitled “Mind-cure on a Material Basis.” In that

work the author grapples with Christian Science, attempts

to solve its divine Principle by the rule of human mind,

fails, and ends in a parody on this Science which is amus- [25]

ing to astute readers,—especially when she tells them

that she is practising this Science.

The theology of Christian Science is based on the action

of the divine Mind over the human mind and body;

whereas, “mind-cure” rests on the notion that the human [30]

mind can cure its own disease, or that which it causes,

[pg 063]

and the sickness of matter,—which is infidel in the one [1]

case, and anomalous in the other. It was said of old by

Truth-traducers, that Jesus healed through Beelzebub;

but the claim that one erring mind cures another one was

at first gotten up to hinder his benign influence and to hide [5]

his divine power.

Our Master understood that Life, Truth, Love are the

triune Principle of all pure theology; also, that this divine

trinity is one infinite remedy for the opposite triad, sick-

ness, sin, and death. [10]

If there is no sin, why did Jesus come to save sinners?

If there is no reality in sickness, why does a Chris-

tian Scientist go to the bedside and address himself to

the healing of disease, on the basis of its unreality?

Jesus came to seek and to save such as believe in the [15]

reality of the unreal; to save them from this false belief;

that they might lay hold of eternal Life, the great reality

that concerns man, and understand the final fact,—that

God is omnipotent and omnipresent; yea, “that the Lord

He is God; there is none else beside Him,” as the Scrip- [20]

tures declare.

If Christ was God, why did Jesus cry out, “My God,

why hast Thou forsaken me?”

Even as the struggling heart, reaching toward a higher

goal, appeals to its hope and faith, Why failest thou [25]

me? Jesus as the son of man was human: Christ as

the Son of God was divine. This divinity was reaching

humanity through the crucifixion of the human,—that

momentous demonstration of God, in which Spirit proved

its supremacy over matter. Jesus assumed for mortals the [30]

[pg 064]

weakness of flesh, that Spirit might be found “All-in-all.” [1]

Hence, the human cry which voiced that struggle;

thence, the way he made for mortals' escape. Our

Master bore the cross to show his power over death;

then relinquished his earth-task of teaching and dem- [5]

onstrating the nothingness of sickness, sin, and death,

and rose to his native estate, man's indestructible eternal

life in God.

What can prospective students of the College take for

preliminary studies? Do you regard the study of litera- [10]

ture and languages as objectionable?

Persons contemplating a course at the Massachusetts

Metaphysical College, can prepare for it through no

books except the Bible, and “Science and Health with

Key to the Scriptures.” Man-made theories are nar- [15]

row, else extravagant, and are always materialistic.

The ethics which guide thought spiritually must bene-

fit every one; for the only philosophy and religion that

afford instruction are those which deal with facts and

resist speculative opinions and fables. [20]

Works on science are profitable; for science is not

human. It is spiritual, and not material. Literature

and languages, to a limited extent, are aids to a student

of the Bible and of Christian Science.

Is it possible to know why we are put into this condition [25]

of mortality?

It is quite as possible to know wherefore man is thus

conditioned, as to be certain that he is in a state of

mortality. The only evidence of the existence of a mor-

tal man, or of a material state and universe, is gathered [30]

[pg 065]

from the five personal senses. This delusive evidence, [1]

Science has dethroned by repeated proofs of its falsity.

We have no more proof of human discord,—sin,

sickness, disease, or death,—than we have that the

earth's surface is flat, and her motions imaginary. If [5]

man's ipse dixit as to the stellar system is correct, this

is because Science is true, and the evidence of the senses

is false. Then why not submit to the affirmations of

Science concerning the greater subject of human weal

and woe? Every question between Truth and error, [10]

Science must and will decide. Left to the decision of

Science, your query concerns a negative which the posi-

tive Truth destroys; for God's universe and man are

immortal. We must not consider the false side of exist-

ence in order to gain the true solution of Life and its [15]

great realities.

Have you changed your instructions as to the right way

of treating disease?

I have not; and this important fact must be, and al-

ready is, apprehended by those who understand my in- [20]

structions on this question. Christian Science demands

both law and gospel, in order to demonstrate healing,

and I have taught them both in its demonstration, and

with signs following. They are a unit in restoring the

equipoise of mind and body, and balancing man's ac- [25]

count with his Maker. The sequence proves that strict

adherence to one is inadequate to compensate for the

absence of the other, since both constitute the divine law

of healing.

The Jewish religion demands that “whoso sheddeth [30]

man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed.” But this

[pg 066]

law is not infallible in wisdom; and obedience thereto [1]

may be found faulty, since false testimony or mistaken

evidence may cause the innocent to suffer for the guilty.

Hence the gospel that fulfils the law in righteousness,

the genius whereof is displayed in the surprising wisdom [5]

of these words of the New Testament: “Whatsoever

a man soweth, that shall he also reap.” No possible

injustice lurks in this mandate, and no human mis-

judgment can pervert it; for the offender alone suffers,

and always according to divine decree. This sacred, [10]

solid precept is verified in all directions in Mind-

healing, and is supported in the Scripture by parallel

proof.

The law and gospel of Truth and Love teach, through

divine Science, that sin is identical with suffering, and [15]

that suffering is the lighter affliction. To reach the sum-

mit of Science, whence to discern God's perfect ways

and means, the material sense must be controlled by

the higher spiritual sense, and Truth be enthroned,

while “we look not at the things which are seen, but at [20]

the things which are not seen.”

