Miscellaneous Writings, 1883-1896 Part 19

spake of Truth and Love to artless listeners and dull [1]

disciples. His immortal words were articulated in a decaying language, and then left to the providence of G.o.d. Christian Science was to interpret them; and woman, "last at the cross," was to awaken the dull senses, [5]

intoxicated with pleasure or pain, to the infinite meaning of those words.

Past, present, future, will show the word and might of Truth-healing the sick and reclaiming the sinner- so long as there remains a claim of error for Truth to [10]

deny or to destroy. Love's labors are not lost. The five personal senses, that grasp neither the meaning nor the magnitude of self-abnegation, may lose sight thereof; but Science voices unselfish love, unfolds infinite good, leads on irresistible forces, and will finally show the fruits [15]

of Love. Human reason is inaccurate; and the scope of the senses is inadequate to grasp the word of Truth, and teach the eternal.

Science speaks when the senses are silent, and then the evermore of Truth is triumphant. The spiritual mon- [20]

itor understood is coincidence of the divine with the human, the acme of Christian Science. Pure humanity, friendship, home, the interchange of love, bring to earth a foretaste of heaven. They unite terrestrial and celes- tial joys, and crown them with blessings infinite. [25]

The Christian Scientist loves man more because he loves G.o.d most. He understands this Principle,-Love.

Who is sufficient for these things? Who remembers that patience, forgiveness, abiding faith, and affection, are the symptoms by which our Father indicates the dif- [30]

ferent stages of man's recovery from sin and his en- trance into Science? Who knows how the feeble lips

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are made eloquent, how hearts are inspired, how heal- [1]

ing becomes spontaneous, and how the divine Mind is understood and demonstrated? He alone knows these wonders who is departing from the thraldom of the senses and accepting spiritual truth,-that which blesses [5]

its adoption by the refinement of joy and the dismissal of sorrow.

Christian Science and the senses are at war. It is a revolutionary struggle. We already have had two in this nation; and they began and ended in a contest for [10]

the true idea, for human liberty and rights. Now cometh a third struggle; for the freedom of health, holiness, and the attainment of heaven.

The scientific sense of being which establishes har- mony, enters into no compromise with finiteness and [15]

feebleness. It undermines the foundations of mortality, of physical law, breaks their chains, and sets the captive free, opening the doors for them that are bound.

He who turns to the body for evidence, bases his con- clusions on mortality, on imperfection; but Science saith to man, "G.o.d hath all-power." [20]

The Science of omnipotence demonstrates but one power, and this power is good, not evil; not matter, but Mind. This virtually destroys matter and evil, in- cluding sin and disease. [25]

If G.o.d is All, and G.o.d is good, it follows that all must be good; and no other power, law, or intelligence can exist. On this proof rest premise and conclusion in Science, and the facts that disprove the evidence of the senses. [30]

G.o.d is individual Mind. This one Mind and His individuality comprise the elements of all forms and

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individualities, and prophesy the nature and stature of [1]

Christ, the ideal man.

A corporeal G.o.d, as often defined by lexicographers and scholastic theologians, is only an infinite finite being, an unlimited man,-a theory to me inconceivable. If [5]

the unlimited and immortal Mind could originate in a limited body, Mind would be chained to finity, and the infinite forever finite.

In this limited and lower sense G.o.d is not personal.

His infinity precludes the possibility of corporeal person- [10]

ality. His being is individual, but not physical.

G.o.d is like Himself and like nothing else. He is uni- versal and primitive. His character admits of no degrees of comparison. G.o.d is not part, but the whole. In His individuality I recognize the loving, divine Father-Mother [15]

G.o.d. Infinite personality must be incorporeal.

G.o.d's ways are not ours. His pity is expressed in modes above the human. His chastis.e.m.e.nts are the manifestations of Love. The sympathy of His eternal Mind is fully expressed in divine Science, which blots [20]

out all our iniquities and heals all our diseases. Human pity often brings pain.

Science supports harmony, denies suffering, and de- stroys it with the divinity of Truth. Whatever seems mate- rial, seems thus only to the material senses, and is but the [25]

subjective state of mortal and material thought.

Science has inaugurated the irrepressible conflict be- tween sense and Soul. Mortal thought wars with this sense as one that beateth the air, but Science outmasters it, and ends the warfare. This proves daily that "one [30]

on G.o.d's side is a majority."

Science defines _omnipresence_ as universality, that which

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precludes the presence of evil. This verity annuls the tes- [1]

timony of the senses, which say that sin is an evil power, and substance is perishable. Intelligent Spirit, Soul, is substance, far more impregnable and solid than matter; for one is temporal, while the other is eternal, the ultimate [5]

and predicate of being.

Mortality, materiality, and destructive forces, such as sin, disease, and death, mortals virtually name _substance_; but these are the substance of things _not_ hoped for. For lack of knowing what substance is, the senses say vaguely: [10]

"The substance of life is sorrow and mortality; for who knoweth the substance of good?" In Science, form and individuality are never lost, thoughts are outlined, indi- vidualized ideas, which dwell forever in the divine Mind as tangible, true substance, because eternally conscious. [15]

Unlike mortal mind, which must be ever in bondage, the eternal Mind is free, unlimited, and knows not the temporal.

Neither does the temporal know the eternal. Mortal man, as mind or matter, is neither the pattern nor Maker [20]

of immortal man. Any inference of the divine derived from the human, either as mind or body, hides the actual power, presence, and individuality of G.o.d.

Jesus' personality in the flesh, so far as material sense could discern it, was like that of other men; but Science [25]

exchanges this human concept of Jesus for the divine ideal, his spiritual individuality that reflected the Im- manuel, or "G.o.d with us." This G.o.d was not outlined.

He was too mighty for that. He was eternal Life, infinite Truth and Love. The individuality is embraced in Mind, [30]

therefore is forever with the Father. Hence the Scrip- ture, "I am a G.o.d at hand, saith the Lord." Even while

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his personality was on earth and in anguish, his individual [1]

being, the Christ, was at rest in the eternal harmony.

His unseen individuality, so superior to that which was seen, was not subject to the temptations of the flesh, to laws material, to death, or the grave. Formed and gov- [5]

erned by G.o.d, this individuality was safe in the substance of Soul, the substance of Spirit,-yea, the substance of G.o.d, the one inclusive good.

In Science all being is individual; for individuality is endless in the calculus of forms and numbers. Herein [10]

sin is miraculous and supernatural; for it is not in the nature of G.o.d, and good is forever good. Accord- ing to Christian Science, perfection is normal,-not miraculous. Clothed, and in its right Mind, man's individuality is sinless, deathless, harmonious, eternal. [15]

His materiality, clad in a false mentality, wages feeble fight with his individuality,-his physical senses with his spiritual senses. The latter move in G.o.d's grooves of Science: the former revolve in their own orbits, and must stand the friction of false selfhood until self- [20]

destroyed.

In obedience to the divine nature, man's individuality reflects the divine law and order of being. How shall we reach our true selves? Through Love. The Prin- ciple of Christian Science is Love, and its idea represents [25]

Love. This divine Principle and idea are demonstrated, in healing, to be G.o.d and the real man.

Who wants to be mortal, or would not gain the true ideal of Life and recover his own individuality? I will love, if another hates. I will gain a balance on the side of [30]

good, my true being. This alone gives me the forces of G.o.d wherewith to overcome all error. On this rests the

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implicit faith engendered by Christian Science, which [1]