Part 6 (2/2)
In the practice of Christian Science one cannot impart a mental influence that hazards another's happiness, nor interfere with the rights of the individual. To disregard the welfare of others is contrary to the law of G.o.d; therefore it deteriorates one's ability to do good, to benefit himself and mankind.
The Psalmist vividly portrays the result of secret faults, presumptuous sins, and self-deception, in these words: ”How are they brought into desolation, as in a moment! They are utterly consumed with terrors.”
PERSONALITY
The immortal man being spiritual, individual, and eternal, his mortal opposite must be material, corporeal, and temporal. Physical personality is finite; but G.o.d is infinite. He is without materiality, without finiteness of form or Mind.
Limitations are put off in proportion as the fleshly nature disappears and man is found in the reflection of Spirit.
This great fact leads into profound depths. The material human concept grew beautifully less as I floated into more spiritual lat.i.tudes and purer realms of thought.
From that hour personal corporeality became less to me than it is to people who fail to appreciate individual character. I endeavored to lift thought above physical personality, or selfhood in matter, to man's spiritual individuality in G.o.d,--in the true Mind, where sensible evil is lost in supersensible good. This is the only way whereby the false personality is laid off.
He who clings to personality, or perpetually warns you of ”personality,”
wrongs it, or terrifies people over it, and is the sure victim of his own corporeality. Constantly to scrutinize physical personality, or accuse people of being unduly personal, is like the sick talking sickness. Such errancy betrays a violent and egotistical personality, increases one's sense of corporeality, and begets a fear of the senses and a perpetually egotistical sensibility.
He who does this is ignorant of the meaning of the word _personality_, and defines it by his own _corpus sine pectore_ (soulless body), and fails to distinguish the individual, or real man from the false sense of corporeality, or egotistic self.
My own corporeal personality afflicteth me not wittingly; for I desire never to think of it, and it cannot think of me.
PLAGIARISM
The various forms of book-borrowing without credit spring from this ill-concealed question in mortal mind, Who shall be greatest? This error violates the law given by Moses, it tramples upon Jesus' Sermon on the Mount, it does violence to the ethics of Christian Science.
Why withhold my name, while appropriating my language and ideas, but give credit when citing from the works of other authors?
Life and its ideals are inseparable, and one's writings on ethics, and demonstration of Truth, are not, cannot be, understood or taught by those who persistently misunderstand or misrepresent the author. Jesus said, ”For there is no man which shall do a miracle in my name, that can lightly speak evil of me.”
If one's spiritual ideal is comprehended and loved, the borrower from it is embraced in the author's own mental mood, and is therefore _honest_. The Science of Mind excludes opposites, and rests on unity.
It is proverbial that dishonesty r.e.t.a.r.ds spiritual growth and strikes at the heart of Truth. If a student at Harvard College has studied a textbook written by his teacher, is he ent.i.tled, when he leaves the University, to write out as his own the substance of this textbook? There is no warrant in common law and no permission in the gospel for plagiarizing an author's ideas and their words. Christian Science is not copyrighted; nor would protection by copyright be requisite, if mortals obeyed G.o.d's law of _manright_. A student can write voluminous works on Science without trespa.s.sing, if he writes honestly, and he cannot dishonestly compose _Christian Science_. The Bible is not stolen, though it is cited, and quoted deferentially.
Thoughts touched with the Spirit and Word of Christian Science gravitate naturally toward Truth. Therefore the mind to which this Science was revealed must have risen to the alt.i.tude which perceived a light beyond what others saw.
The spiritually minded meet on the stairs which lead up to spiritual love.
This affection, so far from being personal wors.h.i.+p, fulfils the law of Love which Paul enjoined upon the Galatians. This is the Mind ”which was also in Christ Jesus,” and knows no material limitations. It is the unity of good and bond of perfectness. This just affection serves to const.i.tute the Mind-healer a wonder-worker,--as of old, on the Pentecost Day, when the disciples were of one accord.
He who gains the G.o.d-crowned summit of Christian Science never abuses the corporeal personality, but uplifts it. He thinks of every one in his real quality, and sees each mortal in an impersonal depict.
I have long remained silent on a growing evil in plagiarism; but if I do not insist upon the strictest observance of moral law and order in Christian Scientists, I become responsible, as a teacher, for laxity in discipline and lawlessness in literature. Pope was right in saying, ”An honest man's the n.o.blest work of G.o.d;” and Ingersoll's repartee has its moral: ”An honest G.o.d's the n.o.blest work of man.”
ADMONITION
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