Cynical critics misjudge my meaning as to the sci-

entific treatment of the sick. Disease that is superin-

duced by sin is not healed like the more physical

ailment. The beginner in sin-healing must know this, or [25]

he never can reach the Science of Mind-healing, and

so “overcome evil with good.” Error in premise is met

with error in practice; yea, it is “the blind leading the

blind.” Ignorance of the cause of disease can neither

remove that cause nor its effect. [30]

I endeavor to accommodate my instructions to the

present capability of the learner, and to support the

[pg 067]

liberated thought until its altitude reaches beyond the [1]

mere alphabet of Mind-healing. Above physical wants,

lie the higher claims of the law and gospel of healing.

First is the law, which saith:—

“Thou shalt not commit adultery;” in other words, [5]

thou shalt not adulterate Life, Truth, or Love,—men-

tally, morally, or physically. “Thou shalt not steal;”

that is, thou shalt not rob man of money, which is but

trash, compared with his rights of mind and character.

“Thou shalt not kill;” that is, thou shalt not strike at the [10]

eternal sense of Life with a malicious aim, but shalt

know that by doing thus thine own sense of Life shall be

forfeited. “Thou shalt not bear false witness;” that is,

thou shalt not utter a lie, either mentally or audibly, nor

cause it to be thought. Obedience to these command- [15]

ments is indispensable to health, happiness, and length

of days.

The gospel of healing demonstrates the law of Love.

Justice uncovers sin of every sort; and mercy demands

that if you see the danger menacing others, you shall, [20]

Deo volente, inform them thereof. Only thus is the right

practice of Mind-healing achieved, and the wrong prac-

tice discerned, disarmed, and destroyed.

Do you believe in translation?

If your question refers to language, whereby one ex- [25]

presses the sense of words in one language by equiva-

lent words in another, I do. If you refer to the removal

of a person to heaven, without his subjection to death,

I modify my affirmative answer. I believe in this

removal being possible after all the footsteps requisite [30]

have been taken up to the very throne, up to the

[pg 068]

spiritual sense and fact of divine substance, intelligence, [1]

Life, and Love. This translation is not the work of mo-

ments; it requires both time and eternity. It means more

than mere disappearance to the human sense; it must

include also man's changed appearance and diviner form [5]

visible to those beholding him here.

The Rev. —— said in a sermon: A true Christian

would protest against metaphysical healing being called

Christian Science. He also maintained that pain and

disease are not illusions but realities; and that it is not [10]

Christian to believe they are illusions. Is this so?

It is unchristian to believe that pain and sickness are

anything but illusions. My proof of this is, that the

penalty for believing in their reality is the very pain and

disease. Jesus cast out a devil, and the dumb spake; [15]

hence it is right to know that the works of Satan are the

illusion and error which Truth casts out.

Does the gentleman above mentioned know the

meaning of divine metaphysics, or of metaphysical

theology? [20]

According to Webster, metaphysics is defined thus:

“The science of the conceptions and relations which are

necessary to thought and knowledge; science of the

mind.” Worcester defines it as “the philosophy of mind,

as distinguished from that of matter; a science of which [25]

the object is to explain the principles and causes of

all things existing,” Brande calls metaphysics “the

science which regards the ultimate grounds of being, as

distinguished from its phenomenal modifications.” “A

speculative science, which soars beyond the bounds of [30]

experience,” is a further definition.

[pg 069]

Divine metaphysics is that which treats of the exist- [1]

ence of God, His essence, relations, and attributes. A

sneer at metaphysics is a scoff at Deity; at His goodness,

mercy, and might.

Christian Science is the unfolding of true metaphysics; [5]

that is, of Mind, or God, and His attributes. Science rests

on Principle and demonstration. The Principle of Chris-

tian Science is divine. Its rule is, that man shall utilize

the divine power.

In Genesis i. 26, we read: “Let us make man in [10]

our image, after our likeness: and let them have

dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of

the air.”

I was once called to visit a sick man to whom the

regular physicians had given three doses of Croton [15]

oil, and then had left him to die. Upon my arrival I

found him barely alive, and in terrible agony. In one

hour he was well, and the next day he attended to his

business. I removed the stoppage, healed him of en-

teritis, and neutralized the bad effects of the poison- [20]

ous oil. His physicians had failed even to move his

bowels,—though the wonder was, with the means

used in their effort to accomplish this result, that

they had not quite killed him. According to their

diagnosis, the exciting cause of the inflammation and [25]

stoppage was—eating smoked herring. The man is

living yet; and I will send his address to any one

who may wish to apply to him for information about

his case.

Now comes the question: Had that sick man dominion [30]

over the fish in his stomach?

His want of control over “the fish of the sea” must

[pg 070]

have been an illusion, or else the Scriptures misstate [1]

man's power. That the Bible is true I believe, not

only, but I demonstrated its truth when I exercised

my power over the fish, cast out the sick man's illu-

sion, and healed him. Thus it was shown that the [5]

healing action of Mind upon the body has its only ex-

planation in divine metaphysics. As a man “thinketh

in his heart, so is he.” When the mortal thought, or be-

lief, was removed, the man was well.

What did Jesus mean when he said to the dying thief, [10]

“To-day shalt thou be with me in paradise”?

