Page:Historical Sketch of Christian Science.pdf/23

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HISTORICAL SKETCH OF

ing the Principle of music for the purpose of destroying discord. Principle is right; it is practice that is wrong. Soul is right; it is the flesh that is evil. If Soul is not right, the body can not be. Soul is the synonym of Spirit, God; hence there is but one Soul, and that one is infinite. Man shines by borrowed light; he reflects God as his Mind, and this reflection is Substance, — 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 Intelligence. 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, apart from Him.

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 addition 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 a departure from Life, or God, from health and holiness, both in idea and demonstration.

Human systems of philosophy and religion are departures from Christian Science. Mistaking Principle for person; ingrafting upon one First Cause such opposite effects as good and evil, health and sickness, life and death; making matter the status and rule of Spirit, — such methods can never reach the perfection or demonstration of Metaphysical, or Christian Science.