What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder. In the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven. - JESUS.
56:1 WHEN our great Teacher came to him for baptism,John was astounded. Reading his thoughts, Jesus56:3 added: "Suffer it to be so now: for thus it becometh usto fulfil all righteousness." Jesus' concessions (in certaincases) to material methods were for the advancement of56:6 spiritual good.
Marriage temporal
Marriage is the legal and moral provision for genera-tion among human kind. Until the spiritual creation56:9 is discerned intact, is apprehended and under-stood, and His kingdom is come as in the visionof the Apocalypse, - where the corporeal sense of crea-56:12 tion was cast out, and its spiritual sense was revealed fromheaven, - marriage will continue, subject to such moralregulations as will secure increasing virtue.
Fidelity required
56:15 Infidelity to the marriage covenant is the social scourgeof all races, "the pestilence that walketh in darkness,. . . the destruction that wasteth at noonday."56:18 The commandment, "Thou shalt not com-mit adultery," is no less imperative than the one, "Thoushalt not kill."
57:1 Chastity is the cement of civilization and progress. Without it there is no stability in society, and without it 57:3 one cannot attain the Science of Life.
Mental elements
Union of the masculine and feminine qualities consti-tutes completeness. The masculine mind reaches a57:6 higher tone through certain elements of thefeminine, while the feminine mind gains cour-age and strength through masculine qualities. These57:9 different elements conjoin naturally with each other, andtheir true harmony is in spiritual oneness. Both sexesshould be loving, pure, tender, and strong. The attrac-57:12 tion between native qualities will be perpetual only as itis pure and true, bringing sweet seasons of renewal likethe returning spring.
Affection's demands
57:15 Beauty, wealth, or fame is incompetent to meet thedemands of the affections, and should never weighagainst the better claims of intellect, good-57:18 ness, and virtue. Happiness is spiritual,born of Truth and Love. It is unselfish; thereforeit cannot exist alone, but requires all mankind to57:21 share it.
Help and discipline
Human affection is not poured forth vainly, eventhough it meet no return. Love enriches the nature, en-57:24 larging, purifying, and elevating it. The wintryblasts of earth may uproot the flowers of affec-tion, and scatter them to the winds; but this severance57:27 of fleshly ties serves to unite thought more closely toGod, for Love supports the struggling heart until it ceasesto sigh over the world and begins to unfold its wings for57:30 heaven.
Marriage is unblest or blest, according to the disap-pointments it involves or the hopes it fulfils. To happify58:1 existence by constant intercourse with those adapted toelevate it, should be the motive of society. Unity of58:3 spirit gives new pinions to joy, or else joy's droopingwings trail in dust.
Chord and discord
Ill-arranged notes produce discord. Tones of the58:6 human mind may be different, but they should be con-cordant in order to blend properly. Unselfishambition, noble life-motives, and purity, -58:9 these constituents of thought, mingling, constitute in-dividually and collectively true happiness, strength, andpermanence.
Mutual freedom
58:12 There is moral freedom in Soul. Never contract thehorizon of a worthy outlook by the selfish exaction ofall another's time and thoughts. With ad-58:15 ditional joys, benevolence should grow morediffusive. The narrowness and jealousy, which wouldconfine a wife or a husband forever within four walls, will58:18 not promote the sweet interchange of confidence and love;but on the other hand, a wandering desire for incessantamusement outside the home circle is a poor augury for58:21 the happiness of wedlock. Home is the dearest spot onearth, and it should be the centre, though not the bound-ary, of the affections.
A useful suggestion
58:24 Said the peasant bride to her lover: "Two eat no moretogether than they eat separately." This is a hint thata wife ought not to court vulgar extravagance58:27 or stupid ease, because another supplies herwants. Wealth may obviate the necessity for toil or thechance for ill-nature in the marriage relation, but noth-58:30 ing can abolish the cares of marriage.
Differing duties
"She that is married careth . . . how she may pleaseher husband," says the Bible; and this is the pleasantest59:1 thing to do. Matrimony should never be entered intowithout a full recognition of its enduring obligations on59:3 both sides. There should be the most tendersolicitude for each other's happiness, and mu-tual attention and approbation should wait on all the years59:6 of married life.
Mutual compromises will often maintain a compactwhich might otherwise become unbearable. Man should59:9 not be required to participate in all the annoyances andcares of domestic economy, nor should woman be ex-pected to understand political economy. Fulfilling the59:12 different demands of their united spheres, their sympa-thies should blend in sweet confidence and cheer, eachpartner sustaining the other, - thus hallowing the union59:15 of interests and affections, in which the heart finds peaceand home.
Trysting renewed
Tender words and unselfish care in what promotes the59:18 welfare and happiness of your wife will prove more salutaryin prolonging her health and smiles than stolidindifference or jealousy. Husbands, hear this59:21 and remember how slight a word or deed may renew theold trysting-times.
After marriage, it is too late to grumble over incompati-59:24 bility of disposition. A mutual understanding shouldexist before this union and continue ever after, for decep-tion is fatal to happiness.
Permanent obligation
59:27 The nuptial vow should never be annulled, so long asits moral obligations are kept intact; but the frequencyof divorce shows that the sacredness of this re-59:30 lationship is losing its influence, and that fatalmistakes are undermining its foundations. Separationnever should take place, and it never would, if both60:1 husband and wife were genuine Christian Scientists.Science inevitably lifts one's being higher in the scale of60:3 harmony and happiness.
