Fallibility Of Human Concepts
Evil counterfeits good: it says, “I am Truth,” though [20]
it is a lie; it says, “I am Love,”—but Love is spirit-
ual, and sensuous love is material, wherefore it is hate
instead of Love; for the five senses give to mortals pain,
sickness, sin, and death,—pleasure that is false, life that
leads unto death, joy that becomes sorrow. Love that is [25]
not the procurator of happiness, declares itself the anti-
pode of Love; and Love divine punishes the joys of this
false sense of love, chastens its affection, purifies it, and
turns it into the opposite channels.
Material life is the antipode of spiritual life; it mocks [30]
the bliss of spiritual being; it is bereft of permanence and [1]
peace.
When human sense is quickened to behold aright the
error,—the error of regarding Life, Truth, Love as
material and not spiritual, or as both material and spirit- [5]
ual,—it is able for the first time to discern the Science
of good. But it must first see the error of its present
erroneous course, to be able to behold the facts of Truth
outside of the error; and, vice versa, when it discovers
the truth, this uncovers the error and quickens the true [10]
consciousness of God, good. May the human shadows of
thought lengthen as they approach the light, until they
are lost in light and no night is there!
In Science, sickness is healed upon the same Principle
and by the same rule that sin is healed. To know the [15]
supposed bodily belief of the patient and what has claimed
to produce it, enables the practitioner to act more under-
standingly in destroying this belief. Thus it is in heal-
ing the moral sickness; the malicious mental operation
must be understood in order to enable one to destroy [20]
it and its effects. There is not sufficient spiritual power
in the human thought to heal the sick or the sinful.
Through the divine energies alone one must either get
out of himself and into God so far that his consciousness
is the reflection of the divine, or he must, through argu- [25]
ment and the human consciousness of both evil and good,
overcome evil.
The only difference between the healing of sin and the
healing of sickness is, that sin must be uncovered before
it can be destroyed, and the moral sense be aroused to [30]
reject the sense of error; while sickness must be cov-
ered with the veil of harmony, and the consciousness be
allowed to rejoice in the sense that it has nothing to mourn [1]
over, but something to forget.
Human concepts run in extremes; they are like the
action of sickness, which is either an excess of action or
not action enough; they are fallible; they are neither [5]
standards nor models.
If one asks me, Is my concept of you right? I reply, The
human concept is always imperfect; relinquish your human
concept of me, or of any one, and find the divine, and you
have gained the right one—and never until then. People [10]
give me too much attention of the misguided, fallible sort,
and this misrepresents one through malice or ignorance.
My brother was a manufacturer; and one day a work-
man in his mills, a practical joker, set a man who applied
for work, in the overseer's absence, to pour a bucket of [15]
water every ten minutes on the regulator. When my
brother returned and saw it, he said to the jester, “You
must pay that man.” Some people try to tend folks, as
if they should steer the regulator of mankind. God makes
us pay for tending the action that He adjusts. [20]
The regulator is governed by the principle that makes
the machinery work rightly; and because it is thus gov-
erned, the folly of tending it is no mere jest. The divine
Principle carries on His harmony.
Now turn from the metaphor of the mill to the Mother's [25]
four thousand children, most of whom, at about three
years of scientific age, set up housekeeping alone. Certain
students, being too much interested in themselves to think
of helping others, go their way. They do not love Mother,
but pretend to; they constantly go to her for help, interrupt [30]
the home-harmony, criticise and disobey her; then “return
to their vomit,”—world worship, pleasure seeking, and
sense indulgence,—meantime declaring they “never dis- [1]
obey Mother”! It exceeds my conception of human
nature. Sin in its very nature is marvellous! Who but a
moral idiot, sanguine of success in sin, can steal, and lie
and lie, and lead the innocent to doom? History needs it, [5]
and it has the grandeur of the loyal, self-forgetful, faith-
ful Christian Scientists to overbalance this foul stuff.
When the Mother's love can no longer promote peace
in the family, wisdom is not “justified of her children.”
