LIBRARY OF CONGRESS.

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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

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MARY BAKER G. EDDY.

AUTHOR OF

"SCIENCE AND HEALTH."

FIFTH THOUSAND.

BOSTON, MASS.:
W. G. NIXON, Publisher,

62 Boylston Street.
1892.

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41

Copyright, 1891.
BY MARY BAKER G. EDDY.

All rights reserved.

Copyright, 1892.
BY MARY BAKER G. EDDY.

All rights reserved.

^

The Barta Press, Boston.

CONTENTS.

Voices Not Our Own 7

Early Studies 10

Girlhood's Composition 11

Theological Keminiscence 12

Poem : The Country Seat 18

Marriage and Parentage 20

Emergence into Light . 26

The Great Discovery 28

Foundation Work 36

Medical Experiments 40

First Publication 43

The Precious Yolume 45

Recuperative Incident 48

A True Man 50

College and Church 51

Poem: Feed My Sheep 56

College Closed 57

General Associations and Our Magazine. . 63

Faith Cure 65

Foundation Stones 67

The Great Revelation 71

Sin, Sinner, and Ecclesiasticism 76

The Human Concept 81

Personality 89

Plagiarism 91

Admonition 94

Exemplification. 107

Way Marks 117

5

^trnptdimt mi ptmyutm,

Voices J^ot Our Qwt)+

TJY childhood's home I remember as one with
J the open hand. The needy were ever

welcome, and to the clergy were accorded special
household privileges.

Many peculiar circumstances and events con-
nected with my childhood throng the chambers
of memory.

For some twelve months, when I was about
eight years old, I repeatedly heard a voice, calling
me distinctly by name, three times, in an ascend-
ing scale. I thought this was my mother's voice,
and sometimes went to her, beseeching her to tell
me what she wanted. Her answer was always :
"Nothing, child! What do you mean?"
Then I would say : " Mother, who did call me ?
I heard somebody call Mary, three times ! "
This continued until I grew discouraged, and
my mother was perplexed and anxious.

0 RETROSPECTION AND INTROSPECTION.

One day, when my cousin, Mehitable Huntoon,
was visiting us, and I sat in a little chair by
her side, in the same room with grandmother, —
the call again came, so loud that Mehitable
heard it, though I had ceased to notice it.
Greatly surprised, my cousin turned to me and
said, "Your mother is calling you!" but I
answered not, till again the same call was thrice
repeated. Mehitable then said sharply, " Why
don't you go ? your mother is calling you ! "

1 then left the room, went to my mother, and
once more asked her if she had summoned me ?
She answered as always before. Then I
earnestly declared my cousin had heard the
voice, and said that mother wanted me.
Accordingly she returned with me to grand-
mother's room, and led my cousin into an
adjoining apartment. The door was ajar, and
I listened with bated breath. Mother told
Mehitable all about this mysterious voice, and
asked if she really did hear Mary's name pro-
nounced in audible tones. My cousin answered
quickly, and emphasized her affirmation.

VOICES NOT OUR OWN. 9

That night, before going to rest, my mother
read to me the Scriptural narrative of little
Samuel, and bade me, when the voice called
again, to reply as he did, " Speak, Lord ; for
thy servant heareth." The voice came ; but I
was afraid, and did not answer. Afterward I
wept, and prayed that God would forgive me,
resolving to do, next time, as my mother had
bidden me. When the call came again I did
answer, in the words of Samuel, but never
again to the material senses was that mysterious
call repeated.

Is it not much that I mav worship Him,

With nought my spirit's breathings to control,
And feel His presence in the vast and dim

And whispering woods, where dying thunders roll
From the far cataracts ? Shall I not rejoice
That I have learned at last to know His voice

From man's ? — I will rejoice ! My soaring soul
Now hath redeemed her birthright of the day,
And won, through clouds, to Him, her own unfettered
way!

— Mrs. Hemans.

Garlg Studies*

TTY father was taught to believe that my
J brain was too large for my body and so

kept me much out of school, but I gained book-
knowledge with far less labor than is usually
requisite. At ten years of age I was as familiar
with Lindley Murray's Grammar as with the
Westminster Catechism ; and the latter I had
to repeat every Sunday. My favorite studies
were Natural Philosophy, Logic, and Moral
Science. From my brother Albert I received
lessons in the ancient tongues, Hebrew, Greek,
and Latin. My brother studied Hebrew during
his college vacations. After my discovery of
Christian Science, most of the knowledge I had
gleaned from schoolbooks vanished like a dream.
Learning was so illumined, that grammar
was eclipsed. Etymology was divine history,
voicing the idea of God in man's origin and
signification. Syntax was spiritual order and
unity. Prosody, the song of angels, and no
earthly or inglorious theme.

10

Qirlfyood's Composition

17TROM childhood I was a verse maker. Poetry
suited my emotions better than prose. The
following is one of my girlhood productions.

Alphabet astd Bayonet.

If fancy plumes aeriel flight,

Go fix thy restless mind
On Learning's lore and Wisdom's might,

And live to bless mankind.
The sword is sheathed, 'tis freedom's hour,

No despot bears misrule,
Where Knowledge plants the foot of power

In our God-blessed Free School.

Forth from this fount the streamlets flow,

That widen in their course.
Hero and sage arise to show

Science the mighty source,
And laud the land whose talents rock

The cradle of her power,
And wreathes are twined round Plymouth Rock,

From erudition's bower.

Further than feet of chamois fall,

Free as the generous air,
Strains nobler far than clarion call,

Wake freedom's welcome where
Minerva's silver sandals still

Are loosed, and not effete,
Where echoes still my day-dreams thrill,

Woke by her fancied feet.
11

Theological T\crr)ir)isccr)ce+

TJT the age of twelve I was admitted to the
/ Congregationalist (Trinitarian) Church,
my parents having been members of that body
for a half-century. In connection with this
event, some circumstances are noteworthy.
Before this step was taken, the doctrine of
Unconditional Election, or Predestination,
greatly troubled me ; for I was unwilling to
be saved, if my brothers and sisters were to be
numbered among those who were doomed to
perpetual banishment from God. So perturbed
was I by the thoughts aroused by this erroneous
doctrine, that the family doctor was summoned,
and pronounced me stricken with fever.

My father's relentless theology emphasized
belief in a final Judgment Day, in the danger
of endless punishment, and in a Jehovah merci-
less towards unbelievers ; and of these things
he now spoke, hoping to win me from dreaded
heresy.

My mother, as she bathed my burning tem-
12

THEOLOGICAL REMINISCENCE.

13

pies, bade me lean on God's love, which would
give me rest, if I went to Him in prayer, as I
was wont to do, seeking His guidance. I
prayed ; and a soft glow of ineffable joy came
over me. The fever was gone, and I rose and
dressed myself, in a normal condition of health.
Mother saw this, and was glad. The physician
marvelled; and the "horrible decree " of Pre-
destination— as John Calvin rightly called his
own tenet — forever lost its power over
me.

When the meeting was held for the exami-
nation of candidates for membership, I was of
course present. The pastor was an old-school
expounder of the strictest Presbyterian doc-
trines. He was apparently as eager to have un-
believers in these dogmas lost, as he was to have
elect believers converted, and rescued from per-
dition ; for both salvation and condemnation
depended, according to his views, upon the good
pleasure of infinite Love. However, I was
ready for his doleful questions, which I an-
swered without a tremor, declaring that never

14 RETROSPECTION AND INTROSPECTION.

could I unite with the Church, if assent to this
doctrine was essential thereto.

Distinctly do I recall what followed. I stoutly
maintained that I was willing to trust God, and
take my chance of spiritual safety with my
brothers and sisters, — not one of whom had
then made any profession of religion, — even if
my credal doubts left me outside the doors.
The minister then wished me to tell him when
I had experienced a change of heart ; but tear-
fully I had to respond that I could not designate
any precise time. Nevertheless, he persisted in
the assertion that I had been truly regenerated,
and asked me to say how I felt when the new
light dawned within me. I replied that I could
only answer him in the words of the Psalmist :
" Search me, O God, and know my heart ; try
me, and know my thoughts ; and see if there be
any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way
everlasting."

This was so earnestly said, that even the
oldest churehmembers wept. After the meet-
ing was over they came and kissed me. To the

THEOLOGICAL REMINISCENCE. 15

astonishment of many, the good clergyman's
heart also melted, and he received me into their
communion, and my protest along with me.
My connection with this religious body was
retained till I founded a church of my own,
built on the basis of Christian Science, " Jesus
Christ himself being the chief cornerstone."

In confidence of faith, I could say in David's
words, " I will go in the strength of the Lord
God : I will make mention of thy righteousness,
even of thine only. O God, thou hast taught
me from my youth: and hitherto have I de-
clared thy wondrous works." — Psalms.

In the year 1878 I was called to preach in
Boston at the Baptist Tabernacle of Reverend
Daniel C. Eddy, D. D., — by the pastor of this
Church. I accepted the invitation and com-
menced work.

The congregation so increased in number the
pews were not sufficient to seat the audience
and benches were used in the aisles. At the
close of my engagement we parted in Christian
fellowship, if not in full unity of doctrine.

16 RETROSPECTION AND INTROSPECTION.

Our last vestry meeting was made memorable
by eloquent addresses from persons who feel-
ingly testified to having been healed through
my preaching. Among other diseases cured
they specified cancers. The cases described had
been treated and given over by physicians of the
popular schools of medicine, but I had not
heard of these cases till the persons who divulged
their secret joy, were healed. A prominent
churchman agreeably informed the congregation,
that many others present had been healed under
my preaching, but were too timid to testify in
public.

One memorable Sunday afternoon, a soprano,
— clear, strong, sympathetic, — floating up from
the pews, caught my ear. When the meeting was
over, two ladies pushing their way through the
crowd reached the platform. With tears of joy
flooding her eyes — for she was a mother — one
of them said : " Did you hear my daughter sing ?
Why, she has not sung before since she left the
choir and was in consumption ! When she
entered this church one hour ago she could not

THEOLOGICAL REMINISCENCE. 1<

speak a loud word, and now, oh, thank God, she
is healed."

It was not an uncommon occurrence in my
own Church for the sick to be healed by
my sermon. Many pale cripples went into the
Church leaning on crutches who went out car-
rying them on their shoulders. "And these
signs shall follow them that believe." Jesus.

PQCtt).

Written in youth while visiting a family friend in the beautiful
suburbs of Boston.

The Country Seat.
T9TILD spirit of song, — midst the zephyrs at

In bowers of beauty, — I bend to thy lay,
And woo, while I worship in deep sylvan spot,
The muses' soft echoes to kindle the grot, —
Wake chords of my lyre, with musical kiss,
To vibrate and tremble with accents of bliss.

Here Morning peers out, from her crimson repose,
On proud Prairie Queen and the modest Moss Rose ;
And Vesper reclines — when the dewdrop is shed
On the heart of the pink — in its odorous bed ;
But Flora has stolen the rainbow and sky,
To sprinkle the flowers with exquisite dye.

Here fame-honored Hickory rears his bold form,
And bears a brave breast to the lightning and storm,
While Palm, Bay, and Laurel, in classical glee,
Chase Tulip, Magnolia, and fragrant Fringe-tree ;
And sturdy Horse Chestnut for centuries hath given
Its feathery blossom and branches to Heaven.

Here is life ! Here is youth ! Here the poet's

world-wish, —
Cool waters at play with the gold gleaming fish ;

18

POEM.