Permanent affection
Kindred tastes, motives, and aspirations are necessaryto the formation of a happy and permanent companion-60:6 ship. The beautiful in character is also thegood, welding indissolubly the links of affec-tion. A mother's affection cannot be weaned from her60:9 child, because the mother-love includes purity and con-stancy, both of which are immortal. Therefore maternalaffection lives on under whatever difficulties.60:12 From the logic of events we learn that selfishnessand impurity alone are fleeting, and that wisdom willultimately put asunder what she hath not joined60:15 together.
Centre for affections
Marriage should improve the human species, becominga barrier against vice, a protection to woman, strength to60:18 man, and a centre for the affections. This,however, in a majority of cases, is not itspresent tendency, and why? Because the education of60:21 the higher nature is neglected, and other considerations,- passion, frivolous amusements, personal adornment,display, and pride, - occupy thought.
Spiritual concord
60:24 An ill-attuned ear calls discord harmony, not appreciat-ing concord. So physical sense, not discerning the truehappiness of being, places it on a false basis.60:27 Science will correct the discord, and teach uslife's sweeter harmonies.
Soul has infinite resources with which to bless mankind,60:30 and happiness would be more readily attained and wouldbe more secure in our keeping, if sought in Soul. Higherenjoyments alone can satisfy the cravings of immortal61:1 man. We cannot circumscribe happiness within thelimits of personal sense. The senses confer no real61:3 enjoyment.
Ascendency of good
The good in human affections must have ascendencyover the evil and the spiritual over the animal, or happi-61:6 ness will never be won. The attainment ofthis celestial condition would improve ourprogeny, diminish crime, and give higher aims to ambi-61:9 tion. Every valley of sin must be exalted, and everymountain of selfishness be brought low, that the highwayof our God may be prepared in Science. The offspring61:12 of heavenly-minded parents inherit more intellect, betterbalanced minds, and sounder constitutions.
Propensities inherited
If some fortuitous circumstance places promising chil-61:15 dren in the arms of gross parents, often these beautifulchildren early droop and die, like tropicalflowers born amid Alpine snows. If perchance61:18 they live to become parents in their turn, they may re-produce in their own helpless little ones the grosser traitsof their ancestors. What hope of happiness, what noble61:21 ambition, can inspire the child who inherits propensitiesthat must either be overcome or reduce him to a loath-some wreck?
61:24 Is not the propagation of the human species a greaterresponsibility, a more solemn charge, than the culture ofyour garden or the raising of stock to increase your flocks61:27 and herds? Nothing unworthy of perpetuity should betransmitted to children.
The formation of mortals must greatly improve to61:30 advance mankind. The scientific /morale/ of marriage isspiritual unity. If the propagation of a higher humanspecies is requisite to reach this goal, then its material con-62:1 ditions can only be permitted for the purpose of gener-ating. The foetus must be kept mentally pure and the62:3 period of gestation have the sanctity of virginity.
The entire education of children should be such as toform habits of obedience to the moral and spiritual law,62:6 with which the child can meet and master the belief in so-called physical laws, a belief which breeds disease.
Inheritance heeded
If parents create in their babes a desire for incessant62:9 amusement, to be always fed, rocked, tossed, or talkedto, those parents should not, in after years,complain of their children's fretfulness or fri-62:12 volity, which the parents themselves have occasioned.Taking less "thought for your life, what ye shall eat, orwhat ye shall drink"; less thought "for your body what62:15 ye shall put on," will do much more for the health of therising generation than you dream. Children should beallowed to remain children in knowledge, and should62:18 become men and women only through growth in theunderstanding of man's higher nature.
The Mind creative
We must not attribute more and more intelligence62:21 to matter, but less and less, if we would be wise andhealthy. The divine Mind, which forms thebud and blossom, will care for the human62:24 body, even as it clothes the lily; but let no mortal inter-fere with God's government by thrusting in the laws oferring, human concepts.
Superior law of Soul
62:27 The higher nature of man is not governed by the lower;if it were, the order of wisdom would be reversed.Our false views of life hide eternal harmony,62:30 and produce the ills of which we complain.Because mortals believe in material laws and reject theScience of Mind, this does not make materiality first and63:1 the superior law of Soul last. You would never thinkthat flannel was better for warding off pulmonary disease63:3 than the controlling Mind, if you understood the Scienceof being.
Spiritual origin
In Science man is the offspring of Spirit. The beauti-63:6 ful, good, and pure constitute his ancestry. His origin isnot, like that of mortals, in brute instinct, nordoes he pass through material conditions prior63:9 to reaching intelligence. Spirit is his primitive and ulti-mate source of being; God is his Father, and Life is thelaw of his being.
The rights of woman
63:12 Civil law establishes very unfair differences between therights of the two sexes. Christian Science furnishes noprecedent for such injustice, and civilization63:15 mitigates it in some measure. Still, it is amarvel why usage should accord woman less rights thandoes either Christian Science or civilization.
Unfair discrimination
63:18 Our laws are not impartial, to say the least, in theirdiscrimination as to the person, property, and parentalclaims of the two sexes. If the elective fran-63:21 chise for women will remedy the evil with-out encouraging difficulties of greater magnitude, let ushope it will be granted. A feasible as well as rational63:24 means of improvement at present is the elevation ofsociety in general and the achievement of a noblerrace for legislation, - a race having higher aims and63:27 motives.
If a dissolute husband deserts his wife, certainly thewronged, and perchance impoverished, woman should be63:30 allowed to collect her own wages, enter into businessagreements, hold real estate, deposit funds, and own herchildren free from interference.
