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Christian Science begins with the First Com- [1]

mandment of the Hebrew Decalogue, “Thou

shalt have no other gods before me.” It goes on in

perfect unity with Christ's Sermon on the Mount, and

in that age culminates in the Revelation of St. John, [5]

who, while on earth and in the flesh, like ourselves,

beheld “a new heaven and a new earth,”—the spiritual

universe, whereof Christian Science now bears testimony.

Our Master said, “The works that I do shall ye do

also;” and, “The kingdom of God is within you.” This [10]

makes practical all his words and works. As the ages

advance in spirituality, Christian Science will be seen

to depart from the trend of other Christian denomina-

tions in no wise except by increase of spirituality.

My first plank in the platform of Christian Science [15]

is as follows: “There is no life, truth, intelligence, nor

substance in matter. All is infinite Mind and its infinite

manifestation, for God is All-in-all. Spirit is immortal

Truth; matter is mortal error. Spirit is the real and

eternal; matter is the unreal and temporal. Spirit is [20]

God, and man is His image and likeness. Therefore man

is not material; he is spiritual.”1

[pg 022]

I am strictly a theist—believe in one God, one Christ [1]

or Messiah.

Science is neither a law of matter nor of man. It is

the unerring manifesto of Mind, the law of God, its

divine Principle. Who dare say that matter or [5]

mortals can evolve Science? Whence, then, is it, if not

from the divine source, and what, but the contempor-

ary of Christianity, so far in advance of human knowl-

edge that mortals must work for the discovery of even a

portion of it? Christian Science translates Mind, God, [10]

to mortals. It is the infinite calculus defining the line,

plane, space, and fourth dimension of Spirit. It abso-

lutely refutes the amalgamation, transmigration, absorp-

tion, or annihilation of individuality. It shows the

impossibility of transmitting human ills, or evil, from one [15]

individual to another; that all true thoughts revolve

in God's orbits: they come from God and return to

Him—and untruths belong not to His creation, there-

fore these are null and void. It hath no peer, no comp-

petitor, for it dwelleth in Him besides whom “there is [20]

none other.”

That Christian Science is Christian, those who have

demonstrated it, according to the rules of its divine

Principle—together with the sick, the lame, the deaf, and

the blind, healed by it—have proven to a waiting world. [25]

He who has not tested it, is incompetent to condemn it;

and he who is a willing sinner, cannot demonstrate it.

A falling apple suggested to Newton more than the

simple fact cognized by the senses, to which it seemed

to fall by reason of its own ponderosity; but the primal [30]

cause, or Mind-force, invisible to material sense, lay

concealed in the treasure-troves of Science. True,

[pg 023]

Newton named it gravitation, having learned so much; [1]

but Science, demanding more, pushes the question:

Whence or what is the power back of gravitation—the

intelligence that manifests power? Is pantheism true?

Does mind “sleep in the mineral, or dream in the [5]

animal, and wake in man”? Christianity answers this

question. The prophets, Jesus, and the apostles, demon-

strated a divine intelligence that subordinates so-called

material laws; and disease, death, winds, and waves,

obey this intelligence. Was it Mind or matter that spake [10]

in creation, “and it was done”? The answer is self-

evident, and the command remains, “Thou shalt have

no other gods before me.”

It is plain that the Me spoken of in the First Com-

mandment, must be Mind; for matter is not the Chris- [15]

tian's God, and is not intelligent. Matter cannot even

talk; and the serpent, Satan, the first talker in its behalf,

lied. Reason and revelation declare that God is both

noumenon and phenomena—the first and only cause.

The universe, including man, is not a result of atomic [20]

action, material force or energy; it is not organized dust.

God, Spirit, Mind, are terms synonymous for the one

God, whose reflection is creation, and man is His image

and likeness. Few there are who comprehend what Chris-

tian Science means by the word reflection. God is seen [25]

only in that which reflects good, Life, Truth, Love—

yea, which manifests all His attributes and power, even

as the human likeness thrown upon the mirror repeats

precisely the looks and actions of the object in front of it.