19

While Cactus a mellower glory receives

From light, colored softly by blossom and leaves ;

And nestling Alder is whispering low,

In lap of the Pear-tree, with musical flow.*

Dark sentinel Hedgerow is guarding repose,
Midst grotto and songlet and streamlet that flows
Where beauty and perfume from buds burst away,
And ope their closed cells to the bright, laughing

day;
Yet dwellers in Eden, Earth yields you her tear, —
Oft plucked for the banquet, but laid on the bier.

Earth's beauty and glory delude as the shrine,
Or fount of real joy and of visions divine ;
But hope, as the eaglet that spurn eth the sod,
May soar above matter, to fasten on God,
And freely adore all His spirit hath made,
Where rapture and radiance and glory ne'er fade.

Oh ! give me the spot, where Affection may dwell
In sacred communion with Home's magic spell,
Where flowers of feeling are fragrant and fair,
And those we most love find a happiness rare ;
But clouds are a presage, — they darken my lay :
This life is a shadow, and hastens away.

*An Alder growing from the bent branch of a pear-tree.

JWarriage at?d Parentage.

TN 1843 I was united to my first husband,
Colonel George Washington Glover, of
Charleston, South Carolina, the ceremony taking
place under the paternal roof, in Tilton.

After parting with the dear home circle I
went with him to the South ; but he was spared
to me for only one brief year. He was in Wil-
mington, North Carolina on business, when the
yellow-fever raged in that city, and was sud-
denly attacked by this insidious disease, which
in his case proved fatal.

My husband was a Free Mason, being a mem-
ber in Saint Andrew's Lodge, Number 10, and
of Union Chapter, Number 3, of Royal Arch
Masons. He was highly esteemed and sincerely
lamented by a large circle of friends and ac-
quaintances, whose kindness and sympathy
helped to support me in this terrible bereave-
ment. A month later I returned to New Hamp-
shire, where, at the end of four months my babe
was born.

MARRIAGE AND PARENTAGE. 21

Colonel Glover's tender devotion to his young
bride, was remarked by all observers. With his
parting breath he gave pathetic directions to his
brother Masons about accompanying her on her
sad journey to the North. Here it is but justice
to record, they performed their obligations most
faithfully.

After returning to the paternal roof I lost all
my husband's property, except what money I
had brought with me ; and remained with my
parents until after my mother's decease.

A few months before my father's second mar-
riage to Mrs. Elizabeth Patterson Duncan, sister
of Lieutenant-Governor George W. Patterson,
of New York — my little son, about four years
of age, was sent away from me, and put under
the care of our family nurse, who had married,
and resided in the northern part of New Hamp-
shire. I had no training for self-support, and
my home I regarded as very precious. The
night before my child was taken from me,
I knelt by his side throughout the dark
hours, hoping for a vision of relief from this

22 RETROSPECTION AND INTROSPECTION.

trial. The following lines are taken from my
poem, "Mother's Darling," written after this
separation :

Thy smile through tears, as sunshine o'er the sea,

Awoke new beauty in the surge's roll !
Oh, life is dead, bereft of all, with thee, —

Star of my earthly hope, babe of my soul.

My second marriage was very unfortunate,
and from it I was compelled to ask for a bill of
divorce, which was granted me in the city of
Salem, Massachusetts.

My dominant thought in marrying again was
to get back my child, but after our marriage his
stepfather was not willing he should have a
home with me. A plot was consummated for
keeping us apart. The family to whose care he
was committed very soon removed to what was
then regarded as the Far West.

After his removal a letter was read to my
little son informing him that his mother was
dead and buried. Without my knowledge he
was appointed a guardian, and I was then

,

MARRIAGE AND PARENTAGE. 23

informed that my son was lost. Every means
within my power was employed to find him, but
without success. We never met again until he
had reached the age of thirty-four, had a wife
and two children, and by a strange providence
had learned that his mother still lived, and
came to see me in Massachusetts.

Meanwhile he had served as a volunteer
throughout the war for the Union, and at its
expiration was appointed United States Marshal
of the Territory of Dakota.

It is well to know, dear reader, that our
material, mortal history is but the record of
dreams, not of man's real existence, and the
dream has no place in the science of being. It
is as "a tale that is told," and as "the shadow
when it declineth." The heavenly intent of
earth's shadows is to chasten the affections, to
rebuke human consciousness and turn it gladly
from a material, false sense of life and happi-
ness, to spiritual joy and true estimate of Being.

The awakening from a false sense of life,
substance, and mind in matter, is as yet imper-

24 RETROSPECTION AND INTROSPECTION.

feet ; but for those lucid and enduring lessons
of Love, which tend to this result, I bless God.

Mere historic incidents and personal events
are frivolous and of no moment, unless they
illustrate the ethics of Truth. To this end,
but only to this end, such narrations may be
admissible and advisable ; but if spiritual con-
clusions are separated from their premises, the
nexus is lost, and the argument, with its right-
ful conclusions, becomes correspondingly ob-
scure. The human history needs to be revised,
and the material record expunged.

The Gospel narratives bear brief testimony
even to the life of our great Master. His spir-
itual noumenon and phenomenon, silenced por-
traiture. Writers, less wise than the Apostles,
essayed in the Apocryphal New Testament, a
legendary and traditional history of the early
life of Jesus. But Saint Paul summarized the
character of Jesus as the model of Christianity,
in these words : " Consider him who endured
such contradictions of sinners against himself.*'
" Who for the joy that was set before him, en-

MARRIAGE AND PARENTAGE. 25

dured the cross, despising the shame, and is set
down at the right hand of the throne of God."

It may be that the mortal life-battle still
wages, and must continue till its involved errors
are vanquished by victory-bringing Science ; but
this triumph will come ! God is over all. He
alone is our origin, aim, and Being. The real
man is not of the dust, nor is he ever created
through the flesh; for his father and mother
are the one Spirit, and his brethren are all the
children of one parent, the eternal Good.

TITHE trend of human life was too eventful
to leave me undisturbed in the illusion that
this so-called life could be a real and abiding
rest. All things earthly must ultimately yield
to the irony of Fate, or else be merged into the
one infinite Love.

As these pungent lessons became clearer,
they grew sterner. Previously the cloud of
mortal mind seemed to have a silver lining ;
but now it was not even fringed with light.
Matter was no longer spanned with its rainbow
of promise. The world was dark. The on-
coming hours were indicated by no floral dial.
The senses could not prophecy sunrise or star-
light.

Thus it was when the moment arrived of the
heart's bridal to more spiritual existence. When
the door opened, I was waiting and watching ;
and lo ! the bridegroom came ! The character of
the Christ was illumined by the midnight torches
of Spirit. My heart knew its Redeemer. He

EMERGENCE INTO LIGHT. 27

whom my affections had diligently sought was
as " the One altogether lovely," as " the chief-
est," the only, "among ten thousand." Soul-
less famine had fled. Agnosticism, Pantheism,
and Theosophy were void. Being was beautiful,
its substance, Cause and currents were God and
His idea. I had touched the hem of Christian
Science.

Tfye Qreat Discovery*

TT was in Massachusetts, in the year 1866,
that I discovered the Science of Divine Met-
aphysical Healing, which I afterwards named
Christian Science. The discovery came to pass
in this way. During twenty years prior to my
discovery I had been trying to trace all physi-
cal effects to a mental cause ; and in the latter
part of 1866 I gained the Scientific certainty
that all causation was Mind, and every effect a
mental phenomenon.

My immediate recovery from the effects of an
injury caused by an accident, an injury that
neither medicine nor surgery could reach, was
the falling apple that led me to the discovery
how to be well myself, and how to make others so.

Even to the physician who attended me, and
rejoiced in my recovery, I could not then
explain the modus of my relief. I could only
assure him that the divine Spirit had wrought
the miracle — a miracle which later I found
to be in perfect Scientific accord with divine law.

28

THE GREAT DISCOVERY. 29

I then withdrew from society about three
years, — to ponder my mission, to search the
Scriptures, to find the Science of Mind, that
should take the things of God and show them
to the creature, and reveal the great curative
Principle, — Deity.

The Bible was my text-book. It answered
my questions as to how I was healed ; but the
Scriptures had to me a new meaning, a new
tongue. Their spiritual signification appeared ;
and I apprehended for the first time, in their
spiritual meaning. Jesus' teaching and demon-
stration, and the Principle and rule of spiritual
Science and Metaphysical Healing, — in a word,
Christian Science.

I named it Christian, because it is compas-
sionate, helpful, and spiritual. God I called
Immortal Mind. That which sins, suffers, and
dies I named mortal mind. The physical senses,
or sensuous nature, I called error and shadow.
Soul I denominated Substance, because Soul
alone is truly substantial. God I characterized
as individual entity, but His corporeality I

30 RETROSPECTION AND INTROSPECTION.

denied. The Real I claimed as eternal; and
its antipodes, or the temporal, I described as
unreal. Spirit I called the reality ; and matter,
the unreality.

I knew the human conception of God to be
that He was a physically personal Being, like
unto man ; and that the five physical senses are
so many witnesses to the physical personality of
mind, and the real existence of matter; but I
learned that these material senses testify falsely,
that matter neither sees, hears, nor feels Spirit,
and is therefore inadequate to form any proper
conception of the infinite Mind. "If I bear
witness of myself my witness is not true."
(John v. 31.)

I beheld with ineffable awe our great Master's
purpose in not questioning those He healed as to
their disease, or its symptoms, and his marvelous
skill in demanding neither obedience to hygienic
laws, nor prescribing drugs to support the Divine
power which heals. Adoringly I discerned the
Principle of his holy heroism and Christian
example on the cross, when he refused to

THE GREAT DISCOVERY. 31

drink the "vinegar and gall," a preparation
of poppy, or aconite, to allay the tortures of
crucifixion.

Our great Way-shower, steadfast to the end
in his obedience to God's laws, demonstrated for
all time and peoples the supremacy of Good
over evil, and the superiority of Spirit over
matter.

The miracles recorded in the Bible, which had
before seemed to me supernatural, grew divinely
natural and apprehensible; though uninspired
interpreters ignorantly pronounce Christ's heal-
ing miraculous, instead of seeing therein the
operation of the divine law.

Jesus of Nazareth was a natural and divine
Scientist. He was so before the material world
saw him. He who antedated Abraham, and gave
the world a new date in the Christian era, was
a Christian Scientist, who needed no discovery
of the Science of Being, in order to rebuke the
evidence. To one "born of the flesh," however,
Divine Science must be a discovery. Woman
must give it birth. It must be begotten of

32 RETROSPECTION AND INTROSPECTION.

spirituality, since none but the pure in heart can
see God, — the Principle of all things pure ; and
none but the " poor in spirit " could first state
this Principle, could know yet more of the
nothingness of matter, and the allness of Spirit,
could utilize Truth, and absolutely reduce the
demonstration of Being, in Science, to the
apprehension of the age.

I wrote also, at this period, comments on the
Scriptures, setting forth their spiritual inter-
pretation, the Science of the Bible, and so laid
the foundation of my work called Science
and Health, published in 1875.

If these notes and comments, which have
never been read by any one but myself, were pub-
lished, it would show that after my discovery
of the absolute Science of Mind-healing, like all
great truths, this spiritual Science developed itself
to me until Science and Health was written.
These early comments are valuable to me as
waymarks of progress, which I would not have
effaced.

