NO AND YES by MARY BAKER EDDY Author of Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures Published by TheTrustees under the Will of Mary Baker G. EddyBoston, U. S. A. Authorized Literature ofThe First Church of Christ, Scientistin Boston, Massachusetts 1919 PREFACE It was the purpose of each edition of this pamphlet to benefit no favoredclass, but, according to the apostle's admonition, to "reprove, rebuke, exhort, " and with the power and self-sacrificing spirit of Love to correctinvoluntary as well as voluntary error. By a modification of the language, the import of this edition is, we trust, transparent to the hearts of all conscientious laborers in the realm ofMind-healing. To those who are athirst for the life-giving waters of a truedivinity, it saith tenderly, "Come and drink;" and if you are babes inChrist, leave the meat and take the unadulterated milk of the Word, untilyou grow to apprehend the pure spirituality of Truth. MARY BAKER EDDY CONTENTS PREFACE INTRODUCTION DISEASE UNREAL SCIENCE OF MIND-HEALING IS CHRISTIAN SCIENCE OF THE SAME LINEAGE AS SPIRITUALISM OR THEOSOPHY? IS CHRISTIAN SCIENCE FROM BENEATH, AND NOT FROM ABOVE? IS CHRISTIAN SCIENCE PANTHEISTIC? IS CHRISTIAN SCIENCE BLASPHEMOUS? IS THERE A PERSONAL DEITY? IS THERE A PERSONAL DEVIL? IS MAN A PERSON? HAS MAN A SOUL? IS SIN FORGIVEN? IS THERE ANY SUCH THING AS SIN? IS THERE NO SACRIFICIAL ATONEMENT? IS THERE NO INTERCESSORY PRAYER? SHOULD CHRISTIANS BEWARE OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE? NO AND YES INTRODUCTION To kindle in all minds a common sentiment of regard for the spiritual ideaemanating from the infinite, is a most needful work; but this must be donegradually, for Truth is as "the still, small voice, " which comes to ourrecognition only as our natures are changed by its silent influence. Small streams are noisy and rush precipitately; and babbling brooks fillthe rivers till they rise in floods, demolishing bridges and overwhelmingcities. So men, when thrilled by a new idea, are sometimes impatient; and, when public sentiment is aroused, are liable to be borne on by the currentof feeling. They should then turn temporarily from the tumult, for thesilent cultivation of the true idea and the quiet practice of its virtues. When the noise and stir of contending sentiments cease, and the flames dieaway on the mount of revelation, we can read more clearly the tablets ofTruth. The theology and medicine of Jesus were one, --in the divine oneness of thetrinity, Life, Truth, and Love, which healed the sick and cleansed thesinful. This trinity in unity, correcting the individual thought, is theonly Mind-healing I vindicate; and on its standard have emblazoned thatcrystallized expression, CHRISTIAN SCIENCE. A spurious and hydra-headed mind-healing is naturally glared at by thepulpit, ostracized by the medical faculty, and scorned by people of commonsense. To aver that disease is normal, a God-bestowed and stubborn reality, but that you can heal it, leaves you to work against that which is naturaland a law of being. It is scientific to rob disease of all reality; and toaccomplish this, you cannot begin by admitting its reality. Our Mastertaught his students to deny self, sense, and take up the cross. Mentalhealers who admit that disease is real should be made to test thefeasibility of what they say by healing one case audibly, through such anadmission, --if this is possible. I have healed more disease by the spokenthan the unspoken word. The honest student of Christian Science is modest in his claims andconscientious in duty, waiting and working to mature what he has beentaught. Institutes furnished with such teachers are becoming beacon-lightsalong the shores of erudition; and many who are not teachers have largepractices and some marked success in healing the most defiant forms ofdisease. Dishonesty destroys one's ability to heal mentally. Conceit cannot avertthe effects of deceit. Taking advantage of the present ignorance inrelation to Christian Science Mind-healing, many are flooding our land withconflicting theories and practice. We should not spread abroad patchworkideas that in some vital points lack Science. How sad it is that envy willbend its bow and shoot its arrow at the idea which claims only itsinheritance, is naturally modest, generous, and sincere! while thetrespassing error murders either friend or foe who stands in its way. Trulyit is better to fall into the hands of God, than of man. When I revised "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, " in 1878, some irresponsible people insisted that my manual of the practice ofChristian Science Mind-healing should not be made public; but I obeyed adiviner rule. People dependent on the rules of this practice for theirhealing, not having lost the Spirit which sustains the genuine practice, will put that book in the hands of their patients, whom it will heal, andrecommend it to their students, whom it would enlighten. Every teacher mustpore over it in secret, to keep himself well informed. The Nemesis of thehistory of Mind-healing notes this hour. Dishonesty necessarily stultifies the spiritual sense which Mind-healersspecially need; and which they must possess, in order to be safe members ofthe community. How good and pleasant a thing it is to seek not so muchthine own as another's good, to sow by the wayside for the way-weary, andtrust Love's recompense of love. Plagiarism from my writings is so common it is becoming odious to honestpeople; and such compilations, instead of possessing the essentials ofChristian Science, are tempting and misleading. Reading Science and Health has restored the sick to health; but the taskof learning thoroughly the Science of Mind-healing and demonstrating itunderstandingly had better be undertaken in health than sickness. DISEASE UNREAL Disease is more than _imagination_; it is a human error, a constituent partof what comprise the whole of mortal existence, --namely, material sensationand mental delusion. But an erring sense of existence, or the error ofbelief, named disease, never made sickness a stubborn reality. On theground that harmony is the truth of being, the Science of Mind-healingdestroys the feasibility of disease; hence error of thought becomes fableinstead of fact. Science demonstrates the reality of Truth and theunreality of the error. A self-evident proposition, in the Science ofMind-healing, is that disease is unreal; and the efficacy of my system, beyond other systems of medicine, vouches for the validity of thatstatement. Sin and disease are not scientific, because they embody not theidea of divine Principle, and are not the phenomena of the immutable lawsof God; and they do not arise from the divine consciousness and trueconstituency of being. The unreality of sin, disease, and death, rests on the exclusive truth thatbeing, to be eternal, must be harmonious. All disease must be--and can onlybe--healed on this basis. All true Christian Scientists are vindicating, fearlessly and honestly, the Principle of this grand verity ofMind-healing. In erring mortal thought the reality of Truth has an antipode, --the realityof error; and disease is one of the severe realities of this error. God hasno opposite in Science. To Truth there is no error. As Truth alone is real, then it follows that to declare error real would be to make it Truth. Disease arises from a false and material sense, from the belief that matterhas sensation. Therefore this material sense, which is untrue, is ofnecessity unreal. Moreover, this unreal sense substitutes for Truth anunreal belief, --namely, that life and health are independent of God, anddependent on material conditions. Material sense also avers that Spirit, orTruth, cannot restore health and perpetuate life, but that materialconditions can and do destroy both human health and life. If disease is as real as health, and is itself a state of being, and yet isarrayed against being, then Mind, or God, does not meddle with it. Diseasebecomes indeed a stubborn reality, and man is mortal. A "kingdom dividedagainst itself is brought to desolation;" therefore the mind that attacks anormal and real condition of man, is profanely tampering with the realitiesof God and His laws. Metaphysical healing is a lost jewel in thismisconception of reality. Any contradictory