64:1 Want of uniform justice is a crying evil caused by theselfishness and inhumanity of man. Our forefathers64:3 exercised their faith in the direction taught by the ApostleJames, when he said: "Pure religion and undefiled beforeGod and the Father, is this, To visit the fatherless and64:6 widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspottedfrom the world."
Benevolence hindered
Pride, envy, or jealousy seems on most occasions to64:9 be the master of ceremonies, ruling out primitive Chris-tianity. When a man lends a helping handto some noble woman, struggling alone with64:12 adversity, his wife should not say, "It is never well tointerfere with your neighbor's business." A wife issometimes debarred by a covetous domestic tyrant from64:15 giving the ready aid her sympathy and charity wouldafford.
Progressive development
Marriage should signify a union of hearts. Further-64:18 more, the time cometh of which Jesus spake, when hedeclared that in the resurrection there shouldbe no more marrying nor giving in marriage,64:21 but man would be as the angels. Then shall Soul re-joice in its own, in which passion has no part. Thenwhite-robed purity will unite in one person masculine wis-64:24 dom and feminine love, spiritual understanding and per-petual peace.
Until it is learned that God is the Father of all, mar-64:27 riage will continue. Let not mortals permit a disregardof law which might lead to a worse state of society thannow exists. Honesty and virtue ensure the stability of64:30 the marriage covenant. Spirit will ultimately claim itsown, - all that really is, - and the voices of physicalsense will be forever hushed.
Blessing of Christ
65:1 Experience should be the school of virtue, and humanhappiness should proceed from man's highest nature.65:3 May Christ, Truth, be present at every bridalaltar to turn the water into wine and to give tohuman life an inspiration by which man's spiritual and65:6 eternal existence may be discerned.
Righteous foundations
If the foundations of human affection are consistentwith progress, they will be strong and enduring. Divorces65:9 should warn the age of some fundamental errorin the marriage state. The union of the sexessuffers fearful discord. To gain Christian Science and its65:12 harmony, life should be more metaphysically regarded.
Powerless promises
The broadcast powers of evil so conspicuous to-dayshow themselves in the materialism and sensualism of65:15 the age, struggling against the advancingspiritual era. Beholding the world's lack ofChristianity and the powerlessness of vows to make home65:18 happy, the human mind will at length demand a higheraffection.
Transition and reform
There will ensue a fermentation over this as over many65:21 other reforms, until we get at last the clear straining oftruth, and impurity and error are left amongthe lees. The fermentation even of fluids is65:24 not pleasant. An unsettled, transitional stage is neverdesirable on its own account. Matrimony, which was oncea fixed fact among us, must lose its present slippery foot-65:27 ing, and man must find permanence and peace in a morespiritual adherence.
The mental chemicalization, which has brought con-65:30 jugal infidelity to the surface, will assuredly throw offthis evil, and marriage will become purer when the scumis gone.
Thou art right, immortal Shakespeare, great poet ofhumanity:66:3 Sweet are the uses of adversity;Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous,Wears yet a precious jewel in his head.
Salutary sorrow
66:6 Trials teach mortals not to lean on a material staff, -a broken reed, which pierces the heart. We do nothalf remember this in the sunshine of joy66:9 and prosperity. Sorrow is salutary. Throughgreat tribulation we enter the kingdom. Trials areproofs of God's care. Spiritual development germi-66:12 nates not from seed sown in the soil of material hopes,but when these decay, Love propagates anew the higherjoys of Spirit, which have no taint of earth. Each suc-66:15 cessive stage of experience unfolds new views of divinegoodness and love.
Amidst gratitude for conjugal felicity, it is well to re-66:18 member how fleeting are human joys. Amidst conjugalinfelicity, it is well to hope, pray, and wait patiently ondivine wisdom to point out the path.
Patience is wisdom
66:21 Husbands and wives should never separate if thereis no Christian demand for it. It is better to await thelogic of events than for a wife precipitately66:24 to leave her husband or for a husband toleave his wife. If one is better than the other, as mustalways be the case, the other pre-eminently needs good66:27 company. Socrates considered patience salutary undersuch circumstances, making his Xantippe a discipline forhis philosophy.
The gold and dross
66:30 Sorrow has its reward. It never leaves uswhere it found us. The furnace separatesthe gold from the dross that the precious metal may67:1 be graven with the image of God. The cup our Fatherhath given, shall we not drink it and learn the lessons67:3 He teaches?
Weathering the storm
When the ocean is stirred by a storm, then the cloudslower, the wind shrieks through the tightened shrouds,67:6 and the waves lift themselves into mountains.We ask the helmsman: "Do you know yourcourse? Can you steer safely amid the storm?" He67:9 answers bravely, but even the dauntless seaman is notsure of his safety; nautical science is not equal to theScience of Mind. Yet, acting up to his highest under-67:12 standing, firm at the post of duty, the mariner works onand awaits the issue. Thus should we deport ourselveson the seething ocean of sorrow. Hoping and work-67:15 ing, one should stick to the wreck, until an irresistiblepropulsion precipitates his doom or sunshine gladdensthe troubled sea.
Spiritual power
67:18 The notion that animal natures can possibly give forceto character is too absurd for consideration, when weremember that through spiritual ascendency67:21 our Lord and Master healed the sick, raisedthe dead, and commanded even the winds and waves toobey him. Grace and Truth are potent beyond all other67:24 means and methods.