When depraved reason is preferred to revelation, error [10]
to Truth, and evil to good, and sense seams sounder than
Soul, the children are tending the regulator; they are
indeed losing the knowledge of the divine Principle and
rules of Christian Science, whose fruits prove the nature
of their source. A little more grace, a motive made pure, [15]
a few truths tenderly told, a heart softened, a character
subdued, a life consecrated, would restore the right action
of the mental mechanism, and make manifest the move-
ment of body and soul in accord with God.
Instead of relying on the Principle of all that really [20]
exists,—to govern His own creation,—self-conceit, igno-
rance, and pride would regulate God's action. Expe-
rience shows that humility is the first step in Christian
Science, wherein all is controlled, not by man or laws
material, but by wisdom, Truth, and Love. [25]
Go gaze on the eagle, his eye on the sun,
Fast gathering strength for a flight well begun,
As rising he rests in a liberty higher
Than genius inflated with worldly desire.
No tear dims his eye, nor his pinions lose power [30]
To gaze on the lark in her emerald bower—
Whenever he soareth to fashion his nest,
No vision more bright than the dream in his breast.
The Way
The present stage of progress in Christian Science pre- [2]
sents two opposite aspects,—a full-orbed promise, and
a gaunt want. The need, however, is not of the letter,
but the spirit. [5]
Less teaching and good healing is to-day the acme of
“well done;” a healing that is not guesswork,—chronic
recovery ebbing and flowing,—but instantaneous cure.
This absolute demonstration of Science must be revived.
To consummate this desideratum, mortal mind must pass [10]
through three stages of growth.
First, self-knowledge. The physician must know him-
self and understand the mental state of his patient. Error
found out is two-thirds destroyed, and the last third
pierces itself, for the remainder only stimulates and gives [15]
scope to higher demonstration. To strike out right and
left against the mist, never clears the vision; but to lift
your head above it, is a sovereign panacea. Mental dark-
ness is senseless error, neither intelligence nor power, and
its victim is responsible for its supposititious presence. [20]
“Cast the beam out of thine own eye.” Learn what in
thine own mentality is unlike “the anointed,” and cast
it out; then thou wilt discern the error in thy patient's
mind that makes his body sick, and remove it, and rest
like the dove from the deluge. [25]
“Physician, heal thyself.” Let no clouds of sin gather
and fall in mist and showers from thine own mental
atmosphere. Hold thy gaze to the light, and the iris of
faith, more beautiful than the rainbow seen from my
window at the close of a balmy autumnal day, will span [30]
thy heavens of thought.
A radiant sunset, beautiful as blessings when they take [1]
their flight, dilates and kindles into rest. Thus will a
life corrected illumine its own atmosphere with spiritual
glow and understanding.
The pent-up elements of mortal mind need no terrible [5]
detonation to free them. Envy, rivalry, hate need no
temporary indulgence that they be destroyed through
suffering; they should be stifled from lack of air and
freedom.
My students, with cultured intellects, chastened affec- [10]
tions, and costly hopes, give promise of grand careers.
But they must remember that the seedtime is passed,
the harvest hour has come; and songs should ascend
from the mount of revelation, sweeter than the sound of
vintage bells. [15]
The seed of Christian Science, which when sown was
“the least of all seeds,” has sprung up, borne fruit, and
the birds of the air, the uplifted desires of the human
heart, have lodged in its branches. Now let my faithful
students carry the fruit of this tree into the rock-ribbed [20]
nests of the raven's callow brood.
The second stage of mental development is humility.
This virtue triumphs over the flesh; it is the genius of
Christian Science. One can never go up, until one has
gone down in his own esteem. Humility is lens and [25]
prism to the understanding of Mind-healing; it must be
had to understand our textbook; it is indispensable to
personal growth, and points out the chart of its divine
Principle and rule of practice.
Cherish humility, “watch,” and “pray without ceasing,” [30]
or you will miss the way of Truth and Love. Humility
is no busybody: it has no moments for trafficking
in other people's business, no place for envy, no time for [1]
idle words, vain amusements, and all the et cetera of the
ways and means of personal sense.
