Attempts to conciliate society and so gain dominion overmankind, arise from worldly weakness. He who leaves238:24 all for Christ forsakes popularity and gains Christianity.
Society and intolerance
Society is a foolish juror, listening only to one side ofthe case. Justice often comes too late to secure a verdict.238:27 People with mental work before them haveno time for gossip about false law or testimony.To reconstruct timid justice and place the fact above the238:30 falsehood, is the work of time.
The cross is the central emblem of history. It is thelodestar in the demonstration of Christian healing, - the239:1 demonstration by which sin and sickness are destroyed.The sects, which endured the lash of their predecessors,239:3 in their turn lay it upon those who are in advance ofcreeds.
Right views of humanity
Take away wealth, fame, and social organizations,239:6 which weigh not one jot in the balance of God, and weget clearer views of Principle. Break upcliques, level wealth with honesty, let worth239:9 be judged according to wisdom, and we get better viewsof humanity.
The wicked man is not the ruler of his upright239:12 neighbor. Let it be understood that success in error isdefeat in Truth. The watchword of Christian Scienceis Scriptural: "Let the wicked forsake his way, and the239:15 unrighteous man his thoughts."
Standpoint revealed
To ascertain our progress, we must learn where ouraffections are placed and whom we acknowledge and239:18 obey as God. If divine Love is becomingnearer, dearer, and more real to us, matter isthen submitting to Spirit. The objects we pursue and239:21 the spirit we manifest reveal our standpoint, and showwhat we are winning.
Antagonistic sources
Mortal mind is the acknowledged seat of human mo-239:24 tives. It forms material concepts and produces everydiscordant action of the body. If action pro-ceeds from the divine Mind, action is harmo-239:27 nious. If it comes from erring mortal mind, it is discord-ant and ends in sin, sickness, death. Those two oppositesources never mingle in fount or stream. The perfect239:30 Mind sends forth perfection, for God is Mind. Imper-fect mortal mind sends forth its own resemblances, ofwhich the wise man said, "All is vanity."
Some lessons from nature
240:1 Nature voices natural, spiritual law and divine Love,but human belief misinterprets nature. Arctic regions,240:3 sunny tropics, giant hills, winged winds,mighty billows, verdant vales, festive flowers,and glorious heavens, - all point to Mind, the spiritual240:6 intelligence they reflect. The floral apostles are hiero-glyphs of Deity. Suns and planets teach grand lessons.The stars make night beautiful, and the leaflet turns nat-240:9 urally towards the light.
Perpetual motions
In the order of Science, in which the Principle is abovewhat it reflects, all is one grand concord. Change this240:12 statement, suppose Mind to be governed bymatter or Soul in body, and you lose the key-note of being, and there is continual discord. Mind is240:15 perpetual motion. Its symbol is the sphere. The rota-tions and revolutions of the universe of Mind go oneternally.
Progress demanded
240:18 Mortals move onward towards good or evil as timeglides on. If mortals are not progressive, past failureswill be repeated until all wrong work is ef-240:21 faced or rectified. If at present satisfied withwrong-doing, we must learn to loathe it. If at presentcontent with idleness, we must become dissatisfied with240:24 it. Remember that mankind must sooner or later, eitherby suffering or by Science, be convinced of the error thatis to be overcome.
240:27 In trying to undo the errors of sense one must pay fullyand fairly the utmost farthing, until all error is finallybrought into subjection to Truth. The divine method240:30 of paying sin's wages involves unwinding one's snarlsand learning from experience how to divide between senseand Soul.
241:1 "Whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth." He, whoknows God's will or the demands of divine Science and241:3 obeys them, incurs the hostility of envy; and he whorefuses obedience to God, is chastened by Love.
The doom of sin
Sensual treasures are laid up "where moth and rust241:6 doth corrupt." Mortality is their doom. Sin breaks inupon them, and carries off their fleeting joys.The sensualist's affections are as imaginary,241:9 whimsical, and unreal as his pleasures. Falsehood, envy,hypocrisy, malice, hate, revenge, and so forth, steal awaythe treasures of Truth. Stripped of its coverings, what241:12 a mocking spectacle is sin!
Spirit transforms
The Bible teaches transformation of the body by therenewal of Spirit. Take away the spiritual signification241:15 of Scripture, and that compilation can do nomore for mortals than can moonbeams to melta river of ice. The error of the ages is preaching without241:18 practice.
The substance of all devotion is the reflection anddemonstration of divine Love, healing sickness and241:21 destroying sin. Our Master said, "If ye love me, keepmy commandments."
One's aim, a point beyond faith, should be to find the241:24 footsteps of Truth, the way to health and holiness. Weshould strive to reach the Horeb height where God is re-vealed; and the corner-stone of all spiritual building is241:27 purity. The baptism of Spirit, washing the body of allthe impurities of flesh, signifies that the pure in heartsee God and are approaching spiritual Life and its241:30 demonstration.
Spiritual baptism
It is "easier for a camel to go through the eye of aneedle," than for sinful beliefs to enter the kingdom of242:1 heaven, eternal harmony. Through repentance, spiritualbaptism, and regeneration, mortals put off their material242:3 beliefs and false individuality. It is only aquestion of time when "they shall all knowMe [God], from the least of them unto the greatest."242:6 Denial of the claims of matter is a great step towardsthe joys of Spirit, towards human freedom and the finaltriumph over the body.