fusion of Truth with error, inboth theory and practice, prevents one from healing scientifically, andmakes the last state of one's patients worse than the first. If disease isreal it is not illusive, and it certainly would contradict the Science ofMind-healing to attempt to destroy the realities of Mind in order to healthe sick. On the theory that God's formations are spiritual, harmonious, and eternal, and that God is the only creator, Christian Science refutes the validity ofthe testimony of the senses, which take cognizance of their ownphenomena, --sickness, disease, and death. This refutation is indispensableto the destruction of false evidence, and the consequent cure of thesick, --as all understand who practise the true Science of Mind-healing. If, as the error indicates, the evidence of disease is not false, then diseasecannot be healed by denying its validity; and this is why the mistakenhealer is not successful, trying to heal on a material basis. The evidence that the earth is motionless and the sun revolves around ourplanet, is as sensible and real as the evidence for disease; but Sciencedetermines the evidence in both cases to be unreal. To material sense it isplain also that the error of the revolution of the sun around the earth ismore apparent than the adverse but true Science of the stellar universe. Copernicus has shown that what appears real, to material sense and feeling, is absolutely unreal. Astronomy, optics, acoustics, and hydraulics are allat war with the testimony of the physical senses. This fact intimates thatthe laws of Science are mental, not material; and Christian Sciencedemonstrates this. SCIENCE OF MIND-HEALING The rule of divinity is golden; to be wise and true rejoices every heart. But evil influences waver the scales of justice and mercy. No personalconsiderations should allow any root of bitterness to spring up betweenChristian Scientists, nor cause any misapprehension as to the motives ofothers. We must love our enemies, and continue to do so unto the end. Bythe love of God we can cancel error in our own hearts, and blot it out ofothers. Sooner or later the eyes of sinful mortals must be opened to see everyerror they possess, and the way out of it; and they will "flee as a bird toyour mountain, " away from the enemy of sinning sense, stubborn will, andevery imperfection in the land of Sodom, and find rescue and refuge inTruth and Love. Every loving sacrifice for the good of others is known to God, and thewrath of man cannot hide it from Him. God has appointed for ChristianScientists high tasks, and will not release them from the strictperformance of each one of them. The students must now fight their ownbattles. I recommend that Scientists draw no lines whatever between oneperson and another, but think, speak, teach, and write the truth ofChristian Science without reference to right or wrong personality in thisfield of labor. Leave the distinctions of individual character and thediscriminations and guidance thereof to the Father, whose wisdom isunerring and whose love is universal. We should endeavor to be long-suffering, faithful, and charitable with all. To this small effort let us add one more privilege--namely, silencewhenever it can substitute censure. Avoid voicing error; but utter thetruth of God and the beauty of holiness, the joy of Love and "the peace ofGod, that passeth all understanding, " recommending to all men fellowship inthe bonds of Christ. Advise students to rebuke each other always in love, as I have rebuked them. Having discharged this duty, counsel each other towork out his own salvation, without fear or doubt, knowing that God willmake the wrath of man to praise Him, and that the remainder thereof He willrestrain. We can rejoice that every germ of goodness will at last struggleinto freedom and greatness, and every sin will so punish itself that itwill bow down to the commandments of Christ, --Truth and Love. I enjoin it upon my students to hold no controversy or enmity overdoctrines and traditions, or over the misconceptions of Christian Science, but to work, watch, and pray for the amelioration of sin, sickness, anddeath. If one be found who is too blind for instruction, no longer castyour pearls before this state of mortal mind, lest it turn and rend you;but quietly, with benediction and hope, let the unwise pass by, while youwalk on in equanimity, and with increased power, patience, andunderstanding, gained from your forbearance. This counsel is not new, asmy Christian students can testify; and if it had been heeded in times pastit would have prevented, to a great extent, the factions which have sprungup among Scientists to the hindrance of the Cause of Truth. It is true thatthe mistakes, prejudices, and errors of one class of thinkers must not beintroduced or established among another class who are clearer and moreconscientious in their convictions; but this one thing can be done, andshould be: let your opponents alone, and use no influence to prevent theirlegitimate action from their own standpoint of experience, knowing, as youshould, that God will well regenerate and separate wisely and finally;whereas you may err in effort, and lose your fruition. Hoping to pacify repeated complaints and murmurings against too greatleniency, on my part, towards some of my students who fall into error, Ihave opposed occasionally and strongly--especially in the first edition ofthis little work--existing wrongs of the nature referred to. But I nowpoint steadfastly to the power of grace to overcome evil with good. Godwill "furnish a table in the wilderness" and show the power of Love. Science is not the shibboleth of a sect or the cabalistic insignia ofphilosophy; it excludes all error and includes all Truth. More mistakes aremade in its name than this period comprehends. Divinely defined, Science isthe atmosphere of God; humanly construed, and according to Webster, it is"knowledge, duly arranged and referred to general truths and principles onwhich it is founded, and from which it is derived. " I employ thisawe-filled word in both a divine and human sense; but I insist thatChristian Science is demonstrably as true, relative to the unseen veritiesof being, as any proof that can be given of the completeness of Science. The two largest words in the vocabulary of thought are "Christian" and"Science. " The former is the highest style of man; the latter reveals andinterprets God and man; it aggregates, amplifies, unfolds, and expressesthe ALL-God. The life of Christ is the predicate and postulate ofall that I teach, and there is but one standard statement, one rule, andone Principle for all scientific truth. My hygienic system rests on Mind, the eternal Truth. What is termed matter, or relates to its so-called attributes, is a self-destroying error. When aso-called material sense is lost, and Truth restores that lost sense, --onthe basis that all consciousness is Mind and eternal, --the former position, that sense is organic and material, is proven erroneous. The feasibility and immobility of Christian Science unveil the trueidea, --namely, that earth's discords have not the reality of Mind in theScience of being; and this idea--dematerializing and spiritualizingmortals--turns like the needle to the pole all hope and faith to God, basedas it is on His omnipotence and omnipresence. Eternal harmony, perpetuity, and perfection, constitute the phenomena ofbeing, governed by the immutable and eternal laws of God; whereas matterand human will, intellect, desire, and fear, are not the creators, controllers, nor destroyers of life or its harmonies. Man has an immortalSoul, a divine Principle, and an eternal being. Man has perpetualindividuality; and God's laws, and their intelligent and harmonious action, constitute his individuality in the Science of Soul. In its literary expression, my system of Christian metaphysics is hamperedby material terms, which must be used to indicate thoughts that are to beunderstood metaphysically. As a Science, this system is held back by thecommon ignorance of what it is and what it does, and (worse still) by thosewho come falsely in its name. To be appreciated, Science must be understoodand conscientiously introduced. If the Bible and Science and Health had theplace in schools of learning that physiology occupies, they