All must be Mind and Mind's ideas; since, according to [30]

natural science, God, Spirit, could not change its species

and evolve matter.

[pg 024]

These facts enjoin the First Commandment; and [1]

knowledge of them makes man spiritually minded. St.

Paul writes: “For to be carnally minded is death; but to

be spiritually minded is life and peace.” This knowl-

edge came to me in an hour of great need; and I give it [5]

to you as death-bed testimony to the daystar that dawned

on the night of material sense. This knowledge is

practical, for it wrought my immediate recovery from

an injury caused by an accident, and pronounced fatal

by the physicians. On the third day thereafter, I called [10]

for my Bible, and opened it at Matthew ix. 2. As I

read, the healing Truth dawned upon my sense; and

the result was that I rose, dressed myself, and ever after

was in better health than I had before enjoyed. That

short experience included a glimpse of the great fact [15]

that I have since tried to make plain to others, namely,

Life in and of Spirit; this Life being the sole reality of

existence. I learned that mortal thought evolves a sub-

jective state which it names matter, thereby shutting

out the true sense of Spirit. Per contra, Mind and man [20]

are immortal; and knowledge gained from mortal sense

is illusion, error, the opposite of Truth; therefore it

cannot be true. A knowledge of both good and evil

(when good is God, and God is All) is impossible. Speak-

ing of the origin of evil, the Master said: “When he [25]

speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar,

and the father of it.” God warned man not to believe

the talking serpent, or rather the allegory describing

it. The Nazarene Prophet declared that his followers

should handle serpents; that is, put down all subtle falsi- [30]

ties or illusions, and thus destroy any supposed effect

arising from false claims exercising their supposed power

[pg 025]

on the mind and body of man against his holiness and [1]

health.

That there is but one God or Life, one cause and

one effect, is the multum in parvo of Christian Science;

and to my understanding it is the heart of Christianity, [5]

the religion that Jesus taught and demonstrated. In

divine Science it is found that matter is a phase of

error, and that neither one really exists, since God is

Truth, and All-in-all. Christ's Sermon on the Mount,

in its direct application to human needs, confirms this [10]

conclusion.

Science, understood, translates matter into Mind,

rejects all other theories of causation, restores the spir-

itual and original meaning of the Scriptures, and ex-

plains the teachings and life of our Lord. It is religion's [15]

“new tongue,” with “signs following,” spoken of by

St. Mark. It gives God's infinite meaning to mankind,

healing the sick, casting out evil, and raising the spirit-

ually dead. Christianity is Christlike only as it re-

iterates the word, repeats the works, and manifests the [20]

spirit of Christ.

Jesus' only medicine was omnipotent and omniscient

Mind. As omni is from the Latin word meaning all,

this medicine is all-power; and omniscience means as

well, all-science. The sick are more deplorably situated [25]

than the sinful, if the sick cannot trust God for help and

the sinful can. If God created drugs good, they cannot be

harmful; if He could create them otherwise, then they

are bad and unfit for man; and if He created drugs for

healing the sick, why did not Jesus employ them and [30]

recommend them for that purpose?

No human hypotheses, whether in philosophy, medi-

[pg 026]

cine, or religion, can survive the wreck of time; but [1]

whatever is of God, hath life abiding in it, and ulti-

mately will be known as self-evident truth, as demonstra-

ble as mathematics. Each successive period of progress

is a period more humane and spiritual. The only logical [5]

conclusion is that all is Mind and its manifestation, from

the rolling of worlds, in the most subtle ether, to a potato-

patch.

