Protection and Reason Rightly Directed

THE FOLLOWING ARE TWO COMPLETE PAMPHLETS PUBLISHED IN THE EARLY 1900’S BY THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE PUBLISHING SOCIETY. THEY ARE ENTITLED “PROTECTION” AND “REASON RIGHTLY DIRECTED.”

PROTECTION

Handwritten on the flyleaf:

(The above is handwritten on the original 1918 pamphlet’s Cover page signifying that Mr. Eustace and the Trustees of the Publishing Society thought this was important to copyright during the Great Litigation. – Ed.)

PROTECTION

SAFETY

DIVINE PRESERVATION

INTRENCHMENT

THE

CHRISTIAN SCIENCE PUBLISHING SOCIETY

Sole Publishers of All Authorized

Christian Science Literature

BOSTON, U.S.A.

THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE PUBLISHING SOCIETY

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

PROTECTION

SAFETY

The ninety-first psalm has been for centuries the refuge of the Christian in the hour of trouble. If you were to ask him the reason for this, he would probably founder in his analysis. He might tell you that it was God’s message to humanity in their affliction, that it was instinct with divine protection, and a hundred other things. Yet, being at sea in the midst of a submarine zone, or on shore, amidst the shell craters of “No-man’s-land,” he would probably rather trust to the protection of a destroyer, in the first instance, or to a covering barrage, in the second. He would explain this, quite naturally and quite genuinely, by saying that God has given the race its intelligence with which to safeguard itself, and that the destroyer and the barrage constitute the manifestation of this intelligence. Nevertheless he knows such reasoning to be faulty and, if pressed, will retire to a frank declaration of faith in something he can neither explain nor under-stand. For, indeed, the writer of the psalm never advised his readers to rely on material ingenuity, but, on the contrary, to dwell in the secret place of the Most High, with the result that, “a thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand; but it shall not come nigh thee.”

It is tolerably obvious, then, that if the protection of the secret place is to be made practically available to-day to those who go down to the sea in ships, or who jeopardy their lives in battle, it must be through some surer protection than the blind faith urged on humanity by St. Gregory, as the only faith which is faith. The writer of the psalm certainly meant something by his words, and that something was translated by Jesus the Christ and his immediate followers into language less archaic than the cadences of the poet, and more scientific than the imagery of the prophet, “Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free;” and again, “Yea, a man may say, Thou hast faith, and I have works: shew me thy faith without thy works, and I will shew thee my faith by my works.” Such language, surely, puts an end to vain argument. Knowledge is not guesswork or even a blind acceptance of other people’s experience. It is the outcome of personally demonstrated experience.

A man may have faith in the acceptance of a premise which he has assured himself is theoretically sound, but he has most certainly no knowledge of the truth of his theory until he has demonstrated that truth, or, as James says, proved his faith in it by works. Then his faith has passed into knowledge, and, as the proofs of the truth of his theory accumulate, this knowledge becomes exact or scientific. This is the full, exact, and so scientific knowledge of God, of the Christ, and of Truth, which the writers of the New Testament are repeatedly urging upon their readers, a knowledge so scientific and so exacting that, as Paul plainly warned the church in Rome, sensuality and materiality re-volt against it, finding a positive relief in animality, and accepting as true those physical phenomena whose sole claim to recognition is that they are counterfeits of or lies about the true creations of Spirit, since, as Paul writes, “the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being under-stood by the things that are made,” which is as much as to say that the only true thing that can be said about a lie is the fact that there is a truth to lie about.

Paul, indeed, put the same colossal truth even more simply and directly to the Hebrews than to the Romans, for, as he wrote in that famous letter, “through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God ;so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.” The man, then, standing on the deck of a steamer watching the wake of a torpedo, or almost stunned by the roar of the guns tearing craters in “No-man’s-land,” has not got to find safety in the guns of a destroyer or the cavity of a dugout. He has only to realize exactly what Paul meant, namely, that the torpedo and the shell, although things that are seen by the human vision, did not originate in things apparent to the human senses, but are simply misconceptions, formed by the human mind of spiritual realities. When this is done, the thinker finds that he has taken refuge in the secret place of the Most High, in that knowledge, in other words, of the absolute truth, which, Jesus declared, frees men from the ignorance of their material beliefs.

What this all amounts to is the gospel teaching of the unreality of matter. This, of course, is a vast subject in itself. But it may be understood or rather comprehensively stated in these declarations of Jesus himself, of Peter, of James, and of Paul. Mrs. Eddy accepted them as the basis, in Science and Health, of her teaching of the healing of sickness. Paul had explained that things were not what they seemed, that the evidence of the senses was untrustworthy, since physical phenomena did not, in the least, originate in matter, that is, in “the things which do appear.” In precisely the same way, Mrs. Eddy, writings on pages 476 and 477 of Science and Health of what are termed the miracles of Jesus, says, “Jesus beheld in Science the perfect man, who appeared to him where sinning mortal man appears to mortals. In this perfect man the Saviour saw God’s own likeness, and this correct view of man healed the sick.”