The one only way
242:9 There is but one way to heaven, harmony, and Christin divine Science shows us this way. It is to know noother reality - to have no other conscious-242:12 ness of life - than good, God and His reflec-tion, and to rise superior to the so-called pain and pleasureof the senses.
242:15 Self-love is more opaque than a solid body. In pa-tient obedience to a patient God, let us labor to dis-solve with the universal solvent of Love the adamant242:18 of error, - self-will, self-justification, and self-love, -which wars against spirituality and is the law of sinand death.
Divided vestments
242:21 The vesture of Life is Truth. According to the Bible,the facts of being are commonly misconstrued, for it iswritten: "They parted my raiment among242:24 them, and for my vesture they did cast lots."The divine Science of man is woven into one web ofconsistency without seam or rent. Mere speculation or242:27 superstition appropriates no part of the divine vesture,while inspiration restores every part of the Christly gar-ment of righteousness.
242:30 The finger-posts of divine Science show the way ourMaster trod, and require of Christians the proof whichhe gave, instead of mere profession. We may hide243:1 spiritual ignorance from the world, but we can neversucceed in the Science and demonstration of spiritual243:3 good through ignorance or hypocrisy.
Ancient and modern miracles
The divine Love, which made harmless the poisonousviper, which delivered men from the boiling oil, from243:6 the fiery furnace, from the jaws of the lion,can heal the sick in every age and triumphover sin and death. It crowned the demon-243:9 strations of Jesus with unsurpassed power and love. Butthe same "Mind . . . which was also in Christ Jesus"must always accompany the letter of Science in order to243:12 confirm and repeat the ancient demonstrations of prophetsand apostles. That those wonders are not more com-monly repeated to-day, arises not so much from lack of243:15 desire as from lack of spiritual growth.
Mental telegraphy
The clay cannot reply to the potter. The head, heart,lungs, and limbs do not inform us that they are dizzy,243:18 diseased, consumptive, or lame. If this in-formation is conveyed, mortal mind conveysit. Neither immortal and unerring Mind nor matter,243:21 the inanimate substratum of mortal mind, can carryon such telegraphy; for God is "of purer eyes thanto behold evil," and matter has neither intelligence nor243:24 sensation.
Annihilation of error
Truth has no consciousness of error. Love has nosense of hatred. Life has no partnership243:27 with death. Truth, Life, and Love are a lawof annihilation to everything unlike themselves, becausethey declare nothing except God.
Deformity and perfection
243:30 Sickness, sin, and death are not the fruits of Life.They are inharmonies which Truth destroys. Perfectiondoes not animate imperfection. Inasmuch as God is244:1 good and the fount of all being, He does not producemoral or physical deformity; therefore such deformity is244:3 not real, but is illusion, the mirage of error.Divine Science reveals these grand facts. Ontheir basis Jesus demonstrated Life, never244:6 fearing nor obeying error in any form.
If we were to derive all our conceptions of man fromwhat is seen between the cradle and the grave, happi-244:9 ness and goodness would have no abiding-place in man,and the worms would rob him of the flesh; but Paulwrites: "The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath244:12 made me free from the law of sin and death."
Man never less than man
Man undergoing birth, maturity, and decay is like thebeasts and vegetables, - subject to laws of decay. If244:15 man were dust in his earliest stage of exist-ence, we might admit the hypothesis that hereturns eventually to his primitive condition;244:18 but man was never more nor less than man.
If man flickers out in death or springs from matter intobeing, there must be an instant when God is without His244:21 entire manifestation, - when there is no full reflectionof the infinite Mind.
Man not evolved
Man in Science is neither young nor old. He has244:24 neither birth nor death. He is not a beast, a vegetable,nor a migratory mind. He does not pass frommatter to Mind, from the mortal to the im-244:27 mortal, from evil to good, or from good to evil. Suchadmissions cast us headlong into darkness and dogma.Even Shakespeare's poetry pictures age as infancy, as244:30 helplessness and decadence, instead of assigning to manthe everlasting grandeur and immortality of development,power, and prestige.
245:1 The error of thinking that we are growing old, and thebenefits of destroying that illusion, are illustrated in a245:3 sketch from the history of an English woman, publishedin the London medical magazine called The Lancet.
Perpetual youth
Disappointed in love in her early years, she became245:6 insane and lost all account of time. Believing that shewas still living in the same hour which partedher from her lover, taking no note of years,245:9 she stood daily before the window watching for herlover's coming. In this mental state she remained young.Having no consciousness of time, she literally grew no245:12 older. Some American travellers saw her when she wasseventy-four, and supposed her to be a young woman.She had no care-lined face, no wrinkles nor gray hair, but245:15 youth sat gently on cheek and brow. Asked to guess herage, those unacquainted with her history conjectured thatshe must be under twenty.
245:18 This instance of youth preserved furnishes a usefulhint, upon which a Franklin might work with more cer-tainty than when he coaxed the enamoured lightning245:21 from the clouds. Years had not made her old, becauseshe had taken no cognizance of passing time nor thoughtof herself as growing old. The bodily results of her belief245:24 that she was young manifested the influence of such a be-lief. She could not age while believing herself young, forthe mental state governed the physical.
245:27 Impossibilities never occur. One instance like theforegoing proves it possible to be young at seventy-four;and the primary of that illustration makes it plain that245:30 decrepitude is not according to law, nor is it a necessity ofnature, but an illusion.