The lack of spiritual power in the limited demonstrationof popular Christianity does not put to silence the labor67:27 of centuries. Spiritual, not corporeal, consciousness isneeded. Man delivered from sin, disease, and deathpresents the true likeness or spiritual ideal.
Basis of true religion
67:30 Systems of religion and medicine treat of physical painsand pleasures, but Jesus rebuked the suffering from anysuch cause or effect. The epoch approaches when the68:1 understanding of the truth of being will be the basis oftrue religion. At present mortals progress slowly for68:3 fear of being thought ridiculous. They areslaves to fashion, pride, and sense. Some-time we shall learn how Spirit, the great architect, has68:6 created men and women in Science. We ought to wearyof the fleeting and false and to cherish nothing whichhinders our highest selfhood.
68:9 Jealousy is the grave of affection. The presence ofmistrust, where confidence is due, withers the flowersof Eden and scatters love's petals to decay. Be not68:12 in haste to take the vow "until death do us part."Consider its obligations, its responsibilities, its rela-tions to your growth and to your influence on other68:15 lives.
Insanity and agamogenesis
I never knew more than one individual who believedin agamogenesis; she was unmarried, a lovely charac-68:18 ter, was suffering from incipient insanity, anda Christian Scientist cured her. I have namedher case to individuals, when casting my bread upon68:21 the waters, and it may have caused the good to ponderand the evil to hatch their silly innuendoes and lies, sincesalutary causes sometimes incur these effects. The per-68:24 petuation of the floral species by bud or cell-division isevident, but I discredit the belief that agamogenesisapplies to the human species.
God's creation intact
68:27 Christian Science presents unfoldment, not accretion;it manifests no material growth from molecule to mind,but an impartation of the divine Mind to man68:30 and the universe. Proportionately as humangeneration ceases, the unbroken links of eternal, har-monious being will be spiritually discerned; and man,69:1 not of the earth earthly but coexistent with God, willappear. The scientific fact that man and the universe69:3 are evolved from Spirit, and so are spiritual, is as fixed indivine Science as is the proof that mortals gain the senseof health only as they lose the sense of sin and disease.69:6 Mortals can never understand God's creation while believ-ing that man is a creator. God's children already createdwill be cognized only as man finds the truth of being.69:9 Thus it is that the real, ideal man appears in proportionas the false and material disappears. No longer to marryor to be "given in marriage" neither closes man's con-69:12 tinuity nor his sense of increasing number in God's in-finite plan. Spiritually to understand that there is butone creator, God, unfolds all creation, confirms the Scrip-69:15 tures, brings the sweet assurance of no parting, no pain,and of man deathless and perfect and eternal.
If Christian Scientists educate their own offspring69:18 spiritually, they can educate others spiritually and notconflict with the scientific sense of God's creation. Someday the child will ask his parent: "Do you keep the First69:21 Commandment? Do you have one God and creator, oris man a creator?" If the father replies, "God createsman through man," the child may ask, "Do you teach69:24 that Spirit creates materially, or do you declare thatSpirit is infinite, therefore matter is out of the ques-tion?" Jesus said, "The children of this world marry,69:27 and are given in marriage: But they which shall be ac-counted worthy to obtain that world, and the resur-rection from the dead, neither marry, nor are given in69:30 marriage."
And when they shall say unto you,Seek unto them that have familiar spirits,And unto wizards that peep and that mutter;Should not a people seek unto their God? - ISAIAH.
Verily, verily, I say unto you, If a man keep my saying, he shall never see death. Then said the Jews unto him, Now we know that thou hast a devil. - JOHN.
The infinite one Spirit
70:1 MORTAL existence is an enigma. Every day is amystery. The testimony of the corporeal senses70:3 cannot inform us what is real and what is delusive, butthe revelations of Christian Science unlock the treasuresof Truth. Whatever is false or sinful can70:6 never enter the atmosphere of Spirit. Thereis but one Spirit. Man is never God, but spiritual man,made in God's likeness, reflects God. In this scientific70:9 reflection the Ego and the Father are inseparable. Thesupposition that corporeal beings are spirits, or that thereare good and evil spirits, is a mistake.
Real and unreal identity
70:12 The divine Mind maintains all identities, from a bladeof grass to a star, as distinct and eternal. Thequestions are: What are God's identities?70:15 What is Soul? Does life or soul exist in the thingformed?
71:1 Nothing is real and eternal, - nothing is Spirit, - butGod and His idea. Evil has no reality. It is neither71:3 person, place, nor thing, but is simply a belief, an illusionof material sense.
The identity, or idea, of all reality continues forever;71:6 but Spirit, or the divine Principle of all, is not /in/ Spirit'sformations. Soul is synonymous with Spirit, God, thecreative, governing, infinite Principle outside of finite form,71:9 which forms only reflect.
Dream-lessons
Close your eyes, and you may dream that you see aflower, - that you touch and smell it. Thus you learn71:12 that the flower is a product of the so-calledmind, a formation of thought rather than ofmatter. Close your eyes again, and you may see land-71:15 scapes, men, and women. Thus you learn that thesealso are images, which mortal mind holds and evolvesand which simulate mind, life, and intelligence. From71:18 dreams also you learn that neither mortal mind normatter is the image or likeness of God, and that im-mortal Mind is not in matter.
Found wanting
71:21 When the Science of Mind is understood, spiritualismwill be found mainly erroneous, having no scientific basisnor origin, no proof nor power outside of71:24 human testimony. It is the offspring of thephysical senses. There is no sensuality in Spirit. I nevercould believe in spiritualism.