wouldrevolutionize and reform the world, through the power of Christ. It is truethat it requires more study to understand and demonstrate what these worksteach, than to learn theology, physiology, or physics; because they teachdivine Science, with fixed Principle, given rule, and unmistakable proof. Ancient and modern human philosophy are inadequate to grasp the Principleof Christian Science, or to demonstrate it. Revelation shows thisPrinciple, and will rescue reason from the thrall of error. Revelation mustsubdue the sophistry of intellect, and spiritualize consciousness with thedictum and the demonstration of Truth and Love. Christian ScienceMind-healing can only be gained by working from a purely Christianstandpoint. Then it heals the sick and exalts the race. The essence of thisScience is right thinking and right acting--leading us to see spiritualityand to be spiritual, to understand and to demonstrate God. The Massachusetts Metaphysical College and Church of Christ, Scientist, inBoston, were the outgrowth of the author's religious experience. After alifetime of orthodoxy on the platform of doctrines, rites, and ceremonies, it became a sacred duty for her to impart to others this new-old knowledgeof God. The same affection, desire, and motives which have stimulated trueChristianity in all ages, and given impulse to goodness, in or out of theChurch, have nerved her purpose to build on the new-born conception of theChrist, as Jesus declared himself, --namely, "the way, the truth, and thelife. " Living a true life, casting out evil, healing the sick, andpreaching the gospel of Truth, --these are the ends of Christianity. Thisdivine way impels a spiritualization of thought and method, beyond doctrineand ritual; and in nothing else has she departed from the old landmarks. The unveiled spiritual signification of the Word so enlarges our sense ofGod that it makes both sense and Soul, man and Life, immaterial, thoughstill individual. It removes all limits from divine power. God must befound all instead of a part of being, and man the reflection of His powerand goodness. This Science rebukes sin with its own nothingness, and thusdestroys sin quickly and utterly. It makes disease unreal, and this healsit. The demonstration of moral and physical growth, and a scientific deductionfrom the Principle of all harmony, declare both the Principle and idea tobe divine. If this be true, then death must be swallowed up in Life, andthe prophecy of Jesus fulfilled, "Whosoever liveth and believeth in meshall never die. " Though centuries passed after those words were originallyuttered, before this reappearing of Truth, and though the hiatus be longerstill before that saying is demonstrated in Life that knows no death, thedeclaration is nevertheless true, and remains a clear and profounddeduction from Christian Science. IS CHRISTIAN SCIENCE OF THE SAME LINEAGE AS SPIRITUALISM ORTHEOSOPHY? Science is not susceptible of being held as a mere theory. It is hoary withtime. It takes hold of eternity, voices the infinite, and governs theuniverse. No greater opposites can be conceived of, physically, morally, and spiritually, than Christian Science, spiritualism, and theosophy. Science and Health has effected a revolution in the minds of thinkers onthe subject of mediumship, and given impulse to reason and revelation, goodness and virtue. A theory may be sound in spots, and sparkle like adiamond, while other parts of it have no lustre. Christian Science issound in every part. It is neither warped nor misconceived, when properlydemonstrated. If a spiritualist medium understood the Science ofMind-healing, he would know that between those who have and those who havenot passed the transition called death, there can be no interchange ofconsciousness, and that all sensible phenomena are merely subjective statesof mortal mind. Theosophy is a corruption of Judaism. This corruption had a renewal in theNeoplatonic philosophy; but it sprang from the Oriental philosophy ofBrahmanism, and blends with its magic and enchantments. Theosophy is nomore allied to Christian Science than the odor of the upas-tree is to thesweet breath of springtide, or the brilliant coruscations of the northernsky are to solar heat and light. IS CHRISTIAN SCIENCE FROM BENEATH, AND NOT FROM ABOVE? Hear the words of our Master: "Go ye into all the world"! "Heal the sick, cast out devils"! Christian Scientists, perhaps more than any otherreligious sect, are obeying these commands; and the injunctions are notconfined to Jesus' students in that age, but they extend to this age, --toas many as shall believe on him. The demand and example of Jesus were notfrom beneath. Are frozen dogmas, persistent persecution, and the doctrineof eternal damnation, from above? Are the dews of divine Truth, falling onthe sick and sinner, to heal them, from beneath? "By their fruits ye shallknow them. " Reading my books, without prejudice, would convince all that their purposeis right. The comprehension of my teachings would enable any one to provethese books to be filled with blessings for the whole human family. Fatiguing Bible translations and voluminous commentaries are employed toexplain and prop old creeds, and they have the civil and religious arms intheir defense; then why should not these be equally extended to support theChristianity that heals the sick? The notions of personality to be found increeds are far more mystic than Mind-healing. It is no easy matter tobelieve there are three persons in one person, and that one person is castout of another person. These conceptions of Deity and devil presuppose animpotent God and an incredible Satan. IS CHRISTIAN SCIENCE PANTHEISTIC? Christian Science refutes pantheism, finds Spirit neither in matter nor inthe modes of mortal mind. It shows that matter and mortal mind have neitherorigin nor existence in the eternal Mind. Thinking otherwise is whatestranges mortals from divine Life and Love. God is All-in-all. He isSpirit; and in nothing is He unlike Himself. Nothing that "worketh ormaketh a lie" is to be found in the divine consciousness. For God to know, is to be; that is, what He knows must truly and eternally exist. If Heknows matter, and matter can exist in Mind, then mortality and discord mustbe eternal. He is Mind; and whatever He knows is made manifest, and must beTruth. If God knows evil even as a false claim, this knowledge would manifest evilin Him and proceeding from Him. Christian Science shows that matter, evil, sin, sickness, and death are but negations of Spirit, Truth, and Life, which are positives that cannot be gainsaid. The subjective states of evil, called mortal mind or matter, are negatives destitute of time and space;for there is none beside God or Spirit and the idea of Spirit. This infinite logic is the infinite light, --uncomprehended, yet forevergiving forth more light, because it has no darkness to emit. Mortals do notunderstand the All; hence their inference of some other existence besideGod and His true likeness, --of something unlike Him. He who is All, understands all. He can have no knowledge or inference but His ownconsciousness, and can take in no more than all. The mists of matter--sin, sickness, and death--disappear in proportion asmortals approach Spirit, which is the reality of being. It is not enough tosay that matter is the substratum of evil, and that its highest attenuationis mortal mind; for there is, strictly speaking, _no_ mortal mind. Mind isimmortal. Death is the consequent of an antecedent false assumption of therealness of something unreal, material, and mortal. If God knows theantecedent, He must produce its consequences. From this logic there is noescape. Matter, or evil, is the absence of Spirit or good. Theirnothingness is thus proven; for God is good, ever-present, and All. "In Him we live, and move, and have our being;" consequently it isimpossible for the true man--who is a spiritual and individual being, created in the eternal Science of being--to be conscious of aught but good. God's image and likeness can never be less than a good man; and for man tobe more than God's likeness is impossible. Man is the climax of creation;and God is not without an ever-present witness, testifying of Himself. Matter, or any mode of mortal mind, is neither part nor parcel of divineconsciousness