Man reflects God
The infinite never began nor will it ever end. Mind246:1 and its formations can never be annihilated. Man is nota pendulum, swinging between evil and good, joy and246:3 sorrow, sickness and health, life and death.Life and its faculties are not measured bycalendars. The perfect and immortal are the eternal246:6 likeness of their Maker. Man is by no means a materialgerm rising from the imperfect and endeavoring to reachSpirit above his origin. The stream rises no higher than246:9 its source.
The measurement of life by solar years robs youth andgives ugliness to age. The radiant sun of virtue and truth246:12 coexists with being. Manhood is its eternal noon, un-dimmed by a declining sun. As the physical and mate-rial, the transient sense of beauty fades, the radiance of246:15 Spirit should dawn upon the enraptured sense with brightand imperishable glories.
Undesirable records
Never record ages. Chronological data are no part246:18 of the vast forever. Time-tables of birth and death areso many conspiracies against manhood andwomanhood. Except for the error of meas-246:21 uring and limiting all that is good and beautiful, manwould enjoy more than threescore years and ten andstill maintain his vigor, freshness, and promise. Man,246:24 governed by immortal Mind, is always beautiful andgrand. Each succeeding year unfolds wisdom, beauty,and holiness.
True life eternal
246:27 Life is eternal. We should find this out, and begin thedemonstration thereof. Life and goodness are immortal.Let us then shape our views of existence into246:30 loveliness, freshness, and continuity, ratherthan into age and blight.
Acute and chronic beliefs reproduce their own types.247:1 The acute belief of physical life comes on at a remoteperiod, and is not so disastrous as the chronic belief.
Eyes and teeth renewed
247:3 I have seen age regain two of the elements it had lost,sight and teeth. A woman of eighty-five, whom I knew,had a return of sight. Another woman at247:6 ninety had new teeth, incisors, cuspids, bi-cuspids, and one molar. One man at sixtyhad retained his full set of upper and lower teeth without247:9 a decaying cavity.
Eternal beauty
Beauty, as well as truth, is eternal; but the beautyof material things passes away, fading and fleeting as247:12 mortal belief. Custom, education, and fashionform the transient standards of mortals. Im-mortality, exempt from age or decay, has a glory of its247:15 own, - the radiance of Soul. Immortal men and womenare models of spiritual sense, drawn by perfect Mindand reflecting those higher conceptions of loveliness247:18 which transcend all material sense.
The divine loveliness
Comeliness and grace are independent of matter. Be-ing possesses its qualities before they are perceived hu-247:21 manly. Beauty is a thing of life, whichdwells forever in the eternal Mind and re-flects the charms of His goodness in expression, form,247:24 outline, and color. It is Love which paints the petalwith myriad hues, glances in the warm sunbeam, archesthe cloud with the bow of beauty, blazons the night with247:27 starry gems, and covers earth with loveliness.
The embellishments of the person are poor substitutesfor the charms of being, shining resplendent and eternal247:30 over age and decay.
The recipe for beauty is to have less illusion andmore Soul, to retreat from the belief of pain or pleasure248:1 in the body into the unchanging calm and glorious free-dom of spiritual harmony.
Love's endowment
248:3 Love never loses sight of loveliness. Its halo rests uponits object. One marvels that a friend can ever seem lessthan beautiful. Men and women of riper248:6 years and larger lessons ought to ripen intohealth and immortality, instead of lapsing into darknessor gloom. Immortal Mind feeds the body with supernal248:9 freshness and fairness, supplying it with beautiful imagesof thought and destroying the woes of sense which eachday brings to a nearer tomb.
Mental sculpture
248:12 The sculptor turns from the marble to his model inorder to perfect his conception. We are all sculptors,working at various forms, moulding and chisel-248:15 ing thought. What is the model before mortalmind? Is it imperfection, joy, sorrow, sin, suffering?Have you accepted the mortal model? Are you repro-248:18 ducing it? Then you are haunted in your work by vicioussculptors and hideous forms. Do you not hear from allmankind of the imperfect model? The world is holding248:21 it before your gaze continually. The result is that youare liable to follow those lower patterns, limit your life-work, and adopt into your experience the angular outline248:24 and deformity of matter models.
Perfect models
To remedy this, we must first turn our gaze in the rightdirection, and then walk that way. We must form perfect248:27 models in thought and look at them continually,or we shall never carve them out in grand andnoble lives. Let unselfishness, goodness, mercy, justice,248:30 health, holiness, love - the kingdom of heaven - reignwithin us, and sin, disease, and death will diminish untilthey finally disappear.
249:1 Let us accept Science, relinquish all theories based onsense-testimony, give up imperfect models and illusive249:3 ideals; and so let us have one God, one Mind, and thatone perfect, producing His own models of excellence.
Renewed selfhood
Let the "male and female" of God's creating appear.249:6 Let us feel the divine energy of Spirit, bringing us intonewness of life and recognizing no mortal normaterial power as able to destroy. Let us re-249:9 joice that we are subject to the divine "powers that be."Such is the true Science of being. Any other theory ofLife, or God, is delusive and mythological.
249:12 Mind is not the author of matter, and the creator ofideas is not the creator of illusions. Either there is noomnipotence, or omnipotence is the only power. God is249:15 the infinite, and infinity never began, will never end, andincludes nothing unlike God. Whence then is soullessmatter?