Now, in destroying an unreal mental phenomenon, there is no difference whether it be a torpedo in the Atlantic, a shell in “No-man’s-land,” a wound in a dressing station, or a fever in a base hospital. You do not turn aside a torpedo or a shell in flight, or a bayonet thrust, any more than you will away fever. What you do is to realize that these things are “not made of things which do appear.” You endeavor to grasp the fact that inasmuch as a lie cannot be about nothing, your torpedo, shell, bayonet, or fever must be lies about some truth, which, when you know it, frees you from the effect of the ignorance bred of the material concept. You see, as Mrs. Eddy says, the perfect Truth, and the lie disappears. It is not, necessarily, that the torpedo twists away from your ship, that the shell fails to explode, that the bayonet strikes another object, or that the fever epidemic suddenly abates. It is that ingraining a true concept of substance these things necessarily cease to be. You do not discover a spiritual torpedo, a heavenly shell, a godlike bayonet, or a Christly fever, but you do discover that these material phenomena are all counterfeits of spiritual reflections of Principle or lies about ideas in divine Mind. It is not that there is any spiritual object corresponding exactly to a torpedo, a shell, a bayonet, or a fever: it is that divine Mind contains no idea, and Principle casts no reflection, that is not spiritual and harmonious. For as Mrs. Eddy writes on page 310 of Science and Health, “Thought will finally be understood and seen in all form, substance, and color, but without material accompaniments.” When once you have grasped that metaphysically, and attuned your life to your precept, you will find how utterly impossible it is that the false concept or lie, whether in the shape of a torpedo, shell, bayonet, or fever, should ever come nigh thee.

FREDERICK DIXON.

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DIVINE PRESERVATION

A message of good cheer for the active and prospective soldier is to be found in the seventeenth chapter of I Samuel. Therein is contained an account of the power of God’s law of preservation during time of war, and the truth in the narrative illumined by the light of Christian Science becomes a veritable shield for the modern warrior. We are told that the Israelites and the Philistines had been in battle array for forty days without a decisive victory. Twice daily Goliath had successfully defied the hosts of Israel by mesmerizing them into believing that he was invincible, and his display of preparedness, size, and power had paralyzed them into allowing his boast to go unchallenged.

Now in the near-by country was a farmer lad minding his sheep, whose father sent him on an errand to his brethren at the front. The account reads that his mission carried him into the very front trench just as the Jewish soldiers were essaying to attack the Philistines, but they were again repulsed by Goliath’s appearance. David, perceiving the need of the Jewish army to be released from the bondage of fear, volunteered to enter the service for this purpose. When it seemed likely that he would be rejected because of his youth and lack of military training he re-counted a personal experience. Telling how, while keeping his sheep, a lion and a bear came to attack the flock and he slew them both, he concluded with the words: “The Lord that delivered me out of the paw of the lion, and out of the paw of the bear, he will deliver me out of the hand of this Philistine.” David had already met and conquered the attack of death, therefore he knew the power of God’s law to preserve man and was confident that it would operate on the battle field as perfectly as in the sheep field, for was it not an infinite, omnipresent, and omnipotent law?

Evil’s presentation of itself as size, power, or frightfulness, whether in the guise of man or beast, held no terror for the shepherd lad because he knew that all power belonged to God and that spiritual understanding was the supreme might of deliverance. So great was his confidence in his God, the very God of Israel, that he was accepted for the service and permitted to go out alone to meet Goliath. Passing beyond the shelter of the trench into No-man’s-land, he ran eagerly to meet the enemy. The boast of evil that in such daring he would be mutilated, disintegrated, and destroyed, came back upon its own head, for David returned from the encounter intact as well as victorious.

It is notable that the instrument through which wisdom accomplished Goliath’s downfall was a little stone in the hand of a boy. How large was Goliath really, how powerful, how much to be feared when such a small missiles understandingly wielded could meet his challenge? It is evident that it was not a giant but the mistaken belief in the power of a giant which had controlled both armies for so many days and prolonged the battle. The element which needed to be destroyed in order to liberate the hosts was the mesmerism wielded by a liar. The armies had not discovered this; military tactics had not revealed it; the situation was helpless, hopeless before it. But one man’s spiritual understanding of the omnipotence of God and of the supreme ever presence and activity of His law of preservation for His creation instantly detected and overcame the trouble.

David was not a victim of the malicious suggestion exercised morning and evening by Goliath, the carnal mind, when it bragged of its domination; neither was he its dupe when as animality it displayed its great weight, size, and solidity. His divine insight enabled him to know just where to hit it, and the direct blow of true understanding aimed at error’s forehead, or false claim of intelligence in matter, sufficed to win the battle. David did not hesitate or fear to go to war, to enter the trench, or to venture beyond, because he acknowledged no war zone from which God’s law could be excluded or where it did not work. He knew and proved that the flock of Israel was as safe as the flock of sheep under the protection of the omnipotent Love which neither slumbers nor sleeps.

The Davids of to-day, they who know and do the will of God, need not fear to go forth to fight for the right. The wood and brass and iron of to-day’s Goliath, though in the form of battleship, aeroplane, gun, and other human inventions, instead of greaves of brass, staff, and spear, have no more power now than then to protect error or to destroy God’s man. Defiant evil is as weak as the might of the giant when it yielded to the stone from the brook.