Let Christian Scientists minister to the sick; the school-
room is the dernier ressort. Let them seek the lost sheep
[5]
who, having strayed from the true fold, have lost their
great Shepherd and yearn to find living pastures and
rest beside still waters. These long for the Christlike-
ness that is above the present status of religion and be-
yond the walks of common life, quite on the verge of [10]
heaven. Without the cross and healing, Christianity has
no central emblem, no history.
The seeds of Truth fall by the wayside, on artless
listeners. They fall on stony ground and shallow soil.
The fowls of the air pick them up. Much of what has [15]
been sown has withered away, but what remaineth has
fallen into the good and honest hearts and is bearing
fruit.
The third stage of mental growth is manifested in love,
the greatest of all stages and states of being; love that [20]
is irrespective of self, rank, or following. For some time
it has been clear to my thought that those students of
Christian Science whose Christian characters and lives
recommend them, should receive full fellowship from us,
no matter who has taught them. If they have been taught [25]
wrongly, they are not morally responsible for this, and
need special help. They are as lambs that have sought
the true fold and the great Shepherd, and strayed inno-
cently; hence we should be ready and glad to help them
and point the way. [30]
Divine Love is the substance of Christian Science, the
basis of its demonstration, yea, its foundation and super-
structure. Love impels good works. Love is greatly [1]
needed, and must be had to mark the way in divine
Science.
The student who heals by teaching and teaches by
healing, will graduate under divine honors, which are [5]
the only appropriate seals for Christian Science. State
honors perish, and their gain is loss to the Christian
Scientist. They include for him at present naught but
tardy justice, hounded footsteps, false laurels. God
alone is his help, his shield and great reward. He that [10]
seeketh aught besides God, loseth in Life, Truth, and
Love. All men shall be satisfied when they “awake in
His likeness,” and they never should be until then. Hu-
man pride is human weakness. Self-knowledge, humility,
and love are divine strength. Christ's vestures are put [15]
on only when mortals are “washed in the blood of the
Lamb;” we must walk in the way which Jesus marked
out, if we would reach the heaven-crowned summit of
Christian Science.
Be it understood that I do not require Christian Sci- [20]
entists to stop teaching, to dissolve their organizations,
or to desist from organizing churches and associations.
The Massachusetts Metaphysical College, the first
and only College for teaching Christian Science Mind-
healing, after accomplishing the greatest work of the [25]
ages, and at the pinnacle of prosperity, is closed. Let
Scientists who have grown to self-sacrifice do their
present work, awaiting, with staff in hand, God's
commands.
When students have fulfilled all the good ends of [30]
organization, and are convinced that by leaving the
material forms thereof a higher spiritual unity is won,
then is the time to follow the example of the Alma Mater.
[1]
Material organization is requisite in the beginning; but
when it has done its work, the purely Christly method
of teaching and preaching must be adopted. On the same
principle, you continue the mental argument in the prac- [5]
tice of Christian healing until you can cure without it
instantaneously, and through Spirit alone.
St. Paul says: “When I was a child, I spake as a
child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but
when I became a man, I put away childish things. For [10]
now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to
face.” Growth is restricted by forcing humanity out of
the proper channels for development, or by holding it in
fetters.
For Jesus to walk the water was scientific, insomuch [15]
as he was able to do this; but it is neither wisdom nor
Science for poor humanity to step upon the Atlantic until
we can walk on the water.
Peter's impetuosity was rebuked. He had to learn
from experience; so have we. The methods of our [20]
Master were in advance of the period in which he per-
sonally appeared; but his example was right, and is
available at the right time. The way is absolute divine
Science: walk ye in it; but remember that Science is
demonstrated by degrees, and our demonstration rises [25]
only as we rise in the scale of being.
