What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder. In the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven. - JESUS.
56:1 WHEN our great Teacher came to him for baptism,
John was astounded. Reading his thoughts, Jesus
56:3 added: "Suffer it to be so now: for thus it becometh us
to fulfil all righteousness." Jesus' concessions (in certain
cases) to material methods were for the advancement of
56:6 spiritual good.
Marriage temporal
Marriage is the legal and moral provision for genera-
tion among human kind. Until the spiritual creation
56:9 is discerned intact, is apprehended and under-
stood, and His kingdom is come as in the vision
of the Apocalypse, - where the corporeal sense of crea-
56:12 tion was cast out, and its spiritual sense was revealed from
heaven, - marriage will continue, subject to such moral
regulations as will secure increasing virtue.
Fidelity required
56:15 Infidelity to the marriage covenant is the social scourge
of all races, "the pestilence that walketh in darkness,
. . . the destruction that wasteth at noonday."
56:18 The commandment, "Thou shalt not com-
mit adultery," is no less imperative than the one, "Thou
shalt not kill."
57:1 Chastity is the cement of civilization and progress. Without it there is no stability in society, and without it 57:3 one cannot attain the Science of Life.
Mental elements
Union of the masculine and feminine qualities consti-
tutes completeness. The masculine mind reaches a
57:6 higher tone through certain elements of the
feminine, while the feminine mind gains cour-
age and strength through masculine qualities. These
57:9 different elements conjoin naturally with each other, and
their true harmony is in spiritual oneness. Both sexes
should be loving, pure, tender, and strong. The attrac-
57:12 tion between native qualities will be perpetual only as it
is pure and true, bringing sweet seasons of renewal like
the returning spring.
Affection's demands
57:15 Beauty, wealth, or fame is incompetent to meet the
demands of the affections, and should never weigh
against the better claims of intellect, good-
57:18 ness, and virtue. Happiness is spiritual,
born of Truth and Love. It is unselfish; therefore
it cannot exist alone, but requires all mankind to
57:21 share it.
Help and discipline
Human affection is not poured forth vainly, even
though it meet no return. Love enriches the nature, en-
57:24 larging, purifying, and elevating it. The wintry
blasts of earth may uproot the flowers of affec-
tion, and scatter them to the winds; but this severance
57:27 of fleshly ties serves to unite thought more closely to
God, for Love supports the struggling heart until it ceases
to sigh over the world and begins to unfold its wings for
57:30 heaven.
Marriage is unblest or blest, according to the disap-
pointments it involves or the hopes it fulfils. To happify
58:1 existence by constant intercourse with those adapted to
elevate it, should be the motive of society. Unity of
58:3 spirit gives new pinions to joy, or else joy's drooping
wings trail in dust.
Chord and discord
Ill-arranged notes produce discord. Tones of the
58:6 human mind may be different, but they should be con-
cordant in order to blend properly. Unselfish
ambition, noble life-motives, and purity, -
58:9 these constituents of thought, mingling, constitute in-
dividually and collectively true happiness, strength, and
permanence.
Mutual freedom
58:12 There is moral freedom in Soul. Never contract the
horizon of a worthy outlook by the selfish exaction of
all another's time and thoughts. With ad-
58:15 ditional joys, benevolence should grow more
diffusive. The narrowness and jealousy, which would
confine a wife or a husband forever within four walls, will
58:18 not promote the sweet interchange of confidence and love;
but on the other hand, a wandering desire for incessant
amusement outside the home circle is a poor augury for
58:21 the happiness of wedlock. Home is the dearest spot on
earth, and it should be the centre, though not the bound-
ary, of the affections.
A useful suggestion
58:24 Said the peasant bride to her lover: "Two eat no more
together than they eat separately." This is a hint that
a wife ought not to court vulgar extravagance
58:27 or stupid ease, because another supplies her
wants. Wealth may obviate the necessity for toil or the
chance for ill-nature in the marriage relation, but noth-
58:30 ing can abolish the cares of marriage.
Differing duties
"She that is married careth . . . how she may please
her husband," says the Bible; and this is the pleasantest
59:1 thing to do. Matrimony should never be entered into
without a full recognition of its enduring obligations on
59:3 both sides. There should be the most tender
solicitude for each other's happiness, and mu-
tual attention and approbation should wait on all the years
59:6 of married life.
Mutual compromises will often maintain a compact
which might otherwise become unbearable. Man should
59:9 not be required to participate in all the annoyances and
cares of domestic economy, nor should woman be ex-
pected to understand political economy. Fulfilling the
59:12 different demands of their united spheres, their sympa-
thies should blend in sweet confidence and cheer, each
partner sustaining the other, - thus hallowing the union
59:15 of interests and affections, in which the heart finds peace
and home.
Trysting renewed
Tender words and unselfish care in what promotes the
59:18 welfare and happiness of your wife will prove more salutary
in prolonging her health and smiles than stolid
indifference or jealousy. Husbands, hear this
59:21 and remember how slight a word or deed may renew the
old trysting-times.
After marriage, it is too late to grumble over incompati-
59:24 bility of disposition. A mutual understanding should
exist before this union and continue ever after, for decep-
tion is fatal to happiness.
Permanent obligation
59:27 The nuptial vow should never be annulled, so long as
its moral obligations are kept intact; but the frequency
of divorce shows that the sacredness of this re-
59:30 lationship is losing its influence, and that fatal
mistakes are undermining its foundations. Separation
never should take place, and it never would, if both
60:1 husband and wife were genuine Christian Scientists.
Science inevitably lifts one's being higher in the scale of
60:3 harmony and happiness.