Truly men’s hearts may sing in eternal safety, for nothing can separate man from the love of God. They may divinely dare to venture forth with full assurance, having no uncertain sense of the issue but with David’s calm trust in the ability of God to defend His man while destroying all evil. It was the psalmist warrior who sang from an understanding heart this song: “The Lord is my strength and my shield.” This is reiterated by Mrs. Eddy on page 127 of “The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany,” where in speaking of the Christian Science warriors’ armament she says: “Ours is not costly as men count cost, but it is rich beyond price, staunch and indestructible on land or sea; it is not curtailed in peace, surrendered in conquest, nor laid down at the feet of progress through the hands of omnipotence. And why? Because it is ‘on earth peace, good will toward men,’-a cover and a defence adapted to all men, all nations, all times, climes, and races.”

JULIA WARNER MICHAEL.

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INTRENCHMENT

In warfare one purpose of trenches is, of course, protection. The trenches of to-day, just as in the time of David, represent the best protection that the human mind has been able to devise in the circumstances. Since any human concept, however, is but a counterfeit of the perfect spiritual idea, Christian Science requires us to turn our attention to the truth about even intrenchment.

What is the one perfect protection? What is the true intrenchment which must be understood by all who would put on the whole armor of God? The one surety is simply that Life is indeed eternal. In the trenches to-day the soldiers themselves are getting glimpses of this fundamental fact and are willing, therefore, to turn more and more from a human sense of life to Principle. No one can give up immortality. Consciousness demonstrably is, and what really is always is, for it could not possibly include any element of nonexistence, any element of destruction. Infinite divine consciousness, which, in the last analysis, is all that provably exists, is God, in whom man lives and moves and has his being. Instead of living in a material body, man lives thus as the forever expression of indestructible consciousness. The sureness of this must take the place of any fear.

The only enemy of mankind is the supposition denying this metaphysical truth that the real man lives as the uninterruptedly active manifestation of perfect consciousness. Supposition of any opposite or denial of the one spiritual consciousness which is all there is, must be, however, mere supposition of an impossibility. What is, cannot be denied. Dwelling in the infinite divine consciousness of present right activity, man is ever safely intrenched from any suppositional destruction. Spiritual consciousness is his eternal heritage and fortress, absolutely impregnable against any enemy.

As Mrs. Eddy says on page 2 of “Pulpit and Press,” “The enemy we confront would overthrow this sublime fortress, and it behooves us to defend our heritage.” Even so, there is nothing to fear. Unlike the Mycetes of Marlowe’s “Tamburlaine,” hiding his crown in a “simple hole,” we need to defend our heritage through the fearless maintenance of man’s identity. “How can we do this Christianly scientific work?” Mrs. Eddy continues, and straightway declares, “By intrenching ourselves in the knowledge that our true temple is no human fabrication, but the superstructure of Truth, reared on the foundation of Love, and pinnacled in Life.” The one infinite consciousness which is God, Truth, Love, Life, is forever conscious of its indestructible idea, man. Man’s whole spiritual identity as idea is completely defended by this consciousness from any demolition, injury, or disturbance.

Spiritual intrenchment, however, is aggressive as well as defensive. The word trench means a cutting, and one purpose of intrenchment is a constant advance or cutting through the opposing lines. Metaphysically, the reliance upon Principle means a constant cutting through any suppositional resistance. The sleep-loving world often marvels at the progress of the Christian Scientist, fearlessly accomplishing what had seemed impossibilities, and even opposes the very trenchancy which is for the blessing of all mankind. As Mrs. Eddy says on page 160 of “The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany”: “Most of us willingly accept dead truisms which can be buried at will; but a live truth, even though it be a sapling within rich soil and with blossoms on its branches, frightens people. The trenchant truth that cuts its way through iron and sod, most men avoid until compelled to glance at it. Then they open their hearts to it for actual being, health, holiness, and immortality.”

In proportion as we accept the consciousness which is deathless and unfolding Life as the only real consciousness and refuse to admit that the true self could even be conscious of anything but vigorous harmony, we are really intrenched in Spirit. Depending thus upon what is all there is, we necessarily reduce to its native nothingness what is not and never has been a real entity. This stanch recognition that more than infinite good is a suppositious impossibility cuts its way through that preposterousness as irresistibly as light cuts its way through darkness. And just as the streaming light is forever defended from any attacks of darkness, so the realization of Principle is forever defended from what has no Principle. That is why disease, injury, any condition of inaction or overaction, death itself, are all powerless against one’s unremittingly active understanding of spiritual consciousness.

Unfolding mental activity in accordance with the divine Mind is the very essence of spiritual intrenchment and trenchancy. Since the divine Mind manifest is actually infinite and there cannot be more than one infinity, the activity of the divine Mind is the one incisiveness before which every illusion of mere earthliness must vanish. Man emanates from God to do, and the doing of Mind penetrates perfectly every dream of ineffectiveness. The great First Cause keeps His expression perpetually going. It is with the utmost joy, therefore, that, fully intrenched in the secret place of the Most High, a man meets such a demand as that phrased by Clough, the poet,

GUSTAVUS PAINE.

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On the front cover of following pamphlet “Reason, Rightly Directed” was handwritten “Joseph E Johnston from HWE 8 Dec. 1945”. This pamphlet was copyrighted in 1919 during the Litigation years. Frederick Dixon, Gustavus Paine, Hugh Stewart Campbell, Emily A. Ashcroft and Annie M. Knott were the authors.

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“REASON, RIGHTLY DIRECTED”

“Reason, rightly directed, serves to correct the errors

of corporeal sense” (Science and Health, page 494).