and God's verity. In Science there is no fallen state of being; for therein is no invertedimage of God, no escape from the focal radiation of the infinite. Hence theunreality of error, and the truth of the Scripture, that there is "nonebeside Him. " If mortals could grasp these two words _all_ and _nothing_, this mystery of a God who has no knowledge of sin would disappear, and theeternal, infinite harmony would be fathomed. If God could know a falseclaim, false knowledge would be a part of His consciousness. Then evilwould be as real as good, sickness as real as health, death as real asLife; and sickness, sin, and death would be as eternal as God. IS CHRISTIAN SCIENCE BLASPHEMOUS? Blasphemy has never diminished sin and sickness, nor acknowledged God inall His ways. Blasphemy rebukes not the godless lie that denies Him asAll-in-all, nor does it ascribe to Him all presence, power, and glory. Christian Science does this. If Science lacked the proof of its origin inGod, it would be self-destructive, for it rests alone on the demonstrationof God's supremacy and omnipotence. Right thinking and right acting, physical and moral harmony, come with Science, and the secret of itspresence lies in the universal need of better health and morals. Human theories, when weighed in the balance, are found unequal to thedemonstration of divine Life and Love; and their highest endeavors are, todivine Science, what a child's love of pictures is to art. A child, in hisignorance, may imagine the face of Dante to be the rapt face of Jesus. Thusfalsely may the human conceive of the Divine. If the schoolmaster is notChrist, the school gets things wrong, and knows it not; but the teacher ismorally responsible. Good health and a more spiritual religion are the common wants; and thesewants have wrought this moral result, --that the so-called mortal mind asksfor what Mind alone can supply. This demand militates against the so-calleddemands of matter, and regulates the present high premium on Mind-healing. If the uniform moral and spiritual, as well as physical, effects ofChristian Science were lacking, the premium would go down. That itcontinues to rise, and the demand to increase, shows its real value to therace. Even doctors will agree that infidelity, ignorance, and quackery havenever met the growing wants of humanity. Christian Science is no "Bostoncraze;" it is the sober second thought of advancing humanity. IS THERE A PERSONAL DEITY? God is infinite. He is neither a limited mind nor a limited body. God isLove; and Love is Principle, not person. What the person of the infiniteis, we know not; but we are gratefully and lovingly conscious of thefatherliness of this Supreme Being. God is individual, and man is Hisindividualized idea. While material man and the physical senses receive nospiritual idea, and feel no sensation of divine Love, spiritual man and hisspiritual senses are drinking in the nature and essence of the individualinfinite. A sinful sense is incompetent to understand the realities ofbeing, --that Life is God, and that man is in His image and likeness. Asinner can take no cognizance of the noumenon or the phenomena of Spirit;but leaving sin, sense rises to the fulness of the stature of man inChrist. Person is formed after the manner of mortal man, so far as he can conceiveof personality. Limitless personality is inconceivable. His person andperfection are neither self-created, nor discerned through imperfection;and of God as a person, human reason, imagination, and revelation give usno knowledge. Error would fashion Deity in a manlike mould, while Truth ismoulding a Godlike man. When the term divine Principle is used to signify Deity it may seem distantor cold, until better apprehended. This Principle is Mind, substance, Life, Truth, Love. When understood, Principle is found to be the only term thatfully conveys the ideas of God, --one Mind, a perfect man, and divineScience. As the divine Principle is comprehended, God's omnipotence andomnipresence will dawn on mortals, and the notion of an everywhere-presentbody--or of an infinite Mind starting from a finite body, and returning toit--will disappear. Ever-present Love must seem ever absent to ever-present selfishness ormaterial sense. Hence this asking amiss and receiving not, and the commonidolatry of man-worship. In divine Science, God is recognized as the onlypower, presence, and glory. Adam's mistiness and Satan's reasoning, ever since the flood, --whenspecimens of every kind emerged from the ark, --have run through the veinsof all human philosophy. Human reason is a blind guide, a continued seriesof mortal hypotheses, antagonistic to Revelation and Science. It iscontinually straying into forbidden by-paths of sensualism, contrary tothe life and teachings of Jesus and Paul, and the vision of the Apocalypse. Human philosophy has ninety-nine parts of error to the one-hundredth partof Truth, --an unsafe decoction for the race. The Science that Jesusdemonstrated, whose views of Truth Confucius and Plato but dimly discerned, Science and Health interprets. It was not a search after wisdom; it waswisdom, and it grasped in spiritual law the universe, --all time, space, immortality, thought, extension. This Science demonstrated the Principle ofall phenomena, identity, individuality, law; and showed man as reflectingGod and the divine capacity. Human philosophy would dethrone perfection, and substitute matter and evil for divine means and ends. Human philosophy has an undeveloped God, who unfolds Himself throughmaterial modes, wherein the human and divine mingle in the same realm andconsciousness. This is rank infidelity; because by it we lose God's waysand perpetuate the supposed power and reality of evil _ad infinitum_. Christian Science rends this veil in the pantheon of many gods, andreproduces the teachings of Jesus, whose philosophy is incontestable, bearsthe strain of time, and brings in the glories of eternity; "for otherfoundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ. " Divine philosophy is demonstrably the true idea of the Christ, whereinPrinciple heals and saves. A philosophy which cannot heal the sick haslittle resemblance to Science, and is, to say the least, like a cloudwithout rain, "driven about by every wind of doctrine. " Such philosophyhas certainly not touched the hem of the Christ garment. Leibnitz, Descartes, Fichte, Hegel, Spinoza, Bishop Berkeley, were onceclothed with a "brief authority;" but Berkeley ended his metaphysicaltheory with a treatise on the healing properties of tar-water, and Hegelwas an inveterate snuff-taker. The circumlocution and cold categories ofKant fail to improve the conditions of mortals, morally, spiritually, orphysically. Such miscalled metaphysical systems are reeds shaken by thewind. Compared with the inspired wisdom and infinite meaning of the Word ofTruth, they are as moonbeams to the sun, or as Stygian night to thekindling dawn. IS THERE A PERSONAL DEVIL? No man hath seen the person of good or of evil. Each is greater than thecorporeality we behold. "He cast out _devils_. " This record shows that the term devil is generic, being used in the plural number. From this it follows that there is morethan one devil. That Jesus cast several persons out of another person, isnot stated, and is impossible. Hence the passage must refer to the _evils_which were cast out. Jesus defined devil as a mortal who is full of evil. "Have I not chosen youtwelve, and one of you _is a devil_?" His definition of evil indicated hisability to cast it out. An incorrect concept of the nature of evil hindersthe destruction of evil. To conceive of God as resembling--in personality, or form--the personality that Jesus condemned as devilish, is fraught withspiritual danger. Evil can neither grasp the prerogative of God nor makeevil omnipotent and omnipresent. Jesus said to Peter, "Get thee behind me, Satan;" but he to whom our Lordgave the keys of the kingdom could not have been wholly evil, and thereforewas not a _devil_, after the accepted definition. Out of the Magdalen, Jesus cast seven devils; but not one person was named among them. Accordingto Crabtre, these devils were the diseases Jesus cast out. The most eminent divines, in Europe and America, concede that theScriptures have both a literal and a moral meaning. Which