Science and Health, with Key to the Scriptures Part 56

383:6 To do this, the pure and exalting influence of the divine Mind on the body is requisite, and the Christian Scientist takes the best care of his body when he leaves 383:9 it most out of his thought, and, like the Apostle Paul, is "willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be pres- ent with the Lord."

383:12 A hint may be taken from the emigrant, whose filth does not affect his happiness, because mind and body rest on the same basis. To the mind equally gross, dirt 383:15 gives no uneasiness. It is the native element of such a mind, which is symbolized, and not chafed, by its sur- roundings; but impurity and uncleanliness, which do 383:18 not trouble the gross, could not be borne by the refined.

This shows that the mind must be clean to keep the body in proper condition.

Beliefs illusive

383:21 The tobacco-user, eating or smoking poison for half a century, sometimes tells you that the weed preserves his health, but does this make it so? Does his 383:24 a.s.sertion prove the use of tobacco to be a salu- brious habit, and man to be the better for it? Such in- stances only prove the illusive physical effect of a false 383:27 belief, confirming the Scriptural conclusion concerning a man, "As he thinketh in his heart, so is he."

The movement-cure - pinching and pounding the poor 383:30 body, to make it sensibly well when it ought to be in- sensibly so - is another medical mistake, resulting from the common notion that health depends on inert matter 384:1 instead of on Mind. Can matter, or what is termed matter, either feel or act without mind?

Corporeal penalties

384:3 We should relieve our minds from the depressing thought that we have transgressed a material law and must of necessity pay the penalty. Let us rea.s.sure 384:6 ourselves with the law of Love. G.o.d never punishes man for doing right, for honest labor, or for deeds of kindness, though they expose him to fatigue, 384:9 cold, heat, contagion. If man seems to incur the penalty through matter, this is but a belief of mortal mind, not an enactment of wisdom, and man has only to enter his 384:12 protest against this belief in order to annul it. Through this action of thought and its results upon the body, the student will prove to himself, by small beginnings, the 384:15 grand verities of Christian Science.

Not matter, but Mind

If exposure to a draught of air while in a state of perspiration is followed by chills, dry cough, influenza, 384:18 congestive symptoms in the lungs, or hints of inflammatory rheumatism, your Mind-remedy is safe and sure. If you are a Christian Scientist, such 384:21 symptoms are not apt to follow exposure; but if you believe in laws of matter and their fatal effects when transgressed, you are not fit to conduct your own case or 384:24 to destroy the bad effects of your belief. When the fear subsides and the conviction abides that you have broken no law, neither rheumatism, consumption, nor any other 384:27 disease will ever result from exposure to the weather. In Science this is an established fact which all the evidence before the senses can never overrule.

Benefit of philanthropy

384:30 Sickness, sin, and death must at length quail before the divine rights of intelligence, and then the power of Mind over the entire functions and organs of the 385:1 human system will be acknowledged. It is proverbial that Florence Nightingale and other philanthropists en- 385:3 gaged in humane labors have been able to undergo without sinking fatigues and expo- sures which ordinary people could not endure. The ex- 385:6 planation lies in the support which they derived from the divine law, rising above the human. The spiritual demand, quelling the material, supplies energy and en- 385:9 durance surpa.s.sing all other aids, and forestalls the penalty which our beliefs would attach to our best deeds. Let us remember that the eternal law of right, 385:12 though it can never annul the law which makes sin its own executioner, exempts man from all penalties but those due for wrong-doing.

Honest toil has no penalty

385:15 Constant toil, deprivations, exposures, and all untow- ard conditions, _if without sin_, can be experienced with- out suffering. Whatever it is your duty to do, 385:18 you can do without harm to yourself. If you sprain the muscles or wound the flesh, your remedy is at hand. Mind decides whether or not the 385:21 flesh shall be discolored, painful, swollen, and inflamed.

Our sleep and food

You say that you have not slept well or have overeaten.