CONFIDENCE

THE REASON FOR HEALTH

“MAKING WISE THE SIMPLE”

“HONOUR THY FATHER AND THY MOTHER”

SPIRITUALITY VERSUS SPIRITUALISM

Articles republished from the

Christian Science periodicals

The Christian Science Publishing Society

Sole Publishers of All Authorized Christian Science Literature

BOSTON, U.S.A.

THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE PUBLISHING SOCIETY

“REASON, RIGHTLY DIRECTED”

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“CONFIDENCE”

A MAN who cannot manifest confidence will never inspire confidence. Confidence is a supreme trust in good, or, to put it rather more scientifically, a clear understanding of the law of Principle. Law, it must be remembered, is that in which no variation is possible. Consequently, since Principle is necessarily harmonious, confidence is a reliance, based upon experience, on the inviolability of harmony. “Harmony,” Mrs. Eddy writes, in a comprehensive paragraph on page 304 of Science and Health, “is produced by its Principle, is controlled by it and abides with it. Divine Principle is the Life of man. Man’s happiness is not, therefore, at the disposal of physical sense. Truth is not contaminated by error. Harmony in man is as beautiful as in music, and discord is unnatural, unreal.”

All this, of course, is the very reverse of mere human experience. But then, ordinary human experience is built on a definition of law which is at once finite and fallible. Human experience commonly gives to a man as much, if not more, confidence in evil than in good. And this is because the human mind has never begun to comprehend the meaning of the term, the Unity of Good. An understanding of this term once reached, and reached in a ratio capable of demonstration, must necessarily enthrone confidence in good. “The confidence inspired by Science,” says Mrs. Eddy, on page 368 of Science and Health, “lies in the fact that Truth is real and error is unreal. Error is a coward before Truth. Divine Science insists that time will prove all this.”

Now the apostle James has insisted on the obvious truism that faith without works, theory without demonstration, is dead. The trouble of humanity, therefore, is summed up, not in accepting the abstract theory that confidence should be supreme, but in manifesting such a confidence. The human mind, being human, is sensuous at every turn. It, quite naturally, regards Principle as abstract, and clings to humanity. That, surely, was the measuring of Jesus’ warning to Mary Magdalene, in the garden of the ascension, “Touch me not.” The Greek text makes this considerably clearer. “Mη μoν äπτoν” “Do not cling to me.” In other words, Do not cling to the human Jesus, but fling all your confidence around the Christ, Truth. Christ Jesus’ own reason for saying this makes his meaning even plainer. “For,” he added, “I am not yet ascended to my Father.” The son of man, that is to say has not yet entirely given place to the Son of God, the human mind has not entirely vanished before the manifestation of the Mind of Christ.

This, surely, was also the intention of Christ Jesus’ marvelous lesson bestowed, a little later, on Peter, as to the true meaning of love. Love must be confidence, and confidence must be love. But just as true confidence had, as Mary was shown, to be confidence in the Christ and not in Jesus, so true love has to be spiritual and not physical. This accounts for Jesus’ play, as shown in the Greek text, on the two words “άγάπâς and φιλείς, the one referring to spiritual, the other to mere human love and trust. Peter, conscious presumably of his humanity, was unwilling to claim a love for the Christ rather than for Jesus. And Christ Jesus, after two failures to move him, had to be content to leave it there. Had Peter possessed the confidence of Christ Jesus in the omnipotence of the Christ, Truth, he would never have denied the Christ by the fire of Caiaphas; had he possessed the confidence of John, he would have demonstrated the power of the Christ, as John demonstrated it in Patmos.

Unfortunately for humanity, it has manifested the frailties of Peter much more generally than his virtues. There have always been more Lancelots than Galahads in the world. Indeed the sensuousness of the human mind, as opposed to the purity of the divine Mind, has been wonderfully expressed in reference to this very Lancelot. It is contained in the lines in which Tennyson contrasted, largely unconscious of how truly he was building, the characters of Lancelot and of Arthur:

I thought I would not breathe in that fine air,

That pure severity of perfect light-

I wanted warmth and color, which I found

In Lancelot.

There you have, in the mouth of Guinevere, the cry of the demoniac in the tombs, in another form, “Art thou come hither to torment us before the time?”

Rome, however, as the Latin proverb says, was not built in a day, and the human being does not put off the carnal mind except after a stern struggle. In the midst of this struggle there is never any reason for losing confidence in the ultimate victory of Principle, nor is there any excuse for failing to manifest a daily confidence in good. Yet this is exactly, perhaps inevitably, the temptation which comes to the ordinary human being. Evil, viewed in the false perspective of the human mind, looms so large that its force is constantly exaggerated. Yet its bulk is always that of the mountain which can be removed to yonder place, and its energy that of the herd of swine which may be sent running down a steep place into the sea. If you get angry with it, you are at its mercy, for that moment you have endowed it with power and reality. “It is error,” Mrs. Eddy writes, on page 369 of Science and Health, “even to murmur or to be angry over sin.” If a man had any real confidence in good, he would never be made angry by evil, for he would know that he possessed the mastery over it.

This very fact should give men confidence in dealing with their fellow men, and destroy that suspicion and distrust which are the canker of social intercourse. The habit of thanking God that you are not as other men are is a dangerous one. It is apt, indeed it is sure, to lead to judging unrighteous judgment, a mental habit that, sooner or later, must bring the unrighteous judge himself before the tribunal of Principle. Human motives are sufficiently complex to cause even wise men to be sometimes doubtful of their own. When it comes to analyzing your neighbor’s, the complexity is apt to prove a little dangerous to the analyst. Therefore, Jesus said, “Judge not, that ye be not judged.” Have a little more confidence in your neighbor, and perhaps not so much in your own infallibility.

