But I certify you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached of me is not after man. For I neither received it of man, neither was I taught it, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ.--PAUL.
The kingdom of heaven is like unto leaven, which a woman took, and hid in three measures of meal, till the whole was leavened.--JESUS.
Christian Science discovered
In the year 1866, I discovered the Christ Science or divine laws of Life, Truth, and Love, and named my discovery Christian Science. God had been graciously preparing me during many years for the reception of this final revelation of the absolute divine Principle of scientific mental healing.Mission of Christian Science
This apodictical Principle points to the revelation of Immanuel, "God with us," - the sovereign ever-presence, delivering the children of men from every ill "that flesh is heir to." Through Christian Science, religion and medicine are inspired with a diviner nature and essence; fresh pinions are given to faith and understanding, and thoughts acquaint themselves intelligently with God.Discontent with life
Feeling so perpetually the false consciousness that life inheres in the body, yet remembering that in reality God is our Life, we may well tremble in the prospect of those days in which we must say, "I have no pleasure in them."Whence came to me this heavenly conviction, - a conviction antagonistic to the testimony of the physical senses? According to St. Paul, it was "the gift of the grace of God given unto me by the effectual working of His power." It was the divine law of Life and Love, unfolding to me the demonstrable fact that matter possesses neither sensation nor life; that human experiences show the falsity of all material things; and that immortal cravings, "the price of learning love," establish the truism that the only sufferer is mortal mind, for the divine Mind cannot suffer.
Demonstrable evidence
My conclusions were reached by allowing the evidence of this revelation to multiply with mathematical certainty and the lesser demonstration to prove the greater, as the product of three multiplied by three, equalling nine, proves conclusively that three times three duodecillions must be nine duodecillions,--not a fraction more, not a unit less.Light shining in darkness
When apparently near the confines of mortal existence, standing already within the shadow of the death-valley, I learned these truths in divine Science: that all real being is in God, the divine Mind, and that Life, Truth, and Love are all-powerful and everpresent; that the opposite of Truth,--called error, sin, sickness, disease, death,--is the false testimony of false material sense, of mind in matter; that this false sense evolves, in belief, a subjective state of mortal mind which this same so-called mind names matter thereby shutting out the true sense of Spirit.New lines of thought
My discovery, that erring, mortal, misnamed mind produces all the organism and action of the mortal body, set my thoughts to work in new channels,and led up to my demonstration of the proposition that Mind is All and matter is naught as the leading factor in Mind-science.
Scientific evidence
Christian Science reveals incontrovertibly that Mind is All-in-all, that the only realities are the divine Mind and idea. This great fact is not, however, seen to be supported by sensible evidence, until its divine Principle is demonstrated by healing the sick and thus proved absolute and divine. This proof once seen, no other conclusion can be reached.Solitary research
For three years after my discovery, I sought the solution of this problem of Mind-healing, searched the Scriptures and read little else, kept aloof from society, and devoted time and energies to discovering a positive rule. The search was sweet, calm, and buoyant with hope, not selfish nor depressing. I knew the Principle of all harmonious Mind-action to be God, and that cures were produced in primitive Christian healing by holy, uplifting faith; but I must know the Science of this healing, and I won my way to absolute conclusions through divine revelation, reason, and demonstration. The revelation of Truth in the understanding came to me gradually and apparently through divine power. When a new spiritual idea is borne to earth, the prophetic Scripture of Isaiah is renewedly fulfilled: "Unto us a child is born, . . . and his name shall be called Wonderful."Jesus once said of his lessons: "My doctrine is not mine, but His that sent me. If any man will do His will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself." (John vii. 16, 17.)
God's allness learned The three great verities of Spirit, omnipotence, omni
presence, omniscience,--Spirit possessing all power, filling all space, constituting all Science,--contradict forever the belief that matter can be actual. These eternal verities reveal primeval existence as the radiant reality of God's creation, in which all that He has made is pronounced by His wisdom good.
Thus it was that I beheld, as never before, the awful unreality called evil. The equipollence of God brought to light another glorious proposition, - man's perfectibility and the establishment of the kingdom of heaven on earth.
Scriptural foundations
In following these leadings of scientific revelation, the Bible was my only textbook. The Scriptures were illumined; reason and revelation were reconciled, and afterwards the truth of Christian Science was demonstrated. No human pen nor tongue taught me the Science contained in this book, SCIENCE AND HEALTH; and neither tongue nor pen can overthrow it. This book may be distorted by shallow criticism or by careless or malicious students, and its ideas may be temporarily abused and misrepresented; but the Science and truth therein will forever remain to be discerned and demonstrated.The demonstration lost and found
Jesus demonstrated the power of Christian Science to heal mortal minds and bodies. But this power was lost sight of, and must again be spiritually discerned, taught, and demonstrated according to Christ's command, with "signs following." Its Science must be apprehended by as many as believe on Christ and spiritually understand Truth.Mystical antagonists
No analogy exists between the vague hypotheses ofagnosticism, pantheism, theosophy, spiritualism, or millenarianism and the demonstrable truths of Christian Science; and I find the will, or sensuous reason of the human mind, to be opposed to the divine Mind as expressed through divine Science.
Optical illustration of Science
Christian Science is natural, but not physical. The Science of God and man is no more supernatural than is the science of numbers, though departing from the realm of the physical, as the Science of God, Spirit, must, some may deny its right to the name of Science. The Principle of divine metaphysics is God; the practice of divine metaphysics is the utilization of the power of Truth over error; its rules demonstrate its Science. Divine metaphysics reverses perverted and physical hypotheses as to Deity, even as the explanation of optics rejects the incidental or inverted image and shows what this inverted image is meant to represent.Pertinent proposal
A prize of one hundred pounds, offered in Oxford University, England, for the best essay on Natural Science, - an essay calculated to offset the tendency of the age to attribute physical effects to physical causes rather than to a final spiritual cause,--is one of many incidents which show that Christian Science meets a yearning of the human race for spirituality.Confirmatory tests
After a lengthy examination of my discovery and its demonstration in healing the sick, this fact became evident to me,--that Mind governs the body, not partially but wholly. I submitted my metaphysical system of treating disease to the broadest practical tests. Since then this system has gradually gained ground, and has proved itself, whenever scientifically employed, to be the most effective curative agent in medical practice.
One school of Truth
Is there more than one school of Christian Science? Christian Science is demonstrable. There can, therefore, be but one method in its teaching. Those who depart from this method forfeit their claims to belong to its school, and they become adherents of the Socratic, the Platonic, the Spencerian, or some other school. By this is meant that they adopt and adhere to some particular system of human opinions. Although these opinions may have occasional gleams of divinity, borrowed from that truly divine Science which eschews man-made systems, they nevertheless remain wholly human in their origin and tendency and are not scientifically Christian.Unchanging Principle
From the infinite One in Christian Science comes one Principle and its infinite idea, and with this infinitude come spiritual rules, laws, and their demonstration, which, like the great Giver, are "the same yesterday, and to-day, and forever;" for thus are the divine Principle of healing and the Christ-idea characterized in the epistle to the Hebrews.On sandy foundations
Any theory of Christian Science, which departs from what has already been stated and proved to be true, affords no foundation upon which to establish a genuine school of this Science. Also, if any so-called new school claims to be Christian Science, and yet uses another author's discoveries without giving that author proper credit, such a school is erroneous, for it inculcates a breach of that divine commandment in the Hebrew Decalogue, "Thou shalt not steal."Principle and practice
God is the Principle of divine metaphysics. As thereis but one God, there can be but one divine Principle of all Science; and there must be fixed rules for the demonstration of this divine Principle. The letter of Science plentifully reaches humanity to-day, but its spirit comes only in small degrees. The vital part, the heart and soul of Christian Science, is Love. Without this, the letter is but the dead body of Science, pulseless, cold, inanimate.
Reversible propositions
The fundamental propositions of divine metaphysics are summarized in the four following, to me, self-evident propositions. Even if reversed, these propositions will be found to agree in statement and proof, showing mathematically their exact relation to Truth. De Quincey says mathematics has not a foot to stand upon which is not purely metaphysical. 1. God is All-in-all.
2. God is good. Good is Mind.
3. God, Spirit, being all, nothing is matter.
4. Life, God, omnipotent good, deny death, evil, sin,
disease. - Disease, sin, evil, death, deny good, omnipotent God, Life.
Which of the denials in proposition four is true? Both are not, cannot be, true. According to the Scripture, I find that God is true, "but every [mortal] man a liar."
Metaphysical inversions
The divine metaphysics of Christian Science, like the method in mathematics, proves the rule by inversion. For example: There is no pain in Truth, and no truth in pain; no nerve in Mind, and no mind in nerve; no matter in Mind, and no mind in matter; no matter in Life, and no life in matter; no matter in good, and no good in matter.Definition of mortal mind
Usage classes both evil and good together as mind; therefore, to be understood, the author calls sick and sinful humanity mortal mind,--meaning by this term the flesh opposed to Spirit, the human mind and evil in contradistinction to the divine Mind, or Truth and good. The spiritually unscientific definition of mind is based on the evidence of the physical senses, which makes minds many and calls mind both human and divine.In Science, Mind is one, including noumenon and phenomena, God and His thoughts.