71:27 The basis and structure of spiritualism are alike ma-terial and physical. Its spirits are so many corporealities,limited and finite in character and quality. Spiritualism71:30 therefore presupposes Spirit, which is ever infinite, to bea corporeal being, a finite form, - a theory contrary toChristian Science.
72:1 There is but one spiritual existence, - the Life ofwhich corporeal sense can take no cognizance. The72:3 divine Principle of man speaks through immortal sense.If a material body - in other words, mortal, materialsense - were permeated by Spirit, that body would72:6 disappear to mortal sense, would be deathless. A con-dition precedent to communion with Spirit is the gain ofspiritual life.Spirits obsolete
72:9 So-called /spirits/ are but corporeal communicators. Aslight destroys darkness and in the place of darkness allis light, so (in absolute Science) Soul, or God,72:12 is the only truth-giver to man. Truth de-stroys mortality, and brings to light immortality. Mortalbelief (the material sense of life) and immortal Truth72:15 (the spiritual sense) are the tares and the wheat, whichare not united by progress, but separated.
Perfection is not expressed through imperfection.72:18 Spirit is not made manifest through matter, the anti-pode of Spirit. Error is not a convenient sieve throughwhich truth can be strained.
Scientific phenomena
72:21 God, good, being ever present, it follows in divinelogic that evil, the suppositional opposite of good, is neverpresent. In Science, individual good derived72:24 from God, the infinite All-in-all, may flowfrom the departed to mortals; but evil is neither com-municable nor scientific. A sinning, earthly mortal is72:27 not the reality of Life nor the medium through whichtruth passes to earth. The joy of intercourse becomesthe jest of sin, when evil and suffering are communicable.72:30 Not personal intercommunion but divine law is the com-municator of truth, health, and harmony to earth andhumanity. As readily can you mingle fire and frost as73:1 Spirit and matter. In either case, one does not supportthe other.
73:3 Spiritualism calls one person, living in this world, /ma-terial/, but another, who has died to-day a sinner and sup-posedly will return to earth to-morrow, it terms a /spirit/.73:6 The fact is that neither the one nor the other is infiniteSpirit, for Spirit is God, and man is His likeness.
One government
The belief that one man, as spirit, can control an-73:9 other man, as matter, upsets both the individuality andthe Science of man, for man is image. Godcontrols man, and God is the only Spirit. Any73:12 other control or attraction of so-called spirit is a mortalbelief, which ought to be known by its fruit, - the repe-tition of evil.
73:15 If Spirit, or God, communed with mortals or controlledthem through electricity or any other form of matter, thedivine order and the Science of omnipotent, omnipresent73:18 Spirit would be destroyed.
Incorrect theories
The belief that material bodies return to dust, hereafterto rise up as spiritual bodies with material sensations and73:21 desires, is incorrect. Equally incorrect is thebelief that spirit is confined in a finite, ma-terial body, from which it is freed by death, and that, when73:24 it is freed from the material body, spirit retains the sensa-tions belonging to that body.
No me-diumship
It is a grave mistake to suppose that matter is any part73:27 of the reality of intelligent existence, or that Spirit andmatter, intelligence and non-intelligence, cancommune together. This error Science will73:30 destroy. The sensual cannot be made the mouthpiece ofthe spiritual, nor can the finite become the channel ofthe infinite. There is no communication between so-74:1 called material existence and spiritual life which is notsubject to death.
Opposing conditions
74:3 To be on communicable terms with Spirit, persons mustbe free from organic bodies; and their return to a mate-rial condition, after having once left it, would74:6 be as impossible as would be the restorationto its original condition of the acorn, already absorbedinto a sprout which has risen above the soil. The seed74:9 which has germinated has a new form and state of exist-ence. When here or hereafter the belief of life in matteris extinct, the error which has held the belief dissolves74:12 with the belief, and never returns to the old condition.No correspondence nor communion can exist betweenpersons in such opposite dreams as the belief of having74:15 died and left a material body and the belief of still livingin an organic, material body.
Bridgeless division
The caterpillar, transformed into a beautiful insect,74:18 is no longer a worm, nor does the insect return tofraternize with or control the worm. Sucha backward transformation is impossible in74:21 Science. Darkness and light, infancy and manhood,sickness and health, are opposites, - different beliefs,which never blend. Who will say that infancy can utter74:24 the ideas of manhood, that darkness can represent light,that we are in Europe when we are in the opposite hemi-sphere? There is no bridge across the gulf which divides74:27 two such opposite conditions as the spiritual, or incor-poreal, and the physical, or corporeal.
In Christian Science there is never a retrograde step,74:30 never a return to positions outgrown. The so-called deadand living cannot commune together, for they are inseparate states of existence, or consciousness.
Unscientific investiture
75:1 This simple truth lays bare the mistaken assumptionthat man dies as matter but comes to life as spirit. The75:3 so-called dead, in order to reappear to thosestill in the existence cognized by the physicalsenses, would need to be tangible and material, - to have75:6 a material investiture, - or the material senses could takeno cognizance of the so-called dead.
Spiritualism would transfer men from the spiritual sense75:9 of existence back into its material sense. This gross mate-rialism is scientifically impossible, since to infinite Spiritthere can be no matter.
Raising the dead
75:12 Jesus said of Lazarus: "Our friend Lazarus sleepeth;but I go, that I may awake him out of sleep." Jesusrestored Lazarus by the understanding that75:15 Lazarus had never died, not by an admis-sion that his body had died and then lived again. HadJesus believed that Lazarus had lived or died in his75:18 body, the Master would have stood on the same plane ofbelief as those who buried the body, and he could not haveresuscitated it.
