Miscellaneous Writings, 1883-1896 Part 20
appeals intelligently to the facts of man's spirituality, in- dividuality, to disdain the fears and destroy the discords of this material personality.
On our Master's individual demonstrations over sin, [5]
sickness, and death, rested the anathema of priesthood and the senses; yet this demonstration is the foundation of Christian Science. His physical sufferings, which came from the testimony of the senses, were over when he resumed his individual spiritual being, after showing [10]
us the way to escape from the material body.
Science would have no conflict with Life or common sense, if this sense were consistently sensible. Man's real life or existence is in harmony with Life and its glorious phenomena. It upholds being, and destroys the too [15]
common sense of its opposites-death, disease, and sin.
Christian Science is an everlasting victor, and vanquish- ment is unknown to the omnipresent Truth. I must ever follow this line of light and battle.
Christian Science is my only ideal; and the individual [20]
and his ideal can never be severed. If either is misunder- stood or maligned, it eclipses the other with the shadow cast by this error.
Truth destroys error. Nothing appears to the physi- cal senses but their own subjective state of thought. The [25]
senses join issue with error, and pity what has no right either to be pitied or to exist, and what does not exist in Science. Destroy the thought of sin, sickness, death, and you destroy their existence. "Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap." [30]
Because G.o.d is Mind, and this Mind is good, all is good and all is Mind. G.o.d is the sum total of the
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universe. Then what and where are sin, sickness, and [1]
death?
Christian Science and Christian Scientists will, _must_, have a history; and if I could write the history in poor parody on Tennyson's grand verse, it would read [5]
thus:-
Traitors to right of them, M. D.'s to left of them, Priestcraft in front of them, Volleyed and thundered! [10]
Into the jaws of hate, Out through the door of Love, On to the blest above, Marched the one hundred.
Extract From My First Address In The Mother Church, May 26, 1895
_Friends and Brethren_:-Your Sunday Lesson, com- posed of Scripture and its correlative in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," has fed you. In addi- [20]
tion, I can only bring crumbs fallen from this table of Truth, and gather up the fragments.
It has long been a question of earnest import, How shall mankind worship the most adorable, but most unadored,-and where shall begin that praise that shall never end? Beneath, above, beyond, methinks I hear [25]
the soft, sweet sigh of angels answering, "So live, that your lives attest your sincerity and resound His praise."
Music is the harmony of being; but the music of Soul affords the only strains that thrill the chords of feeling and awaken the heart's harpstrings. Moved by mind, [30]
your many-throated organ, in imitative tones of many
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instruments, praises Him; but even the sweetness and [1]
beauty in and of this temple that praise Him, are earth's accents, and must not be mistaken for the oracles of G.o.d.
Art must not prevail over Science. Christianity is not superfluous. Its redemptive power is seen in sore trials, [5]
self-denials, and crucifixions of the flesh. But these come to the rescue of mortals, to admonish them, and plant the feet steadfastly in Christ. As we rise above the seem- ing mists of sense, we behold more clearly that all the heart's homage belongs to G.o.d. [10]
More love is the great need of mankind. A pure af- fection, concentric, forgetting self, forgiving wrongs and forestalling them, should swell the lyre of human love.
Three cardinal points must be gained before poor humanity is regenerated and Christian Science is dem- [15]
onstrated: (1) A proper sense of sin; (2) repentance; (3) the understanding of good. Evil is a negation: it never started with time, and it cannot keep pace with eternity. Mortals' false senses pa.s.s through three states and stages of human consciousness before yielding error. [20]
The deluded sense must first be shown its falsity through a knowledge of evil as evil, so-called. Without a sense of one's oft-repeated violations of divine law, the in- dividual may become morally blind, and this deplorable mental state is moral idiocy. The lack of seeing one's [25]
deformed mentality, and of _repentance_ therefor, deep, never to be repented of, is r.e.t.a.r.ding, and in certain mor- bid instances stopping, the growth of Christian Scientists.
Without a knowledge of his sins, and repentance so severe that it destroys them, no person is or can be a Christian [30]
Scientist.
Mankind thinks either too much or too little of sin.
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The sensitive, sorrowing saint thinks too much of it: the [1]
sordid sinner, or the so-called Christian asleep, thinks too little of sin.
To allow sin of any sort is anomalous in Christian Scientists, claiming, as they do, that good is infinite, All. [5]
Our Master, in his definition of Satan as a liar from the beginning, attested the absolute powerlessness-yea, nothingness-of evil: since a lie, being without founda- tion in fact, is merely a falsity; spiritually, literally, it _is nothing_. [10]
Not to know that a false claim is false, is to be in danger of believing it; hence the utility of knowing evil aright, then reducing its claim to its proper denominator,- n.o.body and nothing. Sin should be conceived of only as a delusion. This true conception would remove mortals' [15]
ignorance and its consequences, and advance the second stage of human consciousness, repentance. The first state, namely, the knowledge of one's self, the proper knowledge of evil and its subtle workings wherein evil seems as real as good, is indispensable; since that which [20]
is truly conceived of, we can handle; but the misconcep- tion of what we need to know of evil,-or the concep- tion of it at all as something real,-costs much. Sin needs only to be known for what it is not; then we are its master, not servant. Remember, and act on, Jesus' [25]
definition of sin as a _lie_. This cognomen makes it less dangerous; for most of us would not be seen believing in, or adhering to, that which we know to be untrue.
What would be thought of a Christian Scientist who be- lieved in the use of drugs, while declaring that they have [30]
no intrinsic quality and that there is no matter? What should be thought of an individual believing in that
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which is untrue, and at the same time declaring the unity [1]
of Truth, and its allness? Beware of those who mis- represent facts; or tacitly a.s.sent where they should dis- sent; or who take me as authority for what I disapprove, or mayhap never have thought of, and try to reverse, in- [5]
vert, or controvert, Truth; for this is a sure pretext of moral defilement.
Examine yourselves, and see what, and how much, sin claims of you; and how much of this claim you admit as valid, or comply with. The knowledge of evil that [10]
brings on repentance is the most hopeful stage of mortal mentality. Even a mild mistake must be seen as a mis- take, in order to be corrected; how much more, then, should one's sins be seen and repented of, before they can be reduced to their native nothingness! [15]
Ignorance is only blest by reason of its nothingness; for seeing the need of somethingness in its stead, blesses mortals. Ignorance was the first condition of sin in the allegory of Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden. Their mental state is not desirable, neither is a knowledge of [20]
sin and its consequences, repentance, _per se_; but, ad- mitting the existence of both, mortals must hasten through the second to the third stage,-the knowledge of good; for without this the valuable sequence of knowledge would be lacking,-even the power to escape from the [25]
false claims of sin. To understand good, one must discern the nothingness of evil, and consecrate one's life anew.
Beloved brethren, Christ, Truth, saith unto you, "Be not afraid!"-fear not sin, lest thereby it master you; but only _fear to sin_. Watch and pray for self-knowledge; [30]
since then, and thus, cometh repentance,-and your superiority to a delusion is won.
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Repentance is better than sacrifice. The costly balm [1]
of Araby, poured on our Master's feet, had not the value of a single _tear_.
Beloved children, the world has need of you,-and more as children than as men and women: it needs your [5]