And because I tell you the truth, ye believe me not. Which of you convinceth me of sin? And if I say the truth, why do ye not believe me?
- JESUS.

But if the spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, He that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by His spirit that dwelleth in you.
- PAUL.

THE strictures on this volume would condemn to oblivion the truth, which is raising up thousands from helplessness to strength and elevating them from a theoretical to a practical Christianity. These criticisms are generally based on detached sentences or clauses separated from their context. Even the Scriptures, which grow in beauty and consistency from one grand root, ap pear contradictory when subjected to such usage. Jesus said, "Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God" [Truth].

Supported by facts

In Christian Science mere opinion is valueless. Proof is essential to a due estimate of this subject. Sneers at the application of the word Science to Christianity cannot prevent that from being scientific which is based on divine Principle, demonstrated ac cording to a divine given rule, and subjected to proof. The facts are so absolute and numerous in support of Christian Science, that misrepresentation and denunciation cannot overthrow it. Paul alludes to "doubtful dis putations." The hour has struck when proof and demonstration, instead of opinion and dogma, are summoned to the support of Christianity, "making wise the simple."

Commands of Jesus

In the result of some unqualified condemnations of scientific Mindhealing, one may see with sorrow the sad effects on the sick of denying Truth. He that decries this Science does it presumptuously, in the face of Bible history and in defiance of the direct command of Jesus, "Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel," to which command was added the promise that his students should cast out evils and heal the sick. He bade the seventy disciples, as well as the twelve, heal the sick in any town where they should be hospitably received.

Christianity scientific

If Christianity is not scientific, and Science is not of God, then there is no invariable law, and truth becomes an accident. Shall it be denied that a system which works according to the Scriptures has Scriptural authority?

Argument of good works

Christian Science awakens the sinner, reclaims the infidel, and raises from the couch of pain the helpless invalid. It speaks to the dumb the words of Truth, and they answer with rejoicing. It causes the deaf to hear, the lame to walk, and the blind to see. Who would be the first to disown the Christliness of good works, when our Master says, "By their fruits ye shall know them"? If Christian Scientists were teaching or practising pharmacy or obstetrics according to the common theories, no denunciations would follow them, even if their treatment resulted in the death of a patient. The people are taught in such cases to say, Amen. Shall I then be smitten for healing and for teaching Truth as the Principle of healing, and for proving my word by my deed? James said: "Show me thy faith without thy works, and I will show thee my faith by my works."

Personal experience

Is not finite mind ignorant of God's method? This makes it doubly unfair to impugn and misrepresent the facts, although, without this crossbearing, one might not be able to say with the apostle, "None of these things move me." The sick, the halt, and the blind look up to Christian Science with blessings, and Truth will not be forever hidden by unjust parody from the quickened sense of the people.

Proof from miracles

Jesus strips all disguise from error, when his teachings are fully understood. By parable and argument he ex plains the impossibility of good producing evil; and he also scientifically demonstrates this great fact, proving by what are wrongly called miracles, that sin, sickness, and death are beliefs illusive errors which he could and did destroy. It would sometimes seem as if truth were rejected be cause meekness and spirituality are the conditions of its acceptance, while Christendom generally demands so much less.

Example of the disciples

Anciently those apostles who were Jesus' students, as well as Paul who was not one of his students, healed the sick and reformed the sinner by their religion. Hence the mistake which allows words, rather than works, to follow such examples! Whoever is the first meekly and conscientiously to press along the line of gospelhealing, is often accounted a heretic.

Strong position

Efficacy may be attested

Were it more fully understood that Truth heals and that error causes disease, the opponents of a demonstrable Science would perhaps mercifully withhold their misrepresentations, which harm the sick; and until the enemies of Christian Science test its efficacy according to the rules which disclose its merits or de merits, it would be just to observe the Scriptural precept, "Judge not."

The one divine method

There are various methods of treating disease, which are not included in the commonly accepted systems; but there is only one which should be presented to the whole world, and that is the Christian Science which Jesus preached and practised and left to us as his rich legacy. Why should one refuse to investigate this method of treating disease? Why support the popular systems of medicine, when the physician may perchance be an infidel and may lose ninetyandnine patients, while Christian Science cures its hundred? Is it because allopathy and homoeopathy are more fashionable and less spiritual?