Illusive dreams
249:18 Life is, like Christ, "the same yesterday, and to-day,and forever." Organization and time have nothing to dowith Life. You say, "I dreamed last night."249:21 What a mistake is that! The I is Spirit. Godnever slumbers, and His likeness never dreams. Mortalsare the Adam dreamers.
249:24 Sleep and apath are phases of the dream that life, sub-stance, and intelligence are material. The mortal night-dream is sometimes nearer the fact of being than are the249:27 thoughts of mortals when awake. The night-dream hasless matter as its accompaniment. It throws off somematerial fetters. It falls short of the skies, but makes its249:30 mundane flights quite ethereal.
Philosophical blunders
Man is the reflection of Soul. He is the direct oppo-site of material sensation, and there is but one Ego. We250:1 run into error when we divide Soul into souls, multiplyMind into minds and suppose error to be mind, then mind250:3 to be in matter and matter to be a lawgiver,unintelligence to act like intelligence, and mor-tality to be the matrix of immortality.
Spirit the one Ego
250:6 Mortal existence is a dream; mortal existence has noreal entity, but saith "It is I." Spirit is the Ego whichnever dreams, but understands all things;250:9 which never errs, and is ever conscious; whichnever believes, but knows; which is never born andnever dies. Spiritual man is the likeness of this Ego.250:12 Man is not God, but like a ray of light which comes fromthe sun, man, the outcome of God, reflects God.
Mortal existence a dream
Mortal body and mind are one, and that one is called250:15 man; but a mortal is not man, for man is immortal. Amortal may be weary or pained, enjoy or suffer,according to the dream he entertains in sleep.250:18 When that dream vanishes, the mortal finds himselfexperiencing none of these dream-sensations. To theobserver, the body lies listless, undisturbed, and sensa-250:21 tionless, and the mind seems to be absent.
Now I ask, Is there any more reality in the wakingdream of mortal existence than in the sleeping dream?250:24 There cannot be, since whatever appears to be a mortalman is a mortal dream. Take away the mortal mind,and matter has no more sense as a man than it has as250:27 a tree. But the spiritual, real man is immortal.
Upon this stage of existence goes on the dance of mortalmind. Mortal thoughts chase one another like snowflakes,250:30 and drift to the ground. Science reveals Life as not beingat the mercy of death, nor will Science admit that happi-ness is ever the sport of circumstance.
Error self-destroyed
251:1 Error is not real, hence it is not more imperativeas it hastens towards self-destruction. The so-called251:3 belief of mortal mind apparent as an abscessshould not grow more painful before it suppu-rates neither should a fever become more severe before251:6 it ends.
Illusion of death
Fright is so great at certain stages of mortal beliefas to drive belief into new paths. In the illusion of251:9 death, mortals wake to the knowledge of twofacts: (1) that they are not dead; (2) thatthey have but passed the portals of a new belief. Truth251:12 works out the nothingness of error in just these ways.Sickness, as well as sin, is an error that Christ, Truth,alone can destroy.
Mortal mind's disappearance
251:15 We must learn how mankind govern the body, -whether through faith in hygiene, in drugs, or in will-power. We should learn whether they govern251:18 the body through a belief in the necessity ofsickness and death, sin and pardon, or governit from the higher understanding that the divine Mind251:21 makes perfect, acts upon the so-called human mindthrough truth, leads the human mind to relinquish allerror, to find the divine Mind to be the only Mind,251:24 and the healer of sin, disease, death. This process ofhigher spiritual understanding improves mankind untilerror disappears, and nothing is left which deserves to251:27 perish or to be punished.
Spiritual ignorance
Ignorance, like intentional wrong, is not Science.Ignorance must be seen and corrected before we can at-251:30 tain harmony. Inharmonious beliefs, whichrob Mind, calling it matter, and deify theirown notions, imprison themselves in what they create.252:1 They are at war with Science, and as our Master said,"If a kingdom be divided against itself, that kingdom252:3 cannot stand."
Human ignorance of Mind and of the recuperativeenergies of Truth occasions the only skepticism regard-252:6 ing the pathology and theology of Christian Science.
Eternal man recognized
When false human beliefs learn even a little of theirown falsity, they begin to disappear. A knowledge of252:9 error and of its operations must precede thatunderstanding of Truth which destroys error,until the entire mortal, material error finally disappears,252:12 and the eternal verity, man created by and of Spirit,is understood and recognized as the true likeness of hisMaker.
252:15 The false evidence of material sense contrasts strikingly with the testimony of Spirit. Material sense lifts its voice with the arrogance of reality and says:
Testimony of sense
252:18 I am wholly dishonest, and no man knoweth it. I cancheat, lie, commit adultery, rob, murder, and I eludedetection by smooth-tongued villainy. Ani-252:21 mal in propensity, deceitful in sentiment,fraudulent in purpose, I mean to make my short spanof life one gala day. What a nice thing is sin! How252:24 sin succeeds, where the good purpose waits! The worldis my kingdom. I am enthroned in the gorgeousnessof matter. But a touch, an accident, the law of God,252:27 may at any moment annihilate my peace, for all myfancied joys are fatal. Like bursting lava, I expand butto my own despair, and shine with the resplendency of252:30 consuming fire.