FREDERICK DIXON.

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THE REASON FOR HEALTH

NOW that it is more generally acknowledged than ever before that Christian Science actually does heal, many are more eager to know just how it accomplishes the results which are so obvious. Apathy and antipathy are giving way before earnest seeking. What, the whole world is entitled to demand, is there that is substantial and satisfying about the application of Christian Science to the affairs of everyday living? How may one start to understand the Principle and practice of this that may hitherto have seemed rather abstruse? Why is health possible for one whom disease has apparently all but overpowered? What is health anyway?

These and countless others of the queries of the sincere seeker, Mary Baker Eddy, Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, has answered fully in her various works. The truly scientific answer is, of course, the thorough proof of what reliance upon Principle does, together with the demonstration of the method. “Health,” Mrs. Eddy declares on page 11 of “Rudimental Divine Science,” “is the consciousness of the unreality of pain and disease; or, rather, the absolute consciousness of harmony and of nothing else.” Here in the words “the absolute consciousness of harmony” she has stated the very essence of what every one is looking for, the end which can never be achieved through the administering of any amount of drugs or serums. True health, then, is not a condition of matter. It exists altogether as orderly activity in Mind. The consciousness of health is all that one could ever have of health.

As a matter of fact, one’s consciousness of anything is all that one ever has of anything. What a man accepts as his consciousness determines his whole well-being. If, for instance, he admits even to himself that he is conscious of an ache, then what he is pleased or displeased to call his consciousness of an ache is all that he has of the ache. In unconsciousness, of course, there is neither pain nor pleasure. To know that consciousness itself is good, and being good, must be the consciousness of right feeling, is to replace any suggestion of pain with all-sufficient rejoicing. Before such joy what may have tried to suppose and suggest itself as a consciousness of discord simply has to subside. The very real consciousness of harmonious activity is always here and now to be accepted and experienced.

The genuine joy which constitutes well-being and a sense of pain or disease cannot exist together. To the extent that one understands unlimited intelligence as the source or reason for health and consciously rejoices in this understanding, he is well. Just to the extent that one fails so to reason in accordance with the divine Mind and to realize this Mind’s manifestation of right activity, one is sick. The very fact that one has or expresses intelligence is a guarantee that there is an intelligent cause for orderly action. Nonintelligence could never be mixed in with intelligence. Disorder could never be mingled with what really is order. The health of Mind could never be disturbed by a belief of disease in matter. The true consciousness which metaphysically exists could not possibly include any element of nonexistence or destruction. Where, then, in the reality of being is there any room whatever for discord?

Logically the belief in discord is the effect of a mere supposition, of an utterly hypothetical mortal mind setting itself up to be an opposite to the one infinite Mind. Such a supposition is, of course, absurd on its very face. All there is must be infinitely, incontrovertibly, eternally all there is without any possibility of an opposite. To look at a globe and think abstractly of its rotation, one might fancy that a tiny mortal on the surface of such a sphere as the earth would inevitably be hurled off into endless space. About as well as can be, humanly, this illustrates the nature of a supposition of an impossibility. For right where this supposition might be fancied to operate, right there another law is maintaining the actual sense of things. The law of divine intelligence is the law of complete order in activity. Since completeness or wholeness is health, this law is the law of health, and it cannot be broken.

Over and over again Christian Science has been reiterating for years this entirely logical reasoning as to why veritable health is indestructible and continuous. To know that there is indeed one infinite divine Mind, forever governing its idea, the real man, and forever conscious of order in action in every respect is very different from any ignoring of evil or from any unexplained declaration that there is no trouble. Just as the child, considering for the first time the seemingly queer concept of a rotating earth for people to live on, has to be awakened by the unfoldment of the truth out of any concept that people would necessarily be whirled off by the motion, so the men and women and children of to-day have to be aroused by the reasoning of Principle from the false dream of sickness. In Mind, where man’s whole true experience is, perfect ease of action goes on, even while the supposititious mortal mind is dreaming of disease in any form.

What one has of anything is his concept of it. Without Mind man would have and be nothing. Fortunately the divine Mind is always awake, alert, conscious, and always includes and maintains the perfect concept of real or spiritual health. The turning of humanity to this divine Mind with its right concept means the improving of a man’s concepts so that what has seemed disorder, over-action, or inaction, gives way before the divine Mind’s concept of harmony and exactly right action. This is healing. It is perfectly reasonable for there is always the absolute reason for health and never the slightest reason or cause for anything else. More than human logic, such an explanation is divinely metaphysical.

As Mrs. Eddy says, under the subheading of “Metaphysics challenges physics,” on pages 161 and 162 of Science and Health, “The ordinary practitioner, examining bodily symptoms, telling the patient that he is sick, and treating the case according to his physical diagnosis, would naturally induce the very disease he is trying to cure, even if it were not already determined by mortal mind. Such unconscious mistakes would not occur, if this old class of philanthropists looked as deeply for cause and effect into mind as into matter. The physician agrees with his ‘adversary quickly,’ but upon different terms than does the metaphysician; for the matter-physician agrees with the disease, while the metaphysician agrees only with health and challenges disease.” Thus the continuous agreement with the spiritual reason for health is sureness of continuous freedom.