Up to that time I had not fully voiced my

THE GREAT DISCOVERY. 33

discovery. Naturally, my first jotting were but
efforts to express in feeble diction Truth's ulti-
mate. In Longfellow's Ian gauge :

But the feeble hands and helpless,
Groping blindly in the darkness,
Touch God's right hand in that darkness,
And are lifted up and strengthened.

As sweet music ripples in one's first thoughts
of it like the brooklet in its meandering midst
pebbles and rocks, before the mind can duly
express it to the ear, — so the harmony of
Divine Science, first broke upon my sense, be-
fore gathering experience and confidence to
articulate it. Its natural manifestation is
beautiful, and euphonious, but its written
expression increases in power, and perfection,
under the guidance of the great Master.

The divine hand led me into a new world of
light and Life, a fresh universe — old to God,
but new to His " little one." It became evident
that the divine Mind alone must answer, and
be found as the Life, or Principle, of all Being ;
and that one must acquaint himself with God,

34 RETROSPECTION AND INTROSPECTION.

if he would be at peace. He must be ours
practically, guiding our every thought and
action ; else we cannot understand the omni-
presence of Good sufficiently to demonstrate,
even in part, the Science of the perfect Mind
and divine healing.

I had learned that thought must be spiritual-
ized, in order to apprehend Spirit. It must
become honest, unselfish, and pure, in order to
have the least understanding of God in Divine
Science. The first must become last. Our
reliance upon material things must be trans-
ferred to a perception of and dependence on
spiritual things. For Spirit to be supreme in
demonstration, it must be supreme in our
affections, and we must be clad with divine
power. Purity, self-renunciation, faith, and
understanding must reduce all things real to their
own mental denomination, Mind, which divides,
subdivides, increases, diminishes, constitutes, and
sustains, according to the law of God.

I had learned that Mind reconstructed the
body, and that nothing else could. How it was

THE GREAT DISCOVERY. 35

done, the spiritual Science of Mind must reveal.
It was a mystery to me then, but I have since
understood it. All Science is a revelation.
Its Principle is divine, not human, reaching
higher than the stars of heaven.

Am I a believer in Spiritualism ? I believe
in no 'ism. This is my endeavor, to be a Chris-
tian, to assimilate the character and practice of
the Anointed; and no motive can cause a
surrender of this effort. As I understand it,
Spiritualism is the antipode of Christian Science.
I esteem all honest people, and love them, and
hold to loving our enemies, and doing good to
them that " despitefully use you and persecute

you."

Foutjdatio*? Work.

TTS the pioneer of Christian Science I stood
/ alone in this conflict, endeavoring to
smite error with the falchion of Truth. The
rare bequests of Christian Science are costly,
and they have won fields of battle, from which
the dainty borrower would have fled. Cease-
less toil, self-renunciation, and love, have
cleared its pathway.

The motive of my earliest labors has never
changed. It was to relieve the sufferings of
humanity, by a sanitary system that should
include all moral and religious reform.

It is often asked why Christian Science was
revealed to me as one Intelligence analyzing,
uncovering, and annihilating the false testi-
mony of the physical senses. Why was this
conviction necessary to the right apprehension
of the invincible and infinite energies of
Truth and Love, as contrasted with the foibles
and fables of finite mind and material ex-
istence.

FOUNDATION WORK. 6t

The answer is plain. Saint Paul declared
that the Law was the schoolmaster, to bring
him to Christ. Even so was I led into the
mazes of divine metaphysics through the gospel
of suffering, the providence of God, and the
cross of Christ. No one else can drain the cup
which I have drunk to the dregs, as the dis-
coverer and teacher of Christian Science ;
neither can its inspiration be gained without
tasting this cup.

The loss of material objects of affection sun-
ders the dominant ties of earth, and points to
Heaven. Nothing can compete with Christian
Science, and its demonstration, in showing this
solemn certainty, in growing freedom and vindi-
cating "the ways of God" to man. The abso-
lute proof and self-evident propositions of
Truth are immeasurably paramount to rubric and
dogma in proving the Christ.

From my very childhood I was impelled, by
a hunger and thirst after divine things, — a
desire for something higher and better than
matter, and apart from it, — to seek diligently

38 » RETROSPECTION AND INTROSPECTION.

for the knowledge of God, as the one great and
ever-present relief from human woe. The first
spontaneous motion of Truth and Love, acting
through Christian Science on my roused con-
sciousness, banished at once and forever the
fundamental error of faith in things material;
for this trust is the unseen sin, the unknown
foe, — the heart's untamed desire, which
breaketh the divine commandments. As says
Saint James : " Whosoever shall keep the whole
law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty
of all."

Into mortal mind's material obliquity I
gazed, and stood abashed. Blanched was the
cheek of pride. My heart bent low before the
omnipotence of Spirit, and a tint of humility,
soft as the heart of a moonbeam, mantled the
earth. Bethlehem and Bethany, Gethsemane
and Calvary, spoke to my chastened sense as
by the tearful lips of a babe. Frozen foun-
tains were unsealed. Erudite systems of philos-
ophy and religion melted, for Love unveiled
the healing promise and potency of a present

FOUNDATION WORK. 39

spiritual afflatus. It was the gospel of healing,
on its divinely appointed human mission, bear-
ing on its white wings, to my apprehension
" the beauty of holiness," — even the possibili-
ties of spiritual insight, knowledge, and being.

Early had I learned, that whatever is loved
materially, as mere corporeal personality, is
eventually lost. uFor whosoever shall save
his life shall lose it," saith the Master. Ex-
ultant hope, if tinged with earthliness, is
crushed as the moth.

What is termed mortal and material exist-
ence, is graphically denned by Caldron, the
famous Spanish poet, who wrote : —

What is life ? 'Tis but a madness.
What is life ? A mere illusion,
Fleeting pleasure, fond delusion,

Short-lived joy, that ends in sadness,
Whose most constant substance seems
But the dream of other dreams.

JVJedical Experiments*

TITHE physical side of this research was aided
by hints from Homoeopathy, sustaining
my final conclusion that mortal belief, instead
of the drug, governed the action of material
medicine.

I wandered through the dim mazes of Materia
Medica, till I was weary of "scientific guess-
ing," as it has been well called. I sought
knowledge from the different schools, — Allop-
athy, Homoeopathy, Hydropathy, Electricity,
and from various humbugs, — but without re-
ceiving satisfaction.

I found, in the two hundred and sixty-two
remedies enumerated by Jahr, one pervading
secret, — namely, that the less material medi-
cine we have, and the more Mind, the better the
work is done ; a fact which seems to prove the
principle of Mind-healing. One drop of the
thirtieth attenuation of Natrum Muriaticum, in
a tumbler-full of water, and one teaspoonful of
the water mixed with the faith of ages, would

MEDICAL EXPERIMENTS. 41

cure patients not affected by a larger dose.
The drug disappears in the higher attenuations
of Homoeopathy, and matter is thereby rarefied to
its fatal essence, mortal mind; but immortal
Mind the curative Principle remains, and is
found to be even more active.

The mental virtues of the material methods
of medicine, when understood, were insufficient
to satisfy my doubts as to the honesty or
utility of using a material curative. I must
know more of the unmixed, unerring Source,
in order to gain the Science of Mind, the All-
in-all of Spirit, in which matter is obsolete.
Nothing less could solve the mental problem.
If I sought an answer from the medical schools,
the reply was dark and contradictory. Neither
ancient nor modern philosophy could clear the
clouds, or give me one distinct statement of
the spiritual Science of Mind-healing. Human
reason was not equal to it.

I claim for healing scientifically the follow-
ing advantages. (1) It does away with all ma-
terial medicines, and recognizes the antidote

42 RETROSPECTION AND INTROSPECTION.

for all sickness, as well as sin, in the immortal
Mind ; and mortal mind as the source of all
the ills which befall mortals. (2) It is more
effectual than drugs, and cures when they fail,
or only relieve, thus proving the superiority
of metaphysics over physics. (3) A person
healed by Christian Science is not only healed
of his disease, but he is advanced morally and
spiritually. The mortal body being but the
objective state of the mortal mind, this mind
must be renovated to improve the body.

fir$t Publication

TN 1870 I copyrighted the first publication on
spiritual, scientific Mind -healing, entitled
The Science of Man. This little book is
converted into the chapter Recapitulation in
Science and Health. It was so new, — the
basis it laid down for physical and moral health
was so hopelessly original and men were so
unfamiliar with the subject, — that I did not
venture upon its publication until later, having
learned that the merits of Christian Science
must be proven, before a work on this subject
could be profitably published.

The truths of Christian Science are not
interpolations of the Scriptures, but the spirit-
ual interpretations thereof. Science is the
prism of Truth, which divides its rays, and
brings out the hues of Deity. Human hypoth-
eses have darkened the glow and grandeur
of Evangelical religion. When speaking of
his true followers in every period, Jesus said,
" They shall lay hands on the sick and they
shall recover." There is no authority for

43

44 RETROSPECTION AND INTROSPECTION.

querying the authenticity of this declaration,
for it already was, and is demonstrated as
practical, and its claim is substantiated, — a
claim too immanent to fall to the ground
beneath the stroke of artless workmen.

Though a man were girt with the Urim and
Thummim of priestly office, and denied the
perpetuity of Jesus' command — " heal the
sick " — or its application in all time to those
who understand Christ as the Truth, and the
Life, — that man would not expound the Gos-
pel according to Jesus.

Five years after taking out my first copyright
I taught the Science of Mind-healing, alias
Christian Science, by writing out my manu-
scripts for students, and distributing them
unsparingly. This will account for certain
unpublished manuscripts extant, which the
evil-minded would insinuate did not originate
with me.

T\)£ Precious Yolunje*

TITHE first edition of my most important work,
Science and Health, containing the
complete statement of Christian Science, —
the term employed by me to express the Divine,
or spiritual Science of Mind-healing, was pub-
lished in 1875.

When it was first printed, the critics took
pleasure in saying: "This book is indeed
wholly original, but it will never be read."

The first edition numbered one thousand
copies. In September, 1891, it had reached
sixty- two editions.

Those who formerly sneered at it, as foolish
and eccentric, now declare Bishop Berkeley,
David Hume, Ralph Waldo Emerson, or certain
German philosophers, to have been the origi-
nators of the Science of Mind-healing, as
therein stated.

Even the Scripture gave no direct interpreta-
tion of the Scientific basis for demonstrating
the spiritual Principle of healing, until our

45

46 RETROSPECTION AND INTROSPECTION.

Heavenly Father saw fit, through the Key to
the Scriptures, in Science and Health, to
unlock this "mystery of godliness."

My reluctance to give the public, in my first
edition of Science and Health, the chapter
on Animal Magnetism, and the divine purpose
that this should be done, may have an interest
for the reader, and will be seen in the following
circumstances. I had finished that edition as
far as that chapter, when the printer informed
me that he could not go on with my work. I
had already paid him seven hundred dollars,
and yet he stopped my work. All efforts to
persuade him to finish my book were in vain.