Omnipotence set forth

In the Bible the word Spirit is so commonly applied to Deity, that Spirit and God are often regarded as syn onymous terms; and it is thus they are uniformly used and understood in Christian Science. As it is evident that the likeness of Spirit cannot be material, does it not follow that God cannot be in His unlikeness and work through drugs to heal the sick? When the omnipotence of God is preached and His ab soluteness is set forth, Christian sermons will heal the sick.

Contradictions not found

It is sometimes said, in criticising Christian Science, that the mind which contradicts itself neither knows itself nor what it is saying. It is indeed no small matter to know one's self; but in this volume of mine there are no contradictory statements, at least none which are apparent to those who understand its propositions well enough to pass judgment upon them. One who understands Christian Science can heal the sick on the divine Principle of Chris tian Science, and this practical proof is the only feasible evidence that one does understand this Science. Anybody, who is able to perceive the incongruity be tween God's idea and poor humanity, ought to be able to discern the distinction (made by Christian Science) between God's man, made in His image, and the sinning race of Adam. The apostle says: "For if a man think himself to be something, when he is nothing, he deceiveth himself." This thought of human, material nothingness, which Science inculcates, enrages the carnal mind and is the main cause of the carnal mind's antagonism.

God's idea the ideal man

It is not the purpose of Christian Science to "educate the idea of God, or treat it for disease," as is alleged by one critic. I regret that such criticism confounds man with Adam. When man is spoken of as made in God's image, it is not sinful and sickly mortal man who is referred to, but the ideal man, reflecting God's likeness.

Nothingness of error

It is sometimes said that Christian Science teaches the nothingness of sin, sickness, and death, and then teaches how this nothingness is to be saved and healed. The nothingness of nothing is plain; but we need to understand that error is nothing, and that its nothingness is not saved, but must be demonstrated in order to prove the somethingness yea, the allness of Truth. It is selfevident that we are harmonious only as we cease to manifest evil or the belief that we suffer from the sins of others. Disbelief in error destroys error, and leads to the discernment of Truth. There are no vacuums. How then can this demonstration be "fraught with falsities painful to behold"?

Truth antidotes error

We treat error through the understanding of Truth, because Truth is error's antidote. If a dream ceases, it is selfdestroyed, and the terror is over. When a sufferer is convinced that there is no reality in his belief of pain, because matter has no sensation, hence pain in matter is a false belief, how can he suffer longer? Do you feel the pain of toothpulling, when you believe that nitrousoxide gas has made you unconscious? Yet, in your concept, the tooth, the operation, and the forceps are unchanged.

Serving two masters

Material beliefs must be expelled to make room for spiritual understanding. We cannot serve both God and mammon at the same time; but is not this what frail mortals are trying to do? Paul says: "The flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh." Who is ready to admit this? It is said by one critic, that to verify this wonderful philosophy Christian Science declares that whatever is mortal or discordant has no origin, existence, nor realness. Nothing really has Life but God, who is infinite Life; hence all is Life, and death has no dominion. This writer infers that if anything needs to be doctored, it must be the one God, or Mind. Had he stated his syllo gism correctly, the conclusion would be that there is noth ing left to be doctored.

Essential element of Christianity

Critics should consider that the socalled mortal man is not the reality of man. Then they would behold the signs of Christ's coming. Christ, as the spiritual or true idea of God, comes now as of old, preaching the gospel to the poor, heal ing the sick, and casting out evils. Is it error which is restoring an essential element of Christianity, namely, apostolic, divine healing? No; it is the Science of Christianity which is restoring it, and is the light shining in darkness, which the darkness comprehends not. If Christian Science takes away the popular gods, sin, sickness, and death, it is Christ, Truth, who de stroys these evils, and so proves their nothingness.

The dream that matter and error are something must yield to reason and revelation. Then mortals will behold the nothingness of sickness and sin, and sin and sickness will disappear from consciousness. The harmonious will appear real, and the inharmo nious unreal. These critics will then see that error is indeed the nothingness, which they chide us for naming nothing and which we desire neither to honor nor to fear. Medical theories virtually admit the nothingness of hallucinations, even while treating them as disease; and who objects to this? Ought we not, then, to approve any cure, which is effected by making the disease appear to be what it really is an illusion?