75:21 When you can waken yourself or others out of the beliefthat all must die, you can then exercise Jesus' spiritualpower to reproduce the presence of those who have thought75:24 they died, - but not otherwise.
Vision of the dying
There is one possible moment, when those living on theearth and those called dead, can commune together, and75:27 that is the moment previous to the transition,- the moment when the link between their op-posite beliefs is being sundered. In the vestibule through75:30 which we pass from one dream to another dream, orwhen we awake from earth's sleep to the grand veritiesof Life, the departing may hear the glad welcome of those76:1 who have gone before. The ones departing may whisperthis vision, name the face that smiles on them and the76:3 hand which beckons them, as one at Niagara, with eyesopen only to that wonder, forgets all else and breathesaloud his rapture.
Real Life is God
76:6 When being is understood, Life will be recognized asneither material nor finite, but as infinite, - as God,universal good; and the belief that life, or76:9 mind, was ever in a finite form, or good inevil, will be destroyed. Then it will be understood thatSpirit never entered matter and was therefore never76:12 raised from matter. When advanced to spiritual beingand the understanding of God, man can no longer com-mune with matter; neither can he return to it, any more76:15 than a tree can return to its seed. Neither will man seemto be corporeal, but he will be an individual conscious-ness, characterized by the divine Spirit as idea, not matter.
76:18 Suffering, sinning, dying beliefs are unreal. Whendivine Science is universally understood, they will haveno power over man, for man is immortal and lives by76:21 divine authority.
Immaterial pleasure
The sinless joy, - the perfect harmony and immortalityof Life, possessing unlimited divine beauty and goodness76:24 without a single bodily pleasure or pain, -constitutes the only veritable, indestructibleman, whose being is spiritual. This state of existence76:27 is scientific and intact, - a perfection discernible onlyby those who have the final understanding of Christ indivine Science. Death can never hasten this state of76:30 existence, for death must be overcome, not submitted to,before immortality appears.
The recognition of Spirit and of infinity comes not77:1 suddenly here or hereafter. The pious Polycarp said:"I cannot turn at once from good to evil." Neither do77:3 other mortals accomplish the change from error to truthat a single bound.
Second death
Existence continues to be a belief of corporeal sense77:6 until the Science of being is reached. Error brings itsown self-destruction both here and hereafter,for mortal mind creates its own physical con-77:9 ditions. Death will occur on the next plane of existenceas on this, until the spiritual understanding of Life isreached. Then, and not until then, will it be demon-77:12 strated that "the second death hath no power."
A dream vanishing
The period required for this dream of material life,embracing its so-called pleasures and pains, to vanish77:15 from consciousness, "knoweth no man . . .neither the Son, but the Father." This periodwill be of longer or shorter duration according to the77:18 tenacity of error. Of what advantage, then, would it beto us, or to the departed, to prolong the material state andso prolong the illusion either of a soul inert or of a sinning,77:21 suffering sense, - a so-called mind fettered to matter.
Progress and purgatory
Even if communications from spirits to mortal con-sciousness were possible, such communications would77:24 grow beautifully less with every advanced stageof existence. The departed would graduallyrise above ignorance and materiality, and Spiritualists77:27 would outgrow their beliefs in material spiritualism.Spiritism consigns the so-called dead to a state resemblingthat of blighted buds, - to a wretched purgatory, where77:30 the chances of the departed for improvement narrowinto nothing and they return to their old standpoints ofmatter.
Unnatural deflections
78:1 The decaying flower, the blighted bud, the gnarled oak,the ferocious beast, - like the discords of disease, sin,78:3 and death, - are unnatural. They are the fal-sities of sense, the changing deflections of mor-tal mind; they are not the eternal realities of Mind.
Absurd oracles
78:6 How unreasonable is the belief that we are wearingout life and hastening to death, and that at the sametime we are communing with immortality!78:9 If the departed are in rapport with mor-tality, or matter, they are not spiritual, but must stillbe mortal, sinning, suffering, and dying. Then why78:12 look to them - even were communication possible - forproofs of immortality, and accept them as oracles? Com-munications gathered from ignorance are pernicious in78:15 tendency.
Spiritualism with its material accompaniments woulddestroy the supremacy of Spirit. If Spirit pervades all78:18 space, it needs no material method for the transmissionof messages. Spirit needs no wires nor electricity in orderto be omnipresent.
Spirit intangible
78:21 Spirit is not materially tangible. How then can itcommunicate with man through electric, material effects?How can the majesty and omnipotence of78:24 Spirit be lost? God is not in the medleywhere matter cares for matter, where spiritism makesmany gods, and hypnotism and electricity are claimed78:27 to be the agents of God's government.
Spirit blesses man, but man cannot "tell whenceit cometh." By it the sick are healed, the sorrowing are78:30 comforted, and the sinning are reformed. These are theeffects of one universal God, the invisible good dwellingin eternal Science.
Thought regarding death
79:1 The act of describing disease - its symptoms, locality,and fatality - is not scientific. Warning people against79:3 death is an error that tends to frighten intodeath those who are ignorant of Life as God.Thousands of instances could be cited of health restored79:6 by changing the patient's thoughts regarding death.