GUSTAVUS S. PAINE.

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Making Wise The Simple

WHEN Solomon prayerfully asked for wisdom instead of riches, he gained not only what he desired but such an abundance of material wealth that for centuries he was considered one of the world’s richest men. His clear discernment of substance as intelligence or Mind,-a spiritual apprehension of the eternity of good,-and his disregard of matter, is expressed in his admonition, “With all thy getting get understanding.” Paul saw the folly of material accumulation when he admonished us to be rich in good works and to trust, not “in uncertain riches, but in the living God, who giveth us richly all things to enjoy;” and Mrs. Eddy says in “Miscellaneous Writings” (p. 307), “God gives you His spiritual ideas, and in turn, they give you daily supplies.”

Christian Science, when correctly applied to business problems, furnishes the only reliable and permanent adjustment of situations resultant from discordant beliefs about business. Entirely mental in its operation it corrects what “eye hath not seen.” It goes to the bottom of all trouble and removes effects by beginning with cause, and hereby proves that there is but one cause, the one creator, God. The business world is a cradle of unrest because of false beliefs, false education and custom, false ideals. The tendency to cling to old methods is so fixed in human belief that when truth is presented as a corrective, error would if possible say as of old, “Let us alone.”

A business man, beset by fear and worry, was discussing his seeming difficulties with a friend, and was advised to consult a Christian Science practitioner. He exclaimed: “What does a practitioner know about my business? He has never learned this business, and I have been at it all my life. Is he wiser than I?” He did, however, consult a practitioner, and in the conversation which followed soon learned that his business methods were far from ideal. He learned that there is in reality but one business, the business of doing good,-the same business which Jesus recognized as his life mission at the early age of twelve. He was told that for all business methods there is an ideal from God; therefore, it is good, because God is good; that our work may be an expression of Mind and therefore perfect; that business is wholly mental; and that obedience to God’s law is necessary to express the perfect ideal of business. He learned for the first time that a limited and material sense of business is not real or true business, for God’s ideas cannot be limited; furthermore, that the business he had been conducting to the best of his ability, with its worries, fear, limitations, strifes, was in reality not business at all, for that which God ordains and governs can possess no quality unlike good; that to build upon truth he must unlearn what time had taught, shatter cherished theories that were wholly wrong, and become as a little child, waiting for wisdom. He then began to realize that business is mental, not physical but metaphysical, not bad but good, and that now and always he could demonstrate activity, harmony, and prosperity, although through false education he had entirely overlooked the one thing which could correct a discordant situation, namely, the understanding of God.

As the result the man’s thought was changed. His affairs became harmonious and his prospects better. The outlook assumed a brighter perspective and friends began to ask what had happened. Yet in reality nothing had occurred except that a few clouds of false sense had been removed; but the man now realizes that through Christian Science God has been revealed as the healing and loving Principle which operates through the law of good, and that he is in a measure just beginning to fulfill that law.

HUGH STUART CAMPBELL.

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“HONOUR THY FATHER AND THY MOTHER”

WITHOUT the fuller meaning which Christian Science gives to the Scriptural injunction to “honour thy father and thy mother,” it was difficult for the writer to see how the accompanying promise, “that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee,” would be fulfilled as a natural consequence of observing this law. Deep gratitude is felt, therefore, to Mrs. Eddy for “Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures,” through the reading of which this law of God as stated in the fifth commandment has been so beautifully unfolded. Christian Science shows us that in the truest sense our only Father-Mother is God, infinite Life, Truth, and Love. It is therefore God whom we must honor, if we take this commandment in its scientific meaning. As we realize the attributes of our Father-Mother God, we shall see how the honoring of Him will extend eternally our consciousness of life.

We see, first of all, that since God is our Father and Mother, He is the source or origin of man’s existence, and God, who is Life itself, not only is the origin but the eternal sustainer of man’s being. The human parent fears that the so-called life of his child may end; that it is at the mercy of material conditions, and that he cannot save it. Our heavenly Father expresses His own being, through His spiritual ideas, His sons and daughters. God is changeless, therefore His expression or reflection must be changeless; that is, it forever expresses Life, and this reflection is the Son of God. No fear of death can enter the consciousness of the Son of God; no belief that life depends upon matter, or is mortal. Everlasting life is his perpetual consciousness. Christ Jesus demonstrated this truth and desired others to demonstrate it, for he said, “I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.”

God is self-existent. His attributes are due to no other than Himself. God is absolute good, without a single element of error. It follows from these facts that, as the Son of God, all that man possesses he inherits from God. He has no ancestors antecedent to God, therefore he can inherit from none other than his Father-Mother God; and from this absolute perfection man inherits all good and only good,-namely, health, strength, intelligence, spiritual perception, love, perfect harmony. Thus the true law of heredity becomes the most life-giving, joy-giving, and harmonious law conceivable. As a child develops, how often we hear the remark, “Isn’t he like his mother!” or, “He has his father’s ways.” Sometimes this remark is no great compliment to the child, nor perhaps to the parent, but if applied to one as the child of God, what depth of meaning it would convey! God’s man is the exact image of his divine Parent, and his activities and characteristics are a perfect reflection of the activity of his Father-Mother God.

