Science and Health, with Key to the Scriptures Part 34

230:1 If sickness is real, it belongs to immortality; if true, it is a part of Truth. Would you attempt with drugs, 230:3 or without, to destroy a quality or condition of Truth?

But if sickness and sin are illusions, the awakening from this mortal dream, or illusion, will bring us into health, 230:6 holiness, and immortality. This awakening is the for- ever coming of Christ, the advanced appearing of Truth, which casts out error and heals the sick. This is the sal- 230:9 vation which comes through G.o.d, the divine Principle, Love, as demonstrated by Jesus.

G.o.d never inconsistent

It would be contrary to our highest ideas of G.o.d to 230:12 suppose Him capable of first arranging law and causation so as to bring about certain evil results, and then punishing the helpless victims of His vo- 230:15 lition for doing what they could not avoid doing. Good is not, cannot be, the author of experimental sins. G.o.d, good, can no more produce sickness than goodness can 230:18 cause evil and health occasion disease.

Mental narcotics

Does wisdom make blunders which must afterwards be rectified by man? Does a law of G.o.d produce sick- 230:21 ness, and can man put that law under his feet by healing sickness? According to Holy Writ, the sick are never really healed by drugs, hygiene, or any 230:24 material method. These merely evade the question.

They are soothing syrups to put children to sleep, satisfy mortal belief, and quiet fear.

The true healing

230:27 We think that we are healed when a disease disap- pears, though it is liable to reappear; but we are never thoroughly healed until the liability to be 230:30 ill is removed. So-called mortal mind or the mind of mortals being the remote, predisposing, and the exciting cause of all suffering, the cause of disease 231:1 must be obliterated through Christ in divine Science, or the so-called physical senses will get the victory.

Destruction of all evil

231:3 Unless an ill is rightly met and fairly overcome by Truth, the ill is never conquered. If G.o.d destroys not sin, sickness, and death, they are not de- 231:6 stroyed in the mind of mortals, but seem to this so-called mind to be immortal. What G.o.d cannot do, man need not attempt. If G.o.d heals not the sick, 231:9 they are not healed, for no lesser power equals the infinite All-power; but G.o.d, Truth, Life, Love, does heal the sick through the prayer of the righteous.

231:12 If G.o.d makes sin, if good produces evil, if truth results in error, then Science and Christianity are helpless; but there are no antagonistic powers nor laws, spiritual or 231:15 material, creating and governing man through perpetual warfare. G.o.d is not the author of mortal discords.

Therefore we accept the conclusion that discords have 231:18 only a fabulous existence, are mortal beliefs which divine Truth and Love destroy.

Superiority to sickness and sin

To hold yourself superior to sin, because G.o.d made 231:21 you superior to it and governs man, is true wisdom. To fear sin is to misunderstand the power of Love and the divine Science of being in man's rela- 231:24 tion to G.o.d, - to doubt His government and distrust His omnipotent care. To hold yourself superior to sickness and death is equally wise, and is in accordance 231:27 with divine Science. To fear them is impossible, when you fully apprehend G.o.d and know that they are no part of His creation.

231:30 Man, governed by his Maker, having no other Mind, - planted on the Evangelist's statement that "all things were made by Him [the Word of G.o.d]; and without 232:1 Him was not anything made that was made," - can triumph over sin, sickness, and death.

Denials of divine power

232:3 Many theories relative to G.o.d and man neither make man harmonious nor G.o.d lovable. The beliefs we com- monly entertain about happiness and life 232:6 afford no scatheless and permanent evidence of either. Security for the claims of harmonious and eternal being is found only in divine Science.

232:9 Scripture informs us that "with G.o.d all things are possible," - all good is possible to Spirit; but our prev- alent theories practically deny this, and make healing 232:12 possible only through matter. These theories must be untrue, for the Scripture is true. Christianity is not false, but religions which contradict its Principle are 232:15 false.

In our age Christianity is again demonstrating the power of divine Principle, as it did over nineteen hun- 232:18 dred years ago, by healing the sick and triumphing over death. Jesus never taught that drugs, food, air, and ex- ercise could make a man healthy, or that they could de- 232:21 stroy human life; nor did he ill.u.s.trate these errors by his practice. He referred man's harmony to Mind, not to matter, and never tried to make of none effect the sen- 232:24 tence of G.o.d, which sealed G.o.d's condemnation of sin, sickness, and death.

Signs following

In the sacred sanctuary of Truth are voices of sol- 232:27 emn import, but we heed them not. It is only when the so-called pleasures and pains of sense pa.s.s away in our lives, that we find unquestion- 232:30 able signs of the burial of error and the resurrection to spiritual life.

Profession and proof

There is neither place nor opportunity in Science for error 233:1 of any sort. Every day makes its demands upon us for higher proofs rather than professions of Christian power.

233:3 These proofs consist solely in the destruction of sin, sickness, and death by the power of Spirit, as Jesus destroyed them. This is an element of 233:6 progress, and progress is the law of G.o.d, whose law de- mands of us only what we can certainly fulfil.