After months had passed, I yielded to a con-
stant conviction that I must insert in my last
chapter a partial history of what I had already
observed of mental malpractice. Accordingly,
I set to work, contrary to my inclination, to
fulfil this painful task, and finished my copy
for the book. As it afterwards appeared,
although I had not thought of such a result,
my printer resumed his work at the same time,

THE PRECIOUS VOLUME. 47

finished printing the copy he had on hand, and
then started for Lynn to see me. The after-
noon that he left Boston for Lynn, I started for
Boston with my finished copy. We met at the
Eastern depot in Lynn, and were both sur-
prised, — I to learn that he had printed all the
copy on hand, and had come to tell me he
wanted more, — he to find me en route for Bos-
ton, to give him the closing chapter of my first
edition of Science and Health. Not a word
had passed between us audibly nor mentally,
while this went on. I had grown disgusted with
my printer, and become silent. He had come
to a standstill through motives and circumstances
unknown to me.

Science and Health is the textbook of
Christian Science. Whosoever learns the letter
of this Book must also gain its spiritual signifi-
cance in order to demonstrate Christian Science.

When the demand for this book increased,
and people were healed by simply reading it, the
copyright was infringed. I entered a suit at
Law, and my copyright was protected.

Recuperative lt)cidet)L

T17HR0UGH four successive years I healed,
preached, and taught in a general way,
refusing to take any pay for my services, and
living on a small annuity.

At one time I was called to speak before the
Lyceum Club, at Westerly, Rhode Island. On
my arrival my hostess told me that her next
door neighbor was dying. I asked permission
to see her. It was granted, and with my
hostess I went to the invalid's house.

The physicians had given up the case, and
retired. I had stood by her side about fifteen
minutes when the sick woman rose from her bed,
dressed herself, and was well. Afterwards
they showed me the clothes already prepared
for her burial ; and told me that her physicians
had said the diseased condition was caused by
an injury received from a surgical operation at
the birth of her last babe, and that it was im-
possible for her to be delivered of another child.
It is sufficient to add her babe was safely born,

48

RECUPERATIVE INCIDENT.

49

and weighed twelve pounds. The mother
afterwards wrote to me, " I never before suffered
so little in childbirth."

This Scientific demonstration so stirred the
doctors and clergy that they had my notices for
a second lecture pulled down, and refused me a
hearing in their halls and churches. This cir-
cumstance is cited simply to show the opposi-
tion which Christian Science encountered a
quarter-century ago, as contrasted with its
present welcome into the sick room.

Many were the desperate cases I instantly
healed, "without money and without price,"
and in most instances without even an acknowl-
edgment of the benefit.

/V True JVtar;.

TTY last marriage was with Asa Gilbert
J Eddy, and was a blessed and spiritual

union, solemnized at Lynn, Massachusetts, by
the Rev. Samuel Barrett Stewart, in the year
1877. Dr. Eddy was the first student to pub-
licly announce himself a Christian Scientist,
and place these symbolic words on his office
sign. He forsook all to follow in this line of
light. He was the first organizer of a Chris-
tian Science Sunday-school, which he superin-
tended. He also taught a special Bible-class ;
and he lectured so ably on Scriptural topics,
that people of other denominations listened to
him with deep interest. He was remarkably
successful in Mind-healing, and untiring in
his chosen work. In 1882 he passed away,
with a smile of peace and love resting on his
serene countenance. " Mark the perfect man,
and behold the upright : for the end of that
man is peace." Psalms.

50

College at)d Cfyurcl?.

TN 1867 I introduced the first purely metaphys-
ical system of healing since the apostolic
days. I begun by teaching one student Chris-
tian Science Mind-healing. From this seed
grew the Massachusetts Metaphysical College
in Boston, chartered in 1881. No charter was
granted for similar purposes after 1883. It is
the only College hitherto, for teaching the pa-
thology of spiritual power, alias the Science of
Mind-healing.

My husband, Asa G. Eddy, taught two
terms in my College. After I gave up teach-
ing, my adopted son, Ebenezer J. Foster-Eddy,
a graduate of the Hahneman Medical College
of Philadelphia, and who also received a cer-
tificate from Dr. W. W. Keen's (Allopathic)
Philadelphia School of Anatomy and Surgery, —
having renounced his material method of practice
and embraced the teachings of Christian Science,
taught the Primary, Normal, and Obstetric
Class one term. General Erastus N. Bates,

51

52 RETROSPECTION AND INTROSPECTION.

taught one Primary Class, in 1889, after which
I judged it best to close the institution. These
students of mine were the only assistant
teachers in the college.

The first Christian Scientist Association was
organized by myself and six of my students in
1876, on the Centennial Day of our nation's
freedom. At a meeting of the Christian Scien-
tist Association, on April 19, 1879, it was voted
to organize a church to commemorate the words
and works of our Master, a Mind-healing church,
without a creed, to be called the Church of Christ,
Scientist, the first such church ever organized.
The charter for this church was obtained in
June, 1879, and during the same month the
members, twenty-six in number, extended a call
to me to become their pastor. I accepted the
call, and was ordained in 1881, though I had
preached five years before being ordained.

When I was its pastor, and in the pulpit
every Sunday, my church increased in members,
and its spiritual growth kept pace with its
increasing popularity; but when obliged, be-

COLLEGE AND CHURCH. 53

cause of accumulating work in the college, to
preach only occasionally, no student, at that
time, was found able to maintain the Church in
its previous harmony and prosperity.

Examining the situation prayerfully and care-
fully, noting the church's need, and the predis-
posing and exciting cause of its condition, I saw
that the crisis had come when much time and
attention must be given to defend this church
from the envy and molestation of other churches,
and from the danger to its members which
must always lie in Christian warfare. At this
juncture I recommended that the church be
dissolved. No sooner were my views made
known, than the proper measures were adopted
to carry them out, the votes passing without a
dissenting voice.

This measure was immediately followed by
a great revival of mutual love, prosperity, and
spiritual power.

The history of that hour holds this true record.
Adding to its ranks and influence, this spiritually
organized Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston

54 RETROSPECTION AND INTROSPECTION.

still goes on. A new light broke in upon it,
and more beautiful became the garments of her
who " bringeth glad tidings and publisheth
peace."

Despite the prosperity of my Church, it was
learned that material organization has its value
and peril, and that organization is requisite
only in the earliest periods in Christian his-
tory. After this material form of cohesion
and fellowship has accomplished its end, con-
tinued organization retards spiritual growth,
and should be laid off, — even as the corporeal
organization deemed requisite in the first stages
of mortal existence is finally laid off, in order
to gain spiritual freedom and supremacy.

From careful observation and experience
came my clue to the uses and abuses of organi-
zation. Therefore in accord with my special
request followed that noble unprecedented
action of the Christian Scientist Association
connected with my College when dissolving
that organization, — in forgiving enemies, re-
turning good for evil, in following Jesus' com-

COLLEGE AND CHURCH. 55

mand. "Whosoever shall smite thee on thy
right cheek, turn to him the other also." I saw
these fruits of Spirit, long-suffering, and tem-
perance fulfill the law of Christ in righteousness.
I also saw that Christianity has withstood less
the temptation of popularity than of perse-
cution.

Lines penned when I was pastor of the Church of Christ, Scien-
tist, in Boston.

• " Feed my Sheep."

O^HEPHERD, show me how to go
|s3 O'er the hillside steep,
How to gather, how to sow,
How to feed Thy sheep :
I will listen for Thy voice,
Lest my footsteps stray,
I will follow and rejoice
All the rugged way.

Thou wilt bind the stubborn will,

Wound the callous breast,
Make self righteousness be still,

Break earth's stupid rest;
Strangers on a barren shore

Lab'ring long and lone,
We would enter by the door,

And Thou know'st Thine own.

So when day grows dark and cold,

Tear or triumph harms,
Lead Thy lambkins to the fold,

Take them in Thine arms ;
Feed the hungry, heal the heart,

Till the morning's beam ;
White as wool, ere they depart,

Shepherd, wash them clean.

College Closed*

TTFHE apprehension of what has been, and
must be, the final outcome of material
organization, which wars with Love's spiritual
compact, caused me to dread the unprecedented
popularity of my College. Students from all
over our continent and from Europe, were
flooding the school. At this time there were
over three hundred applications from persons
desiring to enter the college, and applicants
were rapidly increasing. Example had shown
the dangers arising from being placed on earthly
pinnacles, and Christian Science shuns what-
ever involves material means for the promotion
of spiritual ends.

In view of all this, a meeting was called of
the Board of Directors of my college who being
informed of my intentions unanimously voted
that the school be discontinued.

A Primary class student, richly imbued with
the spirit of Christ, is a better healer and teacher
than a Normal class student who partakes less

57

58 RETROSPECTION AND INTROSPECTION.

of His love. Having received my instructions
in the Primary class and afterwards studied
thoroughly Science and Health, the student
should not hesitate to enter upon this privileged
Gospel work, and so fulfill the command of
Christ. Yea, an apt Bible scholar and a conse-
crated Christian, by deeply dipping into my last
revised Science and Health, may even enter
this field of labors without any personal in-
struction, — beneficially to himself and the race.
The Massachusetts Metaphysical College
drew its breath from me, but I was yearning
for retirement. The question was who else
could sustain this institute, under all that was
aimed at its vital purpose, the establishment of
genuine Christian Science healing. My consci-
entious scruples about diplomas, the recent expe-
rience of the church fresh in my thoughts, and
the growing conviction that everyone should
build on his own foundation, subject to the one
builder and maker, God, — all these considera-
tions moved me to close my flourishing school,
and the following resolutions were passed:

COLLEGE CLOSED. 59

At a special meeting of the Board of the Meta-
physical College Corporation, Oct. 29, 1889, the
following are some of the resolutions which were
presented and passed unanimously :

Whereas, The Massachusetts Metaphysical
College, chartered in January 1881 for medical
purposes, to give instruction in scientific methods
of Mental Healing on a purely practical basis, to
impart a thorough understanding of Metaphysics,
to restore health, hope, and harmony to man, —
has fulfilled its high and noble destiny, and sent
to all parts of our country and into foreign lands,
students instructed in Christian Science Mind
Healing to meet the demand of the age for some-
thing higher than physic or drugging ; and

Whereas, The material organization was, in the
beginning in this Institution, like the baptism of
Jesus, of which he said, " Suffer it to be so now,"
though the teaching was a purely spiritual and
scientific impartation of Truth, whose Christly
Spirit has led to higher ways, means, and under-
standing, — the President, Rev. Mary B. G. Eddy,
at the height of prosperity in the institution which
yields a large income, is willing to sacrifice all for
the advancement of the world in Truth and Love ;
and

Whereas, Other institutions for instruction in
Christian Science, which are working out their

60 RETROSPECTION AND INTROSPECTION.

periods of organization, will doubtless follow the
example of the Alma Mater after having accom-
plished the worthy purpose for which they were
organized, and the hour has come wherein the
great need is for more of the Spirit instead of the
letter, and Science and Health is adapted to
work this result ; and

Whereas, The fundamental principle for growth
in Christian Science is spiritual formation first, last,
and always, while in human growth material organ-
ization is first ; and

Whereas, Mortals must learn to lose their esti-
mate of the powers that are not ordained of God,
and attain the bliss of loving unselfishly, working
patiently, and conquering all that is unlike Christ
and the example he gave ; therefore

Hesolved, That we thank the State for its
charter, which is the only one ever granted to a legal
college for teaching the Science of Mind healing;
that we thank the public for its liberal patronage.
And everlasting gratitude is due to the President,
for her great and noble work, which we believe
will prove a healing for the nations, and bring all
men to a knowledge of the true God, uniting
them in one common brotherhood.

After due deliberation and earnest discussion it
was unanimously voted : That as all debts of the
corporation have been paid, it is deemed best to

COLLEGE CLOSED.