Testimony of Soul
Spirit, bearing opposite testimony, saith:
I am Spirit. Man, whose senses are spiritual, is my253:1 likeness. He reflects the infinite understanding, for I amInfinity. The beauty of holiness, the perfection of being,253:3 imperishable glory, - all are Mine, for I amGod. I give immortality to man, for I amTruth. I include and impart all bliss, for I am Love.253:6 I give life, without beginning and without end, for I amLife. I am supreme and give all, for I am Mind. I amthe substance of all, because I AM THAT I AM.
Heaven-bestowed prerogative
253:9 I hope, dear reader, I am leading you into the under-standing of your divine rights, your heaven-bestowed har-mony, - that, as you read, you see there is no253:12 cause (outside of erring, mortal, material sensewhich is not power) able to make you sick orsinful; and I hope that you are conquering this false sense.253:15 Knowing the falsity of so-called material sense, you canassert your prerogative to overcome the belief in sin, dis-ease, or death.
Right endeavor possible
253:18 If you believe in and practise wrong knowingly, youcan at once change your course and do right. Matter canmake no opposition to right endeavors against253:21 sin or sickness, for matter is inert, mindless.Also, if you believe yourself diseased, you canalter this wrong belief and action without hindrance from253:24 the body.
Do not believe in any supposed necessity for sin, dis-ease, or death, knowing (as you ought to know) that God253:27 never requires obedience to a so-called material law, forno such law exists. The belief in sin and death is de-stroyed by the law of God, which is the law of Life in-253:30 stead of death, of harmony instead of discord, of Spiritinstead of the flesh.
Patience and final perfection
The divine demand, "Be ye therefore perfect," is sci-254:1 entific, and the human footsteps leading to perfection areindispensable. Individuals are consistent who, watching254:3 and praying, can "run, and not be weary; . . .walk, and not faint," who gain good rapidlyand hold their position, or attain slowly and254:6 yield not to discouragement. God requires perfection,but not until the battle between Spirit and flesh is foughtand the victory won. To stop eating, drinking, or being254:9 clothed materially before the spiritual facts of existenceare gained step by step, is not legitimate. When we waitpatiently on God and seek Truth righteously, He directs254:12 our path. Imperfect mortals grasp the ultimate of spir-itual perfection slowly; but to /begin/ aright and to con-tinue the strife of demonstrating the great problem of254:15 being, is doing much.
During the sensual ages, absolute Christian Sciencemay not be achieved prior to the change called death,254:18 for we have not the power to demonstrate what we donot understand. But the human self must be evangel-ized. This task God demands us to accept lovingly254:21 to-day, and to abandon so fast as practical the material,and to work out the spiritual which determines the out-ward and actual.
254:24 If you venture upon the quiet surface of error and are in sympathy with error, what is there to disturb the waters? What is there to strip off error's disguise?
The cross and crown
254:27 If you launch your bark upon the ever-agitated buthealthful waters of truth, you will encounter storms.Your good will be evil spoken of. This is the254:30 cross. Take it up and bear it, for through ityou win and wear the crown. Pilgrim on earth, thy homeis heaven; stranger, thou art the guest of God.
Thy throne is established of oldThou art from everlasting. - PSALMS.
For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now. And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body. - PAUL.
Inadequate theories of creation
255:1 ETERNAL Truth is changing the universe. As mor-tals drop off their mental swaddling-clothes, thought255:3 expands into expression. "Let there be light,"is the perpetual demand of Truth and Love,changing chaos into order and discord into the255:6 music of the spheres. The mythical human theories ofcreation, anciently classified as the higher criticism, sprangfrom cultured scholars in Rome and in Greece, but they255:9 afforded no foundation for accurate views of creation bythe divine Mind.
Finite views of Deity
Mortal man has made a covenant with his eyes to be-255:12 little Deity with human conceptions. In leaguewith material sense, mortals take limited viewsof all things. That God is corporeal or material, no man255:15 should affirm.
The human form, or physical finiteness, cannot bemade the basis of any true idea of the infinite Godhead.255:18 Eye hath not seen Spirit, nor hath ear heard His voice.
No material creation
256:1 Progress takes off human shackles. The finite mustyield to the infinite. Advancing to a higher plane of ac-256:3 tion, thought rises from the material sense tothe spiritual, from the scholastic to the in-spirational, and from the mortal to the immortal. All256:6 things are created spiritually. Mind, not matter, is thecreator. Love, the divine Principle, is the Father andMother of the universe, including man.
Tritheism impossible
256:9 The theory of three persons in one God (that is, a per-sonal Trinity or Tri-unity) suggests polythe-ism, rather than the one ever-present I AM.256:12 "Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God is one Lord."
No divine corporeality
The everlasting I AM is not bounded nor compressedwithin the narrow limits of physical humanity, nor can256:15 He be understood aright through mortal con-cepts. The precise form of God must be ofsmall importance in comparison with the sublime ques-256:18 tion, What is infinite Mind or divine Love?
Who is it that demands our obedience? He who, inthe language of Scripture, "doeth according to His will256:21 in the army of heaven, and among the inhabitants of theearth; and none can stay His hand, or say unto Him,What doest Thou?"
256:24 No form nor physical combination is adequate to rep-resent infinite Love. A finite and material sense of Godleads to formalism and narrowness; it chills the spirit of256:27 Christianity.
Limitless Mind
A limitless Mind cannot proceed from physical limita-tions. Finiteness cannot present the idea or the vast-256:30 ness of infinity. A mind originating from afinite or material source must be limited andfinite. Infinite Mind is the creator, and creation is the257:1 infinite image or idea emanating from this Mind. IfMind is within and without all things, then all is Mind;257:3 and this definition is scientific.
