Читать книгу Miscellaneous Writings, 1883-1896 - Mary Baker Eddy - Страница 9
ОглавлениеIf you will admit, with me, that matter is neither [30]
substance, intelligence, nor Life, you may have all that
[pg 075]
is left of it; and you will have touched the hem of the [1]
garment of Jesus' idea of matter, Christ was “the way;”
since Life and Truth were the way that gave us, through
a human person, a spiritual revelation of man's possible
earthly development. [5]
Why do you insist that there is but one Soul, and that
Soul is not in the body?
First: I urge this fundamental fact and grand verity
of Christian Science, because it includes a rule that must
be understood, or it is impossible to demonstrate the Sci- [10]
ence. Soul is a synonym of Spirit, and God is Spirit.
There is but one God, and the infinite is not within the
finite; hence Soul is one, and is God; and God is not in
matter or the mortal body.
Second: Because Soul is a term for Deity, and this [15]
term should seldom be employed except where the word
God can be used and make complete sense. The word
Soul may sometimes be used metaphorically; but if this
term is warped to signify human quality, a substitution
of sense for soul clears the meaning, and assists one to [20]
understand Christian Science. Mary's exclamation,
“"My soul doth magnify the Lord,” is rendered in Sci-
ence, “My spiritual sense doth magnify the Lord;”
for the name of Deity used in that place does not bring
out the meaning of the passage. It was evidently an [25]
illuminated sense through which she discovered the
spiritual origin of man. “The soul that sinneth, it shall
die,” means, that mortal man (alias material sense) that
sinneth, shall die; and the commonly accepted view is
that soul is deathless. Soul is the divine Mind—for [30]
Soul cannot be formed or brought forth by human
[pg 076]
thought—and must proceed from God; hence it must [1]
be sinless, and destitute of self-created or derived capacity
to sin.
Third: Jesus said, “If a man keep my saying, he
shall never see death.” This statement of our Master [5]
is true, and remains to be demonstrated; for it is the
ultimatum of Christian Science; but this immortal saying
can never be tested or proven true upon a false premise,
such as the mortal belief that soul is in body, and life
and intelligence are in matter. That doctrine is not [10]
theism, but pantheism. According to human belief the
bodies of mortals are mortal, but they contain immortal
souls! hence these bodies must die for these souls to
escape and be immortal. The theory that death must
occur, to set a human soul free from its environments, [15]
is rendered void by Jesus' divine declaration, who spake
as never man spake—and no man can rationally reject
his authority on this subject and accept it on other topics
less important.
Now, exchange the term soul for sense whenever this [20]
word means the so-called soul in the body, and you will
find the right meaning indicated. The misnamed human
soul is material sense, which sinneth and shall die; for
it is an error or false sense of mentality in matter, and
matter has no sense. You will admit that Soul is the [25]
Life of man. Now if Soul sinned, it would die; for “the
wages of sin is death.” The Scripture saith, “When
Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also
appear with him in glory.” The Science of Soul, Spirit,
involves this appearing, and is essential to the fulfilment [30]
of this glorious prophecy of the master Metaphysician,
who overcame the last enemy, death.
[pg 077]
Did the salvation of the eunuch depend merely on his [1]
believing that Jesus Christ was the Son of God?
It did; but this believing was more than faith in the
fact that Jesus was the Messiah. Here the verb believe
took its original meaning, namely, to be firm—yea, to [5]
understand those great truths asserted of the Messiah:
it meant to discern and consent to that infinite demand
made upon the eunuch in those few words of the apostle.
Philip's requirement was, that he should not only ac-
knowledge the incarnation—God made manifest through [10]
man—but even the eternal unity of man and God, as
the divine Principle and spiritual idea; which is the in-
dissoluble bond of union, the power and presence, in
divine Science, of Life, Truth, and Love, to support their
ideal man. This is the Father's great Love that He [15]
hath bestowed upon us, and it holds man in endless
Life and one eternal round of harmonious being. It
guides him by Truth that knows no error, and with
supersensual, impartial, and unquenchable Love. To
believe is to be firm. In adopting all this vast idea of [20]
Christ Jesus, the eunuch was to know in whom he be-
lieved. To believe thus was to enter the spiritual sanctuary
of Truth, and there learn, in divine Science, somewhat
of the All-Father-Mother God. It was to understand
God and man: it was sternly to rebuke the mortal [25]
belief that man has fallen away from his first estate; that
man, made in God's own likeness, and reflecting Truth,
could fall into mortal error; or, that man is the father
of man. It was to enter unshod the Holy of Holies, where
the miracle of grace appears, and where the miracles of [30]
Jesus had their birth—healing the sick, casting out
evils, and resurrecting the human sense to the belief
[pg 078]
that Life, God, is not buried in matter. This is the spirit- [1]
ual dawn of the Messiah, and the overture of the
angels. This is when God is made manifest in the
flesh, and thus it destroys all sense of sin, sickness, and
death—when the brightness of His glory encompasseth [5]
all being.
Can Christian Science Mind-healing be taught to those
who are absent?