One of the earliest duties of a parent to his child is to give him a name. This name is often a mere distinguishing mark. In the Bible, however, the word “name” is frequently used with a deeper significance. Abram is changed to Abraham; Jacob to Israel; Saul to Paul. The choice of these new names was based upon the characteristics newly unfolded in the men who received the new name. Humanly speaking, that name is given to “him that overcometh,” as we read in the second chapter of Revelation.

Another duty of a father and mother is to provide suitable and sufficient food and clothing for the children; and the latter are taught to depend upon their parents for this supply. In our endeavor to honor our Father-Mother God, we must learn to depend absolutely upon Him for our supply, and in order to do this successfully we must realize what supply is. We need to see that supply is never material, but always consists of right ideas. A sense of lack is not due to lack of matter, but to a seeming lack of right ideas, and the overcoming of this ignorance, through spiritual perception, is all that is required for the supply to be outwardly manifested. Unlike some earthly parents, our heavenly Father is never incapable of supplying our needs, nor is He ever unwilling to do so. Indeed, He has already supplied every want, and only sees our needs as needs already met. A teacher, watching a little child trying to work out a problem in arithmetic, knows that the answer is already supplies, and that the child has only to reason out the correct answer in order to make it his own. Even the little child knows that there is a correct answer and that it is for him as much as for anyone else, if he only works according to rule. So it is with us. We know that good is omnipresent, for good is God; we know that it is the “Father’s good pleasure” to give us the kingdom, and that He is no respecter of persons; but like the child we must make that good our own by earnest study and practice. Neither laziness, discouragement, nor carelessness must creep in.

If the child wishes to add, he must do this accurately; if he has to multiply, he must use his rules of multiplication. If we want to see abundance of good manifested, we must realize good abundantly; if we want an expression of love to be shown to us, we must ourselves love. In proportion to our selfishness, doubt, or fear, we express lack. As we see the perfect lovableness, loveliness, and loving-kindness of our heavenly Father reflected in our own real nature and that of others, and realize that fear or lack of confidence in almighty good is totally foreign to the real man, we demonstrate abundance. Our heavenly Father clothes man with holiness, beauty of character, joy, purity, freshness, love, truth, life,-and thus all his needs are supplied.

Another duty of the parent is to provide a home for his children, and the word “home” should not merely mean a house to live in, but should include right influences and affection. In her interpretation of the last verse of the twenty-third psalm, Mrs. Eddy interprets “the house of the Lord” as “the consciousness of Love” (Science and Health, p. 578). This, then, is our home as the children of God. When we picture to ourselves what Love’s consciousness must be, we gain a little glimpse into the joys of this home. It must be lighted by the brightness of spiritual understanding; it must be filled with the warmth of infinite, impartial, universal, spiritual Love. It must be peopled by God’s ideas. Into this universal household no hate, selfishness, pride, jealousy, or self-will can enter. No evil can possibly befall those in this dwelling. Every day is one round of usefulness and joy. Harmony reigns supreme. Every individual child expresses perfect, spontaneous obedience. No son ever leaves his Father’s home, for there are sufficient opportunities in it for manifesting all his capabilities and gratifying all his desires, which are spiritual and pure.

A father is expected to look after the education of his children. Our divine Father-Mother, infinite Mind, not only does this, but is Himself the Mind, intelligence, of His own children, or spiritual ideas. These ideas express perfectly the divine intelligence. There is no past in the divine Mind to be either remembered or forgotten, and no future to fear or to feel ignorant of. There is simply the eternal now, in which all is present and all is known. There is no training of the so-called physical senses in God’s school, no need of the study of the psychology of the human mind, for the real sense of man are spiritual, bestowed upon him by his Father-Mother, and needing no training. No material laws, human philosophy, scholastic theology, no intricacies of mortal belief, have to be studied. The only science is the Science of being, Christian Science; the only law the infinite law of Love and Truth, and the child of God knows these eternally.

Still another duty of a parent is to look after his child’s health. A well-known proverb implies that prevention is better than cure, and surely our heavenly Father-Mother has provided for this in making His children incapable of sickness. Health is the holiness of the divine consciousness and is therefore unchangeably perfect. When we really understand that God is our Life, that our supply, our abiding place, our consciousness, our intelligence, our health, all come from God, this knowledge must inevitably be followed by length of days in “the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.” This land is the kingdom of heaven, defined by Mrs. Eddy in the Glossary of Science and Health (p. 590) as “the reign of harmony in divine Science; the realm of unerring, eternal, and omnipotent Mind; the atmosphere of Spirit, where Soul is supreme.”

EMILY A. ASHCROFT.

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SPIRITUALITY VERSUS SPIRITUALISM

IF there is one thing for which Christian Scientists are more thankful than for any other, it is that the teachings of Christ Jesus have been so illuminated for them and have become so practical that they are never for a moment lost sight of. This spiritual illumination is linked so closely to the healing work in Christian Science that the student turns instinctively to the words of the Master as recorded in the gospels, whatever be his problem. To Christian Scientists the teachings of Christ Jesus may indeed be said to be the final court of appeal. Throughout her very extensive writings Mrs. Eddy insists that her followers shall constantly study and apply his teachings, and in her Message to The Mother Church for 1902 (p. 4) she says, “I again repeat, Follow your Leader, only so far as she follows Christ.”

