for example, Cain and Abel, Law and Gospel, Saul and Paul. He believed that the Bible was never intended as a religious book in the common acceptance of the term, it “has nothing to do with theology,” but contains a “scientific” explanation of cause and effect, showing how man must act and think for his happiness. Thus the account of creation pertains to man's spiritual development, not to the production of a literal earth. Dr. Quimby also expounded many passages in the New Testament so as to free his patients from a literal view and show that Jesus' sayings implied “the Christ within” or true healing principle. Thus he set the example followed by all his adherents who have found a key to the Scriptures in spiritual interpretation.
[It will be noticed that statements appear from time to time in the foregoing selections from which it would be easy to make the inferences on which “Christian Science” ordinarily so-called was based. For example, in “Questions and Answers” we read, “There is no wisdom in matter,” and that the truth or understanding on which Quimby bases his teaching “is God, . . . for in that there is no matter; and so to understand is Wisdom, not matter.” Matter is said to be merely “an idea” or “shadow.” Combine these statements with the proposition that “matter contains no life or intelligence” and that life or intelligence is to be attributed to God only, and it is only a step to infer that “all is mind, there is no matter”—that is, no matter in God. Matter comes into view when it is a question of opinions or errors which take shape according to our allegiance to them, our bondage to the mind of opinions—called by Mrs. Eddy “mortal mind.” Dr. Quimby did not deny the existence of matter as an expression of mind. But he did say that there is “no matter in God.” Hence it is legitimate to say in that connection: “all is mind, there is no matter.”
[Again, we find Quimby saying, “The Science of Health which I teach was practised by Jesus. . . . His Science or Christ put man in tune.” “This knowledge which I put in practice is the Science of Health.” He also refers to the “Principle that never moves, the foundation of all things.” God to Quimby was this “Principle” which Jesus taught as “the Christ.” Here we have the origin of the term “Science and Health,” and the other terms on which the later “Christian Science” was founded. This Science was to
