Page:Science and Health.djvu/201

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SPIRIT AND MATTER.
197

leadeth not into the guest-chamber of Wisdom; ye cannot enter now.” Our unimproved opportunities gone, are not easily reproduced; nor can we borrow Wisdom, therefore we must then learn from suffering. The hour of darkness will come to those who improve not the preparatory school of the present, to fit them for the future, but would step suddenly into all the benefits of experience; alas! what were the science of being to them in that hour?—a blessing? yea, a blessing infinite. The dream of Life in matter, based on the evidence of personal sense, will vanish ere long, when we would gladly turn from its fading vision and the pains of sense, to peace and immortality; but the accumulated error of years dies slowly, and sometimes with severe struggles. As a general rule, man will not seek Truth until suffering shows him the need he has of it, or science opens the eyes of his understanding to see it; for science guides man safely over the quicksands and shoals, making Life what it is, harmony, and not discord. Personal sense is a broken reed that leaves man to fall to the earth; but science raises him up to the resources within himself. The very logic of Truth declares the higher and more enduring claims of Spirit over matter in all our experiences, showing that something besides the body, and perishable things of earth, demand our care and must furnish our support. Soul is heard above the din of sense, saying to error, “Depart from me, ye that work iniquity.” Man should obey the voice of Wisdom outside his body, that calls him away from a sense or contemplation of sickness, sin, and death, to harmony, health, and Life.

It is not from matter, personal sense, or from doc-