Perfection gained slowly

In the midst of imperfection, perfection is seen and 233:9 acknowledged only by degrees. The ages must slowly work up to perfection. How long it must be before we arrive at the demonstration of scien- 233:12 tific being, no man knoweth, - not even "the Son but the Father;" but the false claim of error con- tinues its delusions until the goal of goodness is a.s.sidu- 233:15 ously earned and won.

Christ's mission

Already the shadow of His right hand rests upon the hour. Ye who can discern the face of the sky, - the 233:18 sign material, - how much more should ye discern the sign mental, and compa.s.s the de- struction of sin and sickness by overcoming the thoughts 233:21 which produce them, and by understanding the spiritual idea which corrects and destroys them. To reveal this truth was our Master's mission to all mankind, including 233:24 the hearts which rejected him.

Efficacy of truth

When numbers have been divided according to a fixed rule, the quotient is not more unquestionable than the 233:27 scientific tests I have made of the effects of truth upon the sick. The counter fact rela- tive to any disease is required to cure it. The utterance 233:30 of truth is designed to rebuke and destroy error. Why should truth not be efficient in sickness, which is solely the result of inharmony?

234:1 Spiritual draughts heal, while material lotions interfere with truth, even as ritualism and creed hamper spirit- 234:3 uality. If we trust matter, we distrust Spirit.

Crumbs of comfort

Whatever inspires with wisdom, Truth, or Love - be it song, sermon, or Science - blesses the human family 234:6 with crumbs of comfort from Christ's table feeding the hungry and giving living waters to the thirsty.

Hospitality to health and good

234:9 We should become more familiar with good than with evil, and guard against false beliefs as watchfully as we bar our doors against the approach of thieves 234:12 and murderers. We should love our enemies and help them on the basis of the Golden Rule; but avoid casting pearls before those who trample 234:15 them under foot, thereby robbing both themselves and others.

Cleansing the mind

If mortals would keep proper ward over mortal mind, 234:18 the brood of evils which infest it would be cleared out.

We must begin with this so-called mind and empty it of sin and sickness, or sin and sick- 234:21 ness will never cease. The present codes of human systems disappoint the weary searcher after a divine theology, adequate to the right education of human 234:24 thought.

Sin and disease must be thought before they can be manifested. You must control evil thoughts in the first 234:27 instance, or they will control you in the second. Jesus declared that to look with desire on forbidden objects was to break a moral precept. He laid great stress on the 234:30 action of the human mind, unseen to the senses.

Evil thoughts and aims reach no farther and do no more harm than one's belief permits. Evil thoughts, l.u.s.ts, and 235:1 malicious purposes cannot go forth, like wandering pollen, from one human mind to another, finding unsuspected 235:3 lodgment, if virtue and truth build a strong defence.

Better suffer a doctor infected with smallpox to attend you than to be treated mentally by one who does not obey 235:6 the requirements of divine Science.

Teachers' functions

The teachers of schools and the readers in churches should be selected with as direct reference to their 235:9 morals as to their learning or their correct reading. Nurseries of character should be strongly garrisoned with virtue. School-examinations are 235:12 one-sided; it is not so much academic education, as a moral and spiritual culture, which lifts one higher. The pure and uplifting thoughts of the teacher, constantly 235:15 imparted to pupils, will reach higher than the heavens of astronomy; while the debased and unscrupulous mind, though adorned with gems of scholarly attainment, will 235:18 degrade the characters it should inform and elevate.

Physicians' privilege

Physicians, whom the sick employ in their helplessness, should be models of virtue. They should be wise spir- 235:21 itual guides to health and hope. To the trem- blers on the brink of death, who understand not the divine Truth which is Life and perpetuates being, 235:24 physicians should be able to teach it. Then when the soul is willing and the flesh weak, the patient's feet may be planted on the rock Christ Jesus, the true idea of spiritual 235:27 power.

Clergymen's duty

Clergymen, occupying the watchtowers of the world, should uplift the standard of Truth. They should so raise 235:30 their hearers spiritually, that their listeners will love to grapple with a new, right idea and broaden their concepts. Love of Christianity, rather 236:1 than love of popularity, should stimulate clerical labor and progress. Truth should emanate from the pulpit, 236:3 but never be strangled there. A special privilege is vested in the ministry. How shall it be used? Sacredly, in the interests of humanity, not of sect.

236:6 Is it not professional reputation and emolument rather than the dignity of G.o.d's laws, which many leaders seek?

Do not inferior motives induce the infuriated attacks on 236:9 individuals, who reiterate Christ's teachings in support of his proof by example that the divine Mind heals sick- ness as well as sin?

A mother's responsibility

236:12 A mother is the strongest educator, either for or against crime. Her thoughts form the embryo of an- other mortal mind, and unconsciously mould 236:15 it, either after a model odious to herself or through divine influence, "according to the pattern showed to thee in the mount." Hence the importance 236:18 of Christian Science, from which we learn of the one Mind and of the availability of good as the remedy for every woe.

Children's tractability