Science And Philosophy
Men give counsel; but they give not the wisdom to
profit by it. To ask wisdom of God, is the beginning of
wisdom. [30]
Meekness, moderating human desire, inspires wisdom [1]
and procures divine power. Human lives are yet un-
carved,—in the rough marble, encumbered with crude,
rude fragments, and awaiting the hammering, chiselling,
and transfiguration from His hand. [5]
Great only as good, because fashioned divinely, were
those unpretentious yet colossal characters, Paul and
Jesus. Theirs were modes of mind cast in the moulds
of Christian Science: Paul's, by the supremely natural
transforming power of Truth; and the character of [10]
Jesus, by his original scientific sonship with God. Phi-
losophy never has produced, nor can it reproduce, these
stars of the first magnitude—fixed stars in the heavens
of Soul. When shall earth be crowned with the true
knowledge of Christ? [15]
When Christian Science has melted away the cloud of
false witnesses; and the dews of divine grace, fall-
ing upon the blighted flowers of fleeting joys, shall
lift every thought-leaflet Spiritward; and “Israel after
the flesh,” who partaketh of its own altars, shall be [20]
no more,—then, “the Israel according to Spirit”
shall fill earth with the divine energies, understanding,
and ever-flowing tides of spiritual sensation and consciousness.
When mortal mind is silenced by the “still, small voice” [25]
of Truth that regenerates philosophy and logic; and
Jesus, as the true idea of Him, is heard as of yore saying
to sensitive ears and dark disciples, “I came from the
Father,” “Before Abraham was, I am,” coexistent and
coeternal with God,—and this idea is understood,— [30]
then will the earth be filled with the true knowledge of
Christ. No advancing modes of human mind made
Jesus; rather was it their subjugation, and the pure [1]
heart that sees God.
When the belief in material origin, mortal mind, sen-
sual conception, dissolves through self-imposed suffering,
and its substances are found substanceless,—then its [5]
miscalled life ends in death, and death itself is swallowed
up in Life,—spiritual Life, whose myriad forms are
neither material nor mortal.
When every form and mode of evil disappear to hu-
man thought, and mollusk and radiate are spiritual con- [10]
cepts testifying to one creator,—then, earth is full of
His glory, and Christian Science has overshadowed all
human philosophy, and being is understood in startling
contradiction of human hypotheses; and Socrates, Plato,
Kant, Locke, Berkeley, Tyndall, Darwin, and Spencer [15]
sit at the feet of Jesus.
To this great end, Paul admonished, “Let us lay aside
every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us,
and let us run with patience the race that is set before
us, looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our [20]
faith.” So shall mortals soar to final freedom, and rest
from the subtlety of speculative wisdom and human
woe.
God is the only Mind, and His manifestation is the
spiritual universe, including man and all eternal indi- [25]
viduality. God, the only substance and divine Principle
of creation, is by no means a creative partner in the firm
of error, named matter, or mortal mind. He elucidates
His own idea, wherein Principle and idea, God and man,
are not one, but are inseparable as cause and effect. If [30]
one, who could say which that “one” was?
His ways are not as our ways. The divine modes
and manifestations are not those of the material senses; [1]
for instance, intelligent matter, or mortal mind, material
birth, growth, and decay: they are the forever-existing
realities of divine Science; wherein God and man are
perfect, and man's reason is at rest in God's wisdom,— [5]
who comprehends and reflects all real mode, form, indi-
viduality, identity.
Scholastic dogma has made men blind. Christ's logos
gives sight to these blind, ears to these deaf, feet to these
lame,—physically, morally, spiritually. Theologians [10]
make the mortal mistake of believing that God, having
made all, made evil; but the Scriptures declare that all
that He made was good. Then, was evil part and parcel
of His creation?
Philosophy hypothetically regards creation as its own [15]
creator, puts cause into effect, and out of nothing would
create something, whose noumenon is mortal mind,
with its phenomenon matter,—an evil mind already
doomed, whose modes are material manifestations of
evil, and that continually, until self-extinguished by [20]
suffering!
Here revelation must come to the rescue of mortals,
to remove this mental millstone that is dragging them
downward, and refute erring reason with the spiritual
cosmos and Science of Soul. We all must find shelter [25]
from the storm and tempest in the tabernacle of Spirit.