Paradisaical rest from physical agony would come to

the criminal, if the dream of dying should startle him

from the dream of suffering. The paradise of Spirit

would come to Jesus, in a spiritual sense of Life and [15]

power. Christ Jesus lived and reappeared. He was too

good to die; for goodness is immortal. The thief was

not equal to the demands of the hour; but sin was de-

stroying itself, and had already begun to die,—as

the poor thief's prayer for help indicated. The dy- [20]

ing malefactor and our Lord were inevitably sepa-

rated through Mind. The thief's body, as matter,

must dissolve into its native nothingness; whereas the

body of the holy Spirit of Jesus was eternal. That

day the thief would be with Jesus only in a finite [25]

and material sense of relief; while our Lord would

soon be rising to the supremacy of Spirit, working

out, even in the silent tomb, those wonderful demon-

strations of divine power, in which none could equal his

glory. [30]

[pg 071]

Is it right for me to treat others, when I am not entirely [1]

well myself?

The late John B. Gough is said to have suffered from

an appetite for alcoholic drink until his death; yet he

saved many a drunkard from this fatal appetite. Paul [5]

had a thorn in the flesh: one writer thinks that he was

troubled with rheumatism, and another that he had sore

eyes; but this is certain, that he healed others who were

sick. It is unquestionably right to do right; and heal-

ing the sick is a very right thing to do. [10]

Does Christian Science set aside the law of transmission,

prenatal desires, and good or bad influences on the unborn

child?

Science never averts law, but supports it. All actual

causation must interpret omnipotence, the all-knowing [15]

Mind. Law brings out Truth, not error; unfolds divine

Principle,—but neither human hypothesis nor matter.

Errors are based on a mortal or material formation; they

are suppositional modes, not the factors of divine presence

and power. [20]

Whatever is humanly conceived is a departure from

divine law; hence its mythical origin and certain end.

According to the Scriptures,—St. Paul declares astutely,

“For of Him, and through Him, and to Him, are all

things,”—man is incapable of originating; nothing can [25]

be formed apart from God, good, the all-knowing Mind.

What seems to be of human origin is the counterfeit

of the divine,—even human concepts, mortal shadows

flitting across the dial of time.

Whatever is real is right and eternal; hence the im- [30]

mutable and just law of Science, that God is good only,

[pg 072]

and can transmit to man and the universe nothing evil, [1]

or unlike Himself. For the innocent babe to be born a

lifelong sufferer because of his parents' mistakes or sins,

were sore injustice. Science sets aside man as a creator,

and unfolds the eternal harmonies of the only living and [5]

true origin, God.

According to the beliefs of the flesh, both good and

bad traits of the parents are transmitted to their help-

less offspring, and God is supposed to impart to man

this fatal power. It is cause for rejoicing that this belief [10]

is as false as it is remorseless. The immutable Word

saith, through the prophet Ezekiel, “What mean ye, that

ye use this proverb concerning the land of Israel, saying,

The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children's

teeth are set on edge? As I live, saith the Lord God, [15]

ye shall not have occasion any more to use this proverb

in Israel.”

Are material things real when they are harmonious, and

do they disappear only to the natural sense? Does this

Scripture, “Your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have [20]

need of all these things” imply that Spirit takes note of

matter?

The Science of Mind, as well as the material unii

verse, shows that nothing which is material is in

perpetual harmony. Matter is manifest mortal mind, [35]

and it exists only to material sense. Real sensation

is not material; it is, and must be, mental: and Mind

is not mortal, it is immortal. Being is God, infinite

Spirit; therefore it cannot cognize aught material, or

outside of infinity. [30]

The Scriptural passage quoted affords no evidence of

[pg 073]

the reality of matter, or that God is conscious of it. [1]

The so-called material body is said to suffer, but this

supposition is proven erroneous when Mind casts out

the suffering. The Scripture saith, “Whom the Lord

loveth He chasteneth;” and again, “He doth not [5]

afflict willingly.” Interpreted materially, these pas-

sages conflict; they mingle the testimony of immor-

tal Science with mortal sense; but once discern their

spiritual meaning, and it separates the false sense from

the true, and establishes the reality of what is spiritual, [10]

and the unreality of materiality.

Law is never material: it is always mental and moral,

and a commandment to the wise. The foolish disobey

moral law, and are punished. Human wisdom therefore

can get no farther than to say, He knoweth that we have [15]

need of experience. Belief fulfils the conditions of a be-

lief, and these conditions destroy the belief. Hence the

verdict of experience: We have need of these things; we

have need to know that the so-called pleasures and pains

of matter—yea, that all subjective states of false sensa- [20]

tion—are unreal.

“And Jesus said unto them, Verily I say unto you,

That ye which have followed me, in the regeneration when

the Son of man shall sit in the throne of his glory,

ye also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the [25]

twelve tribes of Israel.” (Matt. xix. 28.) What is meant

by regeneration?

It is the appearing of divine law to human under-

standing; the spiritualization that comes from spiritual

sense in contradistinction to the testimony of the so- [30]

called material senses. The phenomena of Spirit in

[pg 074]

Christian Science, and the divine correspondence of [1]

noumenon and phenomenon understood, are here signi-

fied. This new-born sense subdues not only the false

sense of generation, but the human will, and the un-

natural enmity of mortal man toward God. It quickly [5]

imparts a new apprehension of the true basis of being,

and the spiritual foundation for the affections which en-

throne the Son of man in the glory of his Father; and

judges, through the stern mandate of Science, all human

systems of etiology and teleology. [10]

If God does not recognize matter, how did Jesus, who was

“the way, the truth, and the life,” cognize it?