Fallacious hypotheses
A scientific mental method is more sanitary than theuse of drugs, and such a mental method produces perma-79:9 nent health. Science must go over the wholeground, and dig up every seed of error's sow-ing. Spiritualism relies upon human beliefs and hy-79:12 potheses. Christian Science removes these beliefs andhypotheses through the higher understanding of God, forChristian Science, resting on divine Principle, not on ma-79:15 terial personalities, in its revelation of immortality, intro-duces the harmony of being.
Jesus cast out evil spirits, or false beliefs. The Apostle79:18 Paul bade men have the Mind that was in the Christ.Jesus did his own work by the one Spirit. He said: "MyFather worketh hitherto, and I work." He never de-79:21 scribed disease, so far as can be learned from the Gospels,but he healed disease.
Mistaken methods
The unscientific practitioner says: "You are ill. Your79:24 brain is overtaxed, and you must rest. Your body isweak, and it must be strengthened. You havenervous prostration, and must be treated for it."79:27 Science objects to all this, contending for the rights of in-telligence and asserting that Mind controls body and brain.
Divine strength
Mind-science teaches that mortals need "not be weary79:30 in well doing." It dissipates fatigue in doinggood. Giving does not impoverish us in theservice of our Maker, neither does withholding enrich us.80:1 We have strength in proportion to our apprehension ofthe truth, and our strength is not lessened by giving80:3 utterance to truth. A cup of coffee or tea is not the equalof truth, whether for the inspiration of a sermon or forthe support of bodily endurance.
A denial of immortality
80:6 A communication purporting to come from the lateTheodore Parker reads as follows: "There never was,and there never will be, an immortal spirit."80:9 Yet the very periodical containing this sen-tence repeats weekly the assertion that spirit-communica-tions are our only proofs of immortality.
Mysticism unscientific
80:12 I entertain no doubt of the humanity and philanthropyof many Spiritualists, but I cannot coincide with theirviews. It is mysticism which gives spiritual-80:15 ism its force. Science dispels mystery andexplains extraordinary phenomena; but Science neverremoves phenomena from the domain of reason into the80:18 realm of mysticism.
Physical falsities
It should not seem mysterious that mind, without theaid of hands, can move a table, when we already know80:21 that it is mind-power which moves both tableand hand. Even planchette - the French toywhich years ago pleased so many people - attested the con-80:24 trol of mortal mind over its substratum, called matter.
It is mortal mind which convulses its substratum, matter.These movements arise from the volition of human belief,80:27 but they are neither scientific nor rational. Mortal mindproduces table-tipping as certainly as table-setting, andbelieves that this wonder emanates from spirits and elec-80:30 tricity. This belief rests on the common conviction thatmind and matter cooperate both visibly and invisibly,hence that matter is intelligent.
Poor post-mortem evidence
81:1 There is not so much evidence to prove intercommuni-cation between the so-called dead and the living, as there81:3 is to show the sick that matter suffers and hassensation; yet this latter evidence is destroyed bythe Mind-science. If Spiritualists understood the81:6 Science of being, their belief in mediumship would vanish.
No proof of immortality
At the very best and on its own theories, spiritualismcan only prove that certain individuals have a continued81:9 existence after death and maintain their affili-ation with mortal flesh; but this fact affordsno certainty of everlasting life. A man's assertion that81:12 he is immortal no more proves him to be so, than the op-posite assertion, that he is mortal, would prove immor-tality a lie. Nor is the case improved when alleged spirits81:15 teach immortality. Life, Love, Truth, is the only proofof immortality.
Mind's manifestations immortal
Man in the likeness of God as revealed in Science can-81:18 not help being immortal. Though the grass seemeth towither and the flower to fade, they reappear.Erase the figures which express number, silence81:21 the tones of music, give to the worms the bodycalled man, and yet the producing, governing, divinePrinciple lives on, - in the case of man as truly as in81:24 the case of numbers and of music, - despite the so-calledlaws of matter, which define man as mortal. Thoughthe inharmony resulting from material sense hides the81:27 harmony of Science, inharmony cannot destroy the divinePrinciple of Science. In Science, man's immortality de-pends upon that of God, good, and follows as a necessary81:30 consequence of the immortality of good.
Reading thoughts
That somebody, somewhere, must have known thedeceased person, supposed to be the communicator, is82:1 evident, and it is as easy to read distant thoughts as near.We think of an absent friend as easily as we do of one82:3 present. It is no more difficult to read theabsent mind than it is to read the present.Chaucer wrote centuries ago, yet we still read his thought82:6 in his verse. What is classic study, but discernment ofthe minds of Homer and Virgil, of whose personal exist-ence we may be in doubt?
Impossible intercommunion
82:9 If spiritual life has been won by the departed, theycannot return to material existence, because differentstates of consciousness are involved, and one82:12 person cannot exist in two different states ofconsciousness at the same time. In sleep wedo not communicate with the dreamer by our side despite82:15 his physical proximity, because both of us are either un-conscious or are wandering in our dreams through differ-ent mazes of consciousness.
82:18 In like manner it would follow, even if our departedfriends were near us and were in as conscious a state ofexistence as before the change we call death, that their82:21 state of consciousness must be different from ours. Weare not in their state, nor are they in the mental realmin which we dwell. Communion between them and82:24 ourselves would be prevented by this difference. Themental states are so unlike, that intercommunion is asimpossible as it would be between a mole and a human82:27 being. Different dreams and different awakenings be-token a differing consciousness. When wandering inAustralia, do we look for help to the Esquimaux in their82:30 snow huts?
In a world of sin and sensuality hastening to agreater development of power, it is wise earnestly to83:1 consider whether it is the human mind or the divineMind which is influencing one. What the prophets of83:3 Jehovah did, the worshippers of Baal failed to do; yetartifice and delusion claimed that they could equal thework of wisdom.