In view of this statement and many like it, it is a matter of surprise to find anyone attempting to undermine Mrs. Eddy’s work by stating in the name of so-called spiritualism that she substituted her own views for the teachings of Christ Jesus, and furthermore that she told a medium to give out to the world her regrets for having done so. That Mrs. Eddy’s teachings are in accord with those of Christ Jesus is proved by the fact that they have reestablished his healing ministry in the present age on the basis of divine Principle. Unnumbered thousands of sufferers have been healed through the study of her writings or through their application by some Christian Science practitioner, and above all else the testimony of those who have overcome sin in all its phases through her teachings, is their justification. The Master’s own test is most surely applicable to all that she has taught and written, “By their fruits ye shall know them.”

At this point it may be well to say that while Christian Scientists admit the right of others to seek Truth along the lines which they prefer, they insist upon freedom from mental intrusion for themselves in pursuing the path marked out by Christ Jesus and made plain to them through the healing ministry of Christian Science. Here it may be said that from the Christian Science viewpoint the mere death of the body does not make one any more spiritual than he was before, so that even if communication were possible between those who have passed on and those who have not, it would necessarily be on the basis of a kindred belief in fleshly existence, of which Paul says in the eighth chapter of Romans, “So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God.”

There are very few thinking people who deny that individual consciousness, with all that this implies, continues after death; but there is a wide difference of opinion as to the state in which mortals find themselves after this change. The Bible states very plainly that sin brought death, and that all sin must be overcome here or hereafter; and what is more, that death itself must be overcome, although St. Paul declared, “The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.” According to Christ Jesus the belief in anything unlike God is sin, and for this reason he declared the allness of Life and denied the manifestation of mortal belief called death wherever it confronted him. That his teaching was diametrically opposed to the materialistic beliefs of the religionists of his time is very evident from the bitter thrust of his opposers, whose argument to his declaration of unending life was, “Now we know that thou hast a devil.”

Contrary to the mistaken opinions of some who misinterpret Christian Science, Mrs. Eddy insists that man’s identity in the likeness of God is never lost throughout eternity, and that all the mental and spiritual qualities which express God, infinite Mind, become more vivid and definite as the Christ-understanding of being is gained, either here or hereafter. She also gives it as her firm conviction, based upon the Master’s teachings, that pure human affection does not die with the death of the mortal body, but is lifted above fleshly and material belief until it reflects and expresses divine Love. On page 72 of “Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures” she says: “In Science, individual good derived from God, the infinite All-in-all, may flow from the departed to mortals, but evil is neither communicable nor scientific. . . . Not personal intercommunion but divine law is the communicator of truth, health, and harmony to earth and humanity.” Throughout her teachings she declares the deathless nature of love and truth, but denies on the authority of the Scriptures the possibility of intercommunication between the living and the so-called dead.

Not only have we no authority in Jesus’ teachings for the belief that one finite mentality, wrongly called a spirit, can control others, but his teachings express the strongest condemnation thereof. In the first chapter of Mark we read that following close upon Jesus’ struggle in the wilderness with mortal mind, called the devil, and its triumphant result, he was in the synagogue at Capernaum. It would seem that the belief in mediumship was prevalent at that early day, for a man was present who gave utterance to this particular form of mesmerism and cried out, “Let us alone; what have we to do with thee, thou Jesus of Nazareth? art thou come to destroy us? I know thee who thou art, the Holy One of God.” We are told that although this so-called “spirit” declared Jesus to be the Holy One of God, the Master sternly rebuked this error and cast it out of the unfortunate man who had entertained it, and the man was healed. It is deeply interesting to note here that although there was much questioning among the people, many rejoiced at the glorious results which followed this demonstration, and the blessings of this purely spiritual ministry extended to all who were ready to receive it. On page 94 of our textbook we read, “Jesus taught but one God, one Spirit, who makes man in the image and likeness of Himself,-of Spirit, not of matter.”

The statements of the person who claims to have had a communication from Mrs. Eddy recall the incident given in the twenty-eight chapter of I Samuel, where the witch of Endor led King Saul, who had turned away from God, to believe that she had brought up the prophet Samuel from the grave. All students of the Bible are aware that this departure from the divine command, which led the erring king into necromancy, was almost the last step on his downward career, for in turning away from God, who is Life, he lost his own sense of life. Christian Scientists are close Bible students and do not arrive at their conclusions hastily, but reach them through the understanding of divine Principle. In this way the Science of the Bible is gained and applied, and it is one with the Science of being. This understanding leads to the overcoming of sin, and the truth lived and spoken illumines all one’s pathway.

In the twelfth chapter of I Corinthians Paul has much to say about the one Spirit, God, and the different operations of spiritual law in human consciousness. He also tells us that “the manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man to profit withal.” He speaks of “the word of wisdom,” of faith, and of “the gifts of healing;” he also speaks of the gift of prophecy, and adds something regarding the “discerning of spirits,” a passage which has been misunderstood by many. Jesus once said to his disciples, “Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of,” and rightly interpreted this passage means that without true spirituality we cannot discern clearly what manner of spirit we are of, or the mental and spiritual condition of those who seek our help in Christian Science. With the understanding of divine Principle we press on, recognizing the deep import of Paul’s words, “For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free; and have been all made to drink into one Spirit.” In all our efforts we are cheered by the Master’s promise given to the woman of Samaria: “The true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth; for the Father seeketh such to worship him.”

ANNIE M. KNOTT.