us accept Science, relinquish all theories based on sense-testimony, give up imperfect models and illusive forms; and so let us have but one God, one Mind, and that one perfect, producing its own models of excellence. Let the male and female of His creating appear. Let us feel the divine energy of Spirit, bringing us into newness of Life, and recognizing no mortal or material power as able to destroy. Let us rejoice that we are subject to “the powers that be.” Such is the true Science of Being. Any material theory of Life, or God, is delusive mythology.
In a higher sense than Heine dreamed, his words are true: —
For Love transcends the bounds of time and space;
Its essence is impalpable as light;
And all created things in its embrace
Do lie, the while it spinneth, day and night,
The warp and woof of Being. Oh, its might
Is universal. Round it too doth turn,
As round some central sun, the order bright
Of all Intelligence; like planets yearn,
All good thoughts, to their light, fit homage to return.
There are no antagonistic powers or laws, either spiritual or material, creating and governing man in perpetual warfare. Minute chronological data are no part of the great forever.
Mind is not the author of matter, and the Creator of ideas is not the creator of illusions. Either there is no omnipotence, or omnipotence is all-in-all. The Infinite never began or ended. Mind and its formations can never be extinguished.
Life, like Christ, is “the same yesterday, to-day, and forever.” Organization and time have nothing to do with Life. We say, “I dreamed last night.” What a mistake is that! Soul never slumbered, or wandered into delusion.
The Ego is Soul, the direct opposite of sense, and there is but one Ego. The singular of Soul becomes plural as sense, wherein Mind seems to be multiplied into minds, error to be Mind, Mind to be matter, matter to be a lawgiver, unintelligence to act like Intelligence, and mortality to be the matrix of immortality. The hymn is right: —
This life's a dream, an empty show;
But the bright world, to which we go,
Hath joys substantial and sincere.
When shall I wake and find me there?
Mortal existence is a dream without a dreamer. It is the dream, that saith “It is I.” The Ego never dreams, but understands all things. It never slumbers, is ever conscious. It never believes, but knows. It was never born and never dies.
Sleep is a phase of the dream that Life, Substance, and Intelligence are material. The dream — not the sleep of this mortal existence — is nearer the fact of being than the waking thoughts. The dream has less matter as its accompaniment. It throws off some of our material fetters. It falls short of the upper skies, but makes its mundane flights quite ethereal.
The mortal body and mind arc one. This body is weary or pained, enjoys or suffers, according to the dream it entertains in sleep. When that dream vanishes, the man finds himself experiencing none of those dream-sensations. The body lies on the bed, in the mind's absence, undisturbed and sensationless.
Now I ask, Is there any more reality in the waking dream than in this sleeping dream? There cannot be, since there is no mortality, either of mind or body, and whatever appears to material sense is a mortal dream; for as man, matter has no more sense (aside from his belief) than it has as a tree. Truly says Bowring: —
. . . What am I then? Naught:
But I live, and on hope's pinions fly
Eager towards Thy presence; for in Thee
I live and breathe and dwell, aspiring high,
Even to the throne of Thy divinity.
I am, O God, and surely Thou must be. Thou art; directing, guiding all, Thou art! Direct my understanding then to Thee; Control my reason, guide my wandering heart.
If one would not quarrel with his fellow-man for waking him from the cataleptic nightmare, he should not resist the Truth that destroys the so-called evidences of matter with the higher testimony of Spirit.
Many theories, relative to God and man, neither make man harmonious nor God lovable. The fancies we entertain about happiness and life afford no evidence of either, scathless and permanent. That which secures the claims of harmonious and eternal being is found in Divine Science.
Children should be taught the Christ-cure among their first lessons, and kept from discussing or entertaining theories or thoughts of sickness. To forestall for them the experience of error and its sufferings, take care to keep out of the mind of your children sinful or diseased thoughts. The latter should be excluded on the same principle as the former. This is Christian Science. Remember that, either by suffering or by Science, mankind must sooner or later be convinced of the error that needs to be overcome.
Learn how the human mind governs the body — whether through faith in what it terms matter as law, through drugs, or through faith in itself; whether mind governs the body through a belief in the necessity of sin and sickness, death and pardon, or from the higher understanding that the Divine Mind makes perfect, and moves upon the human mind through Truth, and leads it to relinquish error. This process improves the mortal mind until error disappears, and nothing is left that deserves to perish or be punished.
Ignorance, like intentional wrong, is not Science. Ignorance must be seen and corrected before we can attain harmony. The beliefs that rob Mind, calling it matter, and deify their own notions, imprison themselves in what they create. They are at war with Science, and have established, as our Master said, “a kingdom divided against itself,” that cannot stand.
The human triumphs, achieved over the body, elevate and consecrate both mind and body, so that they present better the true ideal of man, until the creature finally disappears, and the eternal man, created by and of Spirit, is seen in the true likeness of his Maker.
Human ignorance of Mind, and of the recuperative energies of Truth, occasions the only scepticism regarding the pathology and theology of Christian Science.
The metaphysics of Christian Science, like mathematics, prove the rule by reversion. For example: there is no pain in Truth, and no Truth in pain. There is no matter in Mind, and no Mind in matter; no nerve in Intelligence, and no Intelligence in a nerve; no sorrow in Truth, and no Truth in sorrow; no matter in Life, and no Life in matter; no matter in Good, and no Good in matter.
If you venture upon the quiet surface of error, what disturbs the waters? What is there to strip off error's disguise?
On the contrary, if you launch your bark upon the ever-agitated but healthful waters of Truth, you will encounter storms. Your good will be evil spoken of. This is the cross. Take it up, and bear it, for it wins and wears the crown. Pilgrim on earth, thy home is heaven. A stranger, thou art the guest of God.
CHAPTER III.
CREATION.
