and demonstrated in its godliness and grandeur,--that however little be
taught or learned, that little shall be right. Let there be milk for babes,
but let not the milk be adulterated. Unless this method be pursued, the
Science of Christian healing will again be lost, and human suffering will
increase.
Test Christian Science by its effect on society, and you will find that the
views here set forth--as to the illusion of sin, sickness, and death--bring
forth better fruits of health, righteousness, and Life, than _a belief in
their reality has ever done_. A demonstration of the _unreality_ of evil
destroys evil.
SIN, SINNER, AND ECCLESIASTICISM
Why do Christian Scientists say God and His idea are the only realities,
and then insist on the need of healing sickness and sin? Because Christian
Science heals sin as it heals sickness, by establishing the recognition
that God _is All_, and there is none beside Him,--that all is good, and
there is in reality no evil, neither sickness nor sin. We attack the
sinner's belief in the pleasure of sin, _alias_ the reality of sin, which
makes him a sinner, in order to destroy this belief and save him from sin;
and we attack the belief of the sick in the reality of sickness, in order
to heal them. When we deny the authority of sin, we begin to sap it; for
this denunciation must precede its destruction.
God is good, hence goodness is something, for it represents God, the Life
of man. Its opposite, nothing, named _evil_, is nothing but a conspiracy
against man's Life and goodness. Do you not feel bound to expose this
conspiracy, and so to save man from it? Whosoever covers iniquity becomes
accessory to it. Sin, as a claim, is more dangerous than sickness, more
subtle, more difficult to heal.
St. Augustine once said, "The devil is but the ape of God." Sin is worse
than sickness; but recollect that it encourages sin to say, "There is no
sin," and leave the subject there.
Sin ultimates in sinner, and in this sense they are one. You cannot
separate sin from the sinner, nor the sinner from his sin. The sin is the
sinner, and _vice versa_, for such is the unity of evil; and together both
sinner and sin will be destroyed by the supremacy of good. This, however,
does not annihilate man, for to efface sin, _alias_ the sinner, brings to
light, makes apparent, the real man, even God's "image and likeness." Need
it be said that any opposite theory is heterodox to divine Science, which
teaches that good is equally _one_ and _all_, even as the opposite claim of
evil is one.
In Christian Science the fact is made obvious that the sinner and the sin
are alike simply nothingness; and this view is supported by the Scripture,
where the Psalmist saith: "He shall go to the generation of his fathers;
they shall never see light. Man that is in honor, and understandeth not, is
like the beasts that perish." God's ways and works and thoughts have never
changed, either in Principle or practice.
Since there is in belief an illusion termed sin, which must be met and
mastered, we classify sin, sickness, and death as illusions. They are
supposititious claims of error; and error being a false claim, they are no
claims at all. It is scientific to abide in conscious harmony, in
health-giving, deathless Truth and Love. To do this, mortals must first
open their eyes to all the illusive forms, methods, and subtlety of error,
in order that the illusion, error, may be destroyed; if this is not done,
mortals will become the victims of error.
If evangelical churches refuse fellowship with the Church of Christ,
Scientist, or with Christian Science, they must rest their opinions of
Truth and Love on the evidences of the physical senses, rather than on the
teaching and practice of Jesus, or the works of the Spirit.
Ritualism and dogma lead to self-righteousness and bigotry, which freeze
out the spiritual element. Pharisaism killeth; Spirit giveth Life. The
odors of persecution, tobacco, and alcohol are not the sweet-smelling savor
of Truth and Love. Feasting the senses, gratification of appetite and
passion, have no warrant in the gospel or the Decalogue. Mortals must take
up the cross if they would follow Christ, and worship the Father "in spirit
and in truth."
The Jewish religion was not spiritual; hence Jesus denounced it. If the
religion of to-day is constituted of such elements as of old ruled Christ
out of the synagogues, it will continue to avoid whatever follows the
example of our Lord and prefers Christ to creed. Christian Science is the
pure evangelic truth. It accords with the trend and tenor of Christ's
teaching and example, while it demonstrates the power of Christ as taught
in the four Gospels. Truth, casting out evils and healing the sick; Love,
fulfilling the law and keeping man unspotted from the world,--these
practical manifestations of Christianity constitute the only evangelism,
and they need no creed.