Permanent affection
Kindred tastes, motives, and aspirations are necessary
to the formation of a happy and permanent companion-
60:6 ship. The beautiful in character is also the
good, welding indissolubly the links of affec-
tion. A mother's affection cannot be weaned from her
60:9 child, because the mother-love includes purity and con-
stancy, both of which are immortal. Therefore maternal
affection lives on under whatever difficulties.
60:12 From the logic of events we learn that selfishness
and impurity alone are fleeting, and that wisdom will
ultimately put asunder what she hath not joined
60:15 together.
Centre for affections
Marriage should improve the human species, becoming
a barrier against vice, a protection to woman, strength to
60:18 man, and a centre for the affections. This,
however, in a majority of cases, is not its
present tendency, and why? Because the education of
60:21 the higher nature is neglected, and other considerations,
- passion, frivolous amusements, personal adornment,
display, and pride, - occupy thought.
Spiritual concord
60:24 An ill-attuned ear calls discord harmony, not appreciat-
ing concord. So physical sense, not discerning the true
happiness of being, places it on a false basis.
60:27 Science will correct the discord, and teach us
life's sweeter harmonies.
Soul has infinite resources with which to bless mankind,
60:30 and happiness would be more readily attained and would
be more secure in our keeping, if sought in Soul. Higher
enjoyments alone can satisfy the cravings of immortal
61:1 man. We cannot circumscribe happiness within the
limits of personal sense. The senses confer no real
61:3 enjoyment.
Ascendency of good
The good in human affections must have ascendency
over the evil and the spiritual over the animal, or happi-
61:6 ness will never be won. The attainment of
this celestial condition would improve our
progeny, diminish crime, and give higher aims to ambi-
61:9 tion. Every valley of sin must be exalted, and every
mountain of selfishness be brought low, that the highway
of our God may be prepared in Science. The offspring
61:12 of heavenly-minded parents inherit more intellect, better
balanced minds, and sounder constitutions.
Propensities inherited
If some fortuitous circumstance places promising chil-
61:15 dren in the arms of gross parents, often these beautiful
children early droop and die, like tropical
flowers born amid Alpine snows. If perchance
61:18 they live to become parents in their turn, they may re-
produce in their own helpless little ones the grosser traits
of their ancestors. What hope of happiness, what noble
61:21 ambition, can inspire the child who inherits propensities
that must either be overcome or reduce him to a loath-
some wreck?
61:24 Is not the propagation of the human species a greater
responsibility, a more solemn charge, than the culture of
your garden or the raising of stock to increase your flocks
61:27 and herds? Nothing unworthy of perpetuity should be
transmitted to children.
The formation of mortals must greatly improve to
61:30 advance mankind. The scientific /morale/ of marriage is
spiritual unity. If the propagation of a higher human
species is requisite to reach this goal, then its material con-
62:1 ditions can only be permitted for the purpose of gener-
ating. The foetus must be kept mentally pure and the
62:3 period of gestation have the sanctity of virginity.
The entire education of children should be such as to
form habits of obedience to the moral and spiritual law,
62:6 with which the child can meet and master the belief in so-
called physical laws, a belief which breeds disease.
Inheritance heeded
If parents create in their babes a desire for incessant
62:9 amusement, to be always fed, rocked, tossed, or talked
to, those parents should not, in after years,
complain of their children's fretfulness or fri-
62:12 volity, which the parents themselves have occasioned.
Taking less "thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or
what ye shall drink"; less thought "for your body what
62:15 ye shall put on," will do much more for the health of the
rising generation than you dream. Children should be
allowed to remain children in knowledge, and should
62:18 become men and women only through growth in the
understanding of man's higher nature.
The Mind creative
We must not attribute more and more intelligence
62:21 to matter, but less and less, if we would be wise and
healthy. The divine Mind, which forms the
bud and blossom, will care for the human
62:24 body, even as it clothes the lily; but let no mortal inter-
fere with God's government by thrusting in the laws of
erring, human concepts.
Superior law of Soul
62:27 The higher nature of man is not governed by the lower;
if it were, the order of wisdom would be reversed.
Our false views of life hide eternal harmony,
62:30 and produce the ills of which we complain.
Because mortals believe in material laws and reject the
Science of Mind, this does not make materiality first and
63:1 the superior law of Soul last. You would never think
that flannel was better for warding off pulmonary disease
63:3 than the controlling Mind, if you understood the Science
of being.
Spiritual origin
In Science man is the offspring of Spirit. The beauti-
63:6 ful, good, and pure constitute his ancestry. His origin is
not, like that of mortals, in brute instinct, nor
does he pass through material conditions prior
63:9 to reaching intelligence. Spirit is his primitive and ulti-
mate source of being; God is his Father, and Life is the
law of his being.
The rights of woman
63:12 Civil law establishes very unfair differences between the
rights of the two sexes. Christian Science furnishes no
precedent for such injustice, and civilization
63:15 mitigates it in some measure. Still, it is a
marvel why usage should accord woman less rights than
does either Christian Science or civilization.
Unfair discrimination
63:18 Our laws are not impartial, to say the least, in their
discrimination as to the person, property, and parental
claims of the two sexes. If the elective fran-
63:21 chise for women will remedy the evil with-
out encouraging difficulties of greater magnitude, let us
hope it will be granted. A feasible as well as rational
63:24 means of improvement at present is the elevation of
society in general and the achievement of a nobler
race for legislation, - a race having higher aims and
63:27 motives.
If a dissolute husband deserts his wife, certainly the
wronged, and perchance impoverished, woman should be
63:30 allowed to collect her own wages, enter into business
agreements, hold real estate, deposit funds, and own her
children free from interference.