Truth is won through Science or suffering: O vain mor-
tals! which shall it be? And suffering has no reward,
except when it is necessary to prevent sin or reform
the sinner. And pleasure is no crime except when it [30]
strengthens the influence of bad inclinations or lessens
the activities of virtue. The more nearly an erring so-
called mind approaches purity, the more conscious it [1]
becomes of its own unreality, and of the great reality of
divine Mind and true happiness.
The “ego” that claims selfhood in error, and passes
from molecule and monkey up to man, is no ego, but is [5]
simply the supposition that the absence of good is mind
and makes men,—when its greatest flatterer, identifica-
tion, is piqued by Him who compensateth vanity with
nothingness, dust with dust!
The mythology of evil and mortality is but the ma- [10]
terial mode of a suppositional mind; while the immortal
modes of Mind are spiritual, and pass through none of
the changes of matter, or evil. Truth said, and said from
the beginning, “Let us [Spirit] make man perfect;” and
there is no other Maker: a perfect man would not desire [15]
to make himself imperfect, and God is not chargeable
with imperfection. His modes declare the beauty of holi-
ness, and His manifold wisdom shines through the visible
world in glimpses of the eternal verities. Even through
the mists of mortality is seen the brightness of His [20]
coming.
We must avoid the shoals of a sensual religion or
philosophy that misguides reason and affection, and
hold fast to the Principle of Christian Science as the
Word that is God, Spirit, and Truth. This Word cor- [25]
rects the philosopher, confutes the astronomer, exposes
the subtle sophist, and drives diviners mad. The Bible
is the learned man's masterpiece, the ignorant man's
dictionary, the wise man's directory.
I foresee and foresay that every advancing epoch of so [30]
Truth will be characterized by a more spiritual appre-
hension of the Scriptures, that will show their marked
consonance with the textbook of Christian Science Mind- [1]
healing, “Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures.”
Interpreting the Word in the “new tongue,” whereby
the sick are healed, naturally evokes new paraphrase
from the world of letters. “Wait patiently on the Lord, [5]
and He will renew your strength.” In return for indi-
vidual sacrifice, what a recompense to have healed, through
Truth, the sick and sinful, made the public your friend,
and posterity your familiar!
Christian Science refutes everything that is not a [10]
postulate of the divine Principle, God. It is the soul of
divine philosophy, and there is no other philosophy. It
is not a search after wisdom, it is wisdom: it is God's
right hand grasping the universe,—all time, space,
immortality, thought, extension, cause, and effect; con- [15]
stituting and governing all identity, individuality, law,
and power. It stands on this Scriptural platform:
that He made all that was made, and it is good, reflects
the divine Mind, is governed by it; and that nothing
apart from this Mind, one God, is self-created or evolves [20]
the universe.
Human hypotheses predicate matter of Spirit and
evil of good; hence these opposites must either cooperate
or quarrel throughout time and eternity,—or until
this impossible partnership is dissolved. If Spirit is the [25]
lawgiver to matter, and good has the same power or
modes as evil, it has the same consciousness, and there
is no absolute good. This error, carried to its ultimate,
would either extinguish God and His modes, or give
reality and power to evil ad infinitum. [30]
Christian Science rends this veil of the temple of gods,
and reproduces the divine philosophy of Jesus and Paul.
This philosophy alone will bear the strain of time and [1]
bring out the glories of eternity; for “other founda-
tion can no man lay than that is laid,” which is Christ,
Truth.
Human theories weighed in the balances of God are [5]
found wanting; and their highest endeavors are to Science
what a child's love of pictures is to art. The school whose
schoolmaster is not Christ, gets things wrong, and is ignorant
thereof.