Imperfect terminology
Mortal mind is a solecism in language, and involves an improper use of the word mind. As Mind is immortal, the phrase mortal mind implies something untrue and therefore unreal; and as the phrase is used in teaching Christian Science, it is meant to designate that which has no real existence. Indeed, if a better word or phrase could be suggested, it would be used; but in expressing the new tongue we must sometimes recur to the old and imperfect, and the new wine of the Spirit has to be poured into the old bottles of the letter.Causation mental
Christian Science explains all cause and effect as mental, not physical. It lifts the veil of mystery from Soul and body. It shows the scientific relation of man to God, disentangles the interlaced ambiguities of being, and sets free the imprisoned thought. In divine Science, the universe, including man, is spiritual, harmonious, and eternal. Science shows that what is termed matter is but the subjective state of what is termed by the author mortal mind.Philological inadequacy
Apart from the usual opposition to everything new,the one great obstacle to the reception of that spirituality, through which the understanding of Mind-science comes, is the inadequacy of material terms for metaphysical statements, and the consequent difficulty of so expressing metaphysical ideas as to make them comprehensible to any reader, who has not personally demonstrated Christian Science as brought forth in my discovery. Job says: "The ear trieth words, as the mouth tasteth meat." The great difficulty is to give the right impression, when translating material terms back into the original spiritual tongue.
SCIENTIFIC TRANSLATION OF IMMORTAL MIND
Divine synonyms
GOD: Divine Principle, Life, Truth, Love, Soul, Spirit, Mind.Divine image
MAN: God's spiritual idea, individual, perfect, eternal.Divine reflection
IDEA: An image in Mind; the immediate object of understanding.--Webster.SCIENTIFIC TRANSLATION OF MORTAL MIND
First Degree: Depravity.
Unreality
PHYSICAL. Evil beliefs, passions and appetites, fear, depraved will, self-justification, pride, envy, deceit, hatred, revenge, sin, sickness, disease, death.Second Degree: Evil beliefs disappearing.
Transitional qualities
MORAL. Humanity, honesty, affection, compassion, hope, faith, meekness, temperance.Third Degree: Understanding.
Reality
SPIRITUAL. Wisdom, purity, spiritual understanding, spiritual power, love, health, holiness.Spiritual universe
In the third degree mortal mind disappears, and man as God's image appears. Science so reverses the evidence before the corporeal human senses, as to make this Scriptural testimony true in our hearts, "The last shall be first, and the first last," so that God and His idea may be to us what divinity really is and must of necessity be,--all-inclusive.Aim of Science
A correct view of Christian Science and of its adaptation to healing includes vastly more than is at first seen. Works on metaphysics leave the grand point untouched. They never crown the power of Mind as the Messiah, nor do they carry the day against physical enemies,--even to the extinction of all belief in matter, evil, disease, and death,--nor insist upon the fact that God is all, therefore that matter is nothing beyond an image in mortal mind.Divine personality
Christian Science strongly emphasizes the thought that God is not corporeal, but incorporeal,--that is, bodiless. Mortals are corporeal, but God is incorporeal.As the words person and personal are commonly and ignorantly employed, they often lead, when applied to Deity, to confused and erroneous conceptions of divinity and its distinction from humanity. If the term personality, as applied to God, means infinite personality, then God is infinite Person,--in the sense of infinite personality, but not in the lower sense. An infinite Mind in a finite form is an absolute impossibility.
The term individuality is also open to objections, because an individual may be one of a series, one of many, as an individual man, an individual horse; whereas God is One,--not one of a series, but one alone and without an equal.
Spiritual language
God is Spirit; therefore the language of Spirit must be, and is, spiritual. Christian Science attaches no physical nature and significance to the Supreme Being or His manifestation; mortals alone do this. God's essential language is spoken of in the last chapter of Mark's Gospel as the new tongue, the spiritual meaning of which is attained through "signs following."The miracles of Jesus
Ear hath not heard, nor hath lip spoken, the pure language of Spirit. Our Master taught spirituality by similitudes and parables. As a divine student he unfolded God to man, illustrating and demonstrating Life and Truth in himself and by his power over the sick and sinning. Human theories are inadequate to interpret the divine Principle involved in the miracles (marvels) wrought by Jesus and especially in his mighty, crowning, unparalleled, and triumphant exit from the flesh.Opacity of the senses
Evidence drawn from the five physical senses relates solely to human reason; and because of opacity to the true light, human reason dimly reflects and feebly transmits Jesus' works and words. Truth is a revelation.Leaven of Truth
Jesus bade his disciples beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees, which he defined as human doctrines. His parable of the "leaven, which a woman took, and hid in three measuresof meal, till the whole was leavened," impels the inference that the spiritual leaven signifies the Science of Christ and its spiritual interpretation,--an inference far above the merely ecclesiastical and formal applications of the illustration.
Did not this parable point a moral with a prophecy, foretelling the second appearing in the flesh of the Christ, Truth, hidden in sacred secrecy from the visible world?
Ages pass, but this leaven of Truth is ever at work. It must destroy the entire mass of error, and so be eternally glorified in man's spiritual freedom.
The divine and human contrasted
In their spiritual significance, Science, Theology, and Medicine are means of divine thought, which include spiritual laws emanating from the invisible and infinite power and grace. The parable may import that these spiritual laws, perverted by a perverse material sense of law, are metaphysically presented as three measures of meal,--that is, three modes of mortal thought. In all mortal forms of thought, dust is dignified as the natural status of men and things, and modes of material motion are honored with the name of laws. This continues until the leaven of Spirit changes the whole of mortal thought, as yeast changes the chemical properties of meal.Certain contradictions
The definitions of material law, as given by natural science, represent a kingdom necessarily divided against itself, because these definitions portray law as physical, not spiritual. Therefore they contradict the divine decrees and violate the law of Love, in which nature and God are one and the natural order of heaven comes down to earth.Unescapable dilemma
When we endow matter with vague spiritual power, that is, when we do so in our theories, for of course we cannot really endow matter with what it does not and cannot possess, - we disown the Almighty, for such theories lead to one of two things. They either presuppose the self-evolution and self-government of matter, or else they assume that matter is the product of Spirit. To seize the first horn of this dilemma and consider matter as a power in and of itself, is to leave the creator out of His own universe; while to grasp the other horn of the dilemma and regard God as the creator of matter, is not only to make Him responsible for all disasters, physical and moral, but to announce Him as their source, thereby making Him guilty of maintaining perpetual misrule in the form and under the name of natural law.God and nature
In one sense God is identical with nature, but this nature is spiritual and is not expressed in matter. The lawgiver, whose lightning palsies or prostrates in death the child at prayer, is not the divine ideal of omnipresent Love. God is natural good, and is represented only by the idea of goodness; while evil should be regarded as unnatural, because it is opposed to the nature of Spirit, God.The sun and Soul
In viewing the sunrise, one finds that it contradicts the evidence before the senses to believe that the earth is in motion and the sun at rest. As astronomy reverses the human perception of the movement of the solar system, so Christian Science reverses the seeming relation of Soul and body and makes body tributary to Mind. Thus it is with man, who is but the humble servant of the restful Mind, though itseems otherwise to finite sense. But we shall never understand this while we admit that soul is in body or mind in matter, and that man is included in non-intelligence. Soul, or Spirit, is God, unchangeable and eternal; and man coexists with and reflects Soul, God, for man is God's image.
Reversal of testimony
Science reverses the false testimony of the physical senses, and by this reversal mortals arrive at the fundamental facts of being. Then the question inevitably arises: Is a man sick if the material senses indicate that he is in good health? No! for matter can make no conditions for man. And is he well if the senses say he is sick? Yes, he is well in Science in which health is normal and disease is abnormal.Health and the senses
Health is not a condition of matter, but of Mind; nor can the material senses bear reliable testimony on the subject of health. The Science of Mind-healing shows it to be impossible for aught but Mind to testify truly or to exhibit the real status of man. Therefore the divine Principle of Science, reversing the testimony of the physical senses, reveals man as harmoniously existent in Truth, which is the only basis of health; and thus Science denies all disease, heals the sick, overthrows false evidence, and refutes materialistic logic.Any conclusion pro or con, deduced from supposed sensation in matter or from matter's supposed consciousness of health or disease, instead of reversing the testimony of the physical senses, confirms that testimony as legitimate and so leads to disease.
Historic illustrations
When Columbus gave freer breath to the globe, ignorance and superstition chained the limbs of the brave old navigator, and disgrace and starvation stared him in the face; but sterner still would have been his fate, if his discovery had undermined the favorite inclinations of a sensuous philosophy.
Copernicus mapped out the stellar system, and before he spake, astrography was chaotic, and the heavenly fields were incorrectly explored.
Perennial beauty
The Chaldean Wisemen read in the stars the fate of empires and the fortunes of men. Though no higher revelation than the horoscope was to them displayed upon the empyrean, earth and heaven were bright, and bird and blossom were glad in God's perennial and happy sunshine, golden with Truth. So we have goodness and beauty to gladden the heart; but man, left to the hypotheses of material sense unexplained by Science, is as the wandering comet or the desolate star--"a weary searcher for a viewless home."Astronomic unfoldings
The earth's diurnal rotation is invisible to the physical eye, and the sun seems to move from east to west, instead of the earth from west to east. Until rebuked by clearer views of the everlasting facts, this false testimony of the eye deluded the judgment and induced false conclusions. Science shows appearances often to be erroneous, and corrects these errors by the simple rule that the greater controls the lesser. The sun is the central stillness, so far as our solar system is concerned, and the earth revolves about the sun once a year, besides turning daily on its own axis.As thus indicated, astronomical order imitates the action of divine Principle; and the universe, the reflection of God, is thus brought nearer the spiritual fact, and is allied to divine Science as displayed in the everlasting government of the universe.