64:1 Want of uniform justice is a crying evil caused by the
selfishness and inhumanity of man. Our forefathers
64:3 exercised their faith in the direction taught by the Apostle
James, when he said: "Pure religion and undefiled before
God and the Father, is this, To visit the fatherless and
64:6 widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted
from the world."
Benevolence hindered
Pride, envy, or jealousy seems on most occasions to
64:9 be the master of ceremonies, ruling out primitive Chris-
tianity. When a man lends a helping hand
to some noble woman, struggling alone with
64:12 adversity, his wife should not say, "It is never well to
interfere with your neighbor's business." A wife is
sometimes debarred by a covetous domestic tyrant from
64:15 giving the ready aid her sympathy and charity would
afford.
Progressive development
Marriage should signify a union of hearts. Further-
64:18 more, the time cometh of which Jesus spake, when he
declared that in the resurrection there should
be no more marrying nor giving in marriage,
64:21 but man would be as the angels. Then shall Soul re-
joice in its own, in which passion has no part. Then
white-robed purity will unite in one person masculine wis-
64:24 dom and feminine love, spiritual understanding and per-
petual peace.
Until it is learned that God is the Father of all, mar-
64:27 riage will continue. Let not mortals permit a disregard
of law which might lead to a worse state of society than
now exists. Honesty and virtue ensure the stability of
64:30 the marriage covenant. Spirit will ultimately claim its
own, - all that really is, - and the voices of physical
sense will be forever hushed.
Blessing of Christ
65:1 Experience should be the school of virtue, and human
happiness should proceed from man's highest nature.
65:3 May Christ, Truth, be present at every bridal
altar to turn the water into wine and to give to
human life an inspiration by which man's spiritual and
65:6 eternal existence may be discerned.
Righteous foundations
If the foundations of human affection are consistent
with progress, they will be strong and enduring. Divorces
65:9 should warn the age of some fundamental error
in the marriage state. The union of the sexes
suffers fearful discord. To gain Christian Science and its
65:12 harmony, life should be more metaphysically regarded.
Powerless promises
The broadcast powers of evil so conspicuous to-day
show themselves in the materialism and sensualism of
65:15 the age, struggling against the advancing
spiritual era. Beholding the world's lack of
Christianity and the powerlessness of vows to make home
65:18 happy, the human mind will at length demand a higher
affection.
Transition and reform
There will ensue a fermentation over this as over many
65:21 other reforms, until we get at last the clear straining of
truth, and impurity and error are left among
the lees. The fermentation even of fluids is
65:24 not pleasant. An unsettled, transitional stage is never
desirable on its own account. Matrimony, which was once
a fixed fact among us, must lose its present slippery foot-
65:27 ing, and man must find permanence and peace in a more
spiritual adherence.
The mental chemicalization, which has brought con-
65:30 jugal infidelity to the surface, will assuredly throw off
this evil, and marriage will become purer when the scum
is gone.
Thou art right, immortal Shakespeare, great poet of
humanity:
66:3 Sweet are the uses of adversity;
Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous,
Wears yet a precious jewel in his head.
Salutary sorrow
66:6 Trials teach mortals not to lean on a material staff, -
a broken reed, which pierces the heart. We do not
half remember this in the sunshine of joy
66:9 and prosperity. Sorrow is salutary. Through
great tribulation we enter the kingdom. Trials are
proofs of God's care. Spiritual development germi-
66:12 nates not from seed sown in the soil of material hopes,
but when these decay, Love propagates anew the higher
joys of Spirit, which have no taint of earth. Each suc-
66:15 cessive stage of experience unfolds new views of divine
goodness and love.
Amidst gratitude for conjugal felicity, it is well to re-
66:18 member how fleeting are human joys. Amidst conjugal
infelicity, it is well to hope, pray, and wait patiently on
divine wisdom to point out the path.
Patience is wisdom
66:21 Husbands and wives should never separate if there
is no Christian demand for it. It is better to await the
logic of events than for a wife precipitately
66:24 to leave her husband or for a husband to
leave his wife. If one is better than the other, as must
always be the case, the other pre-eminently needs good
66:27 company. Socrates considered patience salutary under
such circumstances, making his Xantippe a discipline for
his philosophy.
The gold and dross
66:30 Sorrow has its reward. It never leaves us
where it found us. The furnace separates
the gold from the dross that the precious metal may
67:1 be graven with the image of God. The cup our Father
hath given, shall we not drink it and learn the lessons
67:3 He teaches?
Weathering the storm
When the ocean is stirred by a storm, then the clouds
lower, the wind shrieks through the tightened shrouds,
67:6 and the waves lift themselves into mountains.
We ask the helmsman: "Do you know your
course? Can you steer safely amid the storm?" He
67:9 answers bravely, but even the dauntless seaman is not
sure of his safety; nautical science is not equal to the
Science of Mind. Yet, acting up to his highest under-
67:12 standing, firm at the post of duty, the mariner works on
and awaits the issue. Thus should we deport ourselves
on the seething ocean of sorrow. Hoping and work-
67:15 ing, one should stick to the wreck, until an irresistible
propulsion precipitates his doom or sunshine gladdens
the troubled sea.
Spiritual power
67:18 The notion that animal natures can possibly give force
to character is too absurd for consideration, when we
remember that through spiritual ascendency
67:21 our Lord and Master healed the sick, raised
the dead, and commanded even the winds and waves to
obey him. Grace and Truth are potent beyond all other
67:24 means and methods.
The lack of spiritual power in the limited demonstration
of popular Christianity does not put to silence the labor
67:27 of centuries. Spiritual, not corporeal, consciousness is
needed. Man delivered from sin, disease, and death
presents the true likeness or spiritual ideal.