Matter is not substance
If matter, so-called, is substance, then Spirit, matter'sunlikeness, must be shadow; and shadow cannot produce257:6 substance. The theory that Spirit is not theonly substance and creator is pantheistic het-erodoxy, which ultimates in sickness, sin, and death; it is257:9 the belief in a bodily soul and a material mind, a soulgoverned by the body and a mind in matter. This be-lief is shallow pantheism.
257:12 Mind creates His own likeness in ideas, and the sub-stance of an idea is very far from being the supposed sub-stance of non-intelligent matter. Hence the Father Mind257:15 is not the father of matter. The material senses andhuman conceptions would translate spiritual ideas intomaterial beliefs, and would say that an anthropomorphic257:18 God, instead of infinite Principle, - in other words, divineLove, - is the father of the rain, "who hath begotten thedrops of dew," who bringeth "forth Mazzaroth in his sea-257:21 son," and guideth "Arcturus with his sons."
Inexhaustible divine Love
Finite mind manifests all sorts of errors, and thusproves the material theory of mind in matter to be the257:24 antipode of Mind. Who hath found finite lifeor love sufficient to meet the demands of humanwant and woe, - to still the desires, to satisfy the aspira-257:27 tions? Infinite Mind cannot be limited to a finite form,or Mind would lose its infinite character as inexhaustibleLove, eternal Life, omnipotent Truth.
Infinite physique impossible
257:30 It would require an infinite form to contain infiniteMind. Indeed, the phrase /infinite form/ involves a con-tradiction of terms. Finite man cannot be the image and258:1 likeness of the infinite God. A mortal, corporeal, orfinite conception of God cannot embrace the glories of258:3 limitless, incorporeal Life and Love. Hencethe unsatisfied human craving for somethingbetter, higher, holier, than is afforded by a258:6 material belief in a physical God and man. The insuffi-ciency of this belief to supply the true idea proves thefalsity of material belief.
Infinity's reflection
258:9 Man is more than a material form with a mind inside,which must escape from its environments inorder to be immortal. Man reflects infinity,258:12 and this reflection is the true idea of God.
God expresses in man the infinite idea forever develop-ing itself, broadening and rising higher and higher from258:15 a boundless basis. Mind manifests all that exists inthe infinitude of Truth. We know no more of man asthe true divine image and likeness, than we know of258:18 God.
The infinite Principle is reflected by the infinite ideaand spiritual individuality, but the material so-called senses258:21 have no cognizance of either Principle or its idea. Thehuman capacities are enlarged and perfected in propor-tion as humanity gains the true conception of man and258:24 God.
Individual permanency
Mortals have a very imperfect sense of the spiritualman and of the infinite range of his thought. To him258:27 belongs eternal Life. Never born andnever dying, it were impossible for man, underthe government of God in eternal Science, to fall from his258:30 high estate.
God's man discerned
Through spiritual sense you can discern the heart ofdivinity, and thus begin to comprehend in Science the259:1 generic term /man. /Man is not absorbed in Deity, andman cannot lose his individuality, for he re-259:3 flects eternal Life; nor is he an isolated, soli-tary idea, for he represents infinite Mind, the sum of allsubstance.
259:6 In divine Science, man is the true image of God. Thedivine nature was best expressed in Christ Jesus, whothrew upon mortals the truer reflection of God and lifted259:9 their lives higher than their poor thought-models wouldallow, - thoughts which presented man as fallen, sick,sinning, and dying. The Christlike understanding of259:12 scientific being and divine healing includes a perfect Prin-ciple and idea, - perfect God and perfect man, - as thebasis of thought and demonstration.
The divine image not lost
259:15 If man was once perfect but has now lost his perfection,then mortals have never beheld in man the reflex imageof God. The /lost/ image is no image. The259:18 true likeness cannot be lost in divine reflection.Understanding this, Jesus said: "Be ye there-fore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is259:21 perfect."
Immortal models
Mortal thought transmits its own images, and formsits offspring after human illusions. God, Spirit, works259:24 spiritually, not materially. Brain or matternever formed a human concept. Vibration isnot intelligence; hence it is not a creator. Immortal259:27 ideas, pure, perfect, and enduring, are transmitted bythe divine Mind through divine Science, which correctserror with truth and demands spiritual thoughts, divine259:30 concepts, to the end that they may produce harmoniousresults.
Deducing one's conclusions as to man from imperfec-260:1 tion instead of perfection, one can no more arrive at thetrue conception or understanding of man, and make him-260:3 self like it, than the sculptor can perfect his outlines froman imperfect model, or the painter can depict the formand face of Jesus, while holding in thought the character260:6 of Judas.
Spiritual discovery
The conceptions of mortal, erring thought must giveway to the ideal of all that is perfect and eternal. Through260:9 many generations human beliefs will be attain-ing diviner conceptions, and the immortal andperfect model of God's creation will finally be seen as260:12 the only true conception of being.
Science reveals the possibility of achieving all good,and sets mortals at work to discover what God has already260:15 done; but distrust of one's ability to gain the goodnessdesired and to bring out better and higher results, oftenhampers the trial of one's wings and ensures failure at the260:18 outset.