If Christian Science lacked the proof of its goodness [10]
and utility, it would destroy itself; for it rests alone on
demonstration. Its genius is right thinking and right
acting, physical and moral harmony; and the secret of
its success lies in supplying the universal need of better
health and better men. [15]
Good health and a more spiritual religion form the
common want, and this want has worked out a moral
result; namely, that mortal mind is calling for what im-
mortal Mind alone can supply. If the uniform moral
and spiritual, as well as physical, effects of divine Science [20]
were lacking, the demand would diminish; but it con-
tinues, and increases, which shows the real value of
Christian Science to the race. Even doctors agree that
infidelity, bigotry, or sham has never met the growing
wants of humanity. [25]
As a literature, Christian metaphysics is hampered by
lack of proper terms in which to express what it means.
As a Science, it is held back by the common ignorance
of what it is and of what it does,—and more than all
else, by the impostors that come in its name. To be [30]
appreciated, it must be conscientiously understood and
introduced.
If the Bible and “Science and Health with Key to the [1]
Scriptures” had in our schools the time or attention that
human hypotheses consume, they would advance the
world. True, it requires more study to understand and
demonstrate what they teach than to learn the doctrine [5]
of theology, philosophy, or physics, because they con-
tain and offer Science, with fixed Principle, given rule,
and unmistakable proof.
The Scriptures give the keynote of Christian Science
from Genesis to Revelation, and this is the prolonged [10]
tone: “For the Lord He is God, and there is
none beside Him.” And because He is All-in-all,
He is in nothing unlike Himself; and nothing that
worketh or maketh a lie is in Him, or can be divine con-
sciousness. [15]
At this date, poor jaded humanity needs to get her
eyes open to a new style of imposition in the field of
medicine and of religion, and to “beware of the leaven
of the scribes and Pharisees,” the doctrines of men, even
as Jesus admonished. From first to last, evil insists on [20]
the unity of good and evil as the purpose of God; and
on drugs, electricity, and animal magnetism as modes
of medicine. To a greater or less extent, all mortal conclusions
start from this false premise, and they necessarily
culminate in sickness, sin, disease, and death. [25]
Erroneous doctrines never have abated and never will
abate dishonesty, self-will, envy, and lust. To destroy
sin and its sequence, is the office of Christ, Truth,—ac-
cording to His mode of Christian Science; and this is
being done daily. [30]
The false theories whose names are legion, gilded with
sophistry and what Jesus had not, namely, mere book-
learning,—letter without law, gospel, or demonstration, [1]
—have no place in Christian Science. This Science re-
quires man to be honest, just, pure; to love his neighbor
as himself, and to love God supremely.
Matter and evil are subjective states of error or mortal [5]
mind. But Mind is immortal; and the fact of there
being no mortal mind, exposes the lie of suppositional
evil, showing that error is not Mind, substance, or
Life. Thus, whatever is wrongfully-minded will dis-
appear in the proportion that Science is understood, [10]
and the reality of being—goodness and harmony—is
demonstrated.
Error says that knowing all things implies the neces-
sity of knowing evil, that it dishonors God to claim that
He is ignorant of anything; but God says of this fruit [15]
of the tree of knowledge of both good and evil, “In
the
day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die.” If
God is infinite good, He knows nothing but good; if He
did know aught else, He would not be infinite. Infinite
Mind knows nothing beyond Himself or Herself. To [20]
good, evil is never present; for evil is a different state of
consciousness. It was not against evil, but against know-
ing evil, that God forewarned. He dwelleth in light;
and in the light He sees light, and cannot see darkness.
The opposite conclusion, that darkness dwelleth in light, [25]
has neither precedent nor foundation in nature, in logic,
or in the character of Christ.
The senses would say that whatever saves from sin,
must know sin. Truth replies that God is too pure
to behold iniquity; and by virtue of His ignorance of [30]
that which is not, He knoweth that which is, and
abideth in Himself, the only Life, Truth, and Love,
—and is reflected by a universe in His own image [1]
and likeness.
Even so, Father, let the light that shineth in dark-
ness, and the darkness comprehendeth it not, dispel this
illusion of the senses, open the eyes of the blind, and cause [5]
the deaf to hear.
“Truth forever on the scaffold, Wrong forever on the throne.
Yet that scaffold sways the future, and, behind the dim unknown,
Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above His own.”
Lowell