Basis of true religion
67:30 Systems of religion and medicine treat of physical pains
and pleasures, but Jesus rebuked the suffering from any
such cause or effect. The epoch approaches when the
68:1 understanding of the truth of being will be the basis of
true religion. At present mortals progress slowly for
68:3 fear of being thought ridiculous. They are
slaves to fashion, pride, and sense. Some-
time we shall learn how Spirit, the great architect, has
68:6 created men and women in Science. We ought to weary
of the fleeting and false and to cherish nothing which
hinders our highest selfhood.
68:9 Jealousy is the grave of affection. The presence of
mistrust, where confidence is due, withers the flowers
of Eden and scatters love's petals to decay. Be not
68:12 in haste to take the vow "until death do us part."
Consider its obligations, its responsibilities, its rela-
tions to your growth and to your influence on other
68:15 lives.
Insanity and agamogenesis
I never knew more than one individual who believed
in agamogenesis; she was unmarried, a lovely charac-
68:18 ter, was suffering from incipient insanity, and
a Christian Scientist cured her. I have named
her case to individuals, when casting my bread upon
68:21 the waters, and it may have caused the good to ponder
and the evil to hatch their silly innuendoes and lies, since
salutary causes sometimes incur these effects. The per-
68:24 petuation of the floral species by bud or cell-division is
evident, but I discredit the belief that agamogenesis
applies to the human species.
God's creation intact
68:27 Christian Science presents unfoldment, not accretion;
it manifests no material growth from molecule to mind,
but an impartation of the divine Mind to man
68:30 and the universe. Proportionately as human
generation ceases, the unbroken links of eternal, har-
monious being will be spiritually discerned; and man,
69:1 not of the earth earthly but coexistent with God, will
appear. The scientific fact that man and the universe
69:3 are evolved from Spirit, and so are spiritual, is as fixed in
divine Science as is the proof that mortals gain the sense
of health only as they lose the sense of sin and disease.
69:6 Mortals can never understand God's creation while believ-
ing that man is a creator. God's children already created
will be cognized only as man finds the truth of being.
69:9 Thus it is that the real, ideal man appears in proportion
as the false and material disappears. No longer to marry
or to be "given in marriage" neither closes man's con-
69:12 tinuity nor his sense of increasing number in God's in-
finite plan. Spiritually to understand that there is but
one creator, God, unfolds all creation, confirms the Scrip-
69:15 tures, brings the sweet assurance of no parting, no pain,
and of man deathless and perfect and eternal.
If Christian Scientists educate their own offspring
69:18 spiritually, they can educate others spiritually and not
conflict with the scientific sense of God's creation. Some
day the child will ask his parent: "Do you keep the First
69:21 Commandment? Do you have one God and creator, or
is man a creator?" If the father replies, "God creates
man through man," the child may ask, "Do you teach
69:24 that Spirit creates materially, or do you declare that
Spirit is infinite, therefore matter is out of the ques-
tion?" Jesus said, "The children of this world marry,
69:27 and are given in marriage: But they which shall be ac-
counted worthy to obtain that world, and the resur-
rection from the dead, neither marry, nor are given in
69:30 marriage."
And when they shall say unto you,
Seek unto them that have familiar spirits,
And unto wizards that peep and that mutter;
Should not a people seek unto their God? - ISAIAH.
Verily, verily, I say unto you, If a man keep my saying, he shall never see death. Then said the Jews unto him, Now we know that thou hast a devil. - JOHN.
The infinite one Spirit
70:1 MORTAL existence is an enigma. Every day is a
mystery. The testimony of the corporeal senses
70:3 cannot inform us what is real and what is delusive, but
the revelations of Christian Science unlock the treasures
of Truth. Whatever is false or sinful can
70:6 never enter the atmosphere of Spirit. There
is but one Spirit. Man is never God, but spiritual man,
made in God's likeness, reflects God. In this scientific
70:9 reflection the Ego and the Father are inseparable. The
supposition that corporeal beings are spirits, or that there
are good and evil spirits, is a mistake.
Real and unreal identity
70:12 The divine Mind maintains all identities, from a blade
of grass to a star, as distinct and eternal. The
questions are: What are God's identities?
70:15 What is Soul? Does life or soul exist in the thing
formed?
71:1 Nothing is real and eternal, - nothing is Spirit, - but
God and His idea. Evil has no reality. It is neither
71:3 person, place, nor thing, but is simply a belief, an illusion
of material sense.
The identity, or idea, of all reality continues forever;
71:6 but Spirit, or the divine Principle of all, is not /in/ Spirit's
formations. Soul is synonymous with Spirit, God, the
creative, governing, infinite Principle outside of finite form,
71:9 which forms only reflect.
Dream-lessons
Close your eyes, and you may dream that you see a
flower, - that you touch and smell it. Thus you learn
71:12 that the flower is a product of the so-called
mind, a formation of thought rather than of
matter. Close your eyes again, and you may see land-
71:15 scapes, men, and women. Thus you learn that these
also are images, which mortal mind holds and evolves
and which simulate mind, life, and intelligence. From
71:18 dreams also you learn that neither mortal mind nor
matter is the image or likeness of God, and that im-
mortal Mind is not in matter.
Found wanting
71:21 When the Science of Mind is understood, spiritualism
will be found mainly erroneous, having no scientific basis
nor origin, no proof nor power outside of
71:24 human testimony. It is the offspring of the
physical senses. There is no sensuality in Spirit. I never
could believe in spiritualism.
