Science and Health, with Key to the Scriptures Part 33

The question, "What is Truth," convulses the world.

223:15 Many are ready to meet this inquiry with the a.s.surance which comes of understanding; but more are blinded by their old illusions, and try to "give 223:18 it pause." "If the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch."

The efforts of error to answer this question by some 223:21 _ology_ are vain. Spiritual rationality and free thought ac- company approaching Science, and cannot be put down.

They will emanc.i.p.ate humanity, and supplant unscientific 223:24 means and so-called laws.

Heralds of Science

Peals that should startle the slumbering thought from its erroneous dream are partially unheeded; but the last 223:27 trump has not sounded, or this would not be so. Marvels, calamities, and sin will much more abound as truth urges upon mortals its resisted 223:30 claims; but the awful daring of sin destroys sin, and foreshadows the triumph of truth. G.o.d will over- turn, until "He come whose right it is." Longevity 224:1 is increasing and the power of sin diminis.h.i.+ng, for the world feels the alterative effect of truth through every 224:3 pore.

As the crude footprints of the past disappear from the dissolving paths of the present, we shall better understand 224:6 the Science which governs these changes, and shall plant our feet on firmer ground. Every sensuous pleasure or pain is self-destroyed through suffering. There should 224:9 be painless progress, attended by life and peace instead of discord and death.

Sectarianism and opposition

In the record of nineteen centuries, there are sects 224:12 many but not enough Christianity. Centuries ago re- ligionists were ready to hail an anthropomor- phic G.o.d, and array His vicegerent with pomp 224:15 and splendor; but this was not the manner of truth's appearing. Of old the cross was truth's cen- tral sign, and it is to-day. The modern lash is less 224:18 material than the Roman scourge, but it is equally as cutting. Cold disdain, stubborn resistance, opposition from church, state laws, and the press, are still the har- 224:21 bingers of truth's full-orbed appearing.

A higher and more practical Christianity, demonstrat- ing justice and meeting the needs of mortals in sickness 224:24 and in health, stands at the door of this age, knocking for admission. Will you open or close the door upon this angel visitant, who cometh in the quiet of meekness, as he 224:27 came of old to the patriarch at noonday?

Mental emanc.i.p.ation

Truth brings the elements of liberty. On its banner is the Soul-inspired motto, "Slavery is abolished." The 224:30 power of G.o.d brings deliverance to the cap- tive. No power can withstand divine Love.

What is this supposed power, which opposes itself to G.o.d?

225:1 Whence cometh it? What is it that binds man with iron shackles to sin, sickness, and death? Whatever enslaves 225:3 man is opposed to the divine government. Truth makes man free.

Truth's ordeal

You may know when first Truth leads by the few- 225:6 ness and faithfulness of its followers. Thus it is that the march of time bears onward freedom's banner. The powers of this world will fight, 225:9 and will command their sentinels not to let truth pa.s.s the guard until it subscribes to their systems; but Science, heeding not the pointed bayonet, marches on. There is 225:12 always some tumult, but there is a rallying to truth's standard.

Immortal sentences

The history of our country, like all history, ill.u.s.trates 225:15 the might of Mind, and shows human power to be propor- tionate to its embodiment of right thinking. A few immortal sentences, breathing the omnipo- 225:18 tence of divine justice, have been potent to break despotic fetters and abolish the whipping-post and slave market; but oppression neither went down in blood, nor did the 225:21 breath of freedom come from the cannon's mouth. Love is the liberator.

Slavery abolished

Legally to abolish unpaid servitude in the United 225:24 States was hard; but the abolition of mental slavery is a more difficult task. The despotic tenden- cies, inherent in mortal mind and always ger- 225:27 minating in new forms of tyranny, must be rooted out through the action of the divine Mind.

Men and women of all climes and races are still in 225:30 bondage to material sense, ignorant how to obtain their freedom. The rights of man were vindicated in a single section and on the lowest plane of human life, when Afri- 226:1 can slavery was abolished in our land. That was only prophetic of further steps towards the banishment of a 226:3 world-wide slavery, found on higher planes of existence and under more subtle and depraving forms.

Liberty's crusade

The voice of G.o.d in behalf of the African slave was 226:6 still echoing in our land, when the voice of the herald of this new crusade sounded the keynote of uni- versal freedom, asking a fuller acknowledg- 226:9 ment of the rights of man as a Son of G.o.d, demanding that the fetters of sin, sickness, and death be stricken from the human mind and that its freedom be won, not 226:12 through human warfare, not with bayonet and blood, but through Christ's divine Science.

Cramping systems

G.o.d has built a higher platform of human rights, and 226:15 He has built it on diviner claims. These claims are not made through code or creed, but in demonstra- tion of "on earth peace, good-will toward men."

226:18 Human codes, scholastic theology, material medicine and hygiene, fetter faith and spiritual understanding. Divine Science rends asunder these fetters, and man's birthright 226:21 of sole allegiance to his Maker a.s.serts itself.

