Miscellaneous Writings Part 5

none other."

That Christian Science is Christian, those who have demonstrated it, according to the rules of its divine Principle,-together with the sick, the lame, the deaf, and the blind, healed by it,-have proven to a waiting world. [25]

He who has not tested it, is incompetent to condemn it; and he who is a willing sinner, cannot demonstrate it.

A falling apple suggested to Newton more than the simple fact cognized by the senses, to which it seemed to fall by reason of its own ponderosity; but the primal [30]

cause, or Mind-force, invisible to material sense, lay concealed in the treasure-troves of Science. True,

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

but Science, demanding more, pushes the question: Whence or what is the power back of gravitation,-the intelligence that manifests power? Is pantheism true?

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

animal, and wake in man"? Christianity answers this question. The prophets, Jesus, and the apostles, demon- strated a divine intelligence that subordinates so-called material laws; and disease, death, winds, and waves, obey this intelligence. Was it Mind or matter that spake [10]

in creation, "and it was done"? The answer is self- evident, and the command remains, "Thou shalt have no other G.o.ds before me."

It is plain that the Me spoken of in the First Com- mandment, must be Mind; for matter is not the Chris- [15]

tian's G.o.d, and is not intelligent. Matter cannot even talk; and the serpent, Satan, the first talker in its behalf, lied. Reason and revelation declare that G.o.d is both noumenon and phenomena,-the first and only cause.

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

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

G.o.d, Spirit, Mind, are terms synonymous for the one G.o.d, whose reflection is creation, and man is His image and likeness. Few there are who comprehend what Chris- tian Science means by the word _reflection_. G.o.d is seen [25]

only in that which reflects good, Life, Truth, Love- yea, which manifests all His attributes and power, even as the human likeness thrown upon the mirror repeats precisely the looks and actions of the object in front of it.

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

natural science, G.o.d, Spirit, could not change its species and evolve matter.

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These facts enjoin the First Commandment; and [1]

knowledge of them makes man spiritually minded. St.

Paul writes: "For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace." This knowl- edge came to me in an hour of great need; and I give it [5]

to you as death-bed testimony to the daystar that dawned on the night of material sense. This knowledge is practical, for it wrought my immediate recovery from an injury caused by an accident, and p.r.o.nounced fatal by the physicians. On the third day thereafter, I called [10]

for my Bible, and opened it at Matthew ix. 2. As I read, the healing Truth dawned upon my sense; and the result was that I rose, dressed myself, and ever after was in better health than I had before enjoyed. That short experience included a glimpse of the great fact [15]

that I have since tried to make plain to others, namely, Life in and of Spirit; this Life being the sole reality of existence. I learned that mortal thought evolves a sub- jective state which it names matter, thereby shutting out the true sense of Spirit. _Per contra_, Mind and man [20]

are immortal; and knowledge gained from mortal sense is illusion, error, the opposite of Truth; therefore it cannot be true. A knowledge of both good and evil (when good is G.o.d, and G.o.d is All) is impossible. Speak- ing of the origin of evil, the Master said: "When he [25]

speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it." G.o.d warned man not to believe the talking serpent, or rather the allegory describing it. The Nazarene Prophet declared that his followers should handle serpents; that is, put down all subtle falsi- [30]

ties or illusions, and thus destroy any supposed effect arising from false claims exercising their supposed power

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

health.

That there is but one G.o.d or Life, one cause and one effect, is the _multum in parvo_ of Christian Science; and to my understanding it is the heart of Christianity, [5]

the religion that Jesus taught and demonstrated. In divine Science it is found that matter is a phase of error, and that neither one really exists, since G.o.d is Truth, and All-in-all. Christ's Sermon on the Mount, in its direct application to human needs, confirms this [10]

conclusion.

Science, understood, translates matter into Mind, rejects all other theories of causation, restores the spir- itual and original meaning of the Scriptures, and ex- plains the teachings and life of our Lord. It is religion's [15]

"new tongue," with "signs following," spoken of by St. Mark. It gives G.o.d's infinite meaning to mankind, healing the sick, casting out evil, and raising the spirit- ually dead. Christianity is Christlike only as it re- iterates the word, repeats the works, and manifests the [20]

spirit of Christ.

