Part 61 (2/2)

Mind removes scrofula

To prevent or to cure scrofula and other so-called he- reditary diseases, you must destroy the belief in these ills 424:30 and the faith in the possibility of their trans- mission. The patient may tell you that he has a humor in the blood, a scrofulous diathesis. His 425:1 parents or some of his progenitors farther back have so believed. Mortal mind, not matter, induces this con- 425:3 clusion and its results. You will have humors, just so long as you believe them to be safety-valves or to be ineradicable.

Nothing to consume

425:6 If the case to be mentally treated is consumption, take up the leading points included (according to belief) in this disease. Show that it is not inherited; 425:9 that inflammation, tubercles, hemorrhage, and decomposition are beliefs, images of mortal thought su- perimposed upon the body; that they are not the truth 425:12 of man; that they should be treated as error and put out of thought. Then these ills will disappear.

The lungs re-formed

If the body is diseased, this is but one of the beliefs of 425:15 mortal mind. Mortal man will be less mortal, when he learns that matter never sustained existence and can never destroy G.o.d, who is man's Life.

425:18 When this is understood, mankind will be more spiritual and know that there is nothing to consume, since Spirit, G.o.d, is All-in-all. What if the belief is consumption?

425:21 G.o.d is more to a man than his belief, and the less we ac- knowledge matter or its laws, the more immortality we possess. Consciousness constructs a better body when 425:24 faith in matter has been conquered. Correct material belief by spiritual understanding, and Spirit will form you anew. You will never fear again except to offend 425:27 G.o.d, and you will never believe that heart or any por- tion of the body can destroy you.

Soundness maintained

If you have sound and capacious lungs and want 425:30 them to remain so, be always ready with the mental protest against the opposite belief in heredity. Discard all notions about lungs, tubercles, in- 426:1 herited consumption, or disease arising from any cir- c.u.mstance, and you will find that mortal mind, when 426:3 instructed by Truth, yields to divine power, which steers the body into health.

Our footsteps heavenward

The discoverer of Christian Science finds the path less 426:6 difficult when she has the high goal always before her thoughts, than when she counts her footsteps in endeavoring to reach it. When the desti- 426:9 nation is desirable, expectation speeds our progress. The struggle for Truth makes one strong instead of weak, resting instead of wearying one. If the belief in death 426:12 were obliterated, and the understanding obtained that there is no death, this would be a ”tree of life,” known by its fruits. Man should renew his energies and en- 426:15 deavors, and see the folly of hypocrisy, while also learn- ing the necessity of working out his own salvation. When it is learned that disease cannot destroy life, and that 426:18 mortals are not saved from sin or sickness by death, this understanding will quicken into newness of life. It will master either a desire to die or a dread of the grave, 426:21 and thus destroy the great fear that besets mortal existence.

Christian standard

The relinquishment of all faith in death and also of 426:24 the fear of its sting would raise the standard of health and morals far beyond its present elevation, and would enable us to hold the banner of 426:27 Christianity aloft with unflinching faith in G.o.d, in Life eternal. Sin brought death, and death will disappear with the disappearance of sin. Man is immortal, and 426:30 the body cannot die, because matter has no life to sur- render. The human concepts named matter, death, dis- ease, sickness, and sin are all that can be destroyed.

Life not contingent on matter

427:1 If it is true that man lives, this fact can never change in Science to the opposite belief that man dies. Life is 427:3 the law of Soul, even the law of the spirit of Truth, and Soul is never without its represent- ative. Man's individual being can no more 427:6 die nor disappear in unconsciousness than can Soul, for both are immortal. If man believes in death now, he must disbelieve in it when learning that there is no reality 427:9 in death, since the truth of being is deathless. The be- lief that existence is contingent on matter must be met and mastered by Science, before Life can be understood 427:12 and harmony obtained.

Mortality vanquished

Death is but another phase of the dream that exist- ence can be material. Nothing can interfere with the 427:15 harmony of being nor end the existence of man in Science. Man is the same after as before a bone is broken or the body guillotined. If man 427:18 is never to overcome death, why do the Scriptures say, ”The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death”? The tenor of the Word shows that we shall obtain the victory 427:21 over death in proportion as we overcome sin. The great difficulty lies in ignorance of what G.o.d is. G.o.d, Life, Truth, and Love make man undying. Immortal Mind, 427:24 governing all, must be acknowledged as supreme in the physical realm, so-called, as well as in the spiritual.

No death nor inaction

Called to the bed of death, what material remedy has 427:27 man when all such remedies have failed? Spirit is his last resort, but it should have been his first and only resort. The dream of death must 427:30 be mastered by Mind here or hereafter. Thought will waken from its own material declaration, ”I am dead,” to catch this trumpet-word of Truth, ”There 428:1 is no death, no inaction, diseased action, overaction, nor reaction.”

Vision opening

428:3 Life is real, and death is the illusion. A demonstra- tion of the facts of Soul in Jesus' way resolves the dark visions of material sense into harmony and 428:6 immortality. Man's privilege at this supreme moment is to prove the words of our Master: ”If a man keep my saying, he shall never see death.” To divest 428:9 thought of false trusts and material evidences in order that the spiritual facts of being may appear, - this is the great attainment by means of which we shall sweep 428:12 away the false and give place to the true. Thus we may establish in truth the temple, or body, ”whose builder and maker is G.o.d.”

Intelligent consecration

428:15 We should consecrate existence, not ”to the unknown G.o.d” whom we ”ignorantly wors.h.i.+p,” but to the eternal builder, the everlasting Father, to the Life 428:18 which mortal sense cannot impair nor mortal belief destroy. We must realize the ability of mental might to offset human misconceptions and to replace them 428:21 with the life which is spiritual, not material.

The present immortality

The great spiritual fact must be brought out that man _is_, not _shall be_, perfect and immortal. We must hold 428:24 forever the consciousness of existence, and sooner or later, through Christ and Christian Science, we must master sin and death. The evidence 428:27 of man's immortality will become more apparent, as ma- terial beliefs are given up and the immortal facts of being are admitted.

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