As well expect to determine, without a telescope, the magnitude and
distance of the stars, as to expect to obtain health, harmony, and holiness
through an unspiritual and unhealing religion. Christianity reveals God as
ever-present Truth and Love, to be utilized in healing the sick, in
casting out error, in raising the dead.
Christian Science gives vitality to religion, which is no longer buried in
materiality. It raises men from a material sense into the spiritual
understanding and scientific demonstration of God.
THE HUMAN CONCEPT
Sin existed as a false claim before the human concept of sin was formed;
hence one's concept of error is not the whole of error. The human thought
does not constitute sin, but _vice versa_, sin constitutes the human or
physical concept.
Sin is both concrete and abstract. Sin was, and _is_, the lying supposition
that life, substance, and intelligence are both material and spiritual, and
yet are separate from God. The first iniquitous manifestation of sin was a
finity. The finite was self-arrayed against the infinite, the mortal
against immortality, and a sinner was the antipode of God.
Silencing self, _alias_ rising above corporeal personality, is what reforms
the sinner and destroys sin. In the ratio that the testimony of material
personal sense ceases, sin diminishes, until the false claim called sin is
finally lost for lack of witness.
The sinner created neither himself nor sin, but sin created the sinner;
that is, error made its man mortal, and this mortal was the image and
likeness of evil, not of good. Therefore the lie was, and _is_, collective
as well as individual. It was in no way contingent on Adam's thought, but
supposititiously self-created. In the words of our Master, it, the "devil"
(_alias_ evil), "was a liar, and the father of it."
This mortal material concept was never a creator, although as a serpent it
claimed to originate in the name of "the Lord," or good,--original evil;
second, in the name of human concept, it claimed to beget the offspring of
evil, _alias_ an evil offspring. However, the human concept never was,
neither indeed can be, the father of man. Even the spiritual idea, or ideal
man, is not a parent, though he reflects the infinity of good. The great
difference between these opposites is, that the human material concept is
_unreal_, and the divine concept or idea is spiritually real. One is false,
while the other is true. One is temporal, but the other is eternal.
Our Master instructed his students to "call no man your father upon the
earth: for one is your Father, which is in heaven." (Matt. xxiii. 9.)
Science and Health, the textbook of Christian Science, treats of the human
concept, and the transference of thought, as follows:--
"How can matter originate or transmit mind? We answer that it
cannot. Darkness and doubt encompass thought, so long as it bases
creation on materiality" (p. 551).
"In reality there is no _mortal_ mind, and consequently no
transference of mortal thought and will-power. Life and being are
of God. In Christian Science, man can do no harm, for scientific
thoughts are true thoughts, passing from God to man" (pp. 103,
104).
"Man is the offspring of Spirit. The beautiful, good, and pure
constitute his ancestry. His origin is not, like that of mortals,
in brute instinct, nor does he pass through material conditions
prior to reaching intelligence. Spirit is his primitive and
ultimate source of being; God is his Father, and Life is the law
of his being" (p. 63).
"The parent of all human discord was the Adam-dream, the deep
sleep, in which originated the delusion that life and intelligence
proceeded from and passed into matter. This pantheistic error, or
so-called _serpent_, insists still upon the opposite of Truth,
saying, 'Ye shall be as gods;' that is, I will make error as real
and eternal as Truth.... 'I will put spirit into what I call
matter, and matter shall seem to have life as much as God, Spirit,
who _is_ the only Life.' This error has proved itself to be error.
Its life is found to be not Life, but only a transient, false
sense of an existence which ends in death" (pp. 306, 307).
"When will the error of believing that there is life in matter,
and that sin, sickness, and death are creations of God, be
unmasked? When will it be understood that matter has no
intelligence, life, nor sensation, and that the opposite belief is
the prolific source of all suffering? God created all through
Mind, and made all perfect and eternal. Where then is the
necessity for recreation or procreation?" (p. 205).
"Above error's awful din, blackness, and chaos, the voice of Truth
still calls: 'Adam, where art thou? Consciousness, where art thou?