71:27 The basis and structure of spiritualism are alike ma-
terial and physical. Its spirits are so many corporealities,
limited and finite in character and quality. Spiritualism
71:30 therefore presupposes Spirit, which is ever infinite, to be
a corporeal being, a finite form, - a theory contrary to
Christian Science.
72:1 There is but one spiritual existence, - the Life of
which corporeal sense can take no cognizance. The
72:3 divine Principle of man speaks through immortal sense.
If a material body - in other words, mortal, material
sense - were permeated by Spirit, that body would
72:6 disappear to mortal sense, would be deathless. A con-
dition precedent to communion with Spirit is the gain of
spiritual life.
Spirits obsolete
72:9 So-called /spirits/ are but corporeal communicators. As
light destroys darkness and in the place of darkness all
is light, so (in absolute Science) Soul, or God,
72:12 is the only truth-giver to man. Truth de-
stroys mortality, and brings to light immortality. Mortal
belief (the material sense of life) and immortal Truth
72:15 (the spiritual sense) are the tares and the wheat, which
are not united by progress, but separated.
Perfection is not expressed through imperfection.
72:18 Spirit is not made manifest through matter, the anti-
pode of Spirit. Error is not a convenient sieve through
which truth can be strained.
Scientific phenomena
72:21 God, good, being ever present, it follows in divine
logic that evil, the suppositional opposite of good, is never
present. In Science, individual good derived
72:24 from God, the infinite All-in-all, may flow
from the departed to mortals; but evil is neither com-
municable nor scientific. A sinning, earthly mortal is
72:27 not the reality of Life nor the medium through which
truth passes to earth. The joy of intercourse becomes
the jest of sin, when evil and suffering are communicable.
72:30 Not personal intercommunion but divine law is the com-
municator of truth, health, and harmony to earth and
humanity. As readily can you mingle fire and frost as
73:1 Spirit and matter. In either case, one does not support
the other.
73:3 Spiritualism calls one person, living in this world, /ma-
terial/, but another, who has died to-day a sinner and sup-
posedly will return to earth to-morrow, it terms a /spirit/.
73:6 The fact is that neither the one nor the other is infinite
Spirit, for Spirit is God, and man is His likeness.
One government
The belief that one man, as spirit, can control an-
73:9 other man, as matter, upsets both the individuality and
the Science of man, for man is image. God
controls man, and God is the only Spirit. Any
73:12 other control or attraction of so-called spirit is a mortal
belief, which ought to be known by its fruit, - the repe-
tition of evil.
73:15 If Spirit, or God, communed with mortals or controlled
them through electricity or any other form of matter, the
divine order and the Science of omnipotent, omnipresent
73:18 Spirit would be destroyed.
Incorrect theories
The belief that material bodies return to dust, hereafter
to rise up as spiritual bodies with material sensations and
73:21 desires, is incorrect. Equally incorrect is the
belief that spirit is confined in a finite, ma-
terial body, from which it is freed by death, and that, when
73:24 it is freed from the material body, spirit retains the sensa-
tions belonging to that body.
No me-diumship
It is a grave mistake to suppose that matter is any part
73:27 of the reality of intelligent existence, or that Spirit and
matter, intelligence and non-intelligence, can
commune together. This error Science will
73:30 destroy. The sensual cannot be made the mouthpiece of
the spiritual, nor can the finite become the channel of
the infinite. There is no communication between so-
74:1 called material existence and spiritual life which is not
subject to death.
Opposing conditions
74:3 To be on communicable terms with Spirit, persons must
be free from organic bodies; and their return to a mate-
rial condition, after having once left it, would
74:6 be as impossible as would be the restoration
to its original condition of the acorn, already absorbed
into a sprout which has risen above the soil. The seed
74:9 which has germinated has a new form and state of exist-
ence. When here or hereafter the belief of life in matter
is extinct, the error which has held the belief dissolves
74:12 with the belief, and never returns to the old condition.
No correspondence nor communion can exist between
persons in such opposite dreams as the belief of having
74:15 died and left a material body and the belief of still living
in an organic, material body.
Bridgeless division
The caterpillar, transformed into a beautiful insect,
74:18 is no longer a worm, nor does the insect return to
fraternize with or control the worm. Such
a backward transformation is impossible in
74:21 Science. Darkness and light, infancy and manhood,
sickness and health, are opposites, - different beliefs,
which never blend. Who will say that infancy can utter
74:24 the ideas of manhood, that darkness can represent light,
that we are in Europe when we are in the opposite hemi-
sphere? There is no bridge across the gulf which divides
74:27 two such opposite conditions as the spiritual, or incor-
poreal, and the physical, or corporeal.
In Christian Science there is never a retrograde step,
74:30 never a return to positions outgrown. The so-called dead
and living cannot commune together, for they are in
separate states of existence, or consciousness.
Unscientific investiture
75:1 This simple truth lays bare the mistaken assumption
that man dies as matter but comes to life as spirit. The
75:3 so-called dead, in order to reappear to those
still in the existence cognized by the physical
senses, would need to be tangible and material, - to have
75:6 a material investiture, - or the material senses could take
no cognizance of the so-called dead.
Spiritualism would transfer men from the spiritual sense
75:9 of existence back into its material sense. This gross mate-
rialism is scientifically impossible, since to infinite Spirit
there can be no matter.
Raising the dead
75:12 Jesus said of Lazarus: "Our friend Lazarus sleepeth;
but I go, that I may awake him out of sleep." Jesus
restored Lazarus by the understanding that
75:15 Lazarus had never died, not by an admis-
sion that his body had died and then lived again. Had
Jesus believed that Lazarus had lived or died in his
75:18 body, the Master would have stood on the same plane of
belief as those who buried the body, and he could not have
resuscitated it.