Opposing testimony
The evidence of the physical senses often reverses the real Science of being, and so creates a reign of discord, assigning seeming power to sin, sickness, and death; but the great facts of Life, rightly understood, defeat this triad of errors, contradict their false witnesses, and reveal the kingdom of heaven,--the actual reign of harmony on earth. The material senses' reversal of the Science of Soul was practically exposed nineteen hundred years ago by the demonstrations of Jesus; yet these so-called senses still make mortal mind tributary to mortal body, and ordain certain sections of matter, such as brain and nerves, as the seats of pain and pleasure, from which matter reports to this so-called mind its status of happiness or misery.Testimony of the senses
The optical focus is another proof of the illusion of material sense. On the eye's retina, sky and tree-tops apparently join hands, clouds and ocean meet and mingle. The barometer,--that little prophet of storm and sunshine, denying the testimony of the senses,--points to fair weather in the midst of murky clouds and drenching rain. Experience is full of instances of similar illusions, which every thinker can recall for himself.Spiritual sense of life
To material sense, the severance of the jugular vein takes away life; but to spiritual sense and in Science, Life goes on unchanged and being is eternal. Temporal life is a false sense of existence.Ptolemaic and psychical error
Our theories make the same mistake regarding Soul and body that Ptolemy made regarding the solar system. They insist that soul is in body and mind therefore tributary to matter. Astronomical science has destroyed thefalse theory as to the relations of the celestial bodies, and Christian Science will surely destroy the greater error as to our terrestrial bodies. The true idea and Principle of man will then appear. The Ptolemaic blunder could not affect the harmony of being as does the error relating to soul and body, which reverses the order of Science and assigns to matter the power and prerogative of Spirit, so that man becomes the most absolutely weak and inharmonious creature in the universe.
Seeming and being
The verity of Mind shows conclusively how it is that matter seems to be, but is not. Divine Science, rising above physical theories, excludes matter, resolves things into thoughts, and replaces the objects of material sense with spiritual ideas.The term CHRISTIAN SCIENCE was introduced by the author to designate the scientific system of divine healing.
The revelation consists of two parts:
1. The discovery of this divine Science of Mindhealing, through a spiritual sense of the Scriptures and through the teachings of the Comforter, as promised by the Master.
2. The proof, by present demonstration, that the socalled miracles of Jesus did not specially belong to a dispensation now ended, but that they illustrated an ever-operative divine Principle. The operation of this Principle indicates the eternality of the scientific order and continuity of being.
Scientific basis
Christian Science differs from material science, but not on that account is it less scientific. On the contrary, Christian Science is pre-emimently scientific, being based on Truth, the Principle of all science.
Physical science a blind belief
Physical science (so-called) is human knowledge,--a law of mortal mind, a blind belief, a Samson shorn of his strength. When this human belief lacks organizations to support it, its foundations are gone. Having neither moral might, spiritual basis, nor holy Principle of its own, this belief mistakes effect for cause and seeks to find life and intelligence in matter, thus limiting Life and holding fast to discord and death. In a word, human belief is a blind conclusion from material reasoning. This is a mortal, finite sense of things, which immortal Spirit silences forever.Right interpretation
The universe, like man, is to be interpreted by Science from its divine Principle, God, and then it can be understood; but when explained on the basis of physical sense and represented as subject to growth, maturity, and decay, the universe, like man, is, and must continue to be, an enigma.All force mental
Adhesion, cohesion, and attraction are properties of Mind. They belong to divine Principle, and support the equipoise of that thought-force, which launched the earth in its orbit and said to the proud wave, "Thus far and no farther."Spirit is the life, substance, and continuity of all things. We tread on forces. Withdraw them, and creation must collapse. Human knowledge calls them forces of matter; but divine Science declares that they belong wholly to divine Mind, are inherent in this Mind, and so restores them to their rightful home and classification.
Corporeal changes
The elements and functions of the physical body andof the physical world will change as mortal mind changes its beliefs. What is now considered the best condition for organic and functional health in the human body may no longer be found indispensable to health. Moral conditions will be found always harmonious and health-giving. Neither organic inaction nor overaction is beyond God's control; and man will be found normal and natural to changed mortal thought, and therefore more harmonious in his manifestations than he was in the prior states which human belief created and sanctioned.
As human thought changes from one stage to another of conscious pain and painlessness, sorrow and joy, - from fear to hope and from faith to understanding, - the visible manifestation will at last be man governed by Soul, not by material sense. Reflecting God's government, man is self-governed. When subordinate to the divine Spirit, man cannot be controlled by sin or death, thus proving our material theories about laws of health to be valueless.
The time and tide
The seasons will come and go with changes of time and tide, cold and heat, latitude and longitude. The agriculturist will find that these changes cannot affect his crops. "As a vesture shalt Thou change them and they shall be changed." The mariner will have dominion over the atmosphere and the great deep, over the fish of the sea and the fowls of the air. The astronomer will no longer look up to the stars, he will look out from them upon the universe; and the florist will find his flower before its seed.Mortal nothingness
Thus matter will finally be proved nothing more than a mortal belief, wholly inadequate to affect a manthrough its supposed organic action or supposed existence. Error will be no longer used in stating truth. The problem of nothingness, or "dust to dust," will be solved, and mortal mind will be without form and void, for mortality will cease when man beholds himself God's reflection, even as man sees his reflection in a glass.
A lack of originality
All Science is divine. Human thought never projected the least portion of true being. Human belief has sought and interpreted in its own way the echo of Spirit, and so seems to have reversed it and repeated it materially; but the human mind never produced a real tone nor sent forth a positive sound.Antagonistic questions
The point at issue between Christian Science on the one hand and popular theology on the other is this: Shall Science explain cause and effect as being both natural and spiritual? Or shall all that is beyond the cognizance of the material senses be called supernatural, and be left to the mercy of speculative hypotheses?Biblical basis
I have set forth Christian Science and its application to the treatment of disease just as I have discovered them. I have demonstrated through Mind the effects of Truth on the health, longevity, and morals of men; and I have found nothing in ancient or in modern systems on which to found my own, except the teachings and demonstrations of our great Master and the lives of prophets and apostles. The Bible has been my only authority. I have had no other guide in "the straight and narrow way" of Truth.Science and Christianity
If Christendom resists the author's application of theword Science to Christianity, or questions her use of the word Science, she will not therefore lose faith in Christianity, nor will Christianity lose its hold upon her. If God, the All-in-all, be the creator of the spiritual universe, including man, then everything entitled to a classification as truth, or Science, must be comprised in a knowledge or understanding of God, for there can be nothing beyond illimitable divinity.
Scientific terms
The terms Divine Science, Spiritual Science, Christ Science or Christian Science, or Science alone, she employs interchangeably, according to the requirements of the context. These synonymous terms stand for everything relating to God, the infinite, supreme, eternal Mind. It may be said, however, that the term Christian Science relates especially to Science as applied to humanity. Christian Science reveals God, not as the author of sin, sickness, and death, but as divine Principle, Supreme Being, Mind, exempt from all evil. It teaches that matter is the falsity, not the fact, of existence; that nerves, brain, stomach, lungs, and so forth, have--as matter--no intelligence, life, nor sensation.No physical science
There is no physical science, inasmuch as all truth proceeds from the divine Mind. Therefore truth is not human, and is not a law of matter, for matter is not a lawgiver. Science is an emanation of divine Mind, and is alone able to interpret God aright. It has a spiritual, and not a material origin. It is a divine utterance,--the Comforter which leadeth into all truth.Christian Science eschews what is called natural science, in so far as this is built on the false hypotheses that matter is its own lawgiver, that law is founded on material con
ditions, and that these are final and overrule the might of divine Mind. Good is natural and primitive. It is not miraculous to itself.
Practical Science
The term Science, properly understood, refers only to the laws of God and to His government of the universe, inclusive of man. From this it follows that business men and cultured scholars have found that Christian Science enhances their endurance and mental powers, enlarges their perception of character, gives them acuteness and comprehensiveness and an ability to exceed their ordinary capacity. The human mind, imbued with this spiritual understanding, becomes more elastic, is capable of greater endurance, escapes somewhat from itself, and requires less repose. A knowledge of the Science of being develops the latent abilities and possibilities of man. It extends the atmosphere of thought, giving mortals access to broader and higher realms. It raises the thinker into his native air of insight and perspicacity.An odor becomes beneficent and agreeable only in proportion to its escape into the surrounding atmosphere. So it is with our knowledge of Truth. If one would not quarrel with his fellow-man for waking him from a cataleptic nightmare, he should not resist Truth, which banishes - yea, forever destroys with the higher testimony of Spirit--the so-called evidence of matter.