Art thou dwelling in the belief that mind is in matter, and that
evil is mind, or art thou in the living faith that there is and
can be but one God, and keeping His commandment?'" (pp. 307,
308). "Mortal mind inverts the true likeness, and confers animal
names and natures upon its own misconceptions. Ignorant of the
origin and operations of mortal mind,--that is, ignorant of
itself,--this so-called mind puts forth its own qualities, and
claims God as their author;... usurps the deific prerogatives and
is an attempted infringement on infinity" (pp. 512, 513).
We do not question the authenticity of the Scriptural narrative of the
Virgin-mother and Bethlehem babe, and the Messianic mission of Christ
Jesus; but in our time no Christian Scientist will give chimerical wings to
his imagination, or advance speculative theories as to the recurrence of
such events.
No person can take the individual place of the Virgin Mary. No person can
compass or fulfil the individual mission of Jesus of Nazareth. No person
can take the place of the author of Science and Health, the Discoverer and
Founder of Christian Science. Each individual must fill his own niche in
time and eternity.
The second appearing of Jesus is, unquestionably, the spiritual advent of
the advancing idea of God, as in Christian Science.
And the scientific ultimate of this God-idea must be, will be, forever
individual, incorporeal, and infinite, even the reflection, "image and
likeness," of the infinite God.
The right teacher of Christian Science lives the truth he teaches.
Preeminent among men, he virtually stands at the head of all sanitary,
civil, moral, and religious reform. Such a post of duty, unpierced by
vanity, exalts a mortal beyond human praise, or monuments which weigh
dust, and humbles him with the tax it raises on calamity to open the gates
of heaven. It is not the forager on others' wisdom that God thus crowns,
but he who is obedient to the divine command, "Render to Cæsar the things
that are Cæsar's, and to God the things that are God's."
Great temptations beset an ignorant or an unprincipled mind-practice in
opposition to the straight and narrow path of Christian Science.
Promiscuous mental treatment, without the consent or knowledge of the
individual treated, is an error of much magnitude. People unaware of the
indications of mental treatment, know not what is affecting them, and thus
may be robbed of their individual rights,--freedom of choice and
self-government. Who is willing to be subjected to such an influence? Ask
the unbridled mind-manipulator if he would consent to this; and if not,
then he is knowingly transgressing Christ's command. He who secretly
manipulates mind without the permission of man or God, is not dealing
justly and loving mercy, according to pure and undefiled religion.
Sinister and selfish motives entering into mental practice are dangerous
incentives; they proceed from false convictions and a fatal ignorance.
These are the tares growing side by side with the wheat, that must be
recognized, and uprooted, before the wheat can be garnered and Christian
Science demonstrated.
Secret mental efforts to obtain help from one who is unaware of this
attempt, demoralizes the person who does this, the same as other forms of
stealing, and will end in destroying health and morals.
In the practice of Christian Science one cannot impart a mental influence
that hazards another's happiness, nor interfere with the rights of the
individual. To disregard the welfare of others is contrary to the law of
God; therefore it deteriorates one's ability to do good, to benefit himself
and mankind.
The Psalmist vividly portrays the result of secret faults, presumptuous
sins, and self-deception, in these words: "How are they brought into
desolation, as in a moment! They are utterly consumed with terrors."
PERSONALITY
The immortal man being spiritual, individual, and eternal, his mortal
opposite must be material, corporeal, and temporal. Physical personality is
finite; but God is infinite. He is without materiality, without finiteness
of form or Mind.
Limitations are put off in proportion as the fleshly nature disappears and
man is found in the reflection of Spirit.
This great fact leads into profound depths. The material human concept grew
beautifully less as I floated into more spiritual latitudes and purer
realms of thought.
From that hour personal corporeality became less to me than it is to people
who fail to appreciate individual character. I endeavored to lift thought
above physical personality, or selfhood in matter, to man's spiritual
individuality in God,--in the true Mind, where sensible evil is lost in
supersensible good. This is the only way whereby the false personality is
laid off.