Christ Jesus' sense of matter was the opposite of that

which mortals entertain: his nativity was a spiritual and

immortal sense of the ideal world. His earthly mission [15]

was to translate substance into its original meaning,

Mind. He walked upon the waves; he turned the water

into wine; he healed the sick and the sinner; he raised

the dead, and rolled away the stone from the door of his

own tomb. His demonstration of Spirit virtually van- [20]

quished matter and its supposed laws. Walking the

wave, he proved the fallacy of the theory that matter is

substance; healing through Mind, he removed any sup-

position that matter is intelligent, or can recognize or

express pain and pleasure. His triumph over the grave [25]

was an everlasting victory for Life; it demonstrated the

lifelessness of matter, and the power and permanence

of Spirit. He met and conquered the resistance of the

world.

If you will admit, with me, that matter is neither [30]

substance, intelligence, nor Life, you may have all that

[pg 075]

is left of it; and you will have touched the hem of the [1]

garment of Jesus' idea of matter, Christ was “the way;”

since Life and Truth were the way that gave us, through

a human person, a spiritual revelation of man's possible

earthly development. [5]

Why do you insist that there is but one Soul, and that

Soul is not in the body?

First: I urge this fundamental fact and grand verity

of Christian Science, because it includes a rule that must

be understood, or it is impossible to demonstrate the Sci- [10]

ence. Soul is a synonym of Spirit, and God is Spirit.

There is but one God, and the infinite is not within the

finite; hence Soul is one, and is God; and God is not in

matter or the mortal body.

Second: Because Soul is a term for Deity, and this [15]

term should seldom be employed except where the word

God can be used and make complete sense. The word

Soul may sometimes be used metaphorically; but if this

term is warped to signify human quality, a substitution

of sense for soul clears the meaning, and assists one to [20]

understand Christian Science. Mary's exclamation,

“"My soul doth magnify the Lord,” is rendered in Sci-

ence, “My spiritual sense doth magnify the Lord;”

for the name of Deity used in that place does not bring

out the meaning of the passage. It was evidently an [25]

illuminated sense through which she discovered the

spiritual origin of man. “The soul that sinneth, it shall

die,” means, that mortal man (alias material sense) that

sinneth, shall die; and the commonly accepted view is

that soul is deathless. Soul is the divine Mind,—for [30]

Soul cannot be formed or brought forth by human

[pg 076]

thought,—and must proceed from God; hence it must [1]

be sinless, and destitute of self-created or derived capacity

to sin.

Third: Jesus said, “If a man keep my saying, he

shall never see death.” This statement of our Master [5]

is true, and remains to be demonstrated; for it is the

ultimatum of Christian Science; but this immortal saying

can never be tested or proven true upon a false premise,

such as the mortal belief that soul is in body, and life

and intelligence are in matter. That doctrine is not [10]

theism, but pantheism. According to human belief the

bodies of mortals are mortal, but they contain immortal

souls! hence these bodies must die for these souls to

escape and be immortal. The theory that death must

occur, to set a human soul free from its environments, [15]

is rendered void by Jesus' divine declaration, who spake

as never man spake,—and no man can rationally reject

his authority on this subject and accept it on other topics

less important.

Now, exchange the term soul for sense whenever this [20]

word means the so-called soul in the body, and you will

find the right meaning indicated. The misnamed human

soul is material sense, which sinneth and shall die; for

it is an error or false sense of mentality in matter, and

matter has no sense. You will admit that Soul is the [25]

Life of man. Now if Soul sinned, it would die; for “the

wages of sin is death.” The Scripture saith, “When

Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also

appear with him in glory.” The Science of Soul, Spirit,

involves this appearing, and is essential to the fulfilment [30]

of this glorious prophecy of the master Metaphysician,

who overcame the last enemy, death.

[pg 077]

Did the salvation of the eunuch depend merely on his [1]

believing that Jesus Christ was the Son of God?

It did; but this believing was more than faith in the

fact that Jesus was the Messiah. Here the verb believe

took its original meaning, namely, to be firm,—yea, to [5]

understand those great truths asserted of the Messiah:

it meant to discern and consent to that infinite demand

made upon the eunuch in those few words of the apostle.

Philip's requirement was, that he should not only ac-

knowledge the incarnation,—God made manifest through [10]

man,—but even the eternal unity of man and God, as

the divine Principle and spiritual idea; which is the in-

dissoluble bond of union, the power and presence, in

divine Science, of Life, Truth, and Love, to support their

ideal man. This is the Father's great Love that He [15]

hath bestowed upon us, and it holds man in endless

Life and one eternal round of harmonious being. It

guides him by Truth that knows no error, and with

supersensual, impartial, and unquenchable Love. To

believe is to be firm. In adopting all this vast idea of [20]

Christ Jesus, the eunuch was to know in whom he be-

lieved. To believe thus was to enter the spiritual sanctuary

of Truth, and there learn, in divine Science, somewhat

of the All-Father-Mother God. It was to understand

God and man: it was sternly to rebuke the mortal [25]

belief that man has fallen away from his first estate; that

man, made in God's own likeness, and reflecting Truth,

could fall into mortal error; or, that man is the father

of man. It was to enter unshod the Holy of Holies, where

the miracle of grace appears, and where the miracles of [30]

Jesus had their birth,—healing the sick, casting out

evils, and resurrecting the human sense to the belief

[pg 078]

that Life, God, is not buried in matter. This is the spirit- [1]

ual dawn of the Messiah, and the overture of the

angels. This is when God is made manifest in the

flesh, and thus it destroys all sense of sin, sickness, and

death,—when the brightness of His glory encompasseth [5]

all being.

Can Christian Science Mind-healing be taught to those

who are absent?

