either presuppose the self-evolution and self-government of matter; or else they assume that matter is the product of Spirit. To seize the first horn of this dilemma, and consider matter as a power in and of itself, is to leave the Creator out of his own universe; while to grasp the other horn of the dilemma, and regard God as the Creator of matter, is not only to make Him responsible for all disasters, physical and moral, but to announce Him as their source, and so make Him guilty of maintaining perpetual misrule, in the form and under the name of natural law.
In one sense God is identical with nature; but this nature is spiritual and not expressed in matter. The God and nature. law-giver, whose lightning palsies or prostrates in death the child at prayer, is not the divine ideal of omnipresent Love. God is natural Good, and is represented only by the idea of goodness; while evil should be regarded as unnatural, because it is opposed to the nature of Spirit, God.
Christian Science reverses the seeming relation of Soul and body, — as astronomy reverses the human The sun and Soul. perception of the movement of the solar system, — and makes body tributary to Mind. As it is the earth which is in motion, while the sun is at rest, though in viewing the sunrise one finds it impossible to believe the sun not to be really rising, so the body is but the humble servant of the restful Mind, though it seems otherwise to finite sense; but we shall never understand this while we admit that soul is in body, or mind in matter, and that man is included in non-intelligence. Soul is God, unchangeable and eternal; and man co-exists with and reflects Soul.