All disease a delusion

Here is the difficulty: it is not generally understood how one disease can be just as much a delusion as another. It is a pity that the medical faculty and clergy have not learned this, for Jesus established this foundational fact, when devils, delusions, were cast out and the dumb spake.

Elimination of sickness

Are we irreverent towards sin, or imputing too much power to God, when we ascribe to Him almighty Life and Love? I deny His cooperation with evil, because I desire to have no faith in evil or in any power but God, good. Is it not well to eliminate from socalled mortal mind that which, so long as it remains in mortal mind, will show itself in forms of sin, sickness, and death? Instead of tenaciously defending the supposed rights of disease, while complaining of the suffering, dis ease brings, would it not be well to abandon the defence, especially when by so doing our own condition can be im proved and that of other persons as well?

Full fruitage yet to come

I have never supposed the world would immediately witness the full fruitage of Christian Science, or that sin, disease, and death would not be believed for an indefinite time; but this I do aver, that, as a result of teaching Christian Science, ethics and temperance have received all impulse, health has been restored, and longevity increased. If such are the present fruits, what will the harvest be, when this Science is more generally understood?

Law and gospel

Language inadequate

The chief difficulty in conveying the teachings of divine Science accurately to human thought lies in this, that like all other languages, English is inadequate to the expression of spiritual conceptions and propositions, because one is obliged to use material terms in dealing with spiritual ideas. The elucidation of Chris tian Science lies in its spiritual sense, and this sense must be gained by its disciples in order to grasp the meaning of this Science. Out of this condition grew the prophecy concerning the Christian apostles, "They shall speak with new tongues." Speaking of the things of Spirit while dwelling on a material plane, material terms must be generally em ployed. Mortal thought does not at once catch the higher meaning, and can do so only as thought is edu cated up to spiritual apprehension. To a certain extent this is equally true of all learning, even that which is wholly material.

Substance spiritual

In Christian Science, substance is understood to be Spirit, while the opponents of Christian Science believe substance to be matter. They think of matter as some thing and almost the only thing, and of the things which pertain to Spirit as next to nothing, or as very far removed from daily experience. Christian Science takes exactly the opposite view.

Both words and works

To understand all our Master's sayings as recorded in the New Testament, sayings infinitely important, his followers must grow into that stature of manhood in Christ Jesus which enables them to interpret his spiritual meaning. Then they know how Truth casts out error and heals the sick. His words were the offspring of his deeds, both of which must be understood. Unless the works are com prehended which his words explained, the words are blind.

The Master often refused to explain his words, because it was difficult in a material age to apprehend spiritual Truth. He said: "This people's heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed; lest at any time they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and should understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them."

The divine lifelink

"The Word was made flesh." Divine Truth must be known by its effects on the body as well as on the mind, before the Science of being can be demonstrated. Hence its embodiment in the incar nate Jesus, that lifelink forming the connection through which the real reaches the unreal, Soul rebukes sense, and Truth destroys error.

Truth a present help

In Jewish worship the Word was materially explained, and the spiritual sense was scarcely perceived. The religion which sprang from half-hidden Israelitish history was pedantic and void of healing power. When we lose faith in God's power to heal, we distrust the divine Principle which demonstrates Christian Science, and then we cannot heal the sick. Neither can we heal through the help of Spirit, if we plant ourselves on a material basis.

The author became a member of the orthodox Congregational Church in early years. Later she learned that her own prayers failed to heal her as did the prayers of her devout parents and the church; but when the spiritual sense of the creed was discerned in the Science of Christianity, this spiritual sense was a present help. It was the living, palpitating presence of Christ, Truth, which healed the sick.

Fatal premises

We cannot bring out the practical proof of Christianity, which Jesus required, while error seems as potent and real to us as Truth, and while we make a per sonal devil and an anthropomorphic God our startingpoints, especially if we consider Satan as a being coequal in power with Deity, if not superior to Him. Because such startingpoints are neither spiritual nor scientific, they cannot work out the Spiritrule of Christian healing, which proves the nothingness of error, discord, by demonstrating the allinclusiveness of harmonious Truth.