of the two is themore important to gain, --the literal or the moral sense of the word_devil_, --in order to cast out this devil? Evil is a quality, not anindividual. As mortals, we need to discern the claims of evil, and to fight theseclaims, not as realities, but as illusions; but Deity can have no suchwarfare against Himself. Knowledge of a man's physical personality is notsufficient to inform us as to the amount of good or evil he possesses. Hence we cannot understand God or man, through the person of either. God isAll-in-all; but He is definite and individual, the omnipresent andomniscient Mind; and man's individuality is God's own image andlikeness, --even the immeasurable idea of divine Mind. In the Science ofgood, evil loses all place, person, and power. According to Spinoza's philosophy God is amplification. He is in allthings, and therefore He is in evil in human thought. He is extension, ofwhatever character. Also, according to Spinoza, man is an animal vegetable, developed through the lower orders of matter and mortal mind. All thesevagaries are at variance with my system of metaphysics, which rests on Godas One and All, and denies the actual existence of both matter and evil. According to false philosophy and scholastic theology, God is three personsin one person. By the same token, evil is not only as real as good, butmuch more real, since evil subordinates good in personality. The claims of evil become both less and more in Christian Science, than inhuman philosophies or creeds: _more_, because the evil that is hidden bydogma and human reason is uncovered by Science; and _less_, because evil, being thus uncovered, is found out, and exposure is nine points ofdestruction. Then appears the grand verity of Christian Science: namely, that evil has no claims and was never a claimant; for behold evil (ordevil) is, as Jesus said, "a murderer from the beginning, and the truthabode not in him. " There was never a moment in which evil was real. This great fact concerningall error brings with it another and more glorious truth, that good issupreme. As there is none beside Him, and He is all good, there can be noevil. Simply uttering this great thought is not enough! We must live it, until God becomes the All and Only of our being. Having won through greattribulation this cardinal point of divine Science, St. Paul said, "But nowwe are delivered from the law, that being dead wherein we were held; thatwe should serve in newness of spirit, and not in the oldness of theletter. " IS MAN A PERSON? Man is more than physical personality, or what we cognize through thematerial senses. Mind is more than matter, even as the infinite idea ofTruth is beyond a finite belief. Man outlives finite mortal definitions ofhimself, according to a law of "the survival of the fittest. " Man is theeternal idea of his divine Principle, or Father. He is neither matter nor amode of mortal mind, for he is spiritual and eternal, an immortal mode ofthe divine Mind. Man is the image and likeness of God, coexistent andcoeternal with Him. Man is not absorbed in Deity; for he is forever individual; but what thiseverlasting individuality is, remains to be learned. Mortals have not seenit. That which is born of the flesh is not man's eternal identity. Spiritual and immortal man alone is God's likeness, and that which ismortal is not man in a spiritually scientific sense. A material, sinfulmortal is but the counterfeit of immortal man. The mind-quacks believe that mortal man is identical with immortal man, and that the immortal is inside the mortal; that good and evil blend; thatmatter and Spirit are one; and that Soul, or Spirit, is subdivided intospirits, or souls, --_alias_ gods. This infantile talk about Mind-healing isno more identical with Christian Science than the babe is identical withthe adult, or the human belief resembles the divine idea. Hence it isimpossible for those holding such material and mortal views to demonstratemy metaphysics. Theirs is the sensuous thought, which brings forth its ownsensuous conception. Mine is the spiritual idea which transfigures thought. All real being represents God, and is in Him. In this Science of being, mancan no more relapse or collapse from perfection, than his divine Principle, or Father, can fall out of Himself into something below infinitude. Man'sreal ego, or selfhood, is goodness. If man's individuality were evil, hewould be annihilated, for evil is self-destroying. Man's individual being must reflect the supreme individual Being, to be Hisimage and likeness; and this individuality never originated in molecule, corpuscle, materiality, or mortality. God holds man in the eternal bonds ofScience, --in the immutable harmony of divine law. Man is a celestial; andin the spiritual universe he is forever individual and forever harmonious. "If God so clothe the grass of the field, . . . Shall He not much more clotheyou, O ye of little faith?" Sin must be obsolete, --dust returning to dust, nothingness to nothingness. Sin is not Mind; it is but the supposition that there is more than oneMind. It issues a false claim; and the claim, being worthless, is inreality no claim whatever. Matter is not Mind, to claim aught; but Mind isGod, and evil finds no place in good. When we get near enough to God to seethis, the springtide of Truth in Christian Science will burst upon us inthe similitude of the Apocalyptic pictures. No night will be there, andthere will be no more sea. There will be no need of the sun, for Spiritwill be the light of the city, and matter will be proved a myth. Untilcenturies pass, and this vision of Truth is fully interpreted by divineScience, this prophecy will be scoffed at; but it is just as veritable nowas it can be then. Science, divine Science, presents the grand and eternalverities of God and man as the divine Mind and that Mind's idea. Mortal man is the antipode of immortal man, and the two should not beconfounded. Bishop Foster said, in a lecture in Boston, "No man living hathyet seen man. " This material sinful personality, which we misname man, iswhat St. Paul terms "the old man and his deeds, " to be "put off. " Who can say what the absolute personality of God or man is? Who living hathseen God or a perfect man? In presence of such thoughts take off thy shoesand tread lightly, for this is holy ground. Surely the probation of mortalsmust go on after the change called death, that they may learn thedefinition of immortal being; or else their present mistakes wouldextinguish human existence. How long this false sense remains after thetransition called death, no mortal knoweth; but this is sure, that themists of error, sooner or later, will melt in the fervent heat ofsuffering, mortality will burst the barriers of sense, and man be foundperfect and eternal. Of his intermediate conditions--the purifyingprocesses and terrible revolutions necessary to effect this end--I amignorant. Inasmuch as these momentous facts in the Science of being must be learnedsome time, now is the most acceptable time for beginning the lesson. IfScience is pointing the way, and is found to bring with it health, holiness, and immortality, then to-day is none too soon for entering thispath. The proof that Christian Science is the way of salvation given byChrist, I consider well established. The present, as well as the future, reveals the fact that Truth is never understood too soon. Has Truth, as demonstrated by Jesus, reappeared? Study Christian Scienceand practise it, and you will know that Truth has reappeared. What isdemonstrably true cannot be gainsaid; but getting the letter and omittingthe spirit of this Science is neither the comprehension of its Principlenor the practice of its Life. HAS MAN A SOUL? The Scriptures inform us that "the soul that sinneth, it shall die. " Here_soul_ means sense and organic life; and this passage refers to the Jewishlaw, that a mortal should be put to death for his own sin, but not foranother's. Not Soul, but mortal sense, sins and dies. Immortal man hasimmortal Soul and a deathless sense of being. Mortal man has but a falsesense of Soul and body. He believes that Spirit, or Soul, exists in matter. This is pantheism, and is not the Science of Soul. The mind-quacks have soslight a knowledge of Soul that they believe material and sinning sense tobe