The Science of Mind-healing can no more be taught

thus, than can science in any other direction. I know [10]

not how to teach either Euclid or the Science of Mind

silently; and never dreamed that either of these partook

of the nature of occultism, magic, alchemy, or necro-

mancy. These “ways that are vain” are the inventions

of animal magnetism, which would deceive, if possible, [15]

the very elect. We will charitably hope, however, that

some people employ the et cetera of ignorance and self-

conceit unconsciously, in their witless ventilation of false

statements and claims. Misguiding the public mind and

taking its money in exchange for this abuse, has become [20]

too common: we will hope it is the froth of error passing

off; and that Christian Science will some time appear all

the clearer for the purification of the public thought con-

cerning it.

Has man fallen from a state of perfection? [25]

If God is the Principle of man (and He is), man is the

idea of God; and this idea cannot fail to express the ex-

act nature of its Principle,—any more than goodness,

to present the quality of good. Human hypotheses are

always human vagaries, formulated views antagonistic [30]

[pg 079]

to the divine order and the nature of Deity. All these [1]

mortal beliefs will be purged and dissolved in the cru-

cible of Truth, and the places once knowing them will

know them no more forever, having been swept clean

by the winds of history. The grand verities of Science [5]

will sift the chaff from the wheat, until it is clear to hu-

man comprehension that man was, and is, God's perfect

likeness, that reflects all whereby we can know God. In

Him we live, move, and have being. Man's origin and

existence being in Him, man is the ultimatum of per- [10]

fection, and by no means the medium of imperfection.

Immortal man is the eternal idea of Truth, that cannot

lapse into a mortal belief or error concerning himself

and his origin: he cannot get out of the focal distance of

infinity. If God is upright and eternal, man as His like- [15]

ness is erect in goodness and perpetual in Life, Truth,

and Love. If the great cause is perfect, its effect is per-

fect also; and cause and effect in Science are immutable

and immortal. A mortal who is sinning, sick, and dying,

is not immortal man; and never was, and never can be, [20]

God's image and likeness, the true ideal of immortal

man's divine Principle. The spiritual man is that per-

fect and unfallen likeness, coexistent and coeternal with

God. “As in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be

made alive.” [25]

What course should Christian Scientists take in regard

to aiding persons brought before the courts for violation of

medical statutes?

Beware of joining any medical league which in any

way obligates you to assist—because they chance to be [30]

under arrest—vendors of patent pills, mesmerists,

[pg 080]

occultists, sellers of impure literature, and authors of [1]

spurious works on mental healing. By rendering error

such a service, you lose much more than can be gained

by mere unity on the single issue of opposition to unjust

medical laws. [5]

A league which obligates its members to give money

and influence in support and defense of medical char-

latans in general, and possibly to aid individual rights

in a wrong direction—which Christian Science eschews

—should be avoided. Anybody and everybody, who [10]

will fight the medical faculty, can join this league. It is

better to be friendly with cultured and conscientious

medical men, who leave Christian Science to rise or fall

on its own merit or demerit, than to affiliate with a wrong

class of people. [15]

Unconstitutional and unjust coercive legislation and

laws, infringing individual rights, must be “of few days,

and full of trouble.” The vox populi, through the provi-

dence of God, promotes and impels all true reform; and,

at the best time, will redress wrongs and rectify injus- [20]

tice. Tyranny can thrive but feebly under our Govern-

ment. God reigns, and will “turn and overturn” until

right is found supreme.

In a certain sense, we should commiserate the lot of

regular doctors, who, in successive generations for cen- [25]

turies, have planted and sown and reaped in the fields

of what they deem pathology, hygiene, and therapeutics,

but are now elbowed by a new school of practitioners,

outdoing the healing of the old. The old will not patronize

the new school, at least not until it shall come to understand [30]

the medical system of the new.

Christian Science Mind-healing rests demonstrably on

[pg 081]

the broad and sure foundation of Science; and this is [1]

not the basis of materia medica, as some of the most skil-

ful and scholarly physicians openly admit.

To prevent all unpleasant and unchristian action—as

we drift, by right of God's dear love, into more spiritual [5]

lines of life—let each society of practitioners, the matter-

physicians and the metaphysicians, agree to disagree, and

then patiently wait on God to decide, as surely He will,

which is the true system of medicine.

Do we not see in the commonly accepted teachings of the [10]

day, the Christ-idea mingled with the teachings of John

the Baptist? or, rather, Are not the last eighteen centuries

but the footsteps of Truth being baptized of John, and com-

ing up straightway out of the ceremonial (or ritualistic)

waters to receive the benediction of an honored Father, and [15]

afterwards to go up into the wilderness, in order to over-

come mortal sense, before it shall go forth into all the cities

and towns of Judea, or see many of the people from beyond

Jordan? Now, if all this be a fair or correct view of this

question, why does not John hear this voice, or see the [20]

dove,—or has not Truth yet reached the shore?

Every individual character, like the individual John

the Baptist, at some date must cry in the desert of

earthly joy; and his voice be heard divinely and

humanly. In the desolation of human understanding, [25]

divine Love hears and answers the human call for help;

and the voice of Truth utters the divine verities of being

which deliver mortals out of the depths of ignorance

and vice. This is the Father's benediction. It gives

lessons to human life, guides the understanding, peoples [30]

[pg 082]

the mind with spiritual ideas, reconstructs the Judean [1]

religion, and reveals God and man as the Principle and

idea of all good.