The Science of Mind-healing can no more be taught
thus, than can science in any other direction. I know [10]
not how to teach either Euclid or the Science of Mind
silently; and never dreamed that either of these partook
of the nature of occultism, magic, alchemy, or necro-
mancy. These “ways that are vain” are the inventions
of animal magnetism, which would deceive, if possible, [15]
the very elect. We will charitably hope, however, that
some people employ the et cetera of ignorance and self-
conceit unconsciously, in their witless ventilation of false
statements and claims. Misguiding the public mind and
taking its money in exchange for this abuse, has become [20]
too common: we will hope it is the froth of error passing
off; and that Christian Science will some time appear all
the clearer for the purification of the public thought con-
cerning it.
Has man fallen from a state of perfection? [25]
If God is the Principle of man (and He is), man is the
idea of God; and this idea cannot fail to express the ex-
act nature of its Principle—any more than goodness,
to present the quality of good. Human hypotheses are
always human vagaries, formulated views antagonistic [30]
[pg 079]
to the divine order and the nature of Deity. All these [1]
mortal beliefs will be purged and dissolved in the cru-
cible of Truth, and the places once knowing them will
know them no more forever, having been swept clean
by the winds of history. The grand verities of Science [5]
will sift the chaff from the wheat, until it is clear to hu-
man comprehension that man was, and is, God's perfect
likeness, that reflects all whereby we can know God. In
Him we live, move, and have being. Man's origin and
existence being in Him, man is the ultimatum of per- [10]
fection, and by no means the medium of imperfection.
Immortal man is the eternal idea of Truth, that cannot
lapse into a mortal belief or error concerning himself
and his origin: he cannot get out of the focal distance of
infinity. If God is upright and eternal, man as His like- [15]
ness is erect in goodness and perpetual in Life, Truth,
and Love. If the great cause is perfect, its effect is per-
fect also; and cause and effect in Science are immutable
and immortal. A mortal who is sinning, sick, and dying,
is not immortal man; and never was, and never can be, [20]
God's image and likeness, the true ideal of immortal
man's divine Principle. The spiritual man is that per-
fect and unfallen likeness, coexistent and coeternal with
God. “As in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be
made alive.” [25]
What course should Christian Scientists take in regard
to aiding persons brought before the courts for violation of
medical statutes?
Beware of joining any medical league which in any
way obligates you to assist—because they chance to be [30]
under arrest—vendors of patent pills, mesmerists,
[pg 080]
occultists, sellers of impure literature, and authors of [1]
spurious works on mental healing. By rendering error
such a service, you lose much more than can be gained
by mere unity on the single issue of opposition to unjust
medical laws. [5]
A league which obligates its members to give money
and influence in support and defense of medical char-
latans in general, and possibly to aid individual rights
in a wrong direction—which Christian Science eschews
—should be avoided. Anybody and everybody, who [10]
will fight the medical faculty, can join this league. It is
better to be friendly with cultured and conscientious
medical men, who leave Christian Science to rise or fall
on its own merit or demerit, than to affiliate with a wrong
class of people. [15]
Unconstitutional and unjust coercive legislation and
laws, infringing individual rights, must be “of few days,
and full of trouble.” The vox populi, through the provi-
dence of God, promotes and impels all true reform; and,
at the best time, will redress wrongs and rectify injus- [20]
tice. Tyranny can thrive but feebly under our Govern-
ment. God reigns, and will “turn and overturn” until
right is found supreme.
In a certain sense, we should commiserate the lot of
regular doctors, who, in successive generations for cen- [25]
turies, have planted and sown and reaped in the fields
of what they deem pathology, hygiene, and therapeutics,
but are now elbowed by a new school of practitioners,
outdoing the healing of the old. The old will not patronize
the new school, at least not until it shall come to understand [30]
the medical system of the new.
Christian Science Mind-healing rests demonstrably on
[pg 081]
the broad and sure foundation of Science; and this is [1]
not the basis of materia medica, as some of the most skil-
ful and scholarly physicians openly admit.
To prevent all unpleasant and unchristian action—as
we drift, by right of God's dear love, into more spiritual [5]
lines of life—let each society of practitioners, the matter-
physicians and the metaphysicians, agree to disagree, and
then patiently wait on God to decide, as surely He will,
which is the true system of medicine.
Do we not see in the commonly accepted teachings of the [10]
day, the Christ-idea mingled with the teachings of John
the Baptist? or, rather, Are not the last eighteen centuries
but the footsteps of Truth being baptized of John, and com-
ing up straightway out of the ceremonial (or ritualistic)
waters to receive the benediction of an honored Father, and [15]
afterwards to go up into the wilderness, in order to over-
come mortal sense, before it shall go forth into all the cities
and towns of Judea, or see many of the people from beyond
Jordan? Now, if all this be a fair or correct view of this
question, why does not John hear this voice, or see the [20]
dove—or has not Truth yet reached the shore?