soul; and then they doctor this soul as if it were not even a materialsense. In Dr. Gordon's sermon on The Ministry of Healing, he said, "The forgivensoul in a sick body is not half a man. " Is this pantheistic statement soundtheology, --that Soul is in matter, and the immortal part of man a sinner?Is not this a disparagement of the person of man and a denial of God'spower? Better far that we impute such doctrines to mortal opinion than tothe divine Word. To my sense, such a statement is a shocking reflection on the divine power. A mortal pardoned by God is not sick, he is made whole. He in whom sin, disease, and death are destroyed, is more than a fraction of himself. Suchsermons, though clad in soft raiment, are spiritless waifs, literarydriftwood on the ocean of thought; while Truth walks triumphantly over thewaves of sin, sickness, and death. The law of Life and Truth is the law of Christ, destroying all sense ofsin and death. It does more than forgive the false sense named sin, for itpursues and punishes it, and will not let sin go until it isdestroyed, --until nothing is left to be forgiven, to suffer, or to bepunished. Forgiven thus, sickness and sin have no relapse. God's lawreaches and destroys evil by virtue of the allness of God. He need not know the evil He destroys, any more than the legislator needknow the criminal who is punished by the law enacted. God's law is in threewords, "I am All;" and this perfect law is ever present to rebuke any claimof another law. God pities our woes with the love of a Father for Hischild, --not by becoming human, and knowing sin, or naught, but by removingour knowledge of what is not. He could not destroy our woes totally if Hepossessed any knowledge of them. His sympathy is divine, not human. It isTruth's knowledge of its own infinitude which forbids the genuine existenceof even a claim to error. This knowledge is light wherein there is nodarkness, --not light holding darkness within itself. The consciousness oflight is like the eternal law of God, revealing Him and nothing else. Sympathy with sin, sorrow, and sickness would dethrone God as Truth, forTruth has no sympathy for error. In Science, the cure of the sickdemonstrates this grand verity of Christian Science, that you cannoteradicate disease if you admit that God sends it or sees it. Material andmortal mind-healing (so-called) has for ages been a pretender, but has nothealed mortals; and they are yet sick and sinful. Disease and sin appear to-day in subtler forms than they did yesterday. They progress and will multiply into worse forms, until it is understoodthat disease and sin are unreal, _unknown_ to Truth, and never actualpersons or real facts. Our phraseology varies. To me _divine pardon_ is that divine presence whichis the sure destruction of sin; and I insist on the destruction of sin asthe only full proof of its pardon. "For this purpose the Son of God wasmanifested, that he might _destroy_ the works of the devil" (1 John iii. 8). Jesus cast out evils, mediating between what is and is not, until a perfectconsciousness is attained. He healed disease as he healed sin; but hetreated them both, not as in or of matter, but as mortal beliefs to beexterminated. Physical and mental healing were one and the same with thismaster Metaphysician. If the evils called sin, sickness, and death had beenforgiven in the generally accepted sense, they would have returned, to beagain forgiven; but Jesus said to disease: "Come out of him, and enter nomore into him. " He said also: "If a man keep my saying, he shall never seedeath;" and "Whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound inheaven. " The misinterpretation of such passages has retarded the progressof Christianity and the spiritualization of the race. A magistrate's pardon may encourage a criminal to repeat the offense;because _forgiveness_, in the popular sense of the word, can neitherextinguish a crime nor the motives leading to it. The belief in sin--itspleasure, pain, or power--must suffer, until it is self-destroyed. "Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. " IS THERE ANY SUCH THING AS SIN? Frequently when I touch this subject my meaning is ignorantly ormaliciously misconstrued. Christian Science Mind-healing lifts with asteady arm, and cleaves sin with a broad battle-axe. It gives the lie tosin, in the spirit of Truth; but other theories make sin true. Jesusdeclared that the devil was "a liar, and the father of it. " A lie isnegation, --_alias_ nothing, or the opposite of something. Good is great andreal. Hence its opposite, named _evil_, must be small and unreal. When thissense is attained, we shall no longer be the servants of sin, and shallcease to love it. The domination of good destroys the sense of evil. To illustrate: It seemsa great evil to belie and belittle Christian Science, and persecute a Causewhich is healing its thousands and rapidly diminishing the percentage ofsin. But reduce this evil to its lowest terms, _nothing_, and slanderloses its power to harm; for even the wrath of man shall praise Him. Thereduction of evil, in Science, gives the dominance to God, and must lead usto bless those who curse, that thus we may overcome evil with good. If the Bible and my work Science and Health had their rightful place inschools of learning, they would revolutionize the world by advancing thekingdom of Christ. It requires sacrifice, struggle, prayer, andwatchfulness to understand and demonstrate what these volumes teach, because they involve divine Science, with fixed Principle, a given rule, and unmistakable proof. IS THERE NO SACRIFICIAL ATONEMENT? Self-sacrifice is the highway to heaven. The sacrifice of our blessed Lordis undeniable, and it was a million times greater than the brief agony ofthe cross; for that would have been insufficient to insure the glory hissacrifice brought and the good it wrought. The spilling of human blood wasinadequate to represent the blood of Christ, the outpouring love thatsustains man's at-one-ment with God; though shedding human blood brought tolight the efficacy of divine Life and Love and its power over death. Jesus'sacrifice stands preeminently amidst physical suffering and human woe. Theglory of human life is in overcoming sickness, sin, and death. Jesussuffered for all mortals to bring in this glory; and his purpose was toshow them that the way out of the flesh, out of the delusion of all humanerror, must be through the baptism of suffering, leading up to health, harmony, and heaven. We shall leave the ceremonial law when we gain the truer sense of followingChrist in spirit, and we shall no longer venture to materialize thespiritual and infinite meaning and efficacy of Truth and Love, and thesacrifice that Jesus made for us, by commemorating his death with amaterial rite. Jesus said: "The hour cometh, and now is, when the trueworshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth. " They drinkthe cup of Christ and are baptized in the purification of persecution whodiscern his true merit, --the unseen glory of suffering for others. Physicaltorture affords but a slight illustration of the pangs which come to oneupon whom the world of sense falls with its leaden weight in the endeavorto crush out of a career its divine destiny. The blood of Christ speaketh better things than that of Abel. The realatonement--so infinitely beyond the heathen conception that God requireshuman blood to propitiate His justice and bring His mercy--needs to beunderstood. The real blood or Life of Spirit is not yet discerned. Lovebruised and bleeding, yet mounting to the throne of glory in purity andpeace, over the steps of uplifted humanity, --this is the deep significanceof the blood of Christ. Nameless woe, everlasting victories, are the blood, the vital currents of Christ Jesus' life, purchasing the freedom of mortalsfrom sin and death. This blood of Jesus is everything to human hope and faith. Without it, howpoor the precedents of Christianity! What manner of Science were ChristianScience without the power to demonstrate the Principle of such Life; andwhat hope have mortals but through deep humility and adoration to reach theunderstanding of this Principle! When human struggles cease, and mortalsyield lovingly to the purpose of divine Love, there will be no moresickness, sorrow, sin, and