Mathematics and scientific logic
Science relates to Mind, not matter. It rests on fixed Principle and not upon the judgment of false sensation. The addition of two sums in mathematics must always bring the same result. So is it with logic. If both the major and the minor propositions of a syllogism are correct, the conclusion, if properlydrawn, cannot be false. So in Christian Science there are no discords nor contradictions, because its logic is as harmonious as the reasoning of an accurately stated syllogism or of a properly computed sum in arithmetic. Truth is ever truthful, and can tolerate no error in premise or conclusion.
Truth by inversion
If you wish to know the spiritual fact, you can discover it by reversing the material fable, be the fable pro or con,--be it in accord with your preconceptions or utterly contrary to them.Antagonistic theories
Pantheism may be defined as a belief in the intelligence of matter,--a belief which Science overthrows. In those days there will be "great tribulation such as was not since the beginning of the world;" and earth will echo the cry, "Art thou [Truth] come hither to torment us before the time?" Animal magnetism, hypnotism, spiritualism, theosophy, agnosticism, pantheism, and infidelity are antagonistic to true being and fatal to its demonstration; and so are some other systems.Ontology needed
We must abandon pharmaceutics, and take up ontology,--"the science of real being." We must look deep into realism instead of accepting only the outward sense of things. Can we gather peaches from a pine-tree, or learn from discord the concord of being? Yet quite as rational are some of the leading illusions along the path which Science must tread in its reformatory mission among mortals. The very name, illusion, points to nothingness.Reluctant guests
The generous liver may object to the author's small estimate of the pleasures of the table. The sinner sees, in the system taught in this book, that the demands ofGod must be met. The petty intellect is alarmed by constant appeals to Mind. The licentious disposition is discouraged over its slight spiritual prospects. When all men are bidden to the feast, the excuses come. One has a farm, another has merchandise, and therefore they cannot accept.
Excuses for ignorance
It is vain to speak dishonestly of divine Science, which destroys all discord, when you can demonstrate the actuality of Science. It is unwise to doubt if reality is in perfect harmony with God, divine Principle, - if Science, when understood and demonstrated, will destroy all discord, - since you admit that God is omnipotent; for from this premise it follows that good and its sweet concords have all-power.Children and adults
Christian Science, properly understood, would disabuse the human mind of material beliefs which war against spiritual facts; and these material beliefs must be denied and cast out to make place for truth. You cannot add to the contents of a vessel already full. Laboring long to shake the adult's faith in matter and to inculcate a grain of faith in God, an inkling of the ability of Spirit to make the body harmonious,--the author has often remembered our Master's love for little children, and understood how truly such as they belong to the heavenly kingdom.All evil unnatural
If thought is startled at the strong claim of Science for the supremacy of God, or Truth, and doubts the supremacy of good, ought we not, contrariwise, to be astounded at the vigorous claims of evil and doubt them, and no longer think it natural to love sin and unnatural to forsake it,--no longer imagine evil to be ever-present and good absent? Truth shouldnot seem so surprising and unnatural as error, and error should not seem so real as truth. Sickness should not seem so real as health. There is no error in Science, and our lives must be governed by reality in order to be in harmony with God, the divine Principle of all being.
The error of carnality
When once destroyed by divine Science, the false evidence before the corporeal senses disappears. Hence the opposition of sensuous man to the Science of Soul and the significance of the Scripture, "The carnal mind is enmity against God." The central fact of the Bible is the superiority of spiritual over physical power.Churchly neglect
Must Christian Science come through the Christian churches as some persons insist? This Science has come already, after the manner of God's appointing, but the churches seem not ready to receive it, according to the Scriptural saying, "He came unto his own, and his own received him not." Jesus once said: "I thank Thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that Thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes: even so, Father, for so it seemed good in Thy sight." As aforetime, the spirit of the Christ, which taketh away the ceremonies and doctrines of men, is not accepted until the hearts of men are made ready for it.John the Baptist, and the Messiah
The mission of Jesus confirmed prophecy, and explained the so-called miracles of olden time as natural demonstrations of the divine power, demonstra- , tions which were not understood. Jesus' works established his claim to the Messiahship. In reply to John's inquiry, "Art thou he that should come,"Jesus returned an affirmative reply, recounting his works instead of referring to his doctrine, confident that this exhibition of the divine power to heal would fully answer the question. Hence his reply: "Go and show John again those things which ye do hear and see: the blind receive their sight and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have the gospel preached to them. And blessed is he, whosoever shall not be offended in me." In other words, he gave his benediction to any one who should not deny that such effects, coming from divine Mind, prove the unity of God,--the divine principle which brings out all harmony.
Christ rejected
The Pharisees of old thrust the spiritual idea and the man who lived it out of their synagogues, and retained their materialistic beliefs about God. Jesus' system of healing received no aid nor approval from other sanitary or religious systems, from doctrines of physics or of divinity; and it has not yet been generally accepted. To-day, as of yore, unconscious of the reappearing of the spiritual idea, blind belief shuts the door upon it, and condemns the cure of the sick and sinning if it is wrought on any but a material and a doctrinal theory. Anticipating this rejection of idealism, of the true idea of God, - this salvation from all error, physical and mental,--Jesus asked, "When the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth?"John's misgivings
Did the doctrines of John the Baptist confer healing power upon him, or endow him with the truest conception of the Christ? This righteous preacher once pointed his disciples to Jesus as "the Lamb of God;" yet afterwards he seriously questionedthe signs of the Messianic appearing, and sent the inquiry to Jesus, "Art thou he that should come?"
Faith according to works
Was John's faith greater than that of the Samaritan woman, who said, "Is not this the Christ?" There was also a certain centurion of whose faith Jesus himself declared, "I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel."In Egypt, it was Mind which saved the Israelites from belief in the plagues. In the wilderness, streams flowed from the rock, and manna fell from the sky. The Israelites looked upon the brazen serpent, and straightway believed that they were healed of the poisonous stings of vipers. In national prosperity, miracles attended the successes of the Hebrews; but when they departed from the true idea, their demoralization began. Even in captivity among foreign nations, the divine Principle wrought wonders for the people of God in the fiery furnace and in kings' palaces.
Judaism antipathetic
Judaism was the antithesis of Christianity, because Judaism engendered the limited form of a national or tribal religion. It was a finite and material system, carried out in special theories concerning God, man, sanitary methods, and a religious cultus. That he made "himself equal with God," was one of the Jewish accusations against him who planted Christianity on the foundation of Spirit, who taught as he was inspired by the Father and would recognize no life, intelligence, nor substance outside of God.Priestly learning
The Jewish conception of God, as Yawah, Jehovah, or only a mighty hero and king, has not quite given place to the true knowledge of God. Creeds and rituals have not cleansed their hands ofrabbinical lore. To-day the cry of bygone ages is repeated, "Crucify him!" At every advancing step, truth is still opposed with sword and spear.
Testimony of martyrs
The word martyr, from the Greek, means witness; but those who testified for Truth were so often persecuted unto death, that at length the word martyr was narrowed in its significance and so has come always to mean one who suffers for his convictions. The new faith in the Christ, Truth, so roused the hatred of the opponents of Christianity, that the followers of Christ were burned, crucified, and otherwise persecuted; and so it came about that human rights were hallowed by the gallows and the cross.Absence of Christ-power
Man-made doctrines are waning. They have not waxed strong in times of trouble. Devoid of the Christ-power, how can they illustrate the doctrines of Christ or the miracles of grace? Denial of the possibility of Christian healing robs Christianity of the very element, which gave it divine force and its astonishing and unequalled success in the first century.Basis of miracles
The true Logos is demonstrably Christian Science, the natural law of harmony which overcomes discord,--not because this Science is supernatural or preternatural, nor because it is an infraction of divine law, but because it is the immutable law of God, good. Jesus said: "I knew that Thou hearest me always;" and he raised Lazarus from the dead, stilled the tempest, healed the sick, walked on the water. There is divine authority for believing in the superiority of spiritual power over material resistance.Lawful wonders
A miracle fulfils God's law, but does not violate that law. This fact at present seems more mysterious thanthe miracle itself. The Psalmist sang: "What ailed thee, O thou sea, that thou fleddest? Thou Jordan, that thou wast driven back? Ye mountains, that ye skipped like rams, and ye little hills, like lambs? Tremble, thou earth, at the presence of the Lord, at the presence of the God of Jacob." The miracle introduces no disorder, but unfolds the primal order, establishing the Science of God's unchangeable law. Spiritual evolution alone is worthy of the exercise of divine power.