Every individual character, like the individual John
the Baptist, at some date must cry in the desert of
earthly joy; and his voice be heard divinely and
humanly. In the desolation of human understanding, [25]
divine Love hears and answers the human call for help;
and the voice of Truth utters the divine verities of being
which deliver mortals out of the depths of ignorance
and vice. This is the Father's benediction. It gives
lessons to human life, guides the understanding, peoples [30]
[pg 082]
the mind with spiritual ideas, reconstructs the Judean [1]
religion, and reveals God and man as the Principle and
idea of all good.
Understanding this fact in Christian Science, brings
the peace symbolized by a dove; and this peace floweth [5]
as a river into a shoreless eternity. He who knew the
foretelling Truth, beheld the forthcoming Truth, as it
came up out of the baptism of Spirit, to enlighten and
redeem mortals. Such Christians as John cognize the
symbols of God, reach the sure foundations of time, stand [10]
upon the shore of eternity, and grasp and gather—in all
glory—what eye hath not seen.
Is there infinite progression with man after the destruc-
tion of mortal mind?
Man is the offspring and idea of the Supreme Being, [15]
whose law is perfect and infinite. In obedience to this
law, man is forever unfolding the endless beatitudes of
Being; for he is the image and likeness of infinite Life,
Truth, and Love.
Infinite progression is concrete being, which finite [20]
mortals see and comprehend only as abstract glory. As
mortal mind, or the material sense of life, is put off,
the spiritual sense and Science of being is brought to
light.
Mortal mind is a myth; the one Mind is immortal. [25]
A mythical or mortal sense of existence is consumed
as a moth, in the treacherous glare of its own flame—
the errors which devour it. Immortal Mind is God,
immortal good; in whom the Scripture saith “we live,
and move, and have our being.” This Mind, then, is not [30]
subject to growth, change, or diminution, but is the divine
[pg 083]
intelligence, or Principle, of all real being; holding [1]
man forever in the rhythmic round of unfolding bliss,
as a living witness to and perpetual idea of inexhaustible
good.
In your book, Science and Health,3 page 181, you [5]
say: “Every sin is the author of itself, and every
invalid the cause of his own sufferings.” On page
182 you say: “Sickness is a growth of illusion, spring-
ing from a seed of thought—either your own thought
or another's.” Will you please explain this seeming [10]
contradiction?
No person can accept another's belief, except it be
with the consent of his own belief. If the error which
knocks at the door of your own thought originated in
another's mind, you are a free moral agent to reject or [15]
to accept this error; hence, you are the arbiter of your
own fate, and sin is the author of sin. In the words
of our Master, you are “a liar, and the father of it
[the lie].”
Why did Jesus call himself “the Son of man”? [20]
In the life of our Lord, meekness was as conspicuous
as might. In John xvii. he declared his sonship with
God: “These words spake Jesus, and lifted up his
eyes to heaven, and said, Father, the hour is come;
glorify Thy Son, that Thy Son also may glorify Thee.” [25]
The hour had come for the avowal of this great truth,
and for the proof of his eternal Life and sonship. Jesus'
[pg 084]
wisdom ofttimes was shown by his forbearing to speak, [1]
as well as by speaking, the whole truth. Haply he waited
for a preparation of the human heart to receive start-
ling announcements. This wisdom, which character-
ized his sayings, did not prophesy his death, and thereby [5]
hasten or permit it.
The disciples and prophets thrust disputed points on
minds unprepared for them. This cost them their lives,
and the world's temporary esteem; but the prophecies
were fulfilled, and their motives were rewarded by [10]
growth and more spiritual understanding, which dawns
by degrees on mortals. The spiritual Christ was infal-
lible; Jesus, as material manhood, was not Christ. The
“man of sorrows” knew that the man of joys, his spiritual
self, or Christ, was the Son of God; and that the mor- [15]
tal mind, not the immortal Mind, suffered. The human
manifestation of the Son of God was called the Son of
man, or Mary's son.
Please explain Paul's meaning in the text, “For to me
to live is Christ, and to die is gain.” [20]
The Science of Life, overshadowing Paul's sense of
life in matter, so far extinguished the latter as forever
to quench his love for it. The discipline of the flesh is
designed to turn one, like a weary traveller, to the home
of Love. To lose error thus, is to live in Christ, Truth. [25]
A true sense of the falsity of material joys and sorrows,
pleasures and pains, takes them away, and teaches Life's
lessons aright. The transition from our lower sense of
Life to a new and higher sense thereof, even though it be
through the door named death, yields a clearer and [30]
nearer sense of Life to those who have utilized the present,
[pg 085]
and are ripe for the harvest-home. To the battle- [1]
worn and weary Christian hero, Life eternal brings
blessings.
Is a Christian Scientist ever sick, and has he who is
sick been regenerated? [5]
The Christian Scientist learns spiritually all that he
knows of Life, and demonstrates what he understands.
God is recognized as the divine Principle of his being,
and of every thought and act leading to good. His pur-
pose must be right, though his power is temporarily lim- [10]
ited. Perfection, the goal of existence, is not won in a
moment; and regeneration leading thereto is gradual,
for it culminates in the fulfilment of this divine rule in
Science: “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father
which is in heaven is perfect.” [15]