61

dissolve this corporation, and the same is hereby
dissolved.

C. A. Frye, Clerk.

When God impelled me to set a price on my
instruction in Christian Science Mind-healing,
I could think of no financial equivalent for an
impartation of a knowledge of that divine
power which heals ; but I was led to name three
hundred dollars as the price for each pupil in
one course of lessons at my college, — a start-
ling sum for tuition lasting barely three weeks.
This amount greatly troubled me. I shrank
from asking it, but was finally led, by a strange
providence, to accept this fee.

God has since shown me, in multitudinous
ways, the wisdom of this decision; and I beg
disinterested people to ask my loyal students
if they consider three hundred dollars any real
equivalent for my instruction during twelve
half-days, or even in half as many lessons. Nev-
ertheless, my list of indigent charity scholars is
very large, and I have had as many as seventeen
in one class.

62 RETROSPECTION AND INTROSPECTION.

Loyal students speak with delight of their
pupilage, and of what it has done for them, — and,
for others, through them. By loyalty in students
I mean this, — allegiance to God, subordination
of the human to the divine, steadfast justice, and
strict adherence to divine Truth and Love.

I see clearly that students in Christian
Science should, at present, continue to organize
churches, schools, and associations for the
furtherance and unfolding of Truth, and that
my necessity is not necessarily theirs ; but it
was the Father's opportunity for furnishing a
new rule of order in Divine Science, and the
blessings which arose therefrom. Students are
not environed with such obstacles as were
encountered in the beginning of pioneer work.

In December, 1889, I gave a lot of land in
Boston to my student, Mr. Ira O. Knapp of Ros-
lindale, — then valued at about fifteen thousand
dollars, and rising in value, — to be appropriated
for the erection, and building on the premises
thereby conveyed, of a church edifice to be used
in the interest of Christian Science.

Qetjcral JKssociaiiot)$t ai?d Our JVtacjazfr?e*

TTOR many successive years I have endeavored
to find new ways and means for the pro-
motion and expansion of scientific Mind-healing,
seeking to broaden its channels, and, if possible,
to build a hedge round about it, that should
shelter its perfections from the contaminating
influences of those who have a small portion of
its letter, and less of its Spirit. At the same
time I have worked to provide a home for
every true seeker and honest worker in this
vineyard of Truth.

To meet the broader wants of humanity, and
provide folds for the sheep that were without
shepherds, I suggested to my students, in 1886,
the propriety of forming a National Chkistian
Scientist Association. This was immediately
done, and delegations from the Christian Scien-
tist Association of the Massachusetts Meta-
physical College, and from branch associations
in other States, met in general convention at
New York City, February 11, 1886.

64 RETROSPECTION AND INTROSPECTION.

The first official organ of the Christian
Scientist Association was called Journal of
Christian Science. I started it, April, 1883,
as editor and publisher.

To the National Christian Scientist Associa-
tion, at its meeting in Cleveland, Ohio, June,
1889, I sent a letter, presenting to its loyal
members the Christian Science Journal, as it
was now called, and the funds belonging
thereto. This monthly magazine had been
made successful and prosperous under difficult
circumstances, and was designed to bear aloft
the standard of genuine Christian Science.

FaitI? Cure.

TT is often asked: Why are faith-cures some-
times more speedy than some of the cures
wrought through Christian Scientists? Be-
cause faith is belief, and not understanding ;
and it is easier to believe, than to understand
spiritual Truth. It demands less cross-bear-
ing, self-renunciation, and Divine Science to
admit the claims of the corporeal senses, and
appeal to God for relief through a humanized
conception of His power, than to deny these
claims, and learn the divine way, drinking Jesus'
cup, being baptized with his baptism, gaining
the end through persecution and purity.

Millions are believing in God, or Good,
without bearing the fruits of goodness, not hav-
ing reached its Science. Belief is virtually
blindness, when it admits Truth without under-
standing it. Blind belief cannot say with the
apostle, "I know whom I have believed."
There is danger in this mental state called be-
lief; for if Truth is admitted, but not under-

65

66 RETROSPECTION AND INTROSPECTION.

stood, it may be lost, and error may enter
through this same channel of ignorant belief.
The faith-cure has devout followers, whose
Christian practice is far in advance of their
theory.

The work of healing, in the Science of Mind,
is the most sacred and salutary power which
can be wielded. My Christian students, im-
pressed with the true sense of the great work
before them, enter this strait and narrow path,
and work conscientiously.

Let us follow the example of Jesus, the
Master Metaphysician, and gain sufficient knowl-
edge of error to destroy it with Truth. Evil is
not mastered by evil ■, it can only be overcome
with Good. This brings out the nothingness of
evil ; and the eternal Somethingness, vindicates
the Divine Principle, and improves the race of
of Adam.

Fout)daiiOt) Stor)c$+

TITHE following ideas of Deity, antagonized
by finite theories, doctrines, and hy-
potheses, I found to be demonstrable rules in
Christian Science, and that we must abide
by them.

Whatever diverges from the One Divine
Mind, or God, — or divides Mind into minds,
Spirit into spirits, Soul into souls, and Being
into beings, — is a misstatement of the unerring
divine Principle of Science, which interrupts
the meaning of the omnipotence, omniscience,
and omnipresence of Spirit, and is of human,
instead of divine origin.

War is waged between the evidences of
Spirit and the evidences of the five physical
senses ; and this contest must go on until peace
be declared by the final triumph of Spirit in
immutable harmony. Divine Science disclaims
sin, sickness, and death, on the basis of the
omnipotence and omnipresence of God, or
Divine Good.

67

68 RETROSPECTION AND INTROSPECTION.

All consciousness is Mind, and Mind is God.
Hence there is but one Mind; and that one is
the infinite Good, supplying all Mind by the
reflection, not the subdivision, of God. What-
ever else claims to be mind, or consciousness,
is untrue. The sun sends forth light, but not
suns; so God reflects Himself, or Mind, but
does not subdivide Mind, or Good, into minds,
good and evil. Divine Science demands mighty
wrestlings with mortal beliefs, as we sail into
the eternal haven over the unfathomable sea of *
possibilities.

Neither ancient nor modern philosophy fur-
nishes a Scientific basis for the Science
of Mind-healing. Plato believed he had a
soul which must be doctored, in order to heal
his body. This would be like correcting the
principle of music, for the purpose of destroy-
ing discord. Principle is right; it is practice
that is wrong. Soul is right; it is the flesh
that is evil. Soul is the synonym of Spirit,
God ; hence there is but one Soul, and that
one is infinite. If that pagan philosopher had

FOUNDATION STONES. by

known that physical sense, not Soul, causes all
bodily ailments, his philosophy would have
yielded to Science.

Man shines by borrowed light. He reflects
God as his Mind, and this reflection is Sub-
stance, — the Substance of Good. Matter is
substance in error, Spirit is Substance in Truth.

Evil, or error, is not Mind; but infinite Mind
is sufficient to supply all manifestations of In-
telligence. The notion of more than one Mind,
or Life, is as unsatisfying as it is unscientific.
All must be of God, and not our own, sepa-
rated from him.

Human systems of philosophy and religion
are departures from Christian Science. Mistak-
ing divine Principle for corporeal personality,
ingrafting upon one First Cause such opposite
effects as good and evil, health and sickness,
life and death; making mortality the status
and rule of divinity, — such methods can never
reach the perfection and demonstration of Meta-
physical, or Christian Science.

Stating the Divine Principle, omnipotence

70 RETROSPECTION AND INTROSPECTION.

(omnis potens), and then departing from this
statement, and taking the rule of finite matter,
with which to work out the problem of infinity,
or Spirit, all this is like trying to compensate
for the absence of omnipotence, by a physical,
false, and finite substitute.

With our Master, life was not merely a sense
of existence, but an accompanying sense of
power that subdued matter and brought to
light immortality, insomuch that the people
" were astonished at his doctrines, for he taught
them as one having authority, and not as the
scribes." Life, as defined by Jesus, had no
beginning; it was not the result of organiza-
tion, or infused into matter ; it was Spirit.

CHRISTIAN Science reveals the grand
^ verity, that to believe man has a finite and
erring mind, and consequently a mortal mind
and soul and life, is error. Scientific terms
have no contradictory significations.

In Science, Life is not temporal, but eternal,
without beginning or ending. The word Life
never means that which is the source of death,
and of good and evil. Such an inference is
unscientific. It is like saying that addition
means subtraction in one instance, and addi-
tion in another, and then applying this rule to
a demonstration of the science of numbers;
even as mortals apply finite terms to God, in
demonstration of Infinity. Life is a term used
to indicate Deity ; and every other name for the
Supreme Being, if properly employed, has the
signification of Life. Whatever errs is mortal,
and is the antipodes of Life, or God, and of
health and holiness, both in idea and demon-
stration.

71

72 RETROSPECTION AND INTROSPECTION.

Christian Science reveals Mind, the only
living and true God, and all that is made by Him,
Mind, as harmonious, immortal, and spiritual :
the five material senses define Mind and matter
as distinct, but mutually dependent, each on the
other, for intelligence and existence. Science
defines Man as immortal, as coexistent and co-
eternal with God, as made in His own image
and likeness; material sense defines life as
something apart from God, beginning and end-
ing, and man as very far from the divine like-
ness. Science reveals Life as a complete
sphere, as eternal self-existent Mind; material
sense defines life as a broken sphere, as organ-
ized matter, and mind as something separate
from God. Science reveals Spirit as all, aver-
ing that there is nothing beside God ; material
sense says that matter, His antipodes, is some-
thing besides God. Material sense adds that
the divine Spirit created matter, and that mat-
ter and evil are as real as Spirit and Good.

Christian Science reveals God and His idea
as the all and only. It declares that evil is the

THE GREAT REVELATION. 73

absence of Good ; whereas, Good is God ever-
present, and therefore evil is unreal, and Good
is all that is real. Christian Science saith to
the wave and storm, "Be still," and there is a
great calm. Material sense asks, in its igno-
rance of Science, "When will the raging of the
material elements cease? " Science saith to all
manner of disease : " Know that God is all-power
and all-presence, and there is nothing beside
Him," and the sick are healed. Material
sense saith: "Oh, when will my sufferings
cease ? Where is God ? Sickness is something be-
sides Him, which He cannot, or does not, heal."
Christian Science is the only sure basis of
harmony. Material sense contradicts Science,
for matter, and its so-called organizations, take
no cognizance of the spiritual facts of the uni-
verse, or of the real man and God. Christian
Science declares that there is but one Truth,
Life, Love, but one Spirit, Mind, Soul. Any
attempt to divide these arises from the falli-
bility of sense, from mortal man's ignorance,
from enmity to God and Divine Science.

74 RETROSPECTION AND INTROSPECTION.

Christian Science declares that sickness is a
belief, a latent fear, made manifest on the body
in different forms of fear, or disease. This
fear is formed unconsciously in the silent
thought, as when you awaken from sleep and
feel ill, experiencing the effect of a fear whose
existence you do not realize; but if you fall
asleep, actually conscious of the Truth of Chris-
tian Science, — namely, that man's harmony is
no more to be invaded than the rhythm of the
universe, — you cannot awake in fear or suffer-
ing of any sort.