Understanding this fact in Christian Science, brings

the peace symbolized by a dove; and this peace floweth [5]

as a river into a shoreless eternity. He who knew the

foretelling Truth, beheld the forthcoming Truth, as it

came up out of the baptism of Spirit, to enlighten and

redeem mortals. Such Christians as John cognize the

symbols of God, reach the sure foundations of time, stand [10]

upon the shore of eternity, and grasp and gather—in all

glory—what eye hath not seen.

Is there infinite progression with man after the destruc-

tion of mortal mind?

Man is the offspring and idea of the Supreme Being, [15]

whose law is perfect and infinite. In obedience to this

law, man is forever unfolding the endless beatitudes of

Being; for he is the image and likeness of infinite Life,

Truth, and Love.

Infinite progression is concrete being, which finite [20]

mortals see and comprehend only as abstract glory. As

mortal mind, or the material sense of life, is put off,

the spiritual sense and Science of being is brought to

light.

Mortal mind is a myth; the one Mind is immortal. [25]

A mythical or mortal sense of existence is consumed

as a moth, in the treacherous glare of its own flame—

the errors which devour it. Immortal Mind is God,

immortal good; in whom the Scripture saith “we live,

and move, and have our being.” This Mind, then, is not [30]

subject to growth, change, or diminution, but is the divine

[pg 083]

intelligence, or Principle, of all real being; holding [1]

man forever in the rhythmic round of unfolding bliss,

as a living witness to and perpetual idea of inexhaustible

good.

In your book, Science and Health,3 page 181, you [5]

say: “Every sin is the author of itself, and every

invalid the cause of his own sufferings.” On page

182 you say: “Sickness is a growth of illusion, spring-

ing from a seed of thought,—either your own thought

or another's.” Will you please explain this seeming [10]

contradiction?

No person can accept another's belief, except it be

with the consent of his own belief. If the error which

knocks at the door of your own thought originated in

another's mind, you are a free moral agent to reject or [15]

to accept this error; hence, you are the arbiter of your

own fate, and sin is the author of sin. In the words

of our Master, you are “a liar, and the father of it

[the lie].”

Why did Jesus call himself “the Son of man”? [20]

In the life of our Lord, meekness was as conspicuous

as might. In John xvii. he declared his sonship with

God: “These words spake Jesus, and lifted up his

eyes to heaven, and said, Father, the hour is come;

glorify Thy Son, that Thy Son also may glorify Thee.” [25]

The hour had come for the avowal of this great truth,

and for the proof of his eternal Life and sonship. Jesus'

[pg 084]

wisdom ofttimes was shown by his forbearing to speak, [1]

as well as by speaking, the whole truth. Haply he waited

for a preparation of the human heart to receive start-

ling announcements. This wisdom, which character-

ized his sayings, did not prophesy his death, and thereby [5]

hasten or permit it.

The disciples and prophets thrust disputed points on

minds unprepared for them. This cost them their lives,

and the world's temporary esteem; but the prophecies

were fulfilled, and their motives were rewarded by [10]

growth and more spiritual understanding, which dawns

by degrees on mortals. The spiritual Christ was infal-

lible; Jesus, as material manhood, was not Christ. The

“man of sorrows” knew that the man of joys, his spiritual

self, or Christ, was the Son of God; and that the mor- [15]

tal mind, not the immortal Mind, suffered. The human

manifestation of the Son of God was called the Son of

man, or Mary's son.

Please explain Paul's meaning in the text, “For to me

to live is Christ, and to die is gain.” [20]

The Science of Life, overshadowing Paul's sense of

life in matter, so far extinguished the latter as forever

to quench his love for it. The discipline of the flesh is

designed to turn one, like a weary traveller, to the home

of Love. To lose error thus, is to live in Christ, Truth. [25]

A true sense of the falsity of material joys and sorrows,

pleasures and pains, takes them away, and teaches Life's

lessons aright. The transition from our lower sense of

Life to a new and higher sense thereof, even though it be

through the door named death, yields a clearer and [30]

nearer sense of Life to those who have utilized the present,

[pg 085]

and are ripe for the harvest-home. To the battle- [1]

worn and weary Christian hero, Life eternal brings

blessings.

Is a Christian Scientist ever sick, and has he who is

sick been regenerated? [5]

The Christian Scientist learns spiritually all that he

knows of Life, and demonstrates what he understands.

God is recognized as the divine Principle of his being,

and of every thought and act leading to good. His pur-

pose must be right, though his power is temporarily lim- [10]

ited. Perfection, the goal of existence, is not won in a

moment; and regeneration leading thereto is gradual,

for it culminates in the fulfilment of this divine rule in

Science: “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father

which is in heaven is perfect.” [15]

The last degree of regeneration rises into the rest of

perpetual, spiritual, individual existence. The first

feeble fluttering of mortals Christward are infantile

and more or less imperfect. The new-born Christian

Scientist must mature, and work out his own salvation. [20]

Spirit and flesh antagonize. Temptation, that mist of

mortal mind which seems to be matter and the environ-

ment of mortals, suggests pleasure and pain in matter;

and, so long as this temptation lasts, the warfare is not

ended and the mortal is not regenerated. The pleas- [25]

ures—more than the pains—of sense, retard regenera-

tion; for pain compels human consciousness to escape

from sense into the immortality and harmony of Soul.

Disease in error, more than ease in it, tends to destroy

error: the sick often are thereby led to Christ, Truth, [30]

and to learn their way out of both sickness and sin.

[pg 086]

The material and physical are imperfect. The in- [1]

dividual and spiritual are perfect; these have no fleshly

nature. This final degree of regeneration is saving, and

the Christian will, must, attain it; but it doth not yet

appear. Until this be attained, the Christian Scientist [5]

must continue to strive with sickness, sin, and death—

though in lessening degrees—and manifest growth at

every experience.