Fruitless worship

The Israelites centred their thoughts on the material in their attempted worship of the spiritual. To them matter was substance, and Spirit was shadow. They thought to worship Spirit from a ma terial standpoint, but this was impossible. They might appeal to Jehovah, but their prayer brought down no proof that it was heard, because they did not sufficiently understand God to be able to demonstrate His power to heal, to make harmony the reality and discord the unreality.

Spirit the tangible

Our Master declared that his material body was not spirit, evidently considering it a mortal and material be lief of flesh and bones, whereas the Jews took a diametrically opposite view. To Jesus, not materiality, but spirituality, was the reality of man's ex istence, while to the rabbis the spiritual was the intangi ble and uncertain, if not the unreal.

Ghosts not realities

Would a mother say to her child, who is frightened at imaginary ghosts and sick in consequence of the fear: "I know that ghosts are real. They exist, and are to be feared; but you must not be afraid of them"? Children, like adults, ought to fear a reality which can harm them and which they do not understand, for at any moment they may become its helpless victims; but instead of increasing children's fears by declaring ghosts to be real, merciless, and powerful, thus water ing the very roots of childish timidity, children should be assured that their fears are groundless, that ghosts are not realities, but traditional beliefs, erroneous and manmade. In short, children should be told not to believe in ghosts, because there are no such things. If belief in their reality is destroyed, terror of ghosts will depart and health be re stored. The objects of alarm will then vanish into nothingness, no longer seeming worthy of fear or honor. To accomplish a good result, it is certainly not irrational to tell the truth about ghosts.

The real and the unreal

The Christianly scientific real is the sensuous unreal. Sin, disease, whatever seems real to material sense, is un real in divine Science. The physical senses and Science have ever been antagonistic, and they will so continue, till the testimony of the physical senses yields entirely to Christian Science. How can a Christian, having the stronger evidence of Truth which contradicts the evidence of error, think of the latter as real or true, either in the form of sickness or of sin? All must admit that Christ is "the way, the truth, and the life," and that omnipotent Truth certainly does destroy error.

Superstition obsolete

The age has not wholly outlived the sense of ghostly beliefs. It still holds them more or less. Time has not yet reached eternity, immortality, complete reality. All the real is eternal. Perfection underlies reality. Without perfection, nothing is wholly real. All things will continue to disappear, until per fection appears and reality is reached. We must give up the spectral at all points. We must not continue to admit the somethingness of superstition, but we must yield up all belief in it and be wise. When we learn that error is not real, we shall be ready for progress, "forgetting those things which are behind."

The grave does not banish the ghost of materiality. So long as there are supposed limits to Mind, and those limits are human, so long will ghosts seem to continue. Mind is limitless. It never was material. The true idea of being is spiritual and immortal, and from this it follows that whatever is laid off is the ghost, some unreal belief. Mortal beliefs can neither demonstrate Christianity nor apprehend the reality of Life.

Christian warfare

Are the protests of Christian Science against the notion that there can be material life, substance, or mind "utter falsities and absurdities," as some aver? Why then do Christians try to obey the Scriptures and war against "the world, the flesh, and the devil"? Why do they invoke the divine aid to enable them to leave all for Christ, Truth? Why do they use this phraseology, and yet deny Christian Science, when it teaches precisely this thought? The words of divine Science find their immortality in deeds, for their Principle heals the sick and spiritualizes humanity.

Healing omitted

On the other hand, the Christian opponents of Chris tian Science neither give nor offer any proofs that their Master's religion can heal the sick. Surely it is not enough to cleave to barren and desul tory dogmas, derived from the traditions of the elders who thereunto have set their seals.

Scientific consistency

Consistency is seen in example more than in precept. Inconsistency is shown by words without deeds, which are like clouds without rain. If our words fail to express our deeds, God will redeem that weakness, and out of the mouth of babes He will perfect praise. The night of materiality is far spent, and with the dawn Truth will waken men spiritually to hear and to speak the new tongue. Sin should become unreal to every one. It is in itself inconsistent, a divided kingdom. Its supposed realism has no divine authority, and I rejoice in the apprehension of this grand verity.

Spiritual meaning

The opponents of divine Science must be charitable, if they would be Christian. If the letter of Christian Science appears inconsistent, they should gain the spiritual meaning of Christian Science, and then the ambiguity will vanish.