75:21 When you can waken yourself or others out of the belief
that all must die, you can then exercise Jesus' spiritual
power to reproduce the presence of those who have thought
75:24 they died, - but not otherwise.
Vision of the dying
There is one possible moment, when those living on the
earth and those called dead, can commune together, and
75:27 that is the moment previous to the transition,
- the moment when the link between their op-
posite beliefs is being sundered. In the vestibule through
75:30 which we pass from one dream to another dream, or
when we awake from earth's sleep to the grand verities
of Life, the departing may hear the glad welcome of those
76:1 who have gone before. The ones departing may whisper
this vision, name the face that smiles on them and the
76:3 hand which beckons them, as one at Niagara, with eyes
open only to that wonder, forgets all else and breathes
aloud his rapture.
Real Life is God
76:6 When being is understood, Life will be recognized as
neither material nor finite, but as infinite, - as God,
universal good; and the belief that life, or
76:9 mind, was ever in a finite form, or good in
evil, will be destroyed. Then it will be understood that
Spirit never entered matter and was therefore never
76:12 raised from matter. When advanced to spiritual being
and the understanding of God, man can no longer com-
mune with matter; neither can he return to it, any more
76:15 than a tree can return to its seed. Neither will man seem
to be corporeal, but he will be an individual conscious-
ness, characterized by the divine Spirit as idea, not matter.
76:18 Suffering, sinning, dying beliefs are unreal. When
divine Science is universally understood, they will have
no power over man, for man is immortal and lives by
76:21 divine authority.
Immaterial pleasure
The sinless joy, - the perfect harmony and immortality
of Life, possessing unlimited divine beauty and goodness
76:24 without a single bodily pleasure or pain, -
constitutes the only veritable, indestructible
man, whose being is spiritual. This state of existence
76:27 is scientific and intact, - a perfection discernible only
by those who have the final understanding of Christ in
divine Science. Death can never hasten this state of
76:30 existence, for death must be overcome, not submitted to,
before immortality appears.
The recognition of Spirit and of infinity comes not
77:1 suddenly here or hereafter. The pious Polycarp said:
"I cannot turn at once from good to evil." Neither do
77:3 other mortals accomplish the change from error to truth
at a single bound.
Second death
Existence continues to be a belief of corporeal sense
77:6 until the Science of being is reached. Error brings its
own self-destruction both here and hereafter,
for mortal mind creates its own physical con-
77:9 ditions. Death will occur on the next plane of existence
as on this, until the spiritual understanding of Life is
reached. Then, and not until then, will it be demon-
77:12 strated that "the second death hath no power."
A dream vanishing
The period required for this dream of material life,
embracing its so-called pleasures and pains, to vanish
77:15 from consciousness, "knoweth no man . . .
neither the Son, but the Father." This period
will be of longer or shorter duration according to the
77:18 tenacity of error. Of what advantage, then, would it be
to us, or to the departed, to prolong the material state and
so prolong the illusion either of a soul inert or of a sinning,
77:21 suffering sense, - a so-called mind fettered to matter.
Progress and purgatory
Even if communications from spirits to mortal con-
sciousness were possible, such communications would
77:24 grow beautifully less with every advanced stage
of existence. The departed would gradually
rise above ignorance and materiality, and Spiritualists
77:27 would outgrow their beliefs in material spiritualism.
Spiritism consigns the so-called dead to a state resembling
that of blighted buds, - to a wretched purgatory, where
77:30 the chances of the departed for improvement narrow
into nothing and they return to their old standpoints of
matter.
Unnatural deflections
78:1 The decaying flower, the blighted bud, the gnarled oak,
the ferocious beast, - like the discords of disease, sin,
78:3 and death, - are unnatural. They are the fal-
sities of sense, the changing deflections of mor-
tal mind; they are not the eternal realities of Mind.
Absurd oracles
78:6 How unreasonable is the belief that we are wearing
out life and hastening to death, and that at the same
time we are communing with immortality!
78:9 If the departed are in rapport with mor-
tality, or matter, they are not spiritual, but must still
be mortal, sinning, suffering, and dying. Then why
78:12 look to them - even were communication possible - for
proofs of immortality, and accept them as oracles? Com-
munications gathered from ignorance are pernicious in
78:15 tendency.
Spiritualism with its material accompaniments would
destroy the supremacy of Spirit. If Spirit pervades all
78:18 space, it needs no material method for the transmission
of messages. Spirit needs no wires nor electricity in order
to be omnipresent.
Spirit intangible
78:21 Spirit is not materially tangible. How then can it
communicate with man through electric, material effects?
How can the majesty and omnipotence of
78:24 Spirit be lost? God is not in the medley
where matter cares for matter, where spiritism makes
many gods, and hypnotism and electricity are claimed
78:27 to be the agents of God's government.
Spirit blesses man, but man cannot "tell whence
it cometh." By it the sick are healed, the sorrowing are
78:30 comforted, and the sinning are reformed. These are the
effects of one universal God, the invisible good dwelling
in eternal Science.
Thought regarding death
79:1 The act of describing disease - its symptoms, locality,
and fatality - is not scientific. Warning people against
79:3 death is an error that tends to frighten into
death those who are ignorant of Life as God.
Thousands of instances could be cited of health restored
79:6 by changing the patient's thoughts regarding death.
Fallacious hypotheses
A scientific mental method is more sanitary than the
use of drugs, and such a mental method produces perma-
79:9 nent health. Science must go over the whole
ground, and dig up every seed of error's sow-
ing. Spiritualism relies upon human beliefs and hy-
79:12 potheses. Christian Science removes these beliefs and
hypotheses through the higher understanding of God, for
Christian Science, resting on divine Principle, not on ma-
79:15 terial personalities, in its revelation of immortality, intro-
duces the harmony of being.