Fear and sickness identical
The same power which heals sin heals also sickness. This is "the beauty of holiness," that when Truth heals the sick it casts out evils, and when Truth casts out the evil called disease, it heals the sick. When Christ cast out the devil of dumbness, "it came to pass, when the devil was gone out, the dumb spake." There is to-day danger of repeating the offence of the Jews by limiting the Holy One of Israel and asking: "Can God furnish a table in the wilderness?" What cannot God do?The unity of Science and Christianity
It has been said, and truly, that Christianity must be Science, and Science must be Christianity, else one or the other is false and useless; but neither is unimportant or untrue, and they are alike in demonstration. This proves the one to be identical with the other. Christianity as Jesus taught it was not a creed, nor a system of ceremonies, nor a special gift from a ritualistic Jehovah; but it was the demonstration of divine Love casting out error and healing the sick, not merely in the name of Christ, or Truth, but in demonstration of Truth, as must be the case in the cycles of divine light.The Christ-mission
Jesus established his church and maintained his mission on a spiritual foundation of Christ-healing. He taught his followers that his religion had a divine Principle, which would cast out error and heal both the sick and the sinning. He claimed no intelligence, action, nor life separate from God. Despite the persecution this brought upon him, he used his divine power to save men both bodily and spiritually.Ancient spiritualism
The question then as now was, How did Jesus heal the sick? His answer to this question the world rejected. He appealed to his students: "Whom do men say that I, the Son of man, am?" That is: Who or what is it that is thus identified with casting out evils and healing the sick? They replied, "Some say that thou art John the Baptist; some, Elias; and others, Jeremias, or one of the prophets." These prophets were considered dead, and this reply may indicate that some of the people believed that Jesus was a medium, controlled by the spirit of John or of Elias.This ghostly fancy was repeated by Herod himself. That a wicked king and debauched husband should have no high appreciation of divine Science and the great work of the Master, was not surprising; for how could such a sinner comprehend what the disciples did not fully understand? But even Herod doubted if Jesus was controlled by the sainted preacher. Hence Herod's assertion: "John have I beheaded: but who is this?" No wonder Herod desired to see the new Teacher.
Doubting disciples
The disciples apprehended their Master better than did others; but they did not comprehend all that he said and did, or they would not have questioned him so often. Jesus patiently persisted inteaching and demonstrating the truth of being. His students saw this power of Truth heal the sick, cast out evil, raise the dead; but the ultimate of this wonderful work was not spiritually discerned, even by them, until after the crucifixion, when their immaculate Teacher stood before them, the victor over sickness, sin, disease, death, and the grave.
Yearning to be understood, the Master repeated, "But whom say ye that I am?" This renewed inquiry meant: Who or what is it that is able to do the work, so mysterious to the popular mind? In his rejection of the answer already given and his renewal of the question, it is plain that Jesus completely eschewed the narrow opinion implied in their citation of the common report about him.
A divine response
With his usual impetuosity, Simon replied for his brethren, and his reply set forth a great fact: "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God!" That is: The Messiah is what thou hast declared,--Christ, the spirit of God, of Truth, Life, and Love, which heals mentally. This assertion elicited from Jesus the benediction, "Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven;" that is, Love hath shown thee the way of Life!The true and living rock
Before this the impetuous disciple had been called only by his common names, Simon Bar-jona, or son of Jona; but now the Master gave him a spiritual name in these words: "And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter; and upon this rock [the meaning of the Greek word petros, or stone] I will build my church; and the gates of hell [hades, the underworld, or the grave] shall not prevail against it." In other words, Jesus purposed founding his society, not on the personal Peter as a mortal, but on the Godpower which lay behind Peter's confession of the true Messiah.
Sublime summary
It was now evident to Peter that divine Life, Truth, and Love, and not a human personality, was the healer of the sick and a rock, a firm foundation in the realm of harmony. On this spiritually scientific basis Jesus explained his cures, which appeared miraculous to outsiders. He showed that diseases were cast out neither by corporeality, by materia medica, nor by hygiene, but by the divine Spirit, casting out the errors of mortal mind. The supremacy of Spirit was the foundation on which Jesus built. His sublime summary points to the religion of Love.New era in Jesus
Jesus established in the Christian era the precedent for all Christianity, theology, and healing. Christians are under as direct orders now, as they were then, to be Christlike, to possess the Christ-spirit, to follow the Christ-example, and to heal the sick as well as the sinning. It is easier for Christianity to cast out sickness than sin, for the sick are more willing to part with pain than are sinners to give up the sinful, so-called pleasure of the senses. The Christian can prove this to-day as readily is it was proved centuries ago.Healthful theology
Our Master said to every follower: "Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature! . . . Heal the sick! . . . Love thy neighbor as thyself!" It was this theology of Jesus which healed the sick and the sinning. It is his theology in this book and the spiritual meaning of this theology, whichheals the sick and causes the wicked to "forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts." It was our Master's theology which the impious sought to destroy.
Marvels and reformations
From beginning to end, the Scriptures are full of accounts of the triumph of Spirit, Mind, over matter. Moses proved the power of Mind by what men called miracles ; so did Joshua, Elijah, and Elisha. The Christian era was ushered in with signs and wonders. Reforms have commonly been attended with bloodshed and persecution, even when the end has been brightness and peace; but the present new, yet old, reform in religious faith will teach men patiently and wisely to stem the tide of sectarian bitterness, whenever it flows inward.Science obscured
The decisions by vote of Church Councils as to what should and should not be considered Holy Writ; the manifest mistakes in the ancient versions; the thirty thousand different readings in the Old Testament, and the three hundred thousand in the New, - these facts show how a mortal and material sense stole into the divine record, with its own hue darkening to some extent the inspired pages. But mistakes could neither wholly obscure the divine Science of the Scriptures seen from Genesis to Revelation, mar the demonstration of Jesus, nor annul the healing by the prophets, who foresaw that "the stone which the builders rejected" would become "the head of the corner."Opponents benefited
Atheism, pantheism, theosophy, and agnosticism are opposed to Christian Science, as they are to ordinary religion; but it does not follow that the profane or atheistic invalid cannot be healed by Christian Science. The moral condition of such a man demands the remedy of Truth more than it is needed in most cases; and Science is more than usually effectual in the treatment of moral ailments.
God invisible to the senses
That God is a corporeal being, nobody can truly affirm. The Bible represents Him as saying: "Thou canst not see My face; for there shall no man see Me and live." Not materially but spiritually we know Him as divine Mind, as Life, Truth, and Love. We shall obey and adore in proportion as we apprehend the divine nature and love Him understandingly, warring no more over the corporeality, but rejoicing in the affluence of our God. Religion will then be of the heart and not of the head. Mankind will no longer be tyrannical and proscriptive from lack of love,--straining out gnats and swallowing camels.The true worship
We worship spiritually, only as we cease to worship materially. Spiritual devoutness is the soul of Christianity. Worshipping through the medium of matter is paganism. Judaic and other rituals are but types and shadows of true worship. "The true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth."Anthropomorphism
The Jewish tribal Jehovah was a man-projected God, liable to wrath, repentance, and human changeableness. The Christian Science God is universal, eternal, divine love, which changeth not and causeth no evil, disease, nor death. It is indeed mournfully true that the older Scripture is reversed. In the begining God created man in His, God's, image; but mortals would procreate man, and make God in their own human image. What is the god of a mortal, but a mortal magnified?More than profession required
This indicates the distance between the theological and ritualistic religion of the ages and the truth preached by Jesus. More than profession is requisite for Christian demonstration. Few understand or adhere to Jesus' divine precepts for living and healing. Why? Because his precepts require the disciple to cut off the right hand and pluck out the right eye, - that is, to set aside even the most cherished beliefs and practices, to leave all for Christ.No ecclesiastical monopoly
All revelation (such is the popular thought!) must come from the schools and along the line of scholarly and ecclesiastical descent, as kings are crowned from a royal dynasty. In healing the sick and sinning, Jesus elaborated the fact that the healing effect followed the understanding of the divine Principle and of the Christ-spirit which governed the corporeal Jesus. For this Principle there is no dynasty, no ecclesiastical monopoly. Its only crowned head is immortal sovereignty. Its only priest is the spiritualized man. The Bible declares that all believers are made "kings and priests unto God." The outsiders did not then, and do not now, understand this ruling of the Christ; therefore they cannot demonstrate God's healing power. Neither can this manifestation of Christ be comprehended, until its divine Principle is scientifically understood.A change demanded
The adoption of scientific religion and of divine healing will ameliorate sin, sickness, and death. Let our pulpits do justice to Christian Science. Let it have fair representation by the press. Give to it the place in our institutions of learning now occupied by scholastic theology and physiology, and it willeradicate sickness and sin in less time than the old systems, devised for subduing them, have required for self-establishment and propagation.
Two claims omitted
Anciently the followers of Christ, or Truth, measured Christianity by its power over sickness, sin, and death; but modern religions generally omit all but one of these powers,--the power over sin. We must seek the undivided garment, the whole Christ, as our first proof of Christianity, for Christ, Truth, alone can furnish us with absolute evidence.Selfishness and loss
If the soft palm, upturned to a lordly salary, and architectural skill, making dome and spire tremulous with beauty, turn the poor and the stranger from the gate, they at the same time shut the door on progress. In vain do the manger and the cross tell their story to pride and fustian. Sensuality palsies the right hand, and causes the left to let go its grasp on the divine.Temple cleansed
As in Jesus' time, so to-day, tyranny and pride need to be whipped out of the temple, and humility and divine Science to be welcomed in. The strong cords of scientific demonstration, as twisted and wielded by Jesus, are still needed to purge the temples of their vain traffic in worldly worship and to make them meet dwelling-places for the Most High.Question of precedence
Which was first, Mind or medicine? If Mind was first and self-existent, then Mind, not matter, must have been the first medicine. God being All-inall, He made medicine; but that medicine was Mind. It could not have been matter, which departs from the nature and character of Mind, God. Truthis God's remedy for error of every kind, and Truth destroys only what is untrue. Hence the fact that, to-day, as yesterday, Christ casts out evils and heals the sick.
