Part 25 (1/2)

169:18 Science not only reveals the origin of all disease as mental, but it also declares that all disease is cured by divine Mind. There can be no healing ex- 169:21 cept by this Mind, however much we trust a drug or any other means towards which human faith or endeavor is directed. It is mortal mind, not mat- 169:24 ter, which brings to the sick whatever good they may seem to receive from materiality. But the sick are never really healed except by means of the divine power.

169:27 Only the action of Truth, Life, and Love can give harmony.

Modes of matter

Whatever teaches man to have other laws and to 169:30 acknowledge other powers than the divine Mind, is anti-Christian. The good that a poisonous drug seems to do is evil, for it robs man of 170:1 reliance on G.o.d, omnipotent Mind, and according to be- lief, poisons the human system. Truth is not the basis of 170:3 theogony. Modes of matter form neither a moral nor a spiritual system. The discord which calls for material methods is the result of the exercise of faith in material 170:6 modes, - faith in matter instead of in Spirit.

Physiology unscientific

Did Jesus understand the economy of man less than Graham or Cutter? Christian ideas certainly present 170:9 what human theories exclude - the Principle of man's harmony. The text, ”Whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die,” not only con- 170:12 tradicts human systems, but points to the self-sustaining and eternal Truth.

The demands of Truth are spiritual, and reach the 170:15 body through Mind. The best interpreter of man's needs said: ”Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink.”

170:18 If there are material laws which prevent disease, what then causes it? Not divine law, for Jesus healed the sick and cast out error, always in opposition, never in 170:21 obedience, to physics.

Causation considered

Spiritual causation is the one question to be considered, for more than all others spiritual causation relates to 170:24 human progress. The age seems ready to approach this subject, to ponder somewhat the supremacy of Spirit, and at least to touch the hem 170:27 of Truth's garment.

The description of man as purely physical, or as both material and spiritual, - but in either case dependent 170:30 upon his physical organization, - is the Pandora box, from which all ills have gone forth, especially despair.

Matter, which takes divine power into its own hands and 171:1 claims to be a creator, is a fiction, in which paganism and l.u.s.t are so sanctioned by society that mankind has caught 171:3 their moral contagion.

Paradise regained

Through discernment of the spiritual opposite of ma- teriality, even the way through Christ, Truth, man will 171:6 reopen with the key of divine Science the gates of Paradise which human beliefs have closed, and will find himself unfallen, upright, pure, and free, 171:9 not needing to consult almanacs for the probabilities either of his life or of the weather, not needing to study brain- ology to learn how much of a man he is.

A closed question

171:12 Mind's control over the universe, including man, is no longer an open question, but is demonstrable Science.

Jesus ill.u.s.trated the divine Principle and the 171:15 power of immortal Mind by healing sickness and sin and destroying the foundations of death.

Matter _versus_ Spirit

Mistaking his origin and nature, man believes himself to 171:18 be combined matter and Spirit. He believes that Spirit is sifted through matter, carried on a nerve, ex- posed to ejection by the operation of matter.

171:21 The intellectual, the moral, the spiritual, - yea, the image of infinite Mind, - subject to non-intelligence!

No more sympathy exists between the flesh and Spirit 171:24 than between Belial and Christ.

The so-called laws of matter are nothing but false be- liefs that intelligence and life are present where Mind 171:27 is not. These false beliefs are the procuring cause of all sin and disease. The opposite truth, that intelligence and life are spiritual, never material, destroys sin, sickness, 171:30 and death.

The fundamental error lies in the supposition that man is a material outgrowth and that the cognizance of good 172:1 or evil, which he has through the bodily senses, con- st.i.tutes his happiness or misery.

G.o.dless Evolution

172:3 Theorizing about man's development from mushrooms to monkeys and from monkeys into men amounts to nothing in the right direction and 172:6 very much in the wrong.

Materialism grades the human species as rising from matter upward. How then is the material species main- 172:9 tained, if man pa.s.ses through what we call death and death is the Rubicon of spirituality? Spirit can form no real link in this supposed chain of material being.

172:12 But divine Science reveals the eternal chain of existence as uninterrupted and wholly spiritual; yet this can be realized only as the false sense of being disappears.

Degrees of development