83:6 Science only can explain the incredible good and evilelements now coming to the surface. Mortals must findrefuge in Truth in order to escape the error of these latter83:9 days. Nothing is more antagonistic to Christian Sciencethan a blind belief without understanding, for such abelief hides Truth and builds on error.
Natural wonders
83:12 Miracles are impossible in Science, and here Sciencetakes issue with popular religions. The scientific mani-festation of power is from the divine nature83:15 and is not supernatural, since Science is anexplication of nature. The belief that the universe, in-cluding man, is governed in general by material laws, but83:18 that occasionally Spirit sets aside these laws, - this be-lief belittles omnipotent wisdom, and gives to matter theprecedence over Spirit.
Conflicting standpoints
83:21 It is contrary to Christian Science to suppose that lifeis either material or organically spiritual. BetweenChristian Science and all forms of superstition83:24 a great gulf is fixed, as impassable as that be-tween Dives and Lazarus. There is mortal mind-readingand immortal Mind-reading. The latter is a revelation83:27 of divine purpose through spiritual understanding, bywhich man gains the divine Principle and explanation ofall things. Mortal mind-reading and immortal Mind-83:30 reading are distinctly opposite standpoints, from whichcause and effect are interpreted. The act of readingmortal mind investigates and touches only human beliefs.84:1 Science is immortal and coordinate neither with thepremises nor with the conclusions of mortal beliefs.
Scientific foreseeing
84:3 The ancient prophets gained their foresight from aspiritual, incorporeal standpoint, not by foreshadowingevil and mistaking fact for fiction, - predict-84:6 ing the future from a groundwork of corpo-reality and human belief. When sufficiently advancedin Science to be in harmony with the truth of being, men84:9 become seers and prophets involuntarily, controlled notby demons, spirits, or demigods, but by the one Spirit.It is the prerogative of the ever-present, divine Mind, and84:12 of thought which is in rapport with this Mind, to knowthe past, the present, and the future.
Acquaintance with the Science of being enables us to84:15 commune more largely with the divine Mind, to foreseeand foretell events which concern the universal welfare,to be divinely inspired, - yea, to reach the range of fetter-84:18 less Mind.
The Mind unbounded
To understand that Mind is infinite, not bounded bycorporeality, not dependent upon the ear and eye for84:21 sound or sight nor upon muscles and bonesfor locomotion, is a step towards the Mind-science by which we discern man's nature and existence.84:24 This true conception of being destroys the belief of spirit-ualism at its very inception, for without the concession ofmaterial personalities called spirits, spiritualism has no84:27 basis upon which to build.
Scientific foreknowing
All we correctly know of Spirit comes from God, divinePrinciple, and is learned through Christ and Christian84:30 Science. If this Science has been thoroughlylearned and properly digested, we can knowthe truth more accurately than the astronomer can read85:1 the stars or calculate an eclipse. This Mind-readingis the opposite of clairvoyance. It is the illumination of85:3 the spiritual understanding which demonstrates the ca-pacity of Soul, not of material sense. This Soul-sensecomes to the human mind when the latter yields to the85:6 divine Mind.
Value of intuition
Such intuitions reveal whatever constitutes and per-petuates harmony, enabling one to do good, but not85:9 evil. You will reach the perfect Science ofhealing when you are able to read the humanmind after this manner and discern the error you would85:12 destroy. The Samaritan woman said: "Come, see aman, which told me all things that ever I did: is not thisthe Christ?"
85:15 It is recorded that Jesus, as he once journeyed with hisstudents, "knew their thoughts," - read them scientifi-cally. In like manner he discerned disease and healed85:18 the sick. After the same method, events of great mo-ment were foretold by the Hebrew prophets. OurMaster rebuked the lack of this power when he said:85:21 "O ye hypocrites! ye can discern the face of the sky;but can ye not discern the signs of the times?"
Hypocrisy condemned
Both Jew and Gentile may have had acute corporeal85:24 senses, but mortals need spiritual sense. Jesus knew thegeneration to be wicked and adulterous, seek-ing the material more than the spiritual. His85:27 thrusts at materialism were sharp, but needed. He neverspared hypocrisy the sternest condemnation.. He said:"These ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other85:30 undone." The great Teacher knew both cause andeffect, knew that truth communicates itself but neverimparts error.
Mental contact
86:1 Jesus once asked, "Who touched me?" Supposingthis inquiry to be occasioned by physical contact alone,86:3 his disciples answered, "The multitude throngthee." Jesus knew, as others did not, thatit was not matter, but mortal mind, whose touch called86:6 for aid. Repeating his inquiry, he was answered by thefaith of a sick woman. His quick apprehension of thismental call illustrated his spirituality. The disciples'86:9 misconception of it uncovered their materiality. Jesuspossessed more spiritual susceptibility than the disciples.Opposites come from contrary directions, and produce86:12 unlike results.
Images of thought
Mortals evolve images of thought. These may appearto the ignorant to be apparitions; but they are myste-86:15 rious only because it is unusual to seethoughts, though we can always feel theirinfluence. Haunted houses, ghostly voices, unusual86:18 noises, and apparitions brought out in dark seanceseither involve feats by tricksters, or they are images andsounds evolved involuntarily by mortal mind. Seeing86:21 is no less a quality of physical sense than feeling. Thenwhy is it more difficult to see a thought than to feel one?Education alone determines the difference. In reality86:24 there is none.