Practical arguments

What is the relative value of the two conflicting theories regarding Christian healing? One, according to the commands of our Master, heals the sick. The other, popular religion, declines to admit that Christ's religion has exercised any systematic healing power since the first century.

Conditions of criticism

The statement that the teachings of Christian Science in this work are "absolutely false, and the most egregious fallacies ever offered for accept ance," is an opinion wholly due to a mishapprehension both of the divine Principle and practice of Christian Science and to a consequent inability to demon strate this Science. Without this understanding, no one is capable of impartial or correct criticism, because demon stration and spiritual understanding are God's immortal keynotes, proved to be such by our Master and evidenced by the sick who are cured and by the sinners who are reformed.

Weakness of material theories

Strangely enough, we ask for material theories in support of spiritual and eternal truths, when the two are so antagonistic that the material thought must become spirtualized before the spiritual fact is attained. Socalled material existence affords no evidence theories of spiritual existence and immortality. Sin, sickness, and death do not prove man's entity or immor tality. Discord can never establish the facts of harmony. Matter is not the vestibule of Spirit.

Irreconciliable differences

Copartnership impossible

There is neither a present nor an eternal copartnership between error and Truth, between flesh and Spirit. God is as incapable of producing sin, sick ness, and death as He is of experiencing these errors. How then is it possible for Him to create man subject to this triad of errors, man who is made in the divine likeness? Does God create a material man out of Himself, Spirit? Does evil proceed from good? Does divine Love com mit a fraud on humanity by making man inclined to sin, and then punishing him for it? Would any one call it wise and good to create the primitive, and then punish its derivative?

Two infinite creators absurd

Does subsequent follow its antecedent? It does. Was there original selfcreative sin? Then there must have been more than one creator, more than one God. In common justice, we must admit that God will not punish man for doing what He created man capable of doing, and knew from the outset that man would do. God is "of purer eyes than to behold evil." We sustain Truth, not by accepting, but by rejecting a lie. Jesus said of personified evil, that it was "a liar, and the father of it." Truth creates neither a lie, a capacity to lie, nor a liar. If mankind would relinquish the belief that God makes sickness, sin, and death, or makes man capable of suffering on account of this malevolent triad, the foundations of error would be sapped and error's de struction ensured; but if we theoretically endow mortals with the creativeness and authority of Deity, how dare we attempt to destroy what He hath made, or even to deny that God made man evil and made evil good?

Anthropomorphism

History teaches that the popular and false notions about the Divine Being and character have originated in the human mind. As there is in reality but one God, one Mind, wrong notions about God must have originated in a false supposition, not in im mortal Truth, and they are fading out. They are false claims, which will eventually disappear, according to the vision of St. John in the Apocalypse.

One supremacy

If what opposes God is real, there must be two powers, and God is not supreme and infinite. Can Deity be almighty, if another mighty and selfcreative cause exists and sways man kind? Has the Father "Life in Himself," as the Scriptures say, and, if so, can Life, or God, dwell in evil and create it? Can matter drive Life, Spirit, hence, and so defeat omnipotence?

Matter impotent

Is the woodman's axe, which destroys a tree's socalled life, superior to omnipotence? Can a leaden bullet deprive a man of Life, that is, of God, who is man's Life? If God is at the mercy of matter, then matter is omnipotent. Such doctrines are "confusion worse confounded." If two statements directly contradict each other and one is true, the other must be false. Is Science thus contradictory?

Scientific and Biblical facts

Christian Science, understood, coincides with the Scriptures, and sustains logically and demonstratively every point it presents. Otherwise it would not be Science, and could not present its proofs. Christian Science is neither made up of contra dictory aphorisms nor of the inventions of those who scoff at God. It presents the calm and clear verdict of Truth against error, uttered and illustrated by the prophets, by Jesus, by his apostles, as is recorded throughout the Scriptures. Why are the words of Jesus more frequently cited for our instruction than are his remarkable works? Is it not because there are few who have gained a true knowledge of the great import to Christianity of those works?