I saw before me the sick, wearing out years of servi- tude to an unreal master in the belief that the body gov- 226:24 erned them, rather than Mind.

House of bondage

The lame, the deaf, the dumb, the blind, the sick, the sensual, the sinner, I wished to save from the slavery of 226:27 their own beliefs and from the educational systems of the Pharaohs, who to-day, as of yore, hold the children of Israel in bondage. I saw be- 226:30 fore me the awful conflict, the Red Sea and the wilder- ness; but I pressed on through faith in G.o.d, trusting Truth, the strong deliverer, to guide me into the land 227:1 of Christian Science, where fetters fall and the rights of man are fully known and acknowledged.

Higher law ends bondage

227:3 I saw that the law of mortal belief included all error, and that, even as oppressive laws are disputed and mor- tals are taught their right to freedom, so the 227:6 claims of the enslaving senses must be de- nied and superseded. The law of the divine Mind must end human bondage, or mortals will continue unaware 227:9 of man's inalienable rights and in subjection to hope- less slavery, because some public teachers permit an ignorance of divine power, - an ignorance that 227:12 is the foundation of continued bondage and of human suffering.

Native freedom

Discerning the rights of man, we cannot fail to fore- 227:15 see the doom of all oppression. Slavery is not the legiti- mate state of man. G.o.d made man free.

Paul said, "I was free born." All men should 227:18 be free. "Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is lib- erty." Love and Truth make free, but evil and error lead into captivity.

Standard of liberty

227:21 Christian Science raises the standard of liberty and cries: "Follow me! Escape from the bondage of sick- ness, sin, and death!" Jesus marked out the 227:24 way. Citizens of the world, accept the "glori- ous liberty of the children of G.o.d," and be free! This is your divine right. The illusion of material sense, not 227:27 divine law, has bound you, entangled your free limbs, crippled your capacities, enfeebled your body, and de- faced the tablet of your being.

227:30 If G.o.d had inst.i.tuted material laws to govern man, disobedience to which would have made man ill, Jesus would not have disregarded those laws by healing in 228:1 direct opposition to them and in defiance of all material conditions.

No fleshly heredity

228:3 The transmission of disease or of certain idiosyncra- sies of mortal mind would be impossible if this great fact of being were learned, - namely, that nothing 228:6 inharmonious can enter being, for Life _is_ G.o.d.

Heredity is a prolific subject for mortal belief to pin the- ories upon; but if we learn that nothing is real but the 228:9 right, we shall have no dangerous inheritances, and fleshly ills will disappear.

G.o.d-given dominion

The enslavement of man is not legitimate. It will 228:12 cease when man enters into his heritage of freedom, his G.o.d-given dominion over the material senses.

Mortals will some day a.s.sert their freedom in 228:15 the name of Almighty G.o.d. Then they will control their own bodies through the understanding of divine Science.

Dropping their present beliefs, they will recognize har- 228:18 mony as the spiritual reality and discord as the material unreality.

If we follow the command of our Master, "Take no 228:21 thought for your life," we shall never depend on bodily conditions, structure, or economy, but we shall be masters of the body, dictate its terms, and form and control it with 228:24 Truth.

Priestly pride humbled

There is no power apart from G.o.d. Omnipotence has all-power, and to acknowledge any other power is to dis- 228:27 honor G.o.d. The humble Nazarene overthrew the supposition that sin, sickness, and death have power. He proved them powerless. It should have 228:30 humbled the pride of the priests, when they saw the dem- onstration of Christianity excel the influence of their dead faith and ceremonies.

229:1 If Mind is not the master of sin, sickness, and death, they are immortal, for it is already proved that mat- 229:3 ter has not destroyed them, but is their basis and support.

No union of opposites

We should hesitate to say that Jehovah sins or suffers; 229:6 but if sin and suffering are realities of being, whence did they emanate? G.o.d made all that was made, and Mind signifies G.o.d, - infinity, not finity.

229:9 Not far removed from infidelity is the belief which unites such opposites as sickness and health, holiness and unholiness, calls both the offspring of spirit, and 229:12 at the same time admits that Spirit is G.o.d, - vir- tually declaring Him good in one instance and evil in another.

Self-const.i.tuted law

229:15 By universal consent, mortal belief has const.i.tuted itself a law to bind mortals to sickness, sin, and death.

This customary belief is misnamed material 229:18 law, and the individual who upholds it is mis- taken in theory and in practice. The so-called law of mortal mind, conjectural and speculative, is made void 229:21 by the law of immortal Mind, and false law should be trampled under foot.

Sickness from mortal mind

If G.o.d causes man to be sick, sickness must be good, 229:24 and its opposite, health, must be evil, for all that He makes is good and will stand forever. If the transgression of G.o.d's law produces sickness, it 229:27 is right to be sick; and we cannot if we would, and should not if we could, annul the decrees of wisdom. It is the transgression of a belief of mortal mind, not of a law of 229:30 matter nor of divine Mind, which causes the belief of sick- ness. The remedy is Truth, not matter, - the truth that disease is _unreal_.