Science saith to Fear : " You are the cause of
all sickness; but you are a self -constituted
falsity, — you are darkness, nothingness. You
are without 'hope and without God in the
world.' You do not exist, and have no right
to exist, for 'perfect Love casteth out fear.' '

God is everywhere. "There is no speech
nor language, where His voice is not heard";
and this voice is Truth that destroys error, and
Love that casts out fear.

Christian Science reveals the fact, that if

THE GREAT REVELATION. 75

suffering exists it is in the mortal mind only,
for matter has no sensation and cannot suffer.

If you rule out every sense of disease and
suffering from mortal mind, it cannot be found
in the body.

Posterity will have the right to demand that
Christian Science be stated and demonstrated
in its godliness and grandeur, — that however
little be taught or learned, that little shall be
right. Let there be milk for babes, but let
not the milk be adulterated. Unless this
method be pursued, the Science of Christian
Healing will again be lost, and human suffer-
ing will increase.

Test Christian Science by its effect on
society, and you will find that the views here
set forth — as to the illusion of sin, sickness,
and death — bring forth better fruits of health,
righteousness, and Life, than a belief in their
reality has ever done. A demonstration of the
unreality of evil destroys evil.

Sit)f Sit)r)crf ar)d Ecclesiastic^**?*

T9THY do Christian Scientists say God and
His idea are the only realities, and then
insist on the need of healing sickness and sin?
Because Christian Science heals sin as it heals
sickness, by establishing the recognition that
God is all, and there is none beside Him, —
that all is good, and there is in reality no evil,
neither sickness nor sin. We attack the sin-
ner's belief in the pleasure of sin, alias, the
reality of sin, which makes him a sinner, in
order to destroy this belief and save him from
sin ; and we attack the belief of the sick in the
reality of sickness, in order to heal them.
When we deny the authority of sin, we begin
to sap it; for this denunciation must pre-
cede its destruction.

God is Good, hence goodness is something,
for it represents God, the Life of man. Its op-
posite, nothing, named evil, is nothing but a
conspiracy against man's Life and goodness.
Do you not feel bound to expose this conspiracy,

76

SIN, SINNER, AND ECCLESIASTICISM. 77

and so to save man from it? Whosoever covers
iniquity becomes accessory to it. Sin, as a
claim, is more dangerous than sickness, more
subtle, more difficult to heal.

Saint Augustine once said, "The Devil is
but the ape of God." Sin is worse than sick-
ness; but recollect that it encourages sin to say
"There is no sin," and leave the subject there.

Sin ultimates in sinner, and in this sense they
are one. You cannot separate sin from the sinner,
nor the sinner from his sin. The sin is the
sinner, and vice versa, for such is the unity of
evil ; and together both sinner and sin will be
destroyed by the supremacy of Good. This
however does not annihilate man, for to efface
sin, alias the sinner, brings to light, makes ap-
parent, the real man, even God's "image and
likeness." Need it be said that any opposite
theory is heterodox to Divine Science, which
teaches that Good is equally One and all, even
as the opposite claim of evil is one.

In Christian Science the fact is made obvi-
ous, that the sinner and the sin are alike sim-

78 RETROSPECTION AND INTROSPECTION.

ply nothingness; and this view is supported
by the Scripture, where the Psalmist saith : " He
shall go to the generation of his fathers ; they
shall never see light. Man that is in honor,
and understandeth not, is like the beasts that
perish." God's ways and works and thoughts
have never changed, either in Principle or
practice.

Since there is in belief an illusion termed
sin, which must be met and mastered, we
classify sin, sickness, and death as illusions.
They are supposititious claims of error; and
error, being a false claim, they are no claims at
all. It is Scientific to abide in conscious har-
mony, in health-giving, deathless Truth and
Love. To do this, mortals must first open
their eyes to all the illusive forms, methods,
and subtlety of error in order that the illusion,
error, may be destroyed; if this is not done,
mortals will become the victims of error.

If Evangelical churches refuse fellowship
with the Church of Christ, Scientist, or with
Christian Science, they must rest their opinions

SIN, SINNEK, AND ECCLESIASTICISM. 79

of Truth and Love on the evidences of the
physical senses, rather than on the teaching and
practice of Jesus, or the works of the Spirit.

Ritualism and dogma lead to self-righteous-
ness and bigotry, which freeze out the spiritual
element. Pharisaism killeth; Spirit giveth
Life. The odors of persecution, tobacco, and
alcohol are not the sweet-smelling savor of
Truth and Love. Feasting the senses, gratifi-
cation of appetite and passion, have no warrant
in the Gospel or the Decalogue. Mortals must
take up the cross if they would follow Christ,
and "worship the Father in spirit and in
truth."

The Jewish religion was not spiritual;
hence Jesus denounced it. If the religion of
to-day is constituted of such elements as of old
ruled Christ out of the synagogues, it will con-
tinue to avoid whatever follows the example of
our Lord, and prefers Christ to Creed. Chris-
tian Science is the pure evangelic truth. It ac-
cords with the trend and tenor of Christ's teach-
ing and example, while it demonstrates the

80 RETROSPECTION AND INTROSPECTION.

power of Christ as taught in the four gospels.
Truth, casting out evils and healing the
sick; Love fulfilling the law, and keeping man
unspotted from the world, — these practical
manifestations of Christianity constitute the
only Evangelism, and they need no creed.

As well expect to determine, without a tele-
scope, the magnitude and distance of the stars,
as to expect to obtain health, harmony, and
holiness through an unspiritual and unhealing
religion. Christianity reveals God as ever-
present Truth and Love, to be utilized in heal-
ing the sick, in casting out error, in raising
the dead.

Christian Science gives vitality to religion,
which is no longer buried in materiality. It
raises men from a material sense, into the
spiritual understanding and Scientific demon-
stration of God.

Tfye fiuryat) Concept,

OIN existed as a false claim before the human
r^ concept of sin was formed ; hence one's
concept of error is not the whole of error.
The human thought does not constitute sin,
but vice versa, sin constituted the human or
physical concept.

Sin is both concrete, and abstract. Sin was,
and is, the lying supposition that life, substance,
and intelligence are both material and spiritual,
and yet are separate from God. The first
iniquitous manifestation of sin was a finity. The
finite was self-arrayed against the Infinite, the
mortal against Immortality, and a sinner was
the antipode of God.

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,

81

82 RETROSPECTION AND INTROSPECTION.

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 indi-
vidual. It was in no way contingent on Adam's
thought, but supposititiously 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 con-
cept or idea is spiritually real. One is false,
while the other is true. One is temporal, but
the other is eternal.

THE HUMAN CONCEPT. 83

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 text book 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 encompass thought, so long as it
bases creation on materiality, p. 531.

In reality there is no mortal mind, and con-
sequently no transference of mortal thought
and will-power. In Christian Science man can
do no harm, for his thoughts are true thoughts,
passing from God to man. p. 283.

Man is the offspring of Spirit. The beauti-
ful, good, and pure constitute his ancestry.
His origin is not, like that of mortals, in brute
instinct, nor does he pass through material con-
ditions prior to reaching intelligence. Spirit
is his primitive and ultimate source of Being,
and God is his Father, p. 273.

84 RETROSPECTION AND INTROSPECTION.

The parent of all human discord was the
Adam-dream, the deep sleep, oblivion, and illu-
sion, portrayed in the belief that life and intel-
ligence originate from and pass into matter.
This pantheistic error, first called the serpent,
insists still upon the opposite of Truth, saying,
"'I will make you as gods;" that is, "I will
make error itself to be as real and eternal as
Truth. I will put spirit into what I call mat-
ter, and it shall seem to have life, as much as
God, Spirit, who is Life." This error has led
to bad results. Its life is found to be not Life,
but only a transient sense of existence, which
ends in death, pp. 202, 203.

When will the error of believing that there
is Life in matter — and that sin, sickness, and
death are creations of God — be unmasked ?
When will it be understood that matter has no
intelligence, life, or sensation, and that the
opposite belief is the prolific source of all suffer-
ing? God created all through Mind, and made
all perfect and eternal. Where then is the
necessity for recreation or procreation? p. 101.

THE HUMAN CONCEPT. 85.

Above error's awful din, blackness, and void,
the voice of Truth still calls : Adam, where
art thou ? Consciousness, where art thou ? Art
thou dwelling in the belief that Mind is in mat-
ter, and that evil is mind ? or art thou in the liv-
ing faith that there can be no other mind but God,
and keeping His commandment? p. 202, 203.

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, of itself, —
this mentality puts forth its own qualities, and
then claims God as their author ; ... it usurps
the deific prerogatives, and is an attempted in-
fringement on Infinity." p. 494.

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

86 RETROSPECTION AND INTROSPECTION.

the Virgin Mary. No person can compass
or fulfill the individual mission of Jesus of
Nazareth. Each individual must fill his own
niche in time and eternity.

The second appearing of Jesus is unquestion-
ably, the spiritual advent of the advancing idea
of God, as prefigured in the Ascension of Jesus,
when the fleshly form, the human concept or
material sense of birth and being, disappeared.

The scientific ultimate of the God-idea, called
man, must be individual, incorporeal, infinite,
even the reflection " image and likeness " of the
infinite God.

The right teacher of Christian Science lives
the Truth he teaches. Pre-eminent 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 other's wisdom, that God
thus crowns, but he who is obedient to the

THE HUMAN CONCEPT. 87

divine command : " Render therefore unto
Caesar the things that are Caesar's and to God
the things that are God'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 un-
bridled mind-manipulator if he would consent
to this, and if not, then he is knowingly trans-
gressing Christ's command. He who secretly
manipulates mind without the permission of man,
or God, 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 igno-

88 RETROSPECTION AND INTROSPECTION.

ranee. 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 God ; therefore, it
deteriorates one's ability to do good, to benefit
himself and mankind.

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

Personality*

TITHE immortal man being spiritual, individual
and eternal, his mortal opposite must be
material, corporeal, and temporal. Physical
personality is finite; but God 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 latitudes
and purer realms of thought.

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

90 RETROSPECTION AND INTROSPECTION.

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. To constantly scrutinize
physical personality, or accuse people of being
unduly personal, is like the sick talking sick-
ness. 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.

Plagiarist*^
TITHE various forms of book-borrowing with-
out credit spring from this illconcealed
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 mis-
represent 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 there-
fore honest. The Science of Mind excludes
opposites, and rests on unity.

It is proverbial that dishonesty retards spirit-

91

92 RETROSPECTION AND INTROSPECTION.

ual growth and strikes at the heart of Truth.
If a student at Harvard College has studied
a textbook written by his teacher, is he entitled,
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 permis-
sion in the Gospel for plagiarizing an author's
ideas and their words. Christian Science is
not copyrighted ; nor would protection by copy-
right be requisite, if mortals obeyed God's
law of manright. A student can write volu-
minous works on Science without trespassing,
if he writes honestly, and he cannot dishonestly
compose Christian Science. The Bible is not
stolen, though it is cited, and quoted deferen-
tially.

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 altitude
which perceived a light beyond what others saw.

The spiritually minded meet on the stairs
which lead up to spiritual Love. This affec-

PLAGIARISM.

93

tion, so far from being personal worship, 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 limita-
tions. It is the unity of Good and bond of
perfectness. This just affection serves to con-
stitute the Mind-healer a wonder-worker, — as
of old, on the Pentecost Day, when the disci-
ples were of one accord.