Methods rejected
It is plain that God does not employ drugs or hygiene, nor provide them for human use; else Jesus would have recommended and employed them in his healing. The sick are more deplorably lost than the sinning, if the sick cannot rely on God for help and the sinning can. The divine Mind never called matter medicine, and matter required a material and human belief before it could be considered as medicine.Error not curative
Sometimes the human mind uses one error to medicine another. Driven to choose between two difficulties, the human mind takes the lesser to relieve the greater. On this basis it saves from starvation by theft, and quiets pain with anodynes. You admit that mind influences the body somewhat, but you conclude that the stomach, blood, nerves, bones, etc., hold the preponderance of power. Controlled by this belief, you continue in the old routine. You lean on the inert and unintelligent, never discerning how this deprives you of the available superiority of divine Mind. The body is not controlled scientifically by a negative mind.Impossible coalescence
Mind is the grand creator, and there can be no power except that which is derived from Mind. If Mind was first chronologically, is first potentially, and must be first eternally, then give to Mind the glory, honor, dominion, and power everlastingly due its holy name. Inferior and unspiritual methods of healing may try to make Mind and drugs coalesce, but the two willnot mingle scientifically. Why should we wish to make them do so, since no good can come of it?
If Mind is foremost and superior, let us rely upon Mind, which needs no cooperation from lower powers, even if these so-called powers are real.
Naught is the squire, when the king is nigh; Withdraws the star, when dawns the sun's brave light.
Soul and sense
The various mortal beliefs formulated in human philosophy, physiology, hygiene, are mainly predicated of matter, and afford faint gleams of God, or Truth. The more material a belief, the more obstinately tenacious its error; the stronger are the manifestations of the corporeal senses, the weaker the indications of Soul.Will-power detrimental
Human will-power is not Science. Human will belongs to the so-called material senses, and its use is to be condemned. Willing the sick to recover is not the metaphysical practice of Christian Science, but is sheer animal magnetism. Human will-power may infringe the rights of man. It produces evil continually, and is not a factor in the realism of being. Truth, and not corporeal will, is the divine power which says to disease, "Peace, be still."Conservative antagonism
Because divine Science wars with so-called physical science, even as Truth wars with error, the old schools still oppose it. Ignorance, pride, or prejudice closes the door to whatever is not stereotyped. When the Science of being is universally understood, every man will be his own physician, and Truth will be the universal panacea.Ancient healers
It is a question to-day, whether the ancient inspired healers understood the Science of Christian healing, orwhether they caught its sweet tones, as the natural musician catches the tones of harmony, without being able to explain them. So divinely imbued were they with the spirit of Science, that the lack of the letter could not hinder their work; and that letter, without the spirit, would have made void their practice.
The struggle and victory
The struggle for the recovery of invalids goes on, not between material methods, but between mortal minds and immortal Mind. The victory will be on the patient's side only as immortal Mind through Christ, Truth, subdues the human belief in disease. It matters not what material method one may adopt, whether faith in drugs, trust in hygiene, or reliance on some other minor curative.Mystery of godliness
Scientific healing has this advantage over other methods,--that in it Truth controls error. From this fact arise its ethical as well as its physical effects. Indeed, its ethical and physical effects are indissolubly connected. If there is any mystery in Christian healing, it is the mystery which godliness always presents to the ungodly,--the mystery always arising from ignorance of the laws of eternal and unerring Mind.Matter versus matter
Other methods undertake to oppose error with error, and thus they increase the antagonism of one form of matter towards other forms of matter or error, and the warfare between Spirit and the flesh goes on. By this antagonism mortal mind must continually weaken its own assumed power.How healing was lost
The theology of Christian Science includes healing the sick. Our Master's first article of faith propoundedto his students was healing, and he proved his faith by his works. The ancient Christians were healers. Why has this element of Christianity been lost? Because our systems of religion are governed more or less by our systems of medicine. The first idolatry was faith in matter. The schools have rendered faith in drugs the fashion, rather than faith in Deity. By trusting matter to destroy its own discord, health and harmony have been sacrificed. Such systems are barren of the vitality of spiritual power, by which material sense is made the servant of Science and religion becomes Christlike.
Drugs and divinity
Material medicine substitutes drugs for the power of God--even the might of Mind--to heal the body. Scholasticism clings for salvation to the person, instead of to the divine Principle, of the man Jesus; and his Science, the curative agent of God, is silenced. Why? Because truth divests material drugs of their imaginary power, and clothes Spirit with supremacy. Science is the "stranger that is within thy gates," remembered not, even when its elevating effects practically prove its divine origin and efficacy.Christian Science as old as God
Divine Science derives its sanction from the Bible, and the divine origin of Science is demonstrated through the holy influence of Truth in healing sickness and sin. This healing power of Truth must have been far anterior to the period in which Jesus lived. It is as ancient as "the Ancient of days." It lives through all Life, and extends throughout all space.Reduction to system
Divine metaphysics is now reduced to a system, to a form comprehensible by and adapted to the thought ofthe age in which we live. This system enables the learner to demonstrate the divine Principle, upon which Jesus' healing was based, and the sacred rules for its present application to the cure of disease.
Late in the nineteenth century I demonstrated the divine rules of Christian Science. They were submitted to the broadest practical test, and everywhere, when honestly applied under circumstances where demonstration was humanly possible, this Science showed that Truth had lost none of its divine and healing efficacy, even though centuries had passed away since Jesus practised these rules on the hills of Judaea and in the valleys of Galilee.
Perusal and practice
Although this volume contains the complete Science of Mind-healing, never believe that you can absorb the whole meaning of the Science by a simple perusal of this book. The book needs to be studied, and the demonstration of the rules of scientific healing will plant you firmly on the spiritual groundwork of Christian Science. This proof lifts you high above the perishing fossils of theories already antiquated, and enables you to grasp the spiritual facts of being hitherto unattained and seemingly dim.A definite rule discovered
Our Master healed the sick, practised Christian healing, and taught the generalities of its divine Principle to his students; but he left no definite rule for demonstrating this Principle of healing and preventing disease. This rule remained to be discovered in Christian Science. A pure affection takes form in goodness, but Science alone reveals the divine Principle of goodness and demonstrates its rules.Jesus' own practice
Jesus never spoke of disease as dangerous or as difficultto heal. When his students brought to him a case they had failed to heal, he said to them, "O faithless generation," implying that the requisite power to heal was in Mind. He prescribed no drugs, urged no obedience to material laws, but acted in direct disobedience to them.
The man of anatomy and of theology
Neither anatomy nor theology has ever described man as created by Spirit, - as God's man. The former explains the men of men, or the "children of men," as created corporeally instead of spiritually and as emerging from the lowest, instead of from the highest, conception of being. Both anatomy and theology define man as both physical and mental, and place mind at the mercy of matter for every function, formation, and manifestation. Anatomy takes up man at all points materially. It loses Spirit, drops the true tone, and accepts the discord. Anatomy and theology reject the divine Principle which produces harmonious man, and deal--the one wholly, the other primarily - with matter, calling that man which is not the counterpart, but the counterfeit, of God's man. Then theology tries to explain how to make this man a Christian,--how from this basis of division and discord to produce the concord and unity of Spirit and His likeness.Physiology deficient
Physiology exalts matter, dethrones Mind, and claims to rule man by material law, instead of spiritual. When physiology fails to give health or life by this process, it ignores the divine Spirit as unable or unwilling to render help in time of physical need. When mortals sin, this ruling of the schools leaves them to the guidance of a theology which admits God to be the healer of sin but not of sickness, although our greatMaster demonstrated that Truth could save from sickness as well as from sin.
Blunders and blunderers
Mind as far outweighs drugs in the cure of disease as in the cure of sin. The more excellent way is divine Science in every case. Is materia medica a science or a bundle of speculative human theories? The prescription which succeeds in one instance fails in another, and this is owing to the different mental states of the patient. These states are not comprehended and they are left without explanation except in Christian Science. The rule and its perfection of operation never vary in Science. If you fail to succeed in any case, it is because you have not demonstrated the life of Christ, Truth, more in your own life,--because you have not obeyed the rule and proved the Principle of divine Science.Old-school physician
A physician of the old school remarked with great gravity: "We know that mind affects the body somewhat, and advise our patients to be hopeful and cheerful and to take as little medicine as possible; but mind can never cure organic difficulties." The logic is lame, and facts contradict it. The author has cured what is termed organic disease as readily as she has cured purely functional disease, and with no power but the divine Mind.Tests in our day
Since God, divine Mind, governs all, not partially but supremely, predicting disease does not dignify therapeutics. Whatever guides thought spiritually benefits mind and body. We need to understand the affirmations of divine Science, dismiss superstition, and demonstrate truth according to Christ. To-day there is hardly a city, village, or hamlet, in which are not tobe found living witnesses and monuments to the virtue and power of Truth, as applied through this Christian system of healing disease.