Is it correct to say of material objects, that they are noth-

ing and exist only in imagination? [10]

Nothing and something are words which need correct

definition. They either mean formations of indefinite

and vague human opinions, or scientific classifications

of the unreal and the real. My sense of the beauty of

the universe is, that beauty typifies holiness, and is some- [15]

thing to be desired. Earth is more spiritually beautiful

to my gaze now than when it was more earthly to the

eyes of Eve. The pleasant sensations of human belief,

of form and color, must be spiritualized, until we gain the

glorified sense of substance as in the new heaven and [20]

earth, the harmony of body and Mind.

Even the human conception of beauty, grandeur, and

utility is something that defies a sneer. It is more than

imagination. It is next to divine beauty and the gran-

deur of Spirit. It lives with our earth-life, and is [25]

the subjective state of high thoughts. The atmos-

phere of mortal mind constitutes our mortal envi-

ronment. What mortals hear, see, feel, taste, smell,

constitutes their present earth and heaven: but we must

grow out of even this pleasing thraldom, and find wings [30]

to reach the glory of supersensible Life; then we shall

[pg 087]

soar above, as the bird in the clear ether of the blue tem- [1]

poral sky.

To take all earth's beauty into one gulp of vacuity

and label beauty nothing, is ignorantly to caricature

God's creation, which is unjust to human sense and [5]

to the divine realism. In our immature sense of spirit-

ual things, let us say of the beauties of the sensuous

universe: “I love your promise; and shall know, some

time, the spiritual reality and substance of form, light,

and color, of what I now through you discern dimly; and [10]

knowing this, I shall be satisfied. Matter is a frail con-

ception of mortal mind; and mortal mind is a poorer

representative of the beauty, grandeur, and glory of the

immortal Mind.”

Please inform us through your Journal; if you sent [15]

Mrs. —— to ——. She said that you sent her there to look

after the students; and also, that no one there was working

in Science,—which is certainly a mistake.

I never commission any one to teach students of mine.

After class teaching, he does best in the investigation of [20]

Christian Science who is most reliant on himself and

God. My students are taught the divine Principle and

rules of the Science of Mind-healing. What they need

thereafter is to study thoroughly the Scriptures and

“Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures.” To [25]

watch and pray, to be honest, earnest, loving, and truth-

ful, is indispensable to the demonstration of the truth

they have been taught.

If they are haunted by obsequious helpers, who, un-

called for, imagine they can help anybody and steady [30]

God's altar—this interference prolongs the struggle

[pg 088]

and tends to blight the fruits of my students. A faith- [1]

ful student may even sometimes feel the need of

physical help, and occasionally receive it from others;

but the less this is required, the better it is for that

student. [5]

Please give us, through your Journal, the name of

the author of that genuine critique in the September

number, “What Quibus Thinks.”

I am pleased to inform this inquirer, that the author

of the article in question is a Boston gentleman whose [10]

thought is appreciated by many liberals. Patience, ob-

servation, intellectual culture, reading, writing, exten-

sive travel, and twenty years in the pulpit, have equipped

him as a critic who knows whereof he speaks. His allu-

sion to Christian Science in the following paragraph, [15]

glows in the shadow of darkling criticism like a mid-

night sun. Its manly honesty follows like a benediction

after prayer, and closes the task of talking to deaf ears

and dull debaters.

“We have always insisted that this Science is natural, [20]

spiritually natural; that Jesus was the highest type of

real nature; that Christian healing is supernatural, or

extra-natural, only to those who do not enter into its

sublimity or understand its modes—as imported ice

was miraculous to the equatorial African, who had never [25]

seen water freeze.”

Is it right for a Scientist to treat with a doctor?

This depends upon what kind of a doctor it is. Mind-

healing, and healing with drugs, are opposite modes of

medicine. As a rule, drop one of these doctors when you [30]

[pg 089]

employ the other. The Scripture saith, “No man can [1]

serve two masters;” and, “Every kingdom divided

against itself is brought to desolation.”

If Scientists are called upon to care for a member of

the family, or a friend in sickness, who is employing a [5]

regular physician, would it be right to treat this patient

at all; and ought the patient to follow the doctor's

directions?

When patients are under material medical treatment,

it is advisable in most cases that Scientists do not treat [10]

them, or interfere with materia medica. If the patient

is in peril, and you save him or alleviate his sufferings,

although the medical attendant and friends have no

faith in your method, it is humane, and not unchristian,

to do him all the good you can; but your good will gen- [15]

erally “be evil spoken of.” The hazard of casting “pearls

before swine” caused our Master to refuse help to some

who sought his aid; and he left this precaution for

others.

If mortal man is unreal, how can he be saved, and why [20]

does he need to be saved? I ask for information, not for

controversy, for I am a seeker after Truth.

You will find the proper answer to this question in

my published works. Man is immortal. Mortal man

is a false concept that is not spared or prolonged by being [25]

saved from itself, from whatever is false. This salva-

tion means: saved from error, or error overcome. Im-

mortal man, in God's likeness, is safe in divine Science.

Mortal man is saved on this divine Principle, if he will

only avail himself of the efficacy of Truth, and recog- [30]

[pg 090]

nize his Saviour. He must know that God is omnipo- [1]

tent; hence, that sin is impotent. He must know that

the power of sin is the pleasure in sin. Take away this

pleasure, and you remove all reality from its power. Jesus

demonstrated sin and death to be powerless. This [5]

practical Truth saves from sin, and will save all who

understand it.

