Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy (universal ebook reader .TXT) 📖

being;

that God never decreed disease, - never ordained a law

that fasting should be a means of health. Hence semi-221:21 starvation is not acceptable to wisdom, and it is equally

far from Science, in which being is sustained by God, Mind.

These truths, opening his eyes, relieved his stomach, and 221:24 he ate without suffering, “giving God thanks;” but he

never enjoyed his food as he had imagined he would

when, still the slave of matter, he thought of the flesh-221:27 pots of Egypt, feeling childhood’s hunger and undisciplined by self-denial and divine Science.

 

Mind and stomach

 

This new-born understanding, that neither food nor 221:30 the stomach, without the consent of mortal

mind, can make one suffer, brings with it another lesson, - that gluttony is a sensual illusion, and 222:1 that this phantasm of mortal mind disappears as we better

apprehend our spiritual existence and ascend the ladder 222:3 of life.

 

This person learned that food affects the body only

as mortal mind has its material methods of working, one 222:6 of which is to believe that proper food supplies nutriment

and strength to the human system. He learned also that

mortal mind makes a mortal body, whereas Truth re-222:9 generates this fleshly mind and feeds thought with the

bread of Life.

 

Food had less power to help or to hurt him after he 222:12 had availed himself of the fact that Mind governs man,

and he also had less faith in the so-called pleasures and

pains of matter. Taking less thought about what he 222:15 should eat or drink, consulting the stomach less about

the economy of living and God more, he recovered

strength and flesh rapidly. For many years he had 222:18 been kept alive, as was believed, only by the strictest adherence to hygiene and drugs, and yet he continued ill

all the while. Now he dropped drugs and material 222:21 hygiene, and was well.

 

He learned that a dyspeptic was very far from being

the image and likeness of God, - far from having “do-222:24 minion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the

air, and over the cattle,” if eating a bit of animal flesh

could overpower him. He finally concluded that God 222:27 never made a dyspeptic, while fear, hygiene, physiology,

and physics had made him one, contrary to His commands.

 

Life only in Spirit

 

In seeking a cure for dyspepsia consult matter not at 222:30 all, and eat what is set before you, “asking

no question for conscience sake.” We must

destroy the false belief that life and intelligence are in 223:1 matter, and plant ourselves upon what is pure and perfect. Paul said, “Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not 223:3 fulfil the lust of the flesh.” Sooner or later we shall learn

that the fetters of man’s finite capacity are forged by the

illusion that he lives in body instead of in Soul, in matter 223:6 instead of in Spirit.

 

Soul greater than body

 

Matter does not express Spirit. God is infinite omnipresent Spirit. If Spirit is all and is everywhere, what 223:9 and where is matter? Remember that truth

is greater than error, and we cannot put the

greater into the less. Soul is Spirit, and Spirit is greater 223:12 than body. If Spirit were once within the body, Spirit

would be finite, and therefore could not be Spirit.

 

The question of the ages

 

The question, “What is Truth,” convulses the world. 223:15 Many are ready to meet this inquiry with the assurance

which comes of understanding; but more are

blinded by their old illusions, and try to “give 223:18 it pause.” “If the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into

the ditch.”

 

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

They will emancipate humanity, and supplant unscientific 223:24 means and so-called laws.

 

Heralds of Science

 

Peals that should startle the slumbering thought from

its erroneous dream are partially unheeded; but the last 223:27 trump has not sounded, or this would not be

so. Marvels, calamities, and sin will much

more abound as truth urges upon mortals its resisted 223:30 claims; but the awful daring of sin destroys sin, and

foreshadows the triumph of truth. God will over—

turn, until “He come whose right it is.” Longevity 224:1 is increasing and the power of sin diminishing, for the,

world feels the alterative effect of truth through every 224:3 pore.

 

As the crude footprints of the past disappear from the

dissolving paths of the present, we shall better understand 224:6 the Science which governs these changes, and shall plant

our feet on firmer ground. Every sensuous pleasure or

pain is self-destroyed through suffering. There should 224:9 be painless progress, attended by life and peace instead

of discord and death.

 

Sectarianism and opposition

 

In the record of nineteen centuries, there are sects 224:12 many but not enough Christianity. Centuries ago religionists were ready to hail an anthropomorphic God, and array His vicegerent with pomp 224:15 and splendor; but this was not the manner

of truth’s appearing. Of old the cross was truth’s central sign, and it is to-day. The modern lash is less 224:18 material than the Roman scourge, but it is equally as

cutting. Cold disdain, stubborn resistance, opposition

from church, state laws, and the press, are still the har-224:21 bingers of truth’s full-orbed appearing.

 

A higher and more practical Christianity, demonstrating justice and meeting the needs of mortals in sickness 224:24 and in health, stands at the door of this age, knocking

for admission. Will you open or close the door upon this

angel visitant, who cometh in the quiet of meekness, as he 224:27 came of old to the patriarch at noonday?

