Retrospection and Introspection Part 6

Silencing self, _alias_ rising above corporeal personality, is what reforms the sinner and destroys sin. In the ratio that the testimony of material personal sense ceases, sin diminishes, until the false claim called sin is finally lost for lack of witness.

The sinner created neither himself nor sin, but sin created the sinner; that is, error made its man mortal, and this mortal was the image and likeness of evil, not of good. Therefore the lie was, and _is_, collective as well as individual. It was in no way contingent on Adam's thought, but supposit.i.tiously self-created. In the words of our Master, it, the "devil"

(_alias_ evil), "was a liar, and the father of it."

This mortal material concept was never a creator, although as a serpent it claimed to originate in the name of "the Lord," or good,--original evil; second, in the name of human concept, it claimed to beget the offspring of evil, _alias_ an evil offspring. However, the human concept never was, neither indeed can be, the father of man. Even the spiritual idea, or ideal man, is not a parent, though he reflects the infinity of good. The great difference between these opposites is, that the human material concept is _unreal_, and the divine concept or idea is spiritually real. One is false, while the other is true. One is temporal, but the other is eternal.

Our Master instructed his students to "call no man your father upon the earth: for one is your Father, which is in heaven." (Matt. xxiii. 9.)

Science and Health, the textbook of Christian Science, treats of the human concept, and the transference of thought, as follows:--

"How can matter originate or transmit mind? We answer that it cannot. Darkness and doubt encompa.s.s thought, so long as it bases creation on materiality" (p. 551).

"In reality there is no _mortal_ mind, and consequently no transference of mortal thought and will-power. Life and being are of G.o.d. In Christian Science, man can do no harm, for scientific thoughts are true thoughts, pa.s.sing from G.o.d to man" (pp. 103, 104).

"Man is the offspring of Spirit. The beautiful, good, and pure const.i.tute his ancestry. His origin is not, like that of mortals, in brute instinct, nor does he pa.s.s through material conditions prior to reaching intelligence. Spirit is his primitive and ultimate source of being; G.o.d is his Father, and Life is the law of his being" (p. 63).

"The parent of all human discord was the Adam-dream, the deep sleep, in which originated the delusion that life and intelligence proceeded from and pa.s.sed into matter. This pantheistic error, or so-called _serpent_, insists still upon the opposite of Truth, saying, 'Ye shall be as G.o.ds;' that is, I will make error as real and eternal as Truth.... 'I will put spirit into what I call matter, and matter shall seem to have life as much as G.o.d, Spirit, who _is_ the only Life.' This error has proved itself to be error.

Its life is found to be not Life, but only a transient, false sense of an existence which ends in death" (pp. 306, 307).

"When will the error of believing that there is life in matter, and that sin, sickness, and death are creations of G.o.d, be unmasked? When will it be understood that matter has no intelligence, life, nor sensation, and that the opposite belief is the prolific source of all suffering? G.o.d created all through Mind, and made all perfect and eternal. Where then is the necessity for recreation or procreation?" (p. 205).

"Above error's awful din, blackness, and chaos, the voice of Truth still calls: 'Adam, where art thou? Consciousness, where art thou?

Art thou dwelling in the belief that mind is in matter, and that evil is mind, or art thou in the living faith that there is and can be but one G.o.d, and keeping His commandment?'" (pp. 307, 308). "Mortal mind inverts the true likeness, and confers animal names and natures upon its own misconceptions. Ignorant of the origin and operations of mortal mind,--that is, ignorant of itself,--this so-called mind puts forth its own qualities, and claims G.o.d as their author;... usurps the deific prerogatives and is an attempted infringement on infinity" (pp. 512, 513).

We do not question the authenticity of the Scriptural narrative of the Virgin-mother and Bethlehem babe, and the Messianic mission of Christ Jesus; but in our time no Christian Scientist will give chimerical wings to his imagination, or advance speculative theories as to the recurrence of such events.

No person can take the individual place of the Virgin Mary. No person can compa.s.s or fulfil the individual mission of Jesus of Nazareth. No person can take the place of the author of Science and Health, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science. Each individual must fill his own niche in time and eternity.

The second appearing of Jesus is, unquestionably, the spiritual advent of the advancing idea of G.o.d, as in Christian Science.

And the scientific ultimate of this G.o.d-idea must be, will be, forever individual, incorporeal, and infinite, even the reflection, "image and likeness," of the infinite G.o.d.

The right teacher of Christian Science lives the truth he teaches.

Preeminent among men, he virtually stands at the head of all sanitary, civil, moral, and religious reform. Such a post of duty, unpierced by vanity, exalts a mortal beyond human praise, or monuments which weigh dust, and humbles him with the tax it raises on calamity to open the gates of heaven. It is not the forager on others' wisdom that G.o.d thus crowns, but he who is obedient to the divine command, "Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to G.o.d the things that are G.o.d's."

Great temptations beset an ignorant or an unprincipled mind-practice in opposition to the straight and narrow path of Christian Science.