Jesus' only medicine was omnipotent and omniscient Mind. As _omni_ is from the Latin word meaning _all_, this medicine is all-power; and omniscience means as well, all-science. The sick are more deplorably situated [25]

than the sinful, if the sick cannot trust G.o.d for help and the sinful can. If G.o.d created drugs good, they cannot be harmful; if He could create them otherwise, then they are bad and unfit for man; and if He created drugs for healing the sick, why did not Jesus employ them and [30]

recommend them for that purpose?

No human hypotheses, whether in philosophy, medi-

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

whatever is of G.o.d, hath life abiding in it, and ulti- mately will be known as self-evident truth, as demonstra- ble as mathematics. Each successive period of progress is a period more humane and spiritual. The only logical [5]

conclusion is that all is Mind and its manifestation, from the rolling of worlds, in the most subtle ether, to a potato- patch.

The agriculturist ponders the history of a seed, and believes that his crops come from the seedling and the [10]

loam; even while the Scripture declares He made "every plant of the field before it was in the earth." The Scien- tist asks, Whence came the first seed, and what made the soil? Was it molecules, or material atoms? Whence came the infinitesimals,-from infinite Mind, or from [15]

matter? If from matter, how did matter originate? Was it self-existent? Matter is not intelligent, and thus able to evolve or create itself: it is the very opposite of Spirit, intelligent, self-creative, and infinite Mind. The belief of mind in matter is pantheism. Natural history shows [20]

that neither a genus nor a species produces its opposite.

G.o.d is All, in all. What can be more than All? Noth- ing: and this is just what I call matter, _nothing_. Spirit, G.o.d, has no antecedent; and G.o.d's consequent is the spiritual cosmos. The phrase, "express image," in the [25]

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

The Scriptures name G.o.d as good, and the Saxon term for G.o.d is also good. From this premise comes the logical conclusion that G.o.d is naturally and divinely [30]

infinite good. How, then, can this conclusion change, or be changed, to mean that good is evil, or the creator

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

Therefore the Science of good calls evil _nothing_. In divine Science the terms G.o.d and good, as Spirit, are synonymous. That G.o.d, good, creates evil, or aught that can result in evil,-or that Spirit creates its oppo- [5]

site, named matter,-are conclusions that destroy their premise and prove themselves invalid. Here is where Christian Science sticks to its text, and other systems of religion abandon their own logic. Here also is found the pith of the basal statement, the cardinal point in [10]

Christian Science, that matter and evil (including all inharmony, sin, disease, death) are _unreal_. Mortals accept natural science, wherein no species ever pro- duces its opposite. Then why not accept divine Sci- ence on this ground? since the Scriptures maintain [15]

this fact by parable and proof, asking, "Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?" "Doth a fountain send forth at the same place sweet water and bitter?"

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

are negation: for evil signifies the absence of good, G.o.d, though G.o.d is ever present; and matter claims some- thing besides G.o.d, when G.o.d is really _All_. Creation, evolution, or manifestation,-being in and of Spirit, Mind, and all that really is,-must be spiritual and [25]

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

But, say you, is a stone spiritual?

To erring material sense, No! but to unerring spiritual sense, it is a small manifestation of Mind, a type of spirit- ual substance, "the substance of things hoped for." [30]

Mortals can know a stone as substance, only by first ad- mitting that it is substantial. Take away the mortal sense

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

to reappear in the spiritual sense thereof. Matter can neither see, hear, feel, taste, nor smell; having no sen- sation of its own. Perception by the five personal senses is mental, and dependent on the beliefs that mortals [5]

entertain. Destroy the belief that you can walk, and volition ceases; for muscles cannot move without mind.

Matter takes no cognizance of matter. In dreams, things are only what mortal mind makes them; and the phe- nomena of mortal life are as dreams; and this so-called [10]

life is a dream soon told. In proportion as mortals turn from this mortal and material dream, to the true sense of reality, everlasting Life will be found to be the only Life. That death does not destroy the beliefs of the flesh, our Master proved to his doubting disciple, Thomas. Also, [15]

he demonstrated that divine Science alone can overbear materiality and mortality; and this great truth was shown is by his ascension after death, whereby he arose above the illusion of matter.

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

G.o.ds before me," suggests the inquiry, What meaneth this Me,-Spirit, or matter? It certainly does not signify a graven idol, and must mean Spirit. Then the commandment means, Thou shalt recognize no intelligence nor life in matter; and find neither pleasure [25]