He who clings to personality, or perpetually warns you of "personality,"
wrongs it, or terrifies people over it, and is the sure victim of his own
corporeality. Constantly to scrutinize physical personality, or accuse
people of being unduly personal, is like the sick talking sickness. Such
errancy betrays a violent and egotistical personality, increases one's
sense of corporeality, and begets a fear of the senses and a perpetually
egotistical sensibility.
He who does this is ignorant of the meaning of the word _personality_, and
defines it by his own _corpus sine pectore_ (soulless body), and fails to
distinguish the individual, or real man from the false sense of
corporeality, or egotistic self.
My own corporeal personality afflicteth me not wittingly; for I desire
never to think of it, and it cannot think of me.
PLAGIARISM
The various forms of book-borrowing without credit spring from this
ill-concealed question in mortal mind, Who shall be greatest? This error
violates the law given by Moses, it tramples upon Jesus' Sermon on the
Mount, it does violence to the ethics of Christian Science.
Why withhold my name, while appropriating my language and ideas, but give
credit when citing from the works of other authors?
Life and its ideals are inseparable, and one's writings on ethics, and
demonstration of Truth, are not, cannot be, understood or taught by those
who persistently misunderstand or misrepresent the author. Jesus said, "For
there is no man which shall do a miracle in my name, that can lightly speak
evil of me."
If one's spiritual ideal is comprehended and loved, the borrower from it is
embraced in the author's own mental mood, and is therefore _honest_. The
Science of Mind excludes opposites, and rests on unity.
It is proverbial that dishonesty retards spiritual growth and strikes at
the heart of Truth. If a student at Harvard College has studied a textbook
written by his teacher, is he entitled, when he leaves the University, to
write out as his own the substance of this textbook? There is no warrant in
common law and no permission in the gospel for plagiarizing an author's
ideas and their words. Christian Science is not copyrighted; nor would
protection by copyright be requisite, if mortals obeyed God's law of
_manright_. A student can write voluminous works on Science without
trespassing, if he writes honestly, and he cannot dishonestly compose
_Christian Science_. The Bible is not stolen, though it is cited, and
quoted deferentially.
Thoughts touched with the Spirit and Word of Christian Science gravitate
naturally toward Truth. Therefore the mind to which this Science was
revealed must have risen to the altitude which perceived a light beyond
what others saw.
The spiritually minded meet on the stairs which lead up to spiritual love.
This affection, so far from being personal worship, fulfils the law of Love
which Paul enjoined upon the Galatians. This is the Mind "which was also in
Christ Jesus," and knows no material limitations. It is the unity of good
and bond of perfectness. This just affection serves to constitute the
Mind-healer a wonder-worker,--as of old, on the Pentecost Day, when the
disciples were of one accord.
He who gains the God-crowned summit of Christian Science never abuses the
corporeal personality, but uplifts it. He thinks of every one in his real
quality, and sees each mortal in an impersonal depict.
I have long remained silent on a growing evil in plagiarism; but if I do
not insist upon the strictest observance of moral law and order in
Christian Scientists, I become responsible, as a teacher, for laxity in
discipline and lawlessness in literature. Pope was right in saying, "An
honest man's the noblest work of God;" and Ingersoll's repartee has its
moral: "An honest God's the noblest work of man."
ADMONITION
The neophyte in Christian Science acts like a diseased physique,--being too
fast or too slow. He is inclined to do either too much or too little. In
healing and teaching the student has not yet achieved the entire wisdom of
Mind-practice. The textual explanation of this practice is complete in
Science and Health; and scientific practice makes perfect, for it is
governed by its Principle, and not by human opinions; but carnal and
sinister motives, entering into this practice, will prevent the
demonstration of Christian Science.
I recommend students not to read so-called scientific works, antagonistic
to Christian Science, which advocate materialistic systems; because such
works and words becloud the right sense of metaphysical Science.
The rules of Mind-healing are wholly Christlike and spiritual. Therefore
the adoption of a worldly policy or a resort to subterfuge in the statement
of the Science of Mind-healing, or any name given to it other than
Christian Science, or an attempt to demonstrate the facts of this Science
other than is stated in Science and Health--is a departure from the Science
of Mind-healing. To becloud mortals, or for yourself to hide from God, is
to conspire against the blessings otherwise conferred, against your own
success and final happiness, against the progress of the human race as
well as against _honest_ metaphysical theory and practice.