Promiscuous mental treatment, without the consent or knowledge of the individual treated, is an error of much magnitude. People unaware of the indications of mental treatment, know not what is affecting them, and thus may be robbed of their individual rights,--freedom of choice and self-government. Who is willing to be subjected to such an influence? Ask the unbridled mind-manipulator if he would consent to this; and if not, then he is knowingly transgressing Christ's command. He who secretly manipulates mind without the permission of man or G.o.d, is not dealing justly and loving mercy, according to pure and undefiled religion.

Sinister and selfish motives entering into mental practice are dangerous incentives; they proceed from false convictions and a fatal ignorance.

These are the tares growing side by side with the wheat, that must be recognized, and uprooted, before the wheat can be garnered and Christian Science demonstrated.

Secret mental efforts to obtain help from one who is unaware of this attempt, demoralizes the person who does this, the same as other forms of stealing, and will end in destroying health and morals.

In the practice of Christian Science one cannot impart a mental influence that hazards another's happiness, nor interfere with the rights of the individual. To disregard the welfare of others is contrary to the law of G.o.d; therefore it deteriorates one's ability to do good, to benefit himself and mankind.

The Psalmist vividly portrays the result of secret faults, presumptuous sins, and self-deception, in these words: "How are they brought into desolation, as in a moment! They are utterly consumed with terrors."

PERSONALITY

The immortal man being spiritual, individual, and eternal, his mortal opposite must be material, corporeal, and temporal. Physical personality is finite; but G.o.d is infinite. He is without materiality, without finiteness of form or Mind.

Limitations are put off in proportion as the fleshly nature disappears and man is found in the reflection of Spirit.

This great fact leads into profound depths. The material human concept grew beautifully less as I floated into more spiritual lat.i.tudes and purer realms of thought.

From that hour personal corporeality became less to me than it is to people who fail to appreciate individual character. I endeavored to lift thought above physical personality, or selfhood in matter, to man's spiritual individuality in G.o.d,--in the true Mind, where sensible evil is lost in supersensible good. This is the only way whereby the false personality is laid off.

He who clings to personality, or perpetually warns you of "personality,"

wrongs it, or terrifies people over it, and is the sure victim of his own corporeality. Constantly to scrutinize physical personality, or accuse people of being unduly personal, is like the sick talking sickness. Such errancy betrays a violent and egotistical personality, increases one's sense of corporeality, and begets a fear of the senses and a perpetually egotistical sensibility.

He who does this is ignorant of the meaning of the word _personality_, and defines it by his own _corpus sine pectore_ (soulless body), and fails to distinguish the individual, or real man from the false sense of corporeality, or egotistic self.

My own corporeal personality afflicteth me not wittingly; for I desire never to think of it, and it cannot think of me.

PLAGIARISM

The various forms of book-borrowing without credit spring from this ill-concealed question in mortal mind, Who shall be greatest? This error violates the law given by Moses, it tramples upon Jesus' Sermon on the Mount, it does violence to the ethics of Christian Science.

Why withhold my name, while appropriating my language and ideas, but give credit when citing from the works of other authors?

Life and its ideals are inseparable, and one's writings on ethics, and demonstration of Truth, are not, cannot be, understood or taught by those who persistently misunderstand or misrepresent the author. Jesus said, "For there is no man which shall do a miracle in my name, that can lightly speak evil of me."

If one's spiritual ideal is comprehended and loved, the borrower from it is embraced in the author's own mental mood, and is therefore _honest_. The Science of Mind excludes opposites, and rests on unity.

It is proverbial that dishonesty r.e.t.a.r.ds spiritual growth and strikes at the heart of Truth. If a student at Harvard College has studied a textbook written by his teacher, is he ent.i.tled, when he leaves the University, to write out as his own the substance of this textbook? There is no warrant in common law and no permission in the gospel for plagiarizing an author's ideas and their words. Christian Science is not copyrighted; nor would protection by copyright be requisite, if mortals obeyed G.o.d's law of _manright_. A student can write voluminous works on Science without trespa.s.sing, if he writes honestly, and he cannot dishonestly compose _Christian Science_. The Bible is not stolen, though it is cited, and quoted deferentially.

Thoughts touched with the Spirit and Word of Christian Science gravitate naturally toward Truth. Therefore the mind to which this Science was revealed must have risen to the alt.i.tude which perceived a light beyond what others saw.

The spiritually minded meet on the stairs which lead up to spiritual love.

This affection, so far from being personal wors.h.i.+p, fulfils the law of Love which Paul enjoined upon the Galatians. This is the Mind "which was also in Christ Jesus," and knows no material limitations. It is the unity of good and bond of perfectness. This just affection serves to const.i.tute the Mind-healer a wonder-worker,--as of old, on the Pentecost Day, when the disciples were of one accord.

He who gains the G.o.d-crowned summit of Christian Science never abuses the corporeal personality, but uplifts it. He thinks of every one in his real quality, and sees each mortal in an impersonal depict.

I have long remained silent on a growing evil in plagiarism; but if I do not insist upon the strictest observance of moral law and order in Christian Scientists, I become responsible, as a teacher, for laxity in discipline and lawlessness in literature. Pope was right in saying, "An honest man's the n.o.blest work of G.o.d;" and Ingersoll's repartee has its moral: "An honest G.o.d's the n.o.blest work of man."

ADMONITION