The main purpose
To-day the healing power of Truth is widely demonstrated as an immanent, eternal Science, instead of a phenomenal exhibition. Its appearing is the coming anew of the gospel of "on earth peace, good-will toward men." This coming, as was promised by the Master, is for its establishment as a permanent dispensation among men; but the mission of Christian Science now, as in the time of its earlier demonstration, is not primarily one of physical healing. Now, as then, signs and wonders are wrought in the metaphysical healing of physical disease; but these signs are only to demonstrate its divine origin,--to attest the reality of the higher mission of the Christ-power to take away the sins of the world.Exploded doctrine
The science (so-called) of physics would have one believe that both matter and mind are subject to disease, and that, too, in spite of the individual's protest and contrary to the law of divine Mind. This human view infringes man's free moral agency; and it is as evidently erroneous to the author, and will be to all others at some future day, as the practically rejected doctrine of the predestination of souls to damnation or salvation. The doctrine that man's harmony is governed by physical conditions all his earthly days, and that he is then thrust out of his own body by the operation of matter,--even the doctrine of the superiority of matter over Mind,--is fading out.Disease mental
The hosts of AEsculapius are flooding the world with diseases, because they are ignorant that the human mindand body are myths. To be sure, they sometimes treat the sick as if there was but one factor in the case; but this one factor they represent to be body, not mind. Infinite Mind could not possibly create a remedy outside of itself, but erring, finite, human mind has an absolute need of something beyond itself for its redemption and healing.
Intentions respected
Great respect is due the motives and philanthropy of the higher class of physicians. We know that if they understood the Science of Mind-healing, and were in possession of the enlarged power it confers to benefit the race physically and spiritually, they would rejoice with us. Even this one reform in medicine would ultimately deliver mankind from the awful and oppressive bondage now enforced by false theories, from which multitudes would gladly escape.Man governed by Mind
Mortal belief says that death has been occasioned by fright. Fear never stopped being and its action. The blood, heart, lungs, brain, etc., have nothing to do with Life, God. Every function of the real man is governed by the divine Mind. The human mind has no power to kill or to cure, and it has no comtrol over God's man. The divine Mind that made man maintains His own image and likeness. The human mind is opposed to God and must be put off, as St. Paul declares. All that really exists is the divine Mind and its idea, and in this Mind the entire being is found harmonious and eternal. The straight and narrow way is to see and acknowledge this fact, yield to this power, and follow the leadings of truth.Mortal mind dethroned
That mortal mind claims to govern every organ of the mortal body, we have overwhelming proof. But this socalled mind is a myth, and must by its own consent yield to Truth. It would wield the sceptre of a monarch, but it is powerless. The immortal divine Mind takes away all its supposed sovereignty, and saves mortal mind from itself. The author has endeavored to make this book the AEsculapius of mind as well as of body, that it may give hope to the sick and heal them, although they know not how the work is done. Truth has a healing effect, even when not fully understood.
All activity from thought
Anatomy describes muscular action as produced by mind in one instance and not in another. Such errors beset every material theory, in which one statement contradicts another over and over again. It is related that Sir Humphry Davy once apparently cured a case of paralysis simply by introducing a thermometer into the patient's mouth. This he did merely to ascertain the temperature of the patient's body; but the sick man supposed this ceremony was intended to heal him, and he recovered accordingly. Such a fact illustrates our theories.The author's experiments in medicine
The author's medical researches and experiments had prepared her thought for the metaphysics of Christian Science. Every material dependence had failed her in her search for truth; and she can now understand why, and can see the means by which mortals are divinely driven to a spiritual source for health and happiness.Homoeopathic attenuations
Her experiments in homoeopathy had made her skeptical as to material curative methods. Jahr, from Aconitum to Zincum oxydatum, enumerates the general symptoms, the characteristic signs, which demand different remedies; but the drugis frequently attenuated to such a degree that not a vestige of it remains. Thus we learn that it is not the drug which expels the disease or changes one of the symptoms of disease.
Only salt and water
The author has attenuated Natrum muriaticum (common table-salt) until there was not a single saline property left. The salt had "lost his savour;" and yet, with one drop of that attenuation in a goblet of water, and a teaspoonful of the water administered at intervals of three hours, she has cured a patient sinking in the last stage of typhoid fever. The highest attenuation of homoeopathy and the most potent rises above matter into mind. This discovery leads to more light. From it may be learned that either human faith or the divine Mind is the healer and that there is no efficacy in a drug.Origin of pain
You say a boil is painful; but that is impossible, for matter without mind is not painful. The boil simply manifests, through inflammation and swelling, a belief in pain, and this belief is called a boil. Now administer mentally to your patient a high attenuation of truth, and it will soon cure the boil. The fact that pain cannot exist where there is no mortal mind to feel it is a proof that this so-called mind makes its own pain--that is, its own belief in pain.Source of contagion
We weep because others weep, we yawn because they yawn, and we have smallpox because others have it; but mortal mind, not matter, contains and carries the infection. When this mental contagion is understood, we shall be more careful of our mental conditions and we shall avoid loquacious tattling about disease, as we would avoid advocating crime. Neither sympathy nor society should ever tempt us to cherisherror in any form, and certainly we should not be error's advocate.
Disease arises, like other mental conditions, from association. Since it is a law of mortal mind that certain diseases should be regarded as contagious, this law obtains credit through association,--calling up the fear that creates the image of disease and its consequent manifestation in the body.
Imaginary cholera
This fact in metaphysics is illustrated by the following incident: A man was made to believe that he occupied a bed where a cholera patient had died. Immediately the symptoms of this disease appeared, and the man died. The fact was, that he had not caught the cholera by material contact, because no cholera patient had been in that bed.Children's ailments
If a child is exposed to contagion or infection, the mother is frightened and says, "My child will be sick." The law of mortal mind and her own fears govern her child more than the child's mind governs itself, and they produce the very results which might have been prevented through the opposite understanding. Then it is believed that exposure to the contagion wrought the mischief.That mother is not a Christian Scientist, and her affections need better guidance, who says to her child: "You look sick," "You look tired," "You need rest," or "You need medicine."
Such a mother runs to her little one, who thinks she has hurt her face by falling on the carpet, and says, moaning more childishly than her child, "Mamma knows you are hurt." The better and more successful method for any mother to adopt is to say: "Oh, never mind! You're not
hurt, so don't think you are." Presently the child forgets all about the accident, and is at play.
Drug-power mental
When the sick recover by the use of drugs, it is the law of a general belief, culminating in individual faith, which heals; and according to this faith will the effect be. Even when you take away the individual confidence in the drug, you have not yet divorced the drug from the general faith. The chemist, the botanist, the druggist, the doctor, and the nurse equip the medicine with their faith, and the beliefs which are in the majority rule. When the general belief endorses the inanimate drug as doing this or that, individual dissent or faith, unless it rests on Science, is but a belief held by a minority, and such a belief is governed by the majority.Belief in physics
The universal belief in physics weighs against the high and mighty truths of Christian metaphysics. This erroneous general belief, which sustains medicine and produces all medical results, works against Christian Science; and the percentage of power on the side of this Science must mightily outweigh the power of popular belief in order to heal a single case of disease. The human mind acts more powerfully to offset the discords of matter and the ills of flesh, in proportion as it puts less weight into the material or fleshly scale and more weight into the spiritual scale. Homoeopathy diminishes the drug, but the potency of the medicine increases as the drug disappears.Nature of drugs
Vegetarianism, homoeopathy, and hydropathy have diminished drugging; but if drugs are an antidote to disease, why lessen the antidote? If drugs are good things, is it safe to say that the less in quantity you have of them the better? If drugspossess intrinsic virtues or intelligent curative qualities, these qualities must be mental. Who named drugs, and what made them good or bad for mortals, beneficial or injurious?
Dropsy cured without drugs
A case of dropsy, given up by the faculty, fell into my hands. It was a terrible case. Tapping had been employed, and yet, as she lay in her bed, the patient looked like a barrel. I prescribed the fourth attenuation of Argentum nitratum with occasional doses of a high attenuation of Sulphuris. She improved perceptibly. Believing then somewhat in the ordinary theories of medical practice, and learning that her former physician had prescribed these remedies, I began to fear an aggravation of symptoms from their prolonged use, and told the patient so; but she was unwilling to give up the medicine while she was recovering. It then occurred to me to give her unmedicated pellets and watch the result. I did so, and she continued to gain. Finally she said that she would give up her medicine for one day, and risk the effects. After trying this, she informed me that she could get along two days without globules; but on the third day she again suffered, and was relieved by taking them. She went on in this way, taking the unmedicated pellets,--and receiving occasional visits from me,--but employing no other means, and she was cured.A stately advance
Metaphysics, as taught in Christian Science, is the next stately step beyond homoeopathy. In metaphysics, matter disappears from the remedy entirely, and Mind takes its rightful and supreme place. Homoeopathy takes mental symptoms largelyinto consideration in its diagnosis of disease. Christian Science deals wholly with the mental cause in judging and destroying disease. It succeeds where homoeopathy fails, solely because its one recognized Principle of healing is Mind, and the whole force of the mental element is employed through the Science of Mind, which never shares its rights with inanimate matter.