Jesus cast out evil spirits, or false beliefs. The Apostle
79:18 Paul bade men have the Mind that was in the Christ.
Jesus did his own work by the one Spirit. He said: "My
Father worketh hitherto, and I work." He never de-
79:21 scribed disease, so far as can be learned from the Gospels,
but he healed disease.
Mistaken methods
The unscientific practitioner says: "You are ill. Your
79:24 brain is overtaxed, and you must rest. Your body is
weak, and it must be strengthened. You have
nervous prostration, and must be treated for it."
79:27 Science objects to all this, contending for the rights of in-
telligence and asserting that Mind controls body and brain.
Divine strength
Mind-science teaches that mortals need "not be weary
79:30 in well doing." It dissipates fatigue in doing
good. Giving does not impoverish us in the
service of our Maker, neither does withholding enrich us.
80:1 We have strength in proportion to our apprehension of
the truth, and our strength is not lessened by giving
80:3 utterance to truth. A cup of coffee or tea is not the equal
of truth, whether for the inspiration of a sermon or for
the support of bodily endurance.
A denial of immortality
80:6 A communication purporting to come from the late
Theodore Parker reads as follows: "There never was,
and there never will be, an immortal spirit."
80:9 Yet the very periodical containing this sen-
tence repeats weekly the assertion that spirit-communica-
tions are our only proofs of immortality.
Mysticism unscientific
80:12 I entertain no doubt of the humanity and philanthropy
of many Spiritualists, but I cannot coincide with their
views. It is mysticism which gives spiritual-
80:15 ism its force. Science dispels mystery and
explains extraordinary phenomena; but Science never
removes phenomena from the domain of reason into the
80:18 realm of mysticism.
Physical falsities
It should not seem mysterious that mind, without the
aid of hands, can move a table, when we already know
80:21 that it is mind-power which moves both table
and hand. Even planchette - the French toy
which years ago pleased so many people - attested the con-
80:24 trol of mortal mind over its substratum, called matter.
It is mortal mind which convulses its substratum, matter.
These movements arise from the volition of human belief,
80:27 but they are neither scientific nor rational. Mortal mind
produces table-tipping as certainly as table-setting, and
believes that this wonder emanates from spirits and elec-
80:30 tricity. This belief rests on the common conviction that
mind and matter cooperate both visibly and invisibly,
hence that matter is intelligent.
Poor post-mortem evidence
81:1 There is not so much evidence to prove intercommuni-
cation between the so-called dead and the living, as there
81:3 is to show the sick that matter suffers and has
sensation; yet this latter evidence is destroyed by
the Mind-science. If Spiritualists understood the
81:6 Science of being, their belief in mediumship would vanish.
No proof of immortality
At the very best and on its own theories, spiritualism
can only prove that certain individuals have a continued
81:9 existence after death and maintain their affili-
ation with mortal flesh; but this fact affords
no certainty of everlasting life. A man's assertion that
81:12 he is immortal no more proves him to be so, than the op-
posite assertion, that he is mortal, would prove immor-
tality a lie. Nor is the case improved when alleged spirits
81:15 teach immortality. Life, Love, Truth, is the only proof
of immortality.
Mind's manifestations immortal
Man in the likeness of God as revealed in Science can-
81:18 not help being immortal. Though the grass seemeth to
wither and the flower to fade, they reappear.
Erase the figures which express number, silence
81:21 the tones of music, give to the worms the body
called man, and yet the producing, governing, divine
Principle lives on, - in the case of man as truly as in
81:24 the case of numbers and of music, - despite the so-called
laws of matter, which define man as mortal. Though
the inharmony resulting from material sense hides the
81:27 harmony of Science, inharmony cannot destroy the divine
Principle of Science. In Science, man's immortality de-
pends upon that of God, good, and follows as a necessary
81:30 consequence of the immortality of good.
Reading thoughts
That somebody, somewhere, must have known the
deceased person, supposed to be the communicator, is
82:1 evident, and it is as easy to read distant thoughts as near.
We think of an absent friend as easily as we do of one
82:3 present. It is no more difficult to read the
absent mind than it is to read the present.
Chaucer wrote centuries ago, yet we still read his thought
82:6 in his verse. What is classic study, but discernment of
the minds of Homer and Virgil, of whose personal exist-
ence we may be in doubt?
Impossible intercommunion
82:9 If spiritual life has been won by the departed, they
cannot return to material existence, because different
states of consciousness are involved, and one
82:12 person cannot exist in two different states of
consciousness at the same time. In sleep we
do not communicate with the dreamer by our side despite
82:15 his physical proximity, because both of us are either un-
conscious or are wandering in our dreams through differ-
ent mazes of consciousness.
82:18 In like manner it would follow, even if our departed
friends were near us and were in as conscious a state of
existence as before the change we call death, that their
82:21 state of consciousness must be different from ours. We
are not in their state, nor are they in the mental realm
in which we dwell. Communion between them and
82:24 ourselves would be prevented by this difference. The
mental states are so unlike, that intercommunion is as
impossible as it would be between a mole and a human
82:27 being. Different dreams and different awakenings be-
token a differing consciousness. When wandering in
Australia, do we look for help to the Esquimaux in their
82:30 snow huts?
In a world of sin and sensuality hastening to a
greater development of power, it is wise earnestly to
83:1 consider whether it is the human mind or the divine
Mind which is influencing one. What the prophets of
83:3 Jehovah did, the worshippers of Baal failed to do; yet
artifice and delusion claimed that they could equal the
work of wisdom.
