Part 44 (2/2)

297:12 Erroneous belief is destroyed by truth. Change the evidence, and that disappears which before seemed real to this false belief, and the human conscious- 297:15 ness rises higher. Thus the reality of being is attained and man found to be immortal. The only fact concerning any material concept is, that it is neither 297:18 scientific nor eternal, but subject to change and dis- solution.

Faith higher than belief

Faith is higher and more spiritual than belief. It is 297:21 a chrysalis state of human thought, in which spiritual evidence, contradicting the testimony of mate- rial sense, begins to appear, and Truth, the 297:24 ever-present, is becoming understood. Human thoughts have their degrees of comparison. Some thoughts are better than others. A belief in Truth is better than a 297:27 belief in error, but no mortal testimony is founded on the divine rock. Mortal testimony can be shaken. Until belief becomes faith, and faith becomes spiritual under- 297:30 standing, human thought has little relation to the actual or divine.

A mortal belief fulfils its own conditions. Sickness, 298:1 sin, and death are the vague realities of human conclu- sions. Life, Truth, and Love are the realities of divine 298:3 Science. They dawn in faith and glow full-orbed in spiritual understanding. As a cloud hides the sun it cannot extinguish, so false belief silences for a while the 298:6 voice of immutable harmony, but false belief cannot de- stroy Science armed with faith, hope, and fruition.

Truth's witness

What is termed material sense can report only a mor- 298:9 tal temporary sense of things, whereas spiritual sense can bear witness only to Truth. To material sense, the unreal is the real until this sense is corrected 298:12 by Christian Science.

Spiritual sense, contradicting the material senses, in- volves intuition, hope, faith, understanding, fruition, real- 298:15 ity. Material sense expresses the belief that mind is in matter. This human belief, alternating between a sense of pleasure and pain, hope and fear, life and death, never 298:18 reaches beyond the boundary of the mortal or the unreal.

When the real is attained, which is announced by Science, joy is no longer a trembler, nor is hope a cheat. Spirit- 298:21 ual ideas, like numbers and notes, start from Principle, and admit no materialistic beliefs. Spiritual ideas lead up to their divine origin, G.o.d, and to the spiritual sense 298:24 of being.

Thought-angels

Angels are not etherealized human beings, evolving animal qualities in their wings; but they are celestial 298:27 visitants, flying on spiritual, not material, pinions. Angels are pure thoughts from G.o.d, winged with Truth and Love, no matter what their indi- 298:30 vidualism may be. Human conjecture confers upon angels its own forms of thought, marked with superst.i.tious out- lines, making them human creatures with suggestive 299:1 feathers; but this is only fancy. It has behind it no more reality than has the sculptor's thought when he carves 299:3 his ”Statue of Liberty,” which embodies his concep- tion of an unseen quality or condition, but which has no physical antecedent reality save in the artist's own ob- 299:6 servation and ”chambers of imagery.”

Our Angelic messengers

My angels are exalted thoughts, appearing at the door of some sepulchre, in which human belief has buried 299:9 its fondest earthly hopes. With white fin- gers they point upward to a new and glo- rified trust, to higher ideals of life and its joys. Angels 299:12 are G.o.d's representatives. These upward-soaring beings never lead towards self, sin, or materiality, but guide to the divine Principle of all good, whither every real indi- 299:15 viduality, image, or likeness of G.o.d, gathers. By giving earnest heed to these spiritual guides they tarry with us, and we entertain ”angels unawares.”

Knowledge and Truth

299:18 Knowledge gained from material sense is figuratively represented in Scripture as a tree, bearing the fruits of sin, sickness, and death. Ought we not then 299:21 to judge the knowledge thus obtained to be untrue and dangerous, since ”the tree is known by his fruit”?

299:24 Truth never destroys G.o.d's idea. Truth is spiritual, eternal substance, which cannot destroy the right reflec- tion. Corporeal sense, or error, may seem to hide Truth, 299:27 health, harmony, and Science, as the mist obscures the sun or the mountain; but Science, the suns.h.i.+ne of Truth, will melt away the shadow and reveal the celestial 299:30 peaks.

Old and new man

If man were solely a creature of the material senses, he would have no eternal Principle and would be mutable 300:1 and mortal. Human logic is awry when it attempts to draw correct spiritual conclusions regarding life from 300:3 matter. Finite sense has no true apprecia- tion of infinite Principle, G.o.d, or of His infi- nite image or reflection, man. The mirage, which makes 300:6 trees and cities seem to be where they are not, ill.u.s.trates the illusion of material man, who cannot be the image of G.o.d.

300:9 So far as the scientific statement as to man is under- stood, it can be proved and will bring to light the true reflection of G.o.d - the real man, or the _new_ man (as 300:12 St. Paul has it).

The tares and wheat

The temporal and unreal never touch the eternal and real. The mutable and imperfect never touch the im- 300:15 mutable and perfect. The inharmonious and self-destructive never touch the harmonious and self-existent. These opposite qualities are the tares 300:18 and wheat, which never really mingle, though (to mortal sight) they grow side by side until the harvest; then, Sci- ence separates the wheat from the tares, through the real- 300:21 ization of G.o.d as ever present and of man as reflecting the divine likeness.

The divine reflection

Spirit is G.o.d, Soul; therefore Soul is not in matter. If 300:24 Spirit were in matter, G.o.d would have no representative, and matter would be identical with G.o.d.

The theory that soul, spirit, intelligence, in- 300:27 habits matter is taught by the schools. This theory is unscientific. The universe reflects and expresses the di- vine substance or Mind; therefore G.o.d is seen only in the 300:30 spiritual universe and spiritual man, as the sun is seen in the ray of light which goes out from it. G.o.d is re- vealed only in that which reflects Life, Truth, Love, - 301:1 yea, which manifests G.o.d's attributes and power, even as the human likeness thrown upon the mirror, repeats 301:3 the color, form, and action of the person in front of the mirror.

Few persons comprehend what Christian Science 301:6 means by the word _reflection._ To himself, mortal and material man seems to be substance, but his sense of substance involves error and therefore is material, 301:9 temporal.

On the other hand, the immortal, spiritual man is really substantial, and reflects the eternal substance, or Spirit, 301:12 which mortals hope for. He reflects the divine, which const.i.tutes the only real and eternal ent.i.ty. This reflection seems to mortal sense transcendental, because the spiritual 301:15 man's substantiality transcends mortal vision and is re- vealed only through divine Science.

Inverted images and ideas

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