The agriculturist ponders the history of a seed, and

believes that his crops come from the seedling and the [10]

loam; even while the Scripture declares He made “every

plant of the field before it was in the earth.” The Scien-

tist asks, Whence came the first seed, and what made

the soil? Was it molecules, or material atoms? Whence

came the infinitesimals—from infinite Mind, or from [15]

matter? If from matter, how did matter originate? Was

it self-existent? Matter is not intelligent, and thus able

to evolve or create itself: it is the very opposite of Spirit,

intelligent, self-creative, and infinite Mind. The belief

of mind in matter is pantheism. Natural history shows [20]

that neither a genus nor a species produces its opposite.

God is All, in all. What can be more than All? Noth-

ing: and this is just what I call matter, nothing. Spirit,

God, has no antecedent; and God's consequent is the

spiritual cosmos. The phrase, “express image,” in the [25]

common version of Hebrews i. 3, is, in the Greek Tes-

tament, character.

The Scriptures name God as good, and the Saxon

term for God is also good. From this premise comes

the logical conclusion that God is naturally and divinely [30]

infinite good. How, then, can this conclusion change,

or be changed, to mean that good is evil, or the creator

[pg 027]

of evil? What can there be besides infinity? Nothing! [1]

Therefore the Science of good calls evil nothing. In

divine Science the terms God and good, as Spirit, are

synonymous. That God, good, creates evil, or aught

that can result in evil—or that Spirit creates its oppo- [5]

site, named matter—are conclusions that destroy their

premise and prove themselves invalid. Here is where

Christian Science sticks to its text, and other systems

of religion abandon their own logic. Here also is found

the pith of the basal statement, the cardinal point in [10]

Christian Science, that matter and evil (including all

inharmony, sin, disease, death) are unreal. Mortals

accept natural science, wherein no species ever pro-

duces its opposite. Then why not accept divine Sci-

ence on this ground? since the Scriptures maintain [15]

this fact by parable and proof, asking, “Do men

gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?” “Doth a

fountain send forth at the same place sweet water and

bitter?”

According to reason and revelation, evil and matter [20]

are negation: for evil signifies the absence of good, God,

though God is ever present; and matter claims some-

thing besides God, when God is really All. Creation,

evolution, or manifestation—being in and of Spirit,

Mind, and all that really is—must be spiritual and [25]

mental. This is Science, and is susceptible of proof.

But, say you, is a stone spiritual?

To erring material sense, No! but to unerring spiritual

sense, it is a small manifestation of Mind, a type of spirit-

ual substance, “the substance of things hoped for.” [30]

Mortals can know a stone as substance, only by first ad-

mitting that it is substantial. Take away the mortal sense

[pg 028]

of substance, and the stone itself would disappear, only [1]

to reappear in the spiritual sense thereof. Matter can

neither see, hear, feel, taste, nor smell; having no sen-

sation of its own. Perception by the five personal senses

is mental, and dependent on the beliefs that mortals [5]

entertain. Destroy the belief that you can walk, and

volition ceases; for muscles cannot move without mind.

Matter takes no cognizance of matter. In dreams, things

are only what mortal mind makes them; and the phe-

nomena of mortal life are as dreams; and this so-called [10]

life is a dream soon told. In proportion as mortals turn

from this mortal and material dream, to the true sense

of reality, everlasting Life will be found to be the only

Life. That death does not destroy the beliefs of the flesh,

our Master proved to his doubting disciple, Thomas. Also, [15]

he demonstrated that divine Science alone can overbear

materiality and mortality; and this great truth was shown

is by his ascension after death, whereby he arose above

the illusion of matter.

The First Commandment, “Thou shalt have no other [20]

gods before me,” suggests the inquiry, What meaneth

this Me—Spirit, or matter? It certainly does not

signify a graven idol, and must mean Spirit. Then

the commandment means, Thou shalt recognize no

intelligence nor life in matter; and find neither pleasure [25]

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;

[pg 029]

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 pronoun 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 God, and the Word was

God.” There is, however, no analogy 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 God'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

[pg 030]

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 illustrated 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 superstition. “The fool hath

said in his heart, There is no God.” [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.

[pg 031]