Part 3 (1/2)

Early had I learned that whatever is loved materially, as mere corporeal personality, is eventually lost. ”For whosoever will save his life shall lose it,” said the Master. Exultant hope, if tinged with earthliness, is crushed as the moth.

What is termed mortal and material existence is graphically defined by Calderon, the famous Spanish poet, who wrote,--

What is life? 'Tis but a madness.

What is life? A mere illusion, Fleeting pleasure, fond delusion, Short-lived joy, that ends in sadness, Whose most constant substance seems But the dream of other dreams.

MEDICAL EXPERIMENTS

The physical side of this research was aided by hints from h.o.m.oeopathy, sustaining my final conclusion that mortal belief, instead of the drug, governed the action of material medicine.

I wandered through the dim mazes of _materia medica_, till I was weary of ”scientific guessing,” as it has been well called. I sought knowledge from the different schools,--allopathy, h.o.m.oeopathy, hydropathy, electricity, and from various humbugs,--but without receiving satisfaction.

I found, in the two hundred and sixty-two remedies enumerated by Jahr, one pervading secret; namely, that the less material medicine we have, and the more Mind, the better the work is done; a fact which seems to prove the Principle of Mind-healing. One drop of the thirtieth attenuation of _Natrum muriatic.u.m_, in a tumbler-full of water, and one teaspoonful of the water mixed with the faith of ages, would cure patients not affected by a larger dose. The drug disappears in the higher attenuations of h.o.m.oeopathy, and matter is thereby rarefied to its fatal essence, mortal mind; but immortal Mind, the curative Principle, remains, and is found to be even more active.

The mental virtues of the material methods of medicine, when understood, were insufficient to satisfy my doubts as to the honesty or utility of using a material curative. I must know more of the unmixed, unerring source, in order to gain the Science of Mind, the All-in-all of Spirit, in which matter is obsolete. Nothing less could solve the mental problem. If I sought an answer from the medical schools, the reply was dark and contradictory. Neither ancient nor modern philosophy could clear the clouds, or give me one distinct statement of the spiritual Science of Mind-healing. Human reason was not equal to it.

I claim for healing scientifically the following advantages: _First_: It does away with all material medicines, and recognizes the antidote for all sickness, as well as sin, in the immortal Mind; and mortal mind as the source of all the ills which befall mortals. _Second_: It is more effectual than drugs, and cures when they fail, or only relieve; thus proving the superiority of metaphysics over physics. _Third_: A person healed by Christian Science is not only healed of his disease, but he is advanced morally and spiritually. The mortal body being but the objective state of the mortal mind, this mind must be renovated to improve the body.

FIRST PUBLICATION

In 1870 I copyrighted the first publication on spiritual, scientific Mind-healing, ent.i.tled ”The Science of Man.” This little book is converted into the chapter on Recapitulation in Science and Health. It was so new--the basis it laid down for physical and moral health was so hopelessly original, and men were so unfamiliar with the subject--that I did not venture upon its publication until later, having learned that the merits of Christian Science must be proven before a work on this subject could be profitably published.

The truths of Christian Science are not interpolations of the Scriptures, but the spiritual interpretations thereof. Science is the prism of Truth, which divides its rays and brings out the hues of Deity. Human hypotheses have darkened the glow and grandeur of evangelical religion. When speaking of his true followers in every period, Jesus said, ”_They_ shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover.” There is no authority for querying the authenticity of this declaration, for it already was and is demonstrated as practical, and its claim is substantiated,--a claim too immanent to fall to the ground beneath the stroke of artless workmen.

Though a man were girt with the Urim and Thummim of priestly office, and denied the perpetuity of Jesus' command, ”Heal the sick,” or its application in all time to those who understand Christ as the Truth and the Life, that man would not expound the gospel according to Jesus.

Five years after taking out my first copyright, I taught the Science of Mind-healing, _alias_ Christian Science, by writing out my ma.n.u.scripts for students and distributing them unsparingly. This will account for certain published and unpublished ma.n.u.scripts extant, which the evil-minded would insinuate did not originate with me.

THE PRECIOUS VOLUME

The first edition of my most important work, Science and Health, containing the complete statement of Christian Science,--the term employed by me to express the divine, or spiritual, Science of Mind-healing, was published in 1875.

When it was first printed, the critics took pleasure in saying, ”This book is indeed wholly original, but it will never be read.”

The first edition numbered one thousand copies. In September, 1891, it had reached sixty-two editions.

Those who formerly sneered at it, as foolish and eccentric, now declare Bishop Berkeley, David Hume, Ralph Waldo Emerson, or certain German philosophers, to have been the originators of the Science of Mind-healing as therein stated.

Even the Scriptures gave no direct interpretation of the scientific basis for demonstrating the spiritual Principle of healing, until our heavenly Father saw fit, through the Key to the Scriptures, in Science and Health, to unlock this ”mystery of G.o.dliness.”