 

Mental emancipation

 

Truth brings the elements of liberty. On its banner

is the Soul-inspired motto, “Slavery is abolished.” The 224:30 power of God brings deliverance to the captive. No power can withstand divine Love.

What is this supposed power, which opposes itself to God? 225:1 Whence cometh it? What is it that binds man with iron

shackles to sin, sickness, and death? Whatever enslaves 225:3 man is opposed to the divine government. Truth makes

man free.

 

Truth’s ordeal

 

You may know when first Truth leads by the few-225:6 ness and faithfulness of its followers. Thus it is that

the march of time bears onward freedom’s

banner. The powers of this world will fight, 225:9 and will command their sentinels not to let truth pass

the guard until it subscribes to their systems; but Science,

heeding not the pointed bayonet, marches on. There is 225:12 always some tumult, but there is a rallying to truth’s

standard.

 

Immortal sentences

 

The history of our country, like all history, illustrates 225:15 the might of Mind, and shows human power to be proportionate to its embodiment of right thinking. A

few immortal sentences, breathing the omnipo-225:18 tence of divine justice, have been potent to break despotic

fetters and abolish the whipping-post and slave market;

but oppression neither went down in blood, nor did the 225:21 breath of freedom come from the cannon’s mouth. Love

is the liberator.

 

Slavery abolished

 

Legally to abolish unpaid servitude in the United 225:24 States was hard; but the abolition of mental slavery is

a more difficult task. The despotic tendencies, inherent in mortal mind and always ger-225:27 minating in new forms of tyranny, must be rooted out

through the action of the divine Mind.

 

Men and women of all climes and races are still in 225:30 bondage to material sense, ignorant how to obtain their

freedom. The rights of man were vindicated in a single

section and on the lowest plane of human life, when Afri-226:1 can slavery was abolished in our land. That was only

prophetic of further steps towards the banishment of a 226:3 world-wide slavery, found on higher planes of existence

and under more subtle and depraving forms.

 

Liberty’s crusade

 

The voice of God in behalf of the African slave was 226:6 still echoing in our land, when the voice of the herald of

this new crusade sounded the keynote of universal freedom, asking a fuller acknowledg-226:9 ment of the rights of man as a Son of God, demanding

that the fetters of sin, sickness, and death be stricken

from the human mind and that its freedom be won, not 226:12 through human warfare, not with bayonet and blood, but

through Christ’s divine Science.

 

Cramping systems

 

God has built a higher platform of human rights, and 226:15 He has built it on diviner claims. These claims are not

made through code or creed, but in demonstration of “on earth peace, good-will toward men.” 226:18 Human codes, scholastic theology, material medicine and

hygiene, fetter faith and spiritual understanding. Divine

Science rends asunder these fetters, and man’s birthright 226:21 of sole allegiance to his Maker asserts itself.

 

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

 

House of bondage

 

The lame, the deaf, the dumb, the blind, the sick, the

sensual, the sinner, I wished to save from the slavery of 226:27 their own beliefs and from the educational

systems of the Pharaohs, who to-day, as of

yore, hold the children of Israel in bondage. I saw be-226:30 fore me the awful conflict, the Red Sea and the wilderness; but I pressed on through faith in God, trusting

Truth, the strong deliverer, to guide me into the land 227:1 of Christian Science, where fetters fall and the rights of

man are fully known and acknowledged.

 

Higher law ends bondage

227:3 I saw that the law of mortal belief included all error,

and that, even as oppressive laws are disputed and mortals are taught their right to freedom, so the 227:6 claims of the enslaving senses must be denied and superseded. The law of the divine Mind must

end human bondage, or mortals will continue unaware 227:9 of man’s inalienable rights and in subjection to hopeless slavery, because some public teachers permit

an ignorance of divine power, - an ignorance that 227:12 is the foundation of continued bondage and of human

suffering.

 

Native freedom

 

Discerning the rights of man, we cannot fail to fore-227:15 see the doom of all oppression. Slavery is not the legitimate state of man. God made man free.

Paul said, “I was free born.” All men should 227:18 be free. “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.” Love and Truth make free, but evil and error

lead into captivity.

 

Standard of liberty

227:21 Christian Science raises the standard of liberty and

cries: “Follow me! Escape from the bondage of sickness, sin, and death!” Jesus marked out the 227:24 way. Citizens of the world, accept the “glorious liberty of the children of God,” and be free! This

is your divine right. The illusion of material sense, not 227:27 divine law, has bound you, entangled your free limbs,

crippled your capacities, enfeebled your body, and de—

faced the tablet of your being.

227:30 If God had instituted material laws to govern man,

disobedience to which would have made man ill, Jesus

would not have disregarded those laws by healing in 228:1 direct opposition to them and in defiance of all material

conditions.

 

No fleshly heredity

228:3 The transmission of disease or of certain idiosyncra—

sies of mortal mind would be impossible if this great fact

of being were learned, - namely, that nothing 228:6 inharmonious can enter being, for Life is God.

Heredity is a prolific subject for mortal belief to pin theories upon; but if we learn that nothing is real but the 228:9