Requisite change of our ideals
Mortals must change their ideals in order to improvetheir models. A sick body is evolved from260:21 sick thoughts. Sickness, disease, and deathproceed from fear. Sensualism evolves badphysical and moral conditions.
260:24 Selfishness and sensualism are educated in mortalmind by the thoughts ever recurring to one's self, byconversation about the body, and by the expectation of260:27 perpetual pleasure or pain from it; and this educationis at the expense of spiritual growth. If we arraythought in mortal vestures, it must lose its immortal260:30 nature.
Thoughts are things
If we look to the body for pleasure, we find pain; forLife, we find death; for Truth, we find error; for Spirit,261:1 we find its opposite, matter. Now reverse this action.Look away from the body into Truth and Love,261:3 the Principle of all happiness, harmony, andimmortality. Hold thought steadfastly to the endur-ing, the good, and the true, and you will bring these261:6 into your experience proportionably to their occupancyof your thoughts.
Unreality of pain
The effect of mortal mind on health and happiness is261:9 seen in this: If one turns away from the body with suchabsorbed interest as to forget it, the bodyexperiences no pain. Under the strong im-261:12 pulse of a desire to perform his part, a noted actor wasaccustomed night after night to go upon the stage andsustain his appointed task, walking about as actively261:15 as the youngest member of the company. This old manwas so lame that he hobbled every day to the theatre, andsat aching in his chair till his cue was spoken, - a signal261:18 which made him as oblivious of physical infirmity as ifhe had inhaled chloroform, though he was in the full pos-session of his so-called senses.
Immutable identity of man
261:21 Detach sense from the body, or matter, which is onlya form of human belief, and you may learn the meaningof God, or good, and the nature of the immu-261:24 table and immortal. Breaking away from themutations of time and sense, you will neitherlose the solid objects and ends of life nor your own iden-261:27 tity. Fixing your gaze on the realities supernal, you willrise to the spiritual consciousness of being, even as the birdwhich has burst from the egg and preens its wings for a261:30 skyward flight.
Forgetfulness of self
We should forget our bodies in remembering good andthe human race. Good demands of man every hour, in262:1 which to work out the problem of being. Consecrationto good does not lessen man's dependence on God, but262:3 heightens it. Neither does consecration di-minish man's obligations to God, but showsthe paramount necessity of meeting them. Christian262:6 Science takes naught from the perfection of God, but itascribes to Him the entire glory. By putting "off the oldman with his deeds," mortals "put on immortality."
262:9 We cannot fathom the nature and quality of God'screation by diving into the shallows of mortal belief. Wemust reverse our feeble flutterings - our efforts to find262:12 life and truth in matter - and rise above the testimonyof the material senses, above the mortal to the immortalidea of God. These clearer, higher views inspire the God-262:15 like man to reach the absolute centre and circumferenceof his being.
The true sense
Job said: "I have heard of Thee by the hearing of the262:18 ear: but now mine eye seeth Thee." Mortals will echoJob's thought, when the supposed pain andpleasure of matter cease to predominate. They262:21 will then drop the false estimate of life and happiness, ofjoy and sorrow, and attain the bliss of loving unselfishly,working patiently, and conquering all that is unlike God.262:24 Starting from a higher standpoint, one rises spontane-ously, even as light emits light without effort; for "whereyour treasure is, there will your heart be also."
Mind only the cause
262:27 The foundation of mortal discord is a false sense ofman's origin. To begin rightly is to end rightly. Everyconcept which seems to begin with the brain262:30 begins falsely. Divine Mind is the only causeor Principle of existence. Cause does not exist in matter,in mortal mind, or in physical forms.
Human egotism
263:1 Mortals are egotists. They believe themselves to beindependent workers, personal authors, and even privi-263:3 leged originators of something which Deitywould not or could not create. The creationsof mortal mind are material. Immortal spiritual man263:6 alone represents the truth of creation.
Mortal man a mis-creator
When mortal man blends his thoughts of existencewith the spiritual and works only as God works,263:9 he will no longer grope in the dark and clingto earth because he has not tasted heaven.Carnal beliefs defraud us. They make man an involun-263:12 tary hypocrite, - producing evil when he would creategood, forming deformity when he would outline graceand beauty, injuring those whom he would bless. He263:15 becomes a general mis-creator, who believes he is asemi-god. His "touch turns hope to dust, the dust weall have trod." He might say in Bible language: "The263:18 good that I would, I do not: but the evil which I wouldnot, /that I do./"
No new creation
There can be but one creator, who has created all.263:21 Whatever seems to be a new creation, is but the discoveryof some distant idea of Truth; else it is anew multiplication or self-division of mor-263:24 tal thought, as when some finite sense peers from itscloister with amazement and attempts to pattern theinfinite.
263:27 The multiplication of a human and mortal sense of per-sons and things is not creation. A sensual thought, likean atom of dust thrown into the face of spiritual im-263:30 mensity, is dense blindness instead of a scientific eternalconsciousness of creation.
Mind's true camera
The fading forms of matter, the mortal body and ma-264:1 terial earth, are the fleeting concepts of the human mind.They have their day before the permanent facts and their264:3 perfection in Spirit appear. The crude crea-tions of mortal thought must finally give placeto the glorious forms which we sometimes behold in the264:6 camera of divine Mind, when the mental picture is spir-itual and eternal. Mortals must look beyond fading,finite forms, if they would gain the true sense of things.264:9 Where shall the gaze rest but in the unsearchable realmof Mind? We must look where we would walk, and wemust act as possessing all power from Him in whom we264:12 have our being.
