Part 6 (1/2)
nor pain therein. The Master's practical knowledge of this grand verity, together with his divine Love, healed the sick and raised the dead. He literally annulled the claims of physique and of physical law, by the superiority of the higher law; hence his decla- [30]
ration, ”These signs shall follow them that believe;...
if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them;
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they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover.” [1]
Do you believe his words? I do, and that his prom- ise is perpetual. Had it been applicable only to his immediate disciples, the p.r.o.noun would be _you_, not _them_. [5]
The purpose of his life-work touches universal human- ity. At another time he prayed, not for the twelve only, but ”for them also which shall believe on me through their word.”
The Christ-healing was practised even before the Christ- [10]
ian era; ”the Word was with G.o.d, and the Word was G.o.d.” There is, however, no a.n.a.logy between Christian Science and spiritualism, or between it and any specu- lative theory.
In 1867, I taught the first student in Christian Science. [15]
Since that date I have known of but fourteen deaths in the ranks of my about five thousand students. The census since 1875 (the date of the first publication of my work, ”Science and Health with Key to the Scrip- tures”) shows that longevity has _increased_. Daily letters [20]
inform me that a perusal of my volume is healing the writers of chronic and acute diseases that had defied medi- cal skill.
Surely the people of the Occident know that esoteric magic and Oriental barbarisms will neither flavor Chris- [25]
tianity nor advance health and length of days.
Miracles are no infraction of G.o.d's laws; on the contrary, they fulfil His laws; for they are the signs fol- lowing Christianity, whereby matter is proven power- less and subordinate to Mind. Christians, like students [30]
in mathematics, should be working up to those higher rules of Life which Jesus taught and proved. Do we
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really understand the divine Principle of Christianity [1]
before we prove it, in at least some feeble demonstra- tion thereof, according to Jesus' example in healing the sick? Should we adopt the ”simple addition” in Chris- tian Science and doubt its higher rules, or despair of [5]
ultimately reaching them, even though failing at first to demonstrate all the possibilities of Christianity?
St. John spiritually discerned and revealed the sum total of transcendentalism. He saw the real earth and heaven. They were spiritual, not material; and they [10]
were without pain, sin, or death. Death was not the door to this heaven. The gates thereof he declared were inlaid with pearl,-likening them to the priceless under- standing of man's real existence, to be recognized here and now. [15]
The great Way-shower ill.u.s.trated Life unconfined, un- contaminated, untrammelled, by matter. He proved the superiority of Mind over the flesh, opened the door to the captive, and enabled man to demonstrate the law of Life, which St. Paul declares ”hath made me free from [20]
the law of sin and death.”
The stale saying that Christian Science ”is neither Christian nor science!” is to-day the fossil of wisdom- less wit, weakness, and superst.i.tion. ”The fool hath said in his heart, There is no G.o.d.” [25]
Take courage, dear reader, for any seeming mysti- cism surrounding realism is explained in the Scripture, ”There went up a mist from the earth [matter];” and the mist of materialism will vanish as we approach spirit- uality, the realm of reality; cleanse our lives in Christ's [30]
righteousness; bathe in the baptism of Spirit, and awake in His likeness.
CHAPTER III. QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS.
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_What do you consider to be mental malpractice? [1]_
Mental malpractice is a bland denial of Truth, and is the antipode of Christian Science. To mentally argue in a manner that can disastrously affect the happiness of a fellow-being-harm him [5]
morally, physically, or spiritually-breaks the Golden Rule and subverts the scientific laws of being. This, therefore, is not the use but the abuse of mental treat- ment, and is mental malpractice. It is needless to say that such a subversion of right is not scientific. Its [10]