You are a law unto yourself. Saying this and believing 385:24 it, you will suffer in proportion to your belief and fear. Your sufferings are not the penalty for having broken a law of matter, for it is a law of mortal 385:27 mind which you have disobeyed. You say or think, be- cause you have partaken of salt fish, that you must be thirsty, and you are thirsty accordingly, while the oppo- 385:30 site belief would produce the opposite result.

Doubtful evidence

Any supposed information, coming from the body or from inert matter as if either were intelligent, is an illu- 386:1 sion of mortal mind, - one of its dreams. Realize that the evidence of the senses is not to be accepted 386:3 in the case of sickness, any more than it is in the case of sin.

Climate and belief

Expose the body to certain temperatures, and belief 386:6 says that you may catch cold and have catarrh; but no such result occurs without mind to demand it and produce it. So long as mortals declare 386:9 that certain states of the atmosphere produce catarrh, fever, rheumatism, or consumption, those effects will follow, - not because of the climate, but on account of 386:12 the belief. The author has in too many instances healed disease through the action of Truth on the minds of mor- tals, and the corresponding effects of Truth on the body, 386:15 not to know that this is so.

Erroneous despatch

A blundering despatch, mistakenly announcing the death of a friend, occasions the same grief that the friend's 386:18 real death would bring. You think that your anguish is occasioned by your loss. Another despatch, correcting the mistake, heals your grief, and 386:21 you learn that your suffering was merely the result of your belief. Thus it is with all sorrow, sickness, and death. You will learn at length that there is no cause 386:24 for grief, and divine wisdom will then be understood.

Error, not Truth, produces all the suffering on earth.

Mourning causeless

If a Christian Scientist had said, while you were labor- 386:27 ing under the influence of the belief of grief, "Your sor- row is without cause," you would not have understood him, although the correctness of 386:30 the a.s.sertion might afterwards be proved to you. So, when our friends pa.s.s from our sight and we lament, that lamentation is needless and causeless. We shall 387:1 perceive this to be true when we grow into the under- standing of Life, and know that there is no death.

Mind heals brain-disease

387:3 Because mortal mind is kept active, must it pay the penalty in a softened brain? Who dares to say that actual Mind can be overworked? When we reach 387:6 our limits of mental endurance, we conclude that intellectual labor has been carried sufficiently far; but when we realize that immortal Mind is ever active, 387:9 and that spiritual energies can neither wear out nor can so-called material law trespa.s.s upon G.o.d-given powers and resources, we are able to rest in Truth, refreshed by 387:12 the a.s.surances of immortality, opposed to mortality.

Right never punishable

Our thinkers do not die early because they faithfully perform the natural functions of being. If printers and 387:15 authors have the shortest span of earthly ex- istence, it is not because they occupy the most important posts and perform the most vital functions in 387:18 society. That man does not pay the severest penalty who does the most good. By adhering to the realities of eternal existence, - instead of reading disquisitions on 387:21 the inconsistent supposition that death comes in obedience to the law of life, and that G.o.d punishes man for doing good, - one cannot suffer as the result of any labor of 387:24 love, but grows stronger because of it. It is a law of so- called mortal mind, misnamed matter, which causes all things discordant.

Christian history

387:27 The history of Christianity furnishes sublime proofs of the supporting influence and protecting power bestowed on man by his heavenly Father, omnipotent 387:30 Mind, who gives man faith and understanding whereby to defend himself, not only from temptation, but from bodily suffering.

388:1 The Christian martyrs were prophets of Christian Science. Through the uplifting and consecrating power 388:3 of divine Truth, they obtained a victory over the corpo- real senses, a victory which Science alone can explain.

Stolidity, which is a resisting state of mortal mind, suffers 388:6 less, only because it knows less of material law.

The Apostle John testified to the divine basis of Chris- tian Science, when dire inflictions failed to destroy his 388:9 body. Idolaters, believing in more than one mind, had "G.o.ds many," and thought that they could kill the body with matter, independently of mind.