Is it wrong for a wife to have a husband treated for

sin, when she knows he is sinning, or for drinking and

smoking? [10]

It is always right to act rightly; but sometimes, under

circumstances exceptional, it is inexpedient to attack

evil. This rule is forever golden: “As ye would that

men should do to you, do ye even so to them.” Do you

desire to be freed from sin? Then help others to be free; [15]

but in your measures, obey the Scriptures, “Be ye wise

as serpents.” Break the yoke of bondage in every wise

way. First, be sure that your means for doing good

are equal to your motives; then judge them by their

fruits. [20]

If not ordained, shall the pastor of the Church of

Christ, Scientist, administer the communion,—and

shall members of a church not organized receive the

communion?

Our great Master administered to his disciples the [25]

Passover, or last supper, without this prerogative being

conferred by a visible organization and ordained priest-

hood. His spiritually prepared breakfast, after his

resurrection, and after his disciples had left their nets

to follow him, is the spiritual communion which Chris- [30]

[pg 091]

tian Scientists celebrate in commemoration of the Christ. [1]

This ordinance is significant as a type of the true worship,

and it should be observed at present in our churches.

It is not indispensable to organize materially Christ's

church. It is not absolutely necessary to ordain pas- [5]

tors and to dedicate churches; but if this be done,

let it be in concession to the period, and not as a per-

petual or indispensable ceremonial of the church. If

our church is organized, it is to meet the demand,

“Suffer it to be so now.” The real Christian compact [10]

is love for one another. This bond is wholly spiritual

and inviolate.

It is imperative, at all times and under every cir-

cumstance, to perpetuate no ceremonials except as

types of these mental conditions,—remembrance and [15]

love; a real affection for Jesus' character and example.

Be it remembered, that all types employed in the ser-

vice of Christian Science should represent the most spir-

itual forms of thought and worship that can be made

visible. [20]

Should not the teacher of Christian Science have our

textbook, “Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures,”

in his schoolroom and teach from it?

I never dreamed, until informed thereof, that a loyal

student did not take his textbook with him into the class- [25]

room, ask questions from it, answer them according to

it, and, as occasion required, read from the book as au-

thority for what he taught. I supposed that students

had followed my example, and that of other teachers,

sufficiently to do this, and also to require their pupils to [30]

study the lessons before recitations.

[pg 092]

To omit these important points is anomalous, con- [1]

sidering the necessity for understanding Science, and

the present liability of deviating from Christian Science.

Centuries will intervene before the statement of the inex-

haustible topics of that book become sufficiently under- [5]

stood to be absolutely demonstrated. The teacher of

Christian Science needs continually to study this textbook.

His work is to replenish thought, and to spiritualize human

life, from this open fount of Truth and Love.

He who sees most clearly and enlightens other minds [10]

most readily, keeps his own lamp trimmed and burning.

He will take the textbook of Christian Science into his

class, repeat the questions in the chapter on Recapitula-

tion, and his students will answer them from the same

source. Throughout his entire explanations, the teacher [15]

should strictly adhere to the questions and answers con-

tained in that chapter of “Science and Health with Key

to the Scriptures.” It is important to point out the

lesson to the class, and to require the students thor-

oughly to study it before the recitations; for this spirit- [20]

ualizes their thoughts. When closing his class, the

teacher should require each member to own a copy of

the above-named book and to continue the study of this

textbook.

The opinions of men cannot be substituted for God's [25]

revelation. It must not be forgotten that in times past,

arrogant ignorance and pride, in attempting to steady

the ark of Truth, have dimmed the power and glory of

the Scriptures, to which this Christian Science textbook

is the Key. [30]

That teacher does most for his students who most

divests himself of pride and self, spiritualizes his own

[pg 093]

thought, and by reason thereof is able to empty his stu- [1]

dents' minds, that they may be filled with Truth.

Beloved students, so teach that posterity shall call

you blessed, and the heart of history shall be made

glad! [5]

Can fear or sin bring back old beliefs of disease that have

been healed by Christian Science?

The Scriptures plainly declare the allness and oneness

of God to be the premises of Truth, and that God is

good: in Him dwelleth no evil. Christian Science au- [10]

thorizes the logical conclusion drawn from the Scriptures,

that there is in reality none besides the eternal, infinite

God, good. Evil is temporal: it is the illusion of time

and mortality.

This being true, sin has no power; and fear, its coeval, [15]

is without divine authority. Science sanctions only what

is supported by the unerring Principle of being. Sin can

do nothing: all cause and effect are in God. Fear is a

belief of sensation in matter: this belief is neither main-

tained by Science nor supported by facts, and exists only [20]

as fable. Your answer is, that neither fear nor sin can

bring on disease or bring back disease, since there is in

reality no disease.

Bear in mind, however, that human consciousness does

not test sin and the fact of its nothingness, by believing [25]

that sin is pardoned without repentance and reforma-

tion. Sin punishes itself, because it cannot go unpun-

ished either here or hereafter. Nothing is more fatal than

to indulge a sinning sense or consciousness for even one

moment. Knowing this, obey Christ's Sermon on the [30]

Mount, even if you suffer for it in the first instance,—

[pg 094]

are misjudged and maligned; in the second, you will [1]

reign with him.

I never knew a person who knowingly indulged evil,

to be grateful; to understand me, or himself. He must

first see himself and the hallucination of sin; then he [5]

must repent, and love good in order to understand God.

The sinner and the sin are the twain that are one flesh,—

but which God hath not joined together.

[pg 095]