death. He who pointed the way of Life conqueredalso the drear subtlety of death. It was not to appease the wrath of God, but to show the allness of Love andthe nothingness of hate, sin, and death, that Jesus suffered. He lived thatwe also might live. He suffered, to show mortals the awful price paid bysin, and how to avoid paying it. He atoned for the terrible unreality of asupposed existence apart from God. He suffered because of the shockinghuman idolatry that presupposes Life, substance, Soul, and intelligence inmatter, --which is the antipode of God, and yet governs mankind. Theglorious truth of being--namely, that God is the only Mind, Life, substance, Soul--needs no reconciliation with God, for it is one with Himnow and forever. Jesus came announcing Truth, and saying not only "the kingdom of God is athand, " but "the kingdom of God is within you. " Hence there is no sin, forGod's kingdom is everywhere and supreme, and it follows that the humankingdom is nowhere, and must be _unreal_. Jesus taught and demonstratedthe infinite as one, and not as two. He did not teach that there are twodeities, --one infinite and the other finite; for that would be impossible. He knew God as infinite, and therefore as the All-in-all; and we shall knowthis truth when we awake in the divine likeness. Jesus' true and consciousbeing never left heaven for earth. It abode forever above, even whilemortals believed it was here. He once spoke of himself (John iii. 13) as"the Son of man which is in heaven, "--remarkable words, as wholly opposedto the popular view of Jesus' nature. The real Christ was unconscious of matter, of sin, disease, and death, andwas conscious only of God, of good, of eternal Life, and harmony. Hence thehuman Jesus had a resort to his higher self and relation to the Father, andthere could find rest from unreal trials in the conscious reality androyalty of his being, --holding the mortal as unreal, and the divine asreal. It was this retreat from material to spiritual selfhood whichrecuperated him for triumph over sin, sickness, and death. Had he been asconscious of these evils as he was of God, wherein there is noconsciousness of human error, Jesus could not have resisted them; nor couldhe have conquered the malice of his foes, rolled away the stone from thesepulchre, and risen from human sense to a higher concept than that inwhich he appeared at his birth. Mankind's concept of Jesus was a babe born in a manger, even while thedivine and ideal Christ was the Son of God, spiritual and eternal. Inhuman conception God's offspring had to grow, develop; but in Science hisdivine nature and manhood were forever complete, and dwelt forever in theFather. Jesus said, "Ye do err, not knowing the Scriptures, nor the powerof God. " Mortal thought gives the eternal God and infinite consciousnessthe license of a short-lived sinner, to begin and end, to know both eviland good; when evil is temporal and God is eternal, --and when, as a sphereof Mind, He cannot know beginning or end. The spiritual interpretation of the vicarious atonement of Jesus, inChristian Science, unfolds the full-orbed glory of that event; but toregard this wonder of glory, this most marvellous demonstration, as apersonal and material bloodgiving--or as a proof that sin is known to thedivine Mind, and that what is unlike God demands His continual presence, knowledge, and power, to meet and master it--would make the atonement to beless than the _at-one-ment_, whereby the work of Jesus would lose itsefficacy and lack the "signs following. " From Genesis to Revelation the Scriptures teach an infinite God, and nonebeside Him; and on this basis Messiah and prophet saved the sinner andraised the dead, --uplifting the human understanding, buried in a falsesense of being. Jesus rendered null and void whatever is unlike God; but hecould not have done this if error and sin existed in the Mind of God. WhatGod knows, He also predestinates; and it must be fulfilled. Jesus provedto perfection, so far as this could be done in that age, what ChristianScience is to-day proving in a small degree, --the falsity of the evidenceof the material senses that sin, sickness, and death are sensible claims, and that God substantiates their evidence by knowing their claim. Heestablished the only true idealism on the basis that God is All, and He isgood, and good is Spirit; hence there is no intelligent sin, evil _mind_ ormatter: and this is the only true philosophy and realism. This divinemystery of godliness was the rock of Truth, on which he built his Church ofthe new-born, against which the gates of hell cannot prevail. This Truth is the rock which the builders rejected; but "the same is becomethe head of the corner. " This is the chief corner-stone, the basis andsupport of creation, the interpreter of one God, the infinity and unity ofgood. In proportion as mortals approximate the understanding of ChristianScience, they take hold of harmony, and material incumbrance disappears. Having one God, one Mind, one consciousness, --which includes only His ownnature, --and loving your neighbor as yourself, constitute ChristianScience, which must demonstrate the nothingness of any other state or stageof being. IS THERE NO INTERCESSORY PRAYER? All prayer that is desire is intercessory; but kindling desire loses a partof its purest spirituality if the lips try to express it. It is a truismthat we can think more lucidly and profoundly than we can write or speak. The silent intercession and unvoiced imploring is an honest and potentprayer to heal and save. The audible prayer may be offered to be heard ofmen, though ostensibly to catch God's ear, --after the fashion of Baal'sprophets, --by speaking loud enough to be heard; but when the heart prays, and not the lips, no dishonesty or vanity influences the petition. Prophet and apostle have glorified God in secret prayer, and He hasrewarded them openly. Prayer can neither change God, nor bring His designsinto mortal modes; but it can and does change our modes and our false senseof Life, Love, and Truth, uplifting us to Him. Such prayer humiliates, purifies, and quickens activity, in the direction that is unerring. True prayer is not asking God for love; it is learning to love, and toinclude all mankind in one affection. Prayer is the utilization of the lovewherewith He loves us. Prayer begets an awakened desire to be and do good. It makes new and scientific discoveries of God, of His goodness and power. It shows us more clearly than we saw before, what we already have and are;and most of all, it shows us what God is. Advancing in this light, wereflect it; and this light reveals the pure Mind-pictures, in silentprayer, even as photography grasps the solar light to portray the face ofpleasant thought. What but silent prayer can meet the demand, "Pray without ceasing"? Theapostle James said: "Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, toconsume it on your lusts. " Because of vanity and self-righteousness, mortals seek, and expect to receive, a material sense of approval; and theyexpect also what is impossible, --a material and mortal sense of spiritualand immortal Truth. It is sometimes wise to hide from dull and base ears the pure pearls ofawakened consciousness, lest your pearls be trampled upon. Words may beliedesire, and pour forth a hypocrite's prayer; but thoughts are our honestconviction. I have no objection to audible prayer of the right kind; butthe inaudible is more effectual. I instruct my students to pursue their mental ministrations very sacredly, and never to touch the human thought save to issues of Truth; never totrespass mentally on individual rights; never to take away the rights, butonly the wrongs of mankind. Otherwise they forfeit their ability to heal inScience. Only when sickness, sin, and fear obstruct the harmony of Mind andbody, is it right for one mind to meddle with another mind, and controlaright the thought struggling for freedom. It is Truth and Love that cast out fear and heal the sick, and mankind arebetter because of this. If a change in the religious views of the patientcomes with the change to health, our Father has done this; for the humanmind and body are made better only by divine influence. SHOULD CHRISTIANS BEWARE OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE? History