Self-completeness
As mortals gain more correct views of God and man,multitudinous objects of creation, which before were264:15 invisible, will become visible. When werealize that Life is Spirit, never in nor ofmatter, this understanding will expand into self-com-264:18 pleteness, finding all in God, good, and needing no otherconsciousness.
Spiritual proofs of existence
Spirit and its formations are the only realities of being.264:21 Matter disappears under the microscope of Spirit. Sinis unsustained by Truth, and sickness anddeath were overcome by Jesus, who proved264:24 them to be forms of error. Spiritual livingand blessedness are the only evidences, by which we canrecognize true existence and feel the unspeakable peace264:27 which comes from an all-absorbing spiritual love.
When we learn the way in Christian Science and rec-ognize man's spiritual being, we shall behold and under-264:30 stand God's creation, - all the glories of earth and heavenand man.
Godward gravitation
The universe of Spirit is peopled with spiritual beings,265:1 and its government is divine Science. Man is the off-spring, not of the lowest, but of the highest qualities of265:3 Mind. Man understands spiritual existencein proportion as his treasures of Truth andLove are enlarged. Mortals must gravitate Godward,265:6 their affections and aims grow spiritual, - they must nearthe broader interpretations of being, and gain some propersense of the infinite, - in order that sin and mortality265:9 may be put off.
This scientific sense of being, forsaking matter forSpirit, by no means suggests man's absorption into Deity265:12 and the loss of his identity, but confers upon man en-larged individuality, a wider sphere of thought and action,a more expansive love, a higher and more permanent265:15 peace.
Mortal birth and death
The senses represent birth as untimely and death asirresistible, as if man were a weed growing apace or a265:18 flower withered by the sun and nipped byuntimely frosts; but this is true only of amortal, not of a man in God's image and likeness. The265:21 truth of being is perennial, and the error is unreal andobsolete.
Blessings from pain
Who that has felt the loss of human peace has not gained265:24 stronger desires for spiritual joy? The aspiration afterheavenly good comes even before we discoverwhat belongs to wisdom and Love. The loss265:27 of earthly hopes and pleasures brightens the ascendingpath of many a heart. The pains of sense quickly informus that the pleasures of sense are mortal and that joy is265:30 spiritual.
Decapitation of error
The pains of sense are salutary, if they wrench awayfalse pleasurable beliefs and transplant the affections266:1 from sense to Soul, where the creations of God are good,"rejoicing the heart." Such is the sword of266:3 Science, with which Truth decapitates error,materiality giving place to man's higher individuality anddestiny.
Uses of adversity
266:6 Would existence without personal friends be to youa blank? Then the time will come when you will besolitary, left without sympathy; but this266:9 seeming vacuum is already filled with divineLove. When this hour of development comes, even ifyou cling to a sense of personal joys, spiritual Love will266:12 force you to accept what best promotes your growth.Friends will betray and enemies will slander, until thelesson is sufficient to exalt you; for "man's extremity266:15 is God's opportunity." The author has experienced theforegoing prophecy and its blessings. Thus He teachesmortals to lay down their fleshliness and gain spirituality.266:18 This is done through self-abnegation. Universal Loveis the divine way in Christian Science.
The sinner makes his own hell by doing evil, and the266:21 saint his own heaven by doing right. The opposite per-secutions of material sense, aiding evil with evil, woulddeceive the very elect.
Beatific presence
266:24 Mortals must follow Jesus' sayings and his demonstra-tions, which dominate the flesh. Perfect and infiniteMind enthroned is heaven. The evil beliefs266:27 which originate in mortals are hell. Man is theidea of Spirit; he reflects the beatific presence, illumingthe universe with light. Man is deathless, spiritual. He266:30 is above sin or frailty. He does not cross the barriersof time into the vast forever of Life, but he coexists withGod and the universe.
The infinitude of God
267:1 Every object in material thought will be destroyed, butthe spiritual idea, whose substance is in Mind, is eternal.267:3 The offspring of God start not from matteror ephemeral dust. They are in and of Spirit,divine Mind, and so forever continue. God is one. The267:6 allness of Deity is His oneness. Generically man is one,and specifically man means all men.
It is generally conceded that God is Father, eternal, self-267:9 created, infinite. If this is so, the forever Father musthave had children prior to Adam. The great I AM madeall "that was made." Hence man and the spiritual uni-267:12 verse coexist with God.
Christian Scientists understand that, in a religioussense, they have the same authority for the appellative267:15 mother, as for that of brother and sister. Jesus said:"For whosoever shall do the will of my Father whichis in heaven, the same is my brother, and sister, and267:18 mother."
Waymarks to eternal Truth
When examined in the light of divine Science, mortalspresent more than is detected upon the surface, since267:21 inverted thoughts and erroneous beliefs mustbe counterfeits of Truth. Thought is bor-rowed from a higher source than matter, and267:24 by reversal, errors serve as waymarks to the one Mind,in which all error disappears in celestial Truth. Therobes of Spirit are "white and glistering," like the raiment267:27 of Christ. Even in this world, therefore, "let thy gar-ments be always white." "Blessed is the man that en-dureth [overcometh] temptation: for when he is tried,267:30 [proved faithful], he shall receive the crown of life,which the Lord hath promised to them that love him."(James i. 12.)