The modus of homoeopathy
Christian Science exterminates the drug, and rests on Mind alone as the curative Principle, acknowledging that the divine Mind has all power. Homoeopathy mentalizes a drug with such repetition of thought-attenuations, that the drug becomes more like the human mind than the substratum of this socalled mind, which we call matter; and the drug's power of action is proportionately increased.Drugging unchristian
If drugs are part of God's creation, which (according to the narrative in Genesis) He pronounced good, then drugs cannot be poisonous. If He could create drugs intrinsically bad, then they should never be used. If He creates drugs at all and designs them for medical use, why did Jesus not employ them and recommend them for the treatment of disease? Matter is not self-creative, for it is unintelligent. Erring mortal mind confers the power which the drug seems to possess.Narcotics quiet mortal mind, and so relieve the body; but they leave both mind and body worse for this submission. Christian Science impresses the entire corporeality,--namely, mind and body,--and brings out the proof that Life is continuous and harmonious. Science both neutralizes error and destroys it. Mankind is the better for this spiritual and profound pathology.
Mythology and materia medica
It is recorded that the profession of medicine originated in idolatry with pagan priests, who besought the gods to heal the sick and designated Apollo as "the god of medicine." He was supposed to have dictated the first prescription, according to the "History of Four Thousand Years of Medicine." It is here noticeable that Apollo was also regarded as the sender of disease, "the god of pestilence." Hippocrates turned from image-gods to vegetable and mineral drugs for healing. This was deemed progress in medicine; but what we need is the truth which heals both mind and body. The future history of material medicine may correspond with that of its material god, Apollo, who was banished from heaven and endured great sufferings upon earth.Footsteps to intemperance
Drugs, cataplasms, and whiskey are stupid substitutes for the dignity and potency of divine Mind and its efficacy to heal. It is pitiful to lead men into temptation through the byways of this wilderness world,--to victimize the race with intoxicating prescriptions for the sick, until mortal mind acquires an educated appetite for strong drink, and men and women become loathsome sots.Advancing degrees
Evidences of progress and of spiritualization greet us on every hand. Drug-systems are quitting their hold on matter and so letting in matter's higher stratum, mortal mind. Homoeopathy, a step in advance of allopathy, is doing this. Matter is going out of medicine; and mortal mind, of a higher attenuation than the drug, is governing the pellet.Effects of fear
A woman in the city of Lynn, Massachusetts, was etherized and died in consequence, although her physicians insisted that it would be unsafe to perform a needed surgical operation without the ether. After the autopsy, her sister testified that the deceased protested against inhaling the ether and said it would kill her, but that she was compelled by her physicians to take it. Her hands were held, and she was forced into submission. The case was brought to trial. The evidence was found to be conclusive, and a verdict was returned that death was occasioned, not by the ether, but by fear of inhaling it.
Mental conditions to be heeded
Is it skilful or scientific surgery to take no heed of mental conditions and to treat the patient as if she were so much mindless matter, and as if matter were the only factor to be consulted? Had these unscientific surgeons understood metaphysics, they would have considered the woman's state of mind, and not have risked such treatment. They would either have allayed her fear or would have performed the operation without ether.The sequel proved that this Lynn woman died from effects produced by mortal mind, and not from the disease or the operation.
False source of knowledge
The medical schools would learn the state of man from matter instead of from Mind. They examine the lungs, tongue, and pulse to ascertain how much harmony, or health, matter is permitting to matter,--how much pain or pleasure, action or stagnation, one form of matter is allowing another form of matter.Ignorant of the fact that a man's belief produces disease and all its symptoms, the ordinary physician is liable to increase disease with his own mind, when he
should address himself to the work of destroying it through the power of the divine Mind.
The systems of physics act against metaphysics, and vice versa. When mortals forsake the material for the spiritual basis of action, drugs lose their healing force, for they have no innate power. Unsupported by the faith reposed in it, the inanimate drug becomes powerless.
Obedient muscles
The motion of the arm is no more dependent upon the direction of mortal mind, than are the organic action and secretion of the viscera. When this so-called mind quits the body, the heart becomes as torpid as the hand.Anatomy and mind
Anatomy finds a necessity for nerves to convey the mandate of mind to muscle and so cause action; but what does anatomy say when the cords contract and become immovable? Has mortal mind ceased speaking to them, or has it bidden them to be impotent? Can muscles, bones, blood, and nerves rebel against mind in one instance and not in another, and become cramped despite the mental protest?Unless muscles are self-acting at all times, they are never so,--never capable of acting contrary to mental direction. If muscles can cease to act and become rigid of their own preference,--be deformed or symmetrical, as they please or as disease directs, - they must be selfdirecting. Why then consult anatomy to learn how mortal mind governs muscle, if we are only to learn from anatomy that muscle is not so governed?
Mind over matter
Is man a material fungus without Mind to help him? Is a stiff joint or a contracted muscle as much a result of law as the supple andelastic condition of the healthy limb, and is God the lawgiver?
You say, "I have burned my finger." This is an exact statement, more exact than you suppose; for mortal mind, and not matter, burns it. Holy inspiration has created states of mind which have been able to nullify the action of the flames, as in the Bible case of the three young Hebrew captives, cast into the Babylonian furnace; while an opposite mental state might produce spontaneous combustion.
Restrictive regulations
In 1880, Massachusetts put her foot on a proposed tyrannical law, restricting the practice of medicine. If her sister States follow this example in harmony with our Constitution and Bill of Rights, they will do less violence to that immortal sentiment of the Declaration, "Man is endowed by his Maker with certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."The oppressive state statutes touching medicine remind one of the words of the famous Madame Roland, as she knelt before a statue of Liberty, erected near the guillotine: "Liberty, what crimes are committed in thy name!"
Metaphysics challenges physics
The ordinary practitioner, examining bodily symptoms, telling the patient that he is sick, and treating the case according to his physical diagnosis, would naturally induce the very disease he is trying to cure, even if it were not already determined by mortal mind. Such unconscious mistakes would not occur, if this old class of philanthropists looked as deeply for cause and effect into mind as into matter. The physician agrees with his "adversary quickly," but upon different termsthan does the metaphysician; for the matter-physician agrees with the disease, while the metaphysician agrees only with health and challenges disease.
Truth an alterative
Christian Science brings to the body the sunlight of Truth, which invigorates and purifies. Christian Science acts as an alterative, neutralizing error with Truth. It changes the secretions, expels humors, dissolves tumors, relaxes rigid muscles, restores carious bones to soundness. The effect of this Science is to stir the human mind to a change of base, on which it may yield to the harmony of the divine Mind.Practical success
Experiments have favored the fact that Mind governs the body, not in one instance, but in every instance. The indestructible faculties of Spirit exist without the conditions of matter and also without the false beliefs of a so-called material existence. Working out the rules of Science in practice, the author has restored health in cases of both acute and chronic disease in their severest forms. Secretions have been changed, the structure has been renewed, shortened limbs have been elongated, ankylosed joints have been made supple, and carious bones have been restored to healthy conditions. I have restored what is called the lost substance of lungs, and healthy organizations have been established where disease was organic. Christian Science heals organic disease as surely as it heals what is called functional, for it requires only a fuller understanding of the divine Principle of Christian Science to demonstrate the higher rule.Testimony of medical teachers
With due respect for the faculty, I kindly quote from Dr. Benjamin Rush, the famous Philadelphia teacher of medical practice. He declared that "it is impossible to calculate the mischiefwhich Hippocrates has done, by first marking Nature with his name, and afterward letting her loose upon sick people."
Dr. Benjamin Waterhouse, Professor in Harvard University, declared himself "sick of learned quackery."
Dr. James Johnson, Surgeon to William IV, King Of England, said:
"I declare my conscientious opinion, founded on long observation and reflection, that if there were not a single physician, surgeon, apothecary, man-midwife, chemist, druggist, or drug on the face of the earth, there would be less sickness and less mortality."
Dr. Mason Good, a learned Professor in London, said :
"The effects of medicine on the human system are in the highest degree uncertain; except, indeed, that it has already destroyed more lives than war, pestilence, and famine, all combined."
Dr. Chapman, Professor of the Institutes and Practice of Physic in the University of Pennsylvania, in a published essay said
"Consulting the records of our science, we cannot help being disgusted with the multitude of hypotheses obtruded upon us at different times. Nowhere is the imagination displayed to a greater extent; and perhaps so ample an exhibition of human invention might gratify our vanity, if it were not more than compensated by the humiliating view of so much absurdity, contradiction, and falsehood. To harmonize the contrarieties of medical doctrines is indeed a task as impractible as to arrange the fleeting vapors around us, or to reconcile the fixed and repulsive antipathies of nature. Dark and
perplexed, our devious career resembles the groping of Homer's Cyclops around his cave."
Sir John Forbes, M.D., F.R.S., Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, London, said:
"No systematic or theoretical classification of diseases or of therapeutic agents, ever yet promulgated, is true, or anything like the truth, and none can be adopted as a safe guidance in practice."
It is just to say that generally the cultured class of medical practitioners are grand men and women, therefore they are more scientific than are false claimants to Christian Science. But all human systems based on material premises are minus the unction of divine Science. Much yet remains to be said and done before all mankind is saved and all the mental microbes of sin and all diseased thought-germs are exterminated.
If you or I should appear to die, we should not be dead. The seeming decease, caused by a majority of human beliefs that man must die, or produced by mental assassins, does not in the least disprove Christian Science; rather does it evidence the truth of its basic proposition that mortal thoughts in belief rule the materiality miscalled life in the body or in matter. But the forever fact remains paramount that Life, Truth, and Love save from sin, disease, and death. "When this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality [divine Science], then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory" (St. Paul).