He who gains the God-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 grow-
ing evil in plagiarism; but if I do not insist
upon the strictest observance of moral law and
order in Christian Scientists, I become responsi-
ble, as a teacher, for laxity in discipline and
lawlessness in literature. Pope was right in
saying, "An honest man's the noblest work of
God;" and Ingersol's repartee has its moral:
"An honest God's the noblest work of man."

JKdrr)or)iiiot)+

TITHE neophyte in Christian Science acts like
a diseased physique, — being too fast or
too slow. He is inclined to do either too much
or too little. In healing and teaching the stu-
dent has not yet achieved the entire wisdom of
Mind-practice. The textual explanation of
this practice is complete in Science and
Health ; and Scientific practice makes perfect,
for it is governed by its Principle, and not by
human opinions ; but carnal and sinister motives,
entering into this practice, will prevent the
demonstration of Christian Science.

I recommend students not to read so-called
scientific works, antagonistic to Christian
Science, which advocate materialistic systems;
because such works and words becloud the right
sense of Metaphysical Science.

The rules of Mind-healing are wholly Christ-
like and spiritual. Therefore the adoption of
a worldly policy or a resort to subterfuge in the
statement of the Science of Mind-healing, or

94

ADMONITION. 95

any name given to it other than Christian
Science, or an attempt to demonstrate the facts
of this Science other than is stated in Science
and Health — is a departure from the Science
of Mind-healing. To becloud mortals, or for
yourself to hide from God, is to conspire against
the blessings otherwise conferred, against your
own success and final happiness, against the
progress of the human race as well as against
honest Metaphysical theory and practice.

Not by the hearing of the ear, is spiritual
Truth learned and loved ; nor cometh this appre-
hension from the experiences of others. We
glean spiritual harvests from our own material
losses. In this consuming heat false images
are effaced from the canvas of mortal mind;
and thus does the material pigment beneath
fade into invisibility.

The signs for the wayfarer in Divine Science
lie in meekness, in unselfish motives and acts,
in shuffling off scholastic rhetoric, in ridding the
thought of effete doctrines, in the purification of
the affections and desires.

96 RETROSPECTION AND INTROSPECTION.

Dishonesty, envy, and mad ambition are
"lusts of the flesh," which uproot the germs of
growth in Science, and leave the inscrutable
problem of Being unsolved. Through the
channels of material sense, of worldly policy,
pomp, and pride, cometh no success in Truth.
If beset with misguided emotions, we shall be
stranded on the quicksands of worldly commo-
tion, and practically come short of the wisdom
requisite for teaching and demonstrating the
victory over self and sin.

Be temperate in thought, word, and deed.
Meekness and temperance are the jewels of
Love, set in wisdom. Restrain untempered
zeal. "Learn to labor and to wait." Of old
the children of Israel were saved by patient
waiting.

" The Kingdom of Heaven sufTereth violence,
and the violent take it by force ! " said Jesus.
Therefore are its spiritual gates not captured,
nor its golden streets invaded.

We recognize this kingdom, the reign of har-
mony, within us, by an unselfish affection or

ADMONITION. 97

love, for this is the pledge of divine Good
and the insignia of Heaven. This also is pro-
verbial, that though eternal justice be graciously
gentle, yet it may seem severe.

For whom the Lord loveth, He chasteneth,
And scourgeth every son whom He receiveth.

As the poets in different languages have
expressed it:

Though the mills of God grind slowly,
Yet they grind exceeding small ;

Though with patience He stands waiting,
With exactness grinds He all.

Though the divine rebuke is effectual to the
pulling down of sin's strongholds, it may stir
the human heart to resist Truth, before this
heart becomes obediently receptive of the
heavenly discipline. If the Christian Scientist
recognize the mingled sternness and gentleness
which permeate justice and love, he will not
scorn the timely reproof, but will so absorb it
that this warning will be within him a spring,
welling up into unceasing spiritual rise and
progress. Patience and obedience, win the
golden scholarship of experimental tuition.

98 RETROSPECTION" AND INTROSPECTION.

The kindly shepherd of the East carries his
lambs in his arms to the sheepcot, but the older
sheep pass into the fold under his compelling
rod. He who sees the door and turns away
from it, is guilty, while innocence strayeth
yearningly.

There is no greater miracles known to earth,
than perfection, and an unbroken friendship.
We love our friends, but ofttimes we lose them
in proportion to our affection. The sacrifices
made for others are not unfrequently met by
envy, ingratitude, and enmity, which smite the
heart, and threaten to paralyze its beneficence.
The unavailing tear is shed both for the living
and the dead.

Nothing except sin, in the students them-
selves, can separate them from me. There-
fore we should guard thought and action,
keeping them in accord with Christ, and our
friendship will surely continue.

The letter of the law of God, separated from
its Spirit, tends to demoralize mortals, apd
must be corrected by a diviner sense of liberty

ADMONITION. 99

and light. The spirit of Truth extinguishes
false thinking, feeling, and acting ; and falsity
must thus decay, ere spiritual sense, affectional
consciousness, and genuine goodness become so
apparent as to be well understood.

After the supreme advent of Truth in the
heart, there comes an overwhelming sense of
error's vacuity, of the blunders which arise
from wrong apprehension. The enlightened
heart loaths error, and casts it aside; or else
that heart is consciously untrue to the light,
faithless to itself and to others, and so sinks
into deeper darkness. Said Jesus: "If the
light that is in thee be darkness, how great is
that darkness ! " and Shakespeare puts this
pious counsel into a father's mouth:

This above all : To thine own self be true ;
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.

A realization of the shifting scenes of human
happiness, and of the frailty of mortal anticipa-
tions, — such as first led me to the feet of
Christian Science, — seems to be requisite at

100 RETROSPECTION AND INTROSPECTION.

every stage of advancement. Though our first
lessons are changed, modified, broadened, yet
their core is constantly renewed; as the law
of the chord remains unchanged, whether we
are dealing with a simple Latour exercise, or
with the vast Wagner Trilogy.

A general rule is, that my students should
not allow their movements to be controlled by
other students, even if they are teachers and
practitioners of the same blessed faith. The
exception to this rule should be very rare.

The widest power and strongest growth have
always been attained by those loyal students
who rest on divine Principle for guidance, not
on themselves, and who locate permanently in
one section, and adhere to the orderly methods
herein delineated.

At this period my students should locate in
large cities, in order to do the greatest good to
the greatest number, and therein abide. The
population of our principal cities is ample to
supply many practitioners, teachers, and preach-
ers, with work. This fact interferes in no way

ADMONITION. 101

with, the prosperity of each worker; rather does
it represent an accumulation of power ori his
side which promotes the ease and welfare of the
workers. Their liberated capacities of mind en-
able Christian Scientists to consummate much
good or else evil; therefore, their examples
either excel or fall short of other religionists ;
and they must be found dwelling together in
harmony if even they compete with ecclesias-
tical fellowship and friendship.

It is often asked, which revision of Science
and Health is the best? The arrangement
of my last revision, in 1890, makes the subject
matter clearer than any previous edition, and
it is therefore better adapted to spiritualize
thought and elucidate Scientific healing and
teaching. It has already been proven that this
volume is accomplishing the divine purpose to
a remarkable degree. The wise Christian
Scientist will commend students and patients
to the teachings of this book, and the healing
efficacy thereof, rather than try to centre their
interest on himself.

102 RETROSPECTION AND INTROSPECTION.

Students whom I have taught, are seldom
benefitted by the teachings of other students,
for scientific foundations are already laid in
their minds which ought not to be tampered
with. Also, they are prepared to receive the
infinite instructions afforded by the Bible, and
my books, which mislead no one, and are their
best guides.

The student may mistake in his conception
of Truth, and this error, in an honest heart, is
sure to be corrected. But if he misinterprets
the text to his pupils, and communicates, even
unintentionally, his misconception of Truth,
thereafter he will find it more difficult to
rekindle his own light, or to enlighten them.
Hence, as a rule, the student should explain
only Recapitulation, the chapter for the class-
room, and leave Science and Health to God's
daily interpretation.

Christian Scientists should take their text-
book into the school-room the same as other
teachers ; they should ask questions from it, and
be answered according to it, — occasionally

ADMONITION. 103

reading aloud from the book to corroborate what
they teach. It is also highly important that
their pupils study each lesson before the
recitation.

That these essential points are ever omitted,
is anomalous, when we consider the necessity of
thoroughly understanding Science, and the
present liability of deviating from absolute
Christian Science.

Centuries will intervene before the statement
of the inexhaustible topics of Science and
Health is sufficiently understood to be fully
demonstrated.

The teacher himself should continue to study
this text-book, and to spiritualize his own
thoughts and human life from this open fount
of Truth and Love.

He who sees clearly and enlightens other
minds most readily, keeps his own lamp trimmed
and burning. Throughout his entire explana-
tions he strictly adheres to the teachings in the
chapter on " Recapitulation." When closing
the class* each member should own a copy of

104 RETROSPECTION AND INTROSPECTION.

Science and Health, and continue to study
and assimilate this inexhaustible subject —
Christian Science.

The opinions of men cannot be substituted
for God's revelation. In times past, arrogant
pride in attempting to steady the ark of Truth,
obscured even the power and glory of the Scrip-
tures, — to which Science and Health is the
Key.

That teacher does most for his students, who
divests himself most of pride and self ; and by
reason thereof, is able to empty his students'
minds of error that they may be filled with
Truth. Thus doing, posterity will call him
blessed, and the tired tongue of history be
enriched.

The less the teacher personally controls other
minds, and the more he trusts them to the divine
Truth and Love, the better it will be for both
teacher and student.

A teacher should only take charge of his own
pupils and patients, and of those who volun-
tarily place themselves under his direction ; he

ADMONITION. 105

should avoid leaving his own regular institute,
or place of labor, or expending his labor where
there are other teachers who should be specially
responsible for doing their own work well.

Teachers of Christian Science will find it
advisable to band together their students into
associations, to continue the organization of
churches, and at present they can employ any
other organic operative method that may com-
mend itself as useful to the cause and beneficial
to mankind.

Of this, also, rest assured that books and
teaching are but a ladder let down from the
Heaven of Truth and Love, upon which angelic
thoughts ascend and descend, bearing on their
pinions of light the Christ Spirit.

Guard yourselves against the subtly hidden
suggestion that the Son of Man will be glorified,
or humanity benefitted, by any deviation from
the order prescribed by supernal grace. Seek
to occupy no position whereto you do not feel
that God ordains you. Never forsake your post
without due deliberation and light, but always

106 RETROSPECTION AND INTROSPECTION.

wait for God's finger to point the way. The
loyal Christian Scientist is incapable alike of
abusing the practice of Mind-healing, or of
healing on a material basis.

The tempter is vigilant, only awaiting an
opportunity to divide the ranks of Christian
Science, and scatter the sheep abroad; but "if
God be for us, who can be against us ? " The
cause, our cause, is highly prosperous, rapidly
spreading over the globe ; and the morrow will
crown the effort of to-day with a diadem of
gems from the New Jerusalem.

Exemplification

TT70 energize wholesome spiritual warfare, to
rebuke vainglory, to offset boastful empti-
ness, to crown patient toil, and rejoice in the
spirit and power of Christian Science, we must
ourselves be true. There is but one way of
doing good, and that is to do it! There is but
one way of being good, and that is to be
good !