83:6 Science only can explain the incredible good and evil
elements now coming to the surface. Mortals must find
refuge in Truth in order to escape the error of these latter
83:9 days. Nothing is more antagonistic to Christian Science
than a blind belief without understanding, for such a
belief hides Truth and builds on error.
Natural wonders
83:12 Miracles are impossible in Science, and here Science
takes issue with popular religions. The scientific mani-
festation of power is from the divine nature
83:15 and is not supernatural, since Science is an
explication of nature. The belief that the universe, in-
cluding man, is governed in general by material laws, but
83:18 that occasionally Spirit sets aside these laws, - this be-
lief belittles omnipotent wisdom, and gives to matter the
precedence over Spirit.
Conflicting standpoints
83:21 It is contrary to Christian Science to suppose that life
is either material or organically spiritual. Between
Christian Science and all forms of superstition
83:24 a great gulf is fixed, as impassable as that be-
tween Dives and Lazarus. There is mortal mind-reading
and immortal Mind-reading. The latter is a revelation
83:27 of divine purpose through spiritual understanding, by
which man gains the divine Principle and explanation of
all things. Mortal mind-reading and immortal Mind-
83:30 reading are distinctly opposite standpoints, from which
cause and effect are interpreted. The act of reading
mortal mind investigates and touches only human beliefs.
84:1 Science is immortal and coordinate neither with the
premises nor with the conclusions of mortal beliefs.
Scientific foreseeing
84:3 The ancient prophets gained their foresight from a
spiritual, incorporeal standpoint, not by foreshadowing
evil and mistaking fact for fiction, - predict-
84:6 ing the future from a groundwork of corpo-
reality and human belief. When sufficiently advanced
in Science to be in harmony with the truth of being, men
84:9 become seers and prophets involuntarily, controlled not
by demons, spirits, or demigods, but by the one Spirit.
It is the prerogative of the ever-present, divine Mind, and
84:12 of thought which is in rapport with this Mind, to know
the past, the present, and the future.
Acquaintance with the Science of being enables us to
84:15 commune more largely with the divine Mind, to foresee
and foretell events which concern the universal welfare,
to be divinely inspired, - yea, to reach the range of fetter-
84:18 less Mind.
The Mind unbounded
To understand that Mind is infinite, not bounded by
corporeality, not dependent upon the ear and eye for
84:21 sound or sight nor upon muscles and bones
for locomotion, is a step towards the Mind-
science by which we discern man's nature and existence.
84:24 This true conception of being destroys the belief of spirit-
ualism at its very inception, for without the concession of
material personalities called spirits, spiritualism has no
84:27 basis upon which to build.
Scientific foreknowing
All we correctly know of Spirit comes from God, divine
Principle, and is learned through Christ and Christian
84:30 Science. If this Science has been thoroughly
learned and properly digested, we can know
the truth more accurately than the astronomer can read
85:1 the stars or calculate an eclipse. This Mind-reading
is the opposite of clairvoyance. It is the illumination of
85:3 the spiritual understanding which demonstrates the ca-
pacity of Soul, not of material sense. This Soul-sense
comes to the human mind when the latter yields to the
85:6 divine Mind.
Value of intuition
Such intuitions reveal whatever constitutes and per-
petuates harmony, enabling one to do good, but not
85:9 evil. You will reach the perfect Science of
healing when you are able to read the human
mind after this manner and discern the error you would
85:12 destroy. The Samaritan woman said: "Come, see a
man, which told me all things that ever I did: is not this
the Christ?"
85:15 It is recorded that Jesus, as he once journeyed with his
students, "knew their thoughts," - read them scientifi-
cally. In like manner he discerned disease and healed
85:18 the sick. After the same method, events of great mo-
ment were foretold by the Hebrew prophets. Our
Master rebuked the lack of this power when he said:
85:21 "O ye hypocrites! ye can discern the face of the sky;
but can ye not discern the signs of the times?"
Hypocrisy condemned
Both Jew and Gentile may have had acute corporeal
85:24 senses, but mortals need spiritual sense. Jesus knew the
generation to be wicked and adulterous, seek-
ing the material more than the spiritual. His
85:27 thrusts at materialism were sharp, but needed. He never
spared hypocrisy the sternest condemnation.. He said:
"These ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other
85:30 undone." The great Teacher knew both cause and
effect, knew that truth communicates itself but never
imparts error.
Mental contact
86:1 Jesus once asked, "Who touched me?" Supposing
this inquiry to be occasioned by physical contact alone,
86:3 his disciples answered, "The multitude throng
thee." Jesus knew, as others did not, that
it was not matter, but mortal mind, whose touch called
86:6 for aid. Repeating his inquiry, he was answered by the
faith of a sick woman. His quick apprehension of this
mental call illustrated his spirituality. The disciples'
86:9 misconception of it uncovered their materiality. Jesus
possessed more spiritual susceptibility than the disciples.
Opposites come from contrary directions, and produce
86:12 unlike results.
Images of thought
Mortals evolve images of thought. These may appear
to the ignorant to be apparitions; but they are myste-
86:15 rious only because it is unusual to see
thoughts, though we can always feel their
influence. Haunted houses, ghostly voices, unusual
86:18 noises, and apparitions brought out in dark seances
either involve feats by tricksters, or they are images and
sounds evolved involuntarily by mortal mind. Seeing
86:21 is no less a quality of physical sense than feeling. Then
why is it more difficult to see a thought than to feel one?
Education alone determines the difference. In reality
86:24 there is none.