repeats itself. The Pharisees of old warned the people to beware ofJesus, and contemptuously called him "this fellow. " Jesus said, "For whichof these works do ye stone me?" as much as to ask, Is it the work mostderided and envied that is most acceptable to God? Not that he would ceaseto do the will of his Father on account of persecution, but he would repeathis work to the best advantage for mankind and the glory of his Father. There are sinners in all societies, and it is vain to look for perfectionin churches or associations. The life of Christ is the perfect example; andto compare mortal lives with this model is to subject them to severescrutiny. Without question, the subtlest forms of sin are trying to forcethe doors of Science and enter in; but this white sanctuary will neveradmit such as come to steal and to rob. Through long ages people haveslumbered over Christ's commands, "Go ye into all the world, and preach thegospel;" "Heal the sick, cast out devils;" and now the Church seems almostchagrined that by new discoveries of Truth sin is losing prestige andpower. The Rev. Dr. A. J. Gordon, a Boston Baptist clergyman, said in a sermon:"The prayer of faith shall save the sick, and it is doing it to-day; and asthe faith of the Church increases, and Christians more and more learntheir duty to believe all things written in the Scriptures, will suchmanifestations of God's power increase among us. " Such sentiments arewholesome avowals of Christian Science. God is not unable or unwilling toheal, and mortals are not compelled to have other gods before Him, andemploy material forms to meet a mental want. The divine Spirit supplies allhuman needs. Jesus said to the sick, "Thy sins are forgiven thee; rise upand walk!" God's pardon is the destruction of all "the ills that flesh isheir to. " All power belongs to God; and it is not in all the vain power of dogma andphilosophy to dispossess the divine Mind of healing power, or to cast outerror with error, even in the name and for the sake of Christ, and so healthe sick. While Science is engulfing error in bottomless oblivion, thematerial senses would enthrone error as omnipotent and omnipresent, withpower to determine the fact and fate to being. It is said that the devil isthe ape of God. The lie of evil holds its own by declaring itself both trueand good. The path of Christian Science is beset with false claimants, aping its virtues, but cleaving to their own vices. Denial of theauthorship of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" would make alie the author of Truth, and so make Truth itself a lie. A distinguished clergyman came to be healed. He said: "I am suffering fromnervous prostration, and have to eat beefsteak and drink strong coffee tosupport me through a sermon. " Here a skeptic might well ask if theatonement had lost its efficacy for him, and if Christ's power to heal wasnot equal to the power of daily meat and drink. The power of Truth is notcontingent on matter. Our Master said, "Come unto me, all ye that labor andare heavy laden, and I will give you rest. " Truth rebukes error; andwhether stall-fed or famishing, theology needs Truth to stimulate andsustain a good sermon. A lady said: "Only He who knows all things can estimate the good your booksare doing. " A distinguished Doctor of Divinity said: "Your book leavens my sermons. " The following extract from a letter is a specimen of those received daily:"Your book Science and Health is healing the sick, binding up thebroken-hearted, preaching deliverance to the captive, convicting theinfidel, alarming the hypocrite, and quickening the Christian. " Christian Science Mind-healing is dishonored by those who take it up frommercenary motives, for wealth and fame, or think to build a baseless fabricof their own on another's foundation. They cannot put the "new wine intoold bottles;" they can never engraft Truth into error. Such students cometo my College to learn a system which they go away to disgrace. Stealing orgarbling my statements of Mind-science will never prevent or reconstructthe wrecks of "_isms_" and help humanity. Science often suffers blame through the sheer ignorance of people, whileenvy and hatred bark and bite at its heels. A man's inability to heal, onthe Principle of Christian Science, substantiates his ignorance of itsPrinciple and practice, and incapacitates him for correct comment. Thisfailure should make him modest. Christian Science involves a new language, and a higher demonstration ofmedicine and religion. It is the "new tongue" of Truth, having its bestinterpretation in the power of Christianity to heal. My system ofMind-healing swerves not from the highest ethics and from the spiritualgoal. To climb up by some other way than Truth is to fall. Error has nohobby, however boldly ridden or brilliantly caparisoned, that can leap intothe sanctum of Christian Science. In Queen Elizabeth's time Protestantism could sentence men to the dungeonor stake for their religion, and so abrogate the rights of conscience andchoke the channels of God. Ecclesiastical tyranny muzzled the mouth lispingGod's praise; and instead of healing, it palsied the weak hand outstretchedto God. Progress, legitimate to the human race, pours the healing balm ofTruth and Love into every wound. It reassures us that no Reign of Terror orrule of error will again unite Church and State, or re-enact, through thecivil arm of government, the horrors of religious persecution. The Rev. S. E. Herrick, a Congregational clergyman of Boston, says:"Heretics of yesterday are martyrs to-day. " In every age and clime, "Onearth peace, good will toward men" must be the watchword of Christianity. Jesus said: "I thank Thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that Thouhast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed themunto babes. " St. Paul said that without charity we are "as sounding brass, or a tinklingcymbal;" and he added: "Charity suffereth long, and is kind; . . . Doth notbehave itself unseemly, . . . Thinketh no evil, . . . But rejoiceth in thetruth. " To hinder the unfolding truth, to ostracize whatever uplifts mankind, is ofcourse out of the question. Such an attempt indicates weakness, fear, ormalice; and such efforts arise from a spiritual lack, felt, thoughunacknowledged. Let it not be heard in Boston that woman, "last at the cross and first atthe sepulchre, " has no rights which man is bound to respect. In natural lawand in religion the right of woman to fill the highest measure ofenlightened understanding and the highest places in government, isinalienable, and these rights are ably vindicated by the noblest of bothsexes. This is woman's hour, with all its sweet amenities and its moral andreligious reforms. Drifting into intellectual wrestlings, we should agree to disagree; andthis harmony would anchor the Church in more spiritual latitudes, and sofulfil her destiny. Let the Word have free course and be glorified. The people clamor to leavecradle and swaddling-clothes. The spiritual status is urging its highestdemands on mortals, and material history is drawing to a close. Truthcannot be stereotyped; it unfoldeth forever. "One on God's side is amajority;" and "Lo, I am with you alway, " is the pledge of the Master. The question now at issue is: Shall we have a practical, spiritualChristianity, with its healing power, or shall we have material medicineand superficial religion? The advancing hope of the race, craving healthand holiness, halts for a reply; and the reappearing Christ, whoselife-giving understanding Christian Science imparts, must answer theconstant inquiry: "Art thou he that should come?" Woman should not beordered to the rear, or laid on the rack, for joining the overture ofangels. Theologians descant pleasantly upon free moral agency; but theyshould begin by admitting individual rights. The author's ancestors were among the first settlers of New Hampshire. Theyreared there the Puritan standard of undefiled religion. As dutifuldescendants of Puritans, let us lift their standard higher, rejoicing, asPaul did, that we are _free born_. Man has a noble destiny; and the full-orbed significance of this destinyhas dawned on the sick-bound and sin-enslaved. For the unfolding of thisupward tendency to health, greatness, and goodness, I shall continue tolabor and wait.