Art thou still unacquainted with thyself?
Then be introduced to this self. " Know thy-
self! " as said the classic Grecian motto. Note
well the falsity of this mortal self! Behold its
vileness, and remember this poverty-stricken
"stranger, that is within thy gates." Cleanse
every stain from this wanderer's soiled gar-
ments, wipe the dust from his feet and the tears
from his eyes, that you may behold the real
man, the fellow-saint of a holy household.
There should be no blot on the escutcheon of
our Christliness, when we offer our gift upon
the altar.

107

108 RETROSPECTION AND INTROSPECTION.

A student desiring growth in the knowledge
of Truth, can and will obtain it by taking up
his cross, and following Truth. If he does this
not, and another one undertakes to carry his
burden and do his work, the duty will not be
accomplished. No one can save himself without
God's help, and God will help each man who
performs his own part. After this manner, and
in no other way is every man cared for and
blessed. To the unwise helper our Master
said, " Follow me, and let the dead bury their
dead."

The poet's line, "Order is Heaven's first
law," is so eternally true, so axiomatic, that
it has become a truism ; and its wisdom is as
obvious in religion and scholarship, as in
astronomy or mathematics.

Experience has taught me that the rules of
Christian Science can be far more thoroughly
and readily acquired by regularly settled and
systematic workers, than by unsettled and spas-
modic efforts. Genuine Christian Scientists
are, or should be, the most systematic and law-

EXEMPLIFICATION. 109

abiding people on earth, because their religion
demands implicit adherence to fixed rules, in
the orderly demonstration thereof. Let some
of these rules be here stated.

I. Christian Scientists are to "heal the sick "
as the Master commanded.

In so doing they must follow the divine
order, as prescribed by Jesus, — never, in any
way, to trespass upon the rights of their
neighbors, but to obey the celestial injunction,
"Whatsoever ye would that men should do to
you, do ye even so to them."

In this orderly Scientific dispensation healers
become a law unto themselves. They feel
their own burdens less, and can therefore bear
the weight of others' burdens, since it is only
through the lens of their unselfishness that the
sunshine of Truth, beams with such efficacy as
to dissolve error.

It is already understood that Christian Scien-
tists will not receive a patient who is under the
care of a regular physician, until he is done
with the case and different aid is sought. The

110 RETROSPECTION AND INTROSPECTION.

same courtesy should be observed in the profes-
sional intercourse of Christian Science healers
with one another.

II. Another command of the Christ, his prime
command, was that his followers should "raise
the dead." He lifted his own body from the
sepulchre. In him, Truth called the physical
man from the tomb to health, and the so-called
dead forthwith emerged into a higher manifesta-
tion of Life.

The spiritual significance of this command,
" Raise the dead, " most concerns mankind. It
implies such an elevation of the understanding
as will enable thought to apprehend the living
beauty of Love, its practicality, its divine
energies, its health-giving and Life-bestowing
qualities, — yea, its power to demonstrate im-
mortality. This end Jesus achieved, both by
example and precept.

III. This leads inevitably to a consideration
of another part of Christian Science work, — a
part which concerns us intimately, — preaching
the Gospel.

EXEMPLIFICATION. Ill

This Evangelistic duty should not be so
warped as to signify that we must or may go,
uninvited, to work in other vineyards than our
own. One would, or should, blush to enter
unasked another's pulpit, and preach without
the consent of the stated occupant of that pul-
pit. The Lord's command means this, — that
we should adopt the spirit of the Saviour's
ministry, and abide in such a spiritual attitude
as will draw men unto us. Itinerancy should
not be allowed to clip the wings of Divine
Science. Mind demonstrates omnipresence and
omnipotence, but Mind revolves on a spiritual
axis, and its power is displayed and its pres-
ence felt in eternal stillness and immovable
Love. The divine potency of this spiritual
mode of Mind, and the hindrance opposed to it
by material motion, is proven beyond a doubt in
the practice of Mind-healing.

In those days preaching and teaching were
substantially one. There was no church preach-
ing, in the modern sense of the term. Men
assembled in the one Temple (at Jerusalem)

112 RETROSPECTION" AND INTROSPECTION.

for sacrificial ceremonies, not for sermons.
Into the synagogues, scattered about in cities
and villages, they went for liturgical worship,
and instruction in the Mosaic Law. If one wor-
shipper preached to the others, he did so in-
formally, and because he was bidden to this
privileged duty at that particular moment. It
was the custom to pay this hortatory compli-
ment to a stranger, or to a member who had
been away from the neighborhood; as Jesus was
once asked to exhort, when he had been some
time absent from Nazareth, but once again
entered the synagogue which he had frequented
in childhood.

Jesus' method was to instruct his own stu-
dents; and he watched and guarded them unto
the end, even according to his promise, "Lo, I
am with you alway!" Nowhere in the four
Evangelists will Christian Scientists find any
precedent for employing another student to
take charge of their students, or for neglecting
their own students, in order to enlarge their
sphere of action.

EXEMPLIFICATION. 113

Above all trespass not intentionally upon
other people's thoughts, by endeavoring to in-
fluence other minds to any action not first made
known to them, or sought by them. Corporeal
and selfish influence is human, fallible, and
temporary ; but incorporeal impulsion is divine,
infallible, and eternal. The student should be
most careful not to thrust aside Science, and
shade God's window which lets in light, or
seek to stand in God's stead.

Does the faithful shepherd forsake the lambs,
retaining his salary for tending the home flock,
while he is serving another fold? There is no
evidence to show that Jesus ever entered the
towns whither he sent his disciples, — no evi-
dence that he there taught a few hungry ones,
and then left them to starve or to stray. To
these selected ones (like " the elect lady " to
whom Saint John addressed one of his epistles)
he gave personal instruction, and gave in plain
words, until they were able to fulfil his behest
and depart on their united pilgrimages. This
he did, even though one of the twelve whom

114 RETROSPECTION AND INTROSPECTION.

he kept near himself betrayed him, and others
forsook him.

The true mother never willingly neglects her
children in their early and sacred hours, con-
signing them to the care of nurse or stranger.
Who can feel and comprehend the needs of her
babe like the ardent mother ? What other heart
yearns with her solicitude, endures with her
patience, waits with her hope, and labors with
her love, to promote the welfare and happi-
ness of her children? Thus must the Mother
in Israel give all her hours to those first, sacred
tasks, till her children can walk steadfastly in
wisdom's ways.

One of my students wrote to me : "I believe
the proper thing for us to do is to follow, as
nearly as we can, in the path you have pur-
sued ! " It is gladdening to find, in such a
student, one of the children of light. " There-
fore leave with Good the government of man.
Again strive not to shade God's window
which lets in light, or seek to stand in God's
stead."

EXEMPLIFICATION.

115

The parable of the Prodigal Son is rightly
called the Pearl of Parables, and our Master's
greatest utterance may well be called the Dia-
mond Sermon. No purer and more exalted
teachings ever fell upon human ears than those
contained in what is commonly known as the
Sermon on the Mount, — though this name has
been given it by compilers and translators of
the Bible, and not by the Master himself, or by
the Scripture authors. Indeed, this title really
indicates more the Master's mood, than the
material locality.

Where did Jesus deliver this great lesson —
or, rather, this series of great lessons — on
humanity and divinity? On a hillside, near
the sloping shores of the Lake of Galilee, where
he spake primarily to his immediate disciples.

In this simplicity, and with such fidelity,
we see Jesus ministering to the spiritual needs
of all who placed themselves under his care,
always leading them into the divine order,
under the sway of his own perfect understand-
ing. His power over others was spiritual, not

116 RETROSPECTION AND INTROSPECTION.

corporeal. To the students, whom he had
chosen, his immortal teaching was the bread of
Life. When he was with them, a fishing-boat
became a sanctuary, and the solitude was peo-
pled with holy messages from the All-Father.
The grove became his classroom, and nature's
haunts were the Messiah's university.

What has this hillside priest, this, seaside
teacher, done for the human race ? Ask, rather,
what he has not done? His holy humility,
unworldliness, and self-abandonment wrought
infinite results. The method of his religion
was not too simple to be sublime, nor was his
power so exalted as to be unavailable for the
needs of suffering mortals, whose wounds he
healed by Truth and Love.

His order of ministration, was "first the
blade, then the ear, after that the full corn in
the ear." May we unloose the latchets of his
Christliness, inherit his legacy of love, and
reach the fruition of his promise : " If ye abide
in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask
what ye will, and it shall be done unto you."

Way JVlarks*

TN the first century of the Christian era Jesus
went about doing good. The evangelists of
those days wandered about. Christ, or the
spiritual idea, appeared to human consciousness
as the man Jesus. At the present epoch the
human concept of Christ is based on the incor-
poreal divine Principle of man, and Science has
elevated this idea, and established its rules in
consonance with their Principle. Hear this
saying of our Master, "And I, if I be lifted up
from the earth, will draw all men unto me."

The ideal of God is no longer impersonated
as a waif, or wanderer; and Truth is not frag-
mentary, disconnected, unsystematic, but con-
centrated and immovably fixed in Principle.
The best spiritual type of Christly method
for uplifting human thought and imparting
divine Truth, is stationary power, stillness,
and strength; and when this spiritual ideal
is made our own, it becomes the model for
human action.

117

118 RETROSPECTION AND INTROSPECTION.

Saint Paul said to the Athenians, "For in
Him we live, and move, and have our Being."
This statement is in substance identical with
my own : " There is no life, substance or intelli-
gence in matter." It is quite clear that as yet
this grandest verity has not been fully demon-
strated, but it is nevertheless true. If Christian
Science reiterates Saint Paul's teaching, we,
as Christian Scientists, should give to the world
convincing proof of the validity of this Scientific
statement of Being. Having perceived, in ad-
vance of others, this Scientific fact, we owe to
ourselves and to the world a struggle for its
demonstration.

At some period and in some way the conclu-
sion must be met that whatsoever seems true,
and yet contradicts Divine Science and Saint
Paul's text, must be, and is, false ; and that what-
soever seems to be good, and yet errs, though
acknowledging the true way, is really evil.

As dross is separated from gold, so Christ's
baptism of fire, his purification through suffer-
ing, consumes whatsoever is of sin. Therefore

WAY MARKS.

119

this purgation of divine mercy, destroying all
error, leaves no flesh, no matter, to the mental
consciousness.

When all fleshly belief is annihilated, and
every spot and blemish on the disk of conscious-
ness is removed, then, and not till then, will
immortal Truth be found true, and Scientific
teaching, preaching, and practice be essentially
one. " Happy is he that condemneth not himself
in that thing which he alio we th, . . . for what-
soever is not of faith is sin." Romans xiv.
22, 23.

There is no " lo ! here and lo there " in Divine
Science, its manifestation must be "the same
yesterday, and to day, and forever," since Sci-
ence is eternally one, and unchanging, in Prin-
ciple, rule, and demonstration.

I am persuaded that only by the modesty and
distinguishing affection illustrated in Jesus'
career, can Christian Scientists aid the establish-
ment of Christ's Kingdom on the earth. In the
first century of the Christian era Jesus' teachings
bore much fruit, and the Father was glorified

120 RETROSPECTION AND INTROSPECTION.

therein. In this period and the forthcoming
centuries, watered by dews of Divine Science,
this Tree of Life will blossom into greater free-
dom and its leaves will be "for the healing of
the nations."

Ask God to give thee skill

In comfort's art:
That thou may'st consecrated be

And set apart
Unto a life of sympathy.
For heavy is the weight of ill

In every heart;
And comforters are needed much

Of Christ-like touch.

— A. E. Hamilton.

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