Personal confidence

Sometimes it is said; "Rest assured that whatever effect Christian Scientists may have on the sick, comes through rousing within the sick a belief that in the removal of disease these healers have wonderful power, derived from the Holy Ghost." Is it likely that churchmembers have more faith in some Christian Scientist, whom they have perhaps never seen and against whom they have been warned, than they have in their own accredited and orthodox pastors, whom they have seen and have been taught to love and to trust?

Let any clergyman try to cure his friends by their faith in him. Will that faith heal them? Yet Scien tists will take the same cases, and cures will follow. Is this because the patients have more faith in the Scien tist than in their pastor? I have healed infidels whose only objection to this method was, that I as a Christian Scientist believed in the Holy Spirit, while they, the patients, did not. Even though you aver that the material senses are indispensable to man's existence or entity, you must change the human concept of life, and must at length know yourself spiritually and scientifically. The evidence of the existence of Spirit, Soul, is palpable only to spiritual sense, and is not apparent to the material senses, which cognize only that which is the opposite of Spirit.

True Christianity is to be honored wherever found, but when shall we arrive at the goal which that word implies? From Puritan parents, the discoverer of Christian Science early received her religious education. In childhood, she often listened with joy to these words, falling from the lips of her saintly mother, "God is able to raise you up from sick ness;" and she pondered the meaning of that Scripture she so often quotes: "And these signs shall follow them that believe; . . . they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover."

Two different artists

A Christian Scientist and an opponent are like two artists. One says: "I have spiritual ideals, indestructible and glorious. When others see them as I do, in their true light and loveliness, and know that these ideals are real and eternal because drawn from Truth, they will find that nothing is lost, and all is won, by a right estimate of what is real." The other artist replies: "You wrong my experience. I have no mindideals except those which are both mental and material. It is true that materiality renders these ideals imperfect and destructible; yet I would not ex change mine for thine, for mine give me such personal pleasure, and they are not so shockingly transcendental. They require less selfabnegation, and keep Soul well out of sight. Moreover, I have no notion of losing my old doctrines or human opinions."

Choose ye today

Dear reader, which mindpicture or externalized thought shall be real to you, the material or the spiritual? Both you cannot have. You are bringing out your own ideal. This ideal is either temporal or eternal. Either Spirit or matter is your model. If you try to have two models, then you practically have none. Like a pendulum in a clock, you will be thrown back and forth, striking the ribs of matter and swinging between the real and the unreal. Hear the wisdom of Job, as given in the excellent trans lation of the late Rev. George R. Noyes, D.D.: Shall mortal man be more just than God? Shall man be more pure than his Maker? Behold, He putteth no trust in His ministering spirits, And His angels He chargeth with frailty.

Of old, the Jews put to death the Galilean Prophet, the best Christian on earth, for the truth he spoke and demonstrated, while today, Jew and Christian can unite in doctrine and denomination on the very basis of Jesus' words and works. The Jew believes that the Messiah or Christ has not yet come; the Christian believes that Christ is God. Here Christian Science intervenes, explains these doctrinal points, cancels the disagreement, and settles the question. Christ, as the true spiritual idea, is the ideal of God now and forever, here and everywhere. The Jew who believes in the First Commandment is a monotheist; he has one omnipresent God. Thus the Jew unites with the Christian's doctrine that God is come and is present now and forever. The Christian who believes in the First Commandment is a monotheist. This he virtually unites with the Jew's belief in one God, and recognizes that Jesus Christ is not God, as Jesus himself declared, but is the Son of God. This declaration of Jesus, understood, conflicts not at all with another of his sayings: "I and my Father are one," that is, one in quality, not in quantity. As a drop of water is one with the ocean, a ray of light one with the, sun, even so God and man, Father and son, are one in being. The Scrip ture reads: "For in Him we live, and move, and have our being."

I have revised Science and Health only to give a clearer and fuller expression of its original meaning. Spir itual ideas unfold as we advance. A human perception of divine Science, however limited, must be correct in order to be Science and subject to demonstration. A germ of in finite Truth, though least in the kingdom of heaven is the higher hope on earth, but it will be rejected and reviled until God prepares the soil for the seed. That which when sown bears immortal fruit, enriches mankind only when it is understood, hence the many readings given the Scriptures, and the requisite revisions of Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures.

Table of Contents       Previous Chapter
Next Chapter