Not by the hearing of the ear is spiritual truth learned and loved; nor
cometh this apprehension from the experiences of others. We glean spiritual
harvests from our own material losses. In this consuming heat false images
are effaced from the canvas of mortal mind; and thus does the material
pigment beneath fade into invisibility.
The signs for the wayfarer in divine Science lie in meekness, in unselfish
motives and acts, in shuffling off scholastic rhetoric, in ridding the
thought of effete doctrines, in the purification of the affections and
desires.
Dishonesty, envy, and mad ambition are "lusts of the flesh," which uproot
the germs of growth in Science and leave the inscrutable problem of being
unsolved. Through the channels of material sense, of worldly policy, pomp,
and pride, cometh no success in Truth. If beset with misguided emotions, we
shall be stranded on the quicksands of worldly commotion, and practically
come short of the wisdom requisite for teaching and demonstrating the
victory over self and sin.
Be temperate in thought, word, and deed. Meekness and temperance are the
jewels of Love, set in wisdom. Restrain untempered zeal. "Learn to labor
and to wait." Of old the children of Israel were saved by patient waiting.
"The kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by
force!" said Jesus. Therefore are its spiritual gates not captured, nor its
golden streets invaded.
We recognize this kingdom, the reign of harmony within us, by an unselfish
affection or love, for this is the pledge of divine good and the insignia
of heaven. This also is proverbial, that though eternal justice be
graciously gentle, yet it may seem severe.
For whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth,
And scourgeth every son whom He receiveth.
As the poets in different languages have expressed it:--
Though the mills of God grind slowly,
Yet they grind exceeding small;
Though with patience He stands waiting,
With exactness grinds He all.
Though the divine rebuke is effectual to the pulling down of sin's
strongholds, it may stir the human heart to resist Truth, before this heart
becomes obediently receptive of the heavenly discipline. If the Christian
Scientist recognize the mingled sternness and gentleness which permeate
justice and Love, he will not scorn the timely reproof, but will so absorb
it that this warning will be within him a spring, welling up into unceasing
spiritual rise and progress. Patience and obedience win the golden
scholarship of experimental tuition.
The kindly shepherd of the East carries his lambs in his arms to the
sheepcot, but the older sheep pass into the fold under his compelling rod.
He who sees the door and turns away from it, is guilty, while innocence
strayeth yearningly.
There are no greater miracles known to earth than perfection and an
unbroken friendship. We love our friends, but ofttimes we lose them in
proportion to our affection. The sacrifices made for others are not
infrequently met by envy, ingratitude, and enmity, which smite the heart
and threaten to paralyze its beneficence. The unavailing tear is shed both
for the living and the dead.
Nothing except sin, in the students themselves, can separate them from me.
Therefore we should guard thought and action, keeping them in accord with
Christ, and our friendship will surely continue.
The letter of the law of God, separated from its spirit, tends to
demoralize mortals, and must be corrected by a diviner sense of liberty and
light. The spirit of Truth extinguishes false thinking, feeling, and
acting; and falsity must thus decay, ere spiritual sense, affectional
consciousness, and genuine goodness become so apparent as to be well
understood.
After the supreme advent of Truth in the heart, there comes an overwhelming
sense of error's vacuity, of the blunders which arise from wrong
apprehension. The enlightened heart loathes error, and casts it aside; or
else that heart is consciously untrue to the light, faithless to itself and
to others, and so sinks into deeper darkness. Said Jesus: "If the light
that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness!" and Shakespeare
puts this pious counsel into a father's mouth:--
This above all: To thine own self be true;
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.
A realization of the shifting scenes of human happiness, and of the frailty
of mortal anticipations,--such as first led me to the feet of Christian
Science,--seems to be requisite at every stage of advancement. Though our
first lessons are changed, modified, broadened, yet their core is
constantly renewed; as the law of the chord remains unchanged, whether we
are dealing with a simple Latour exercise or with the vast Wagner Trilogy.