Sustenance spiritual

388:12 Admit the common hypothesis that food is the nutri- ment of life, and there follows the necessity for another admission in the opposite direction, - that 388:15 food has power to destroy Life, G.o.d, through a deficiency or an excess, a quality or a quant.i.ty. This is a specimen of the ambiguous nature of all material 388:18 health-theories. They are self-contradictory and self-de- structive, const.i.tuting a "kingdom divided against itself,"

which is "brought to desolation." If food was prepared 388:21 by Jesus for his disciples, it cannot destroy life.

G.o.d sustains man

The fact is, food does not affect the absolute Life of man, and this becomes self-evident, when we learn that 388:24 G.o.d is our Life. Because sin and sickness are not qualities of Soul, or Life, we have hope in immortality; but it would be foolish to venture beyond 388:27 our present understanding, foolish to stop eating until we gain perfection and a clear comprehension of the living Spirit. In that perfect day of understanding, we shall 388:30 neither eat to live nor live to eat.

Diet and digestion

If mortals think that food disturbs the harmonious functions of mind and body, either the food or this thought 389:1 must be dispensed with, for the penalty is coupled with the belief. Which shall it be? If this decision be left 389:3 to Christian Science, it will be given in behalf of the control of Mind over this belief and every erroneous belief, or material condition. The less we 389:6 know or think about hygiene, the less we are predisposed to sickness. Recollect that it is not the nerves, not mat- ter, but mortal mind, which reports food as undigested.

389:9 Matter does not inform you of bodily derangements; it is supposed to do so. This pseudo-mental testimony can be destroyed only by the better results of Mind's oppo- 389:12 site evidence.

Scripture rebukes

Our dietetic theories first admit that food sustains the life of man, and then discuss the certainty that food can 389:15 kill man. This false reasoning is rebuked in Scripture by the metaphors about the fount and stream, the tree and its fruit, and the kingdom di- 389:18 vided against itself. If G.o.d has, as prevalent theories maintain, inst.i.tuted laws that food shall support human life, He cannot annul these regulations by an opposite 389:21 law that food shall be inimical to existence.

Ancient confusion

Materialists contradict their own statements. Their belief in material laws and in penalties for their infrac- 389:24 tion is the ancient error that there is fraternity between pain and pleasure, good and evil, G.o.d and Satan. This belief totters to its falling before the 389:27 battle-axe of Science.

A case of convulsions, produced by indigestion, came under my observation. In her belief the woman had 389:30 chronic liver-complaint, and was then suffering from a complication of symptoms connected with this belief. I cured her in a few minutes. One instant she spoke de- 390:1 spairingly of herself. The next minute she said, "My food is all digested, and I should like something more 390:3 to eat."

Ultimate harmony

We cannot deny that Life is self-sustained, and we should never deny the everlasting harmony of Soul, sim- 390:6 ply because, to the mortal senses, there is seem- ing discord. It is our ignorance of G.o.d, the divine Principle, which produces apparent discord, and 390:9 the right understanding of Him restores harmony. Truth will at length compel us all to exchange the pleasures and pains of sense for the joys of Soul.

Unnecessary prostration

390:12 When the first symptoms of disease appear, dispute the testimony of the material senses with divine Science. Let your higher sense of justice destroy the false 390:15 process of mortal opinions which you name law, and then you will not be confined to a sick-room nor laid upon a bed of suffering in payment of the last far- 390:18 thing, the last penalty demanded by error. "Agree with thine adversary quickly, whiles thou art in the way with him." Suffer no claim of sin or of sickness to grow upon 390:21 the thought. Dismiss it with an abiding conviction that it is illegitimate, because you know that G.o.d is no more the author of sickness than He is of sin. You have no 390:24 law of His to support the necessity either of sin or sick- ness, but you have divine authority for denying that neces- sity and healing the sick.

Treatment of disease