Page:Faithhealingchri00buckiala.djvu/286

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272
"CHRISTIAN SCIENCE" AND "MIND CURE"

Post-mortem examinations which exhibit the degeneration of the brain structure are of no importance in the eyes of these professors of dreams.

Fifth Test. The perpetuation of youth and the abolition of death should also be within the range of these magicians.

Baldwin, of Chicago, says:

Man should grow younger as he grows older; the principle is simple. "As we think so are we" is stereotyped. Thoughts and ideas are ever striving for external expression. By keeping the mind young we have a perfect guarantee for continued youthfulness of body. Thought will externalize itself; thus growing thought will ever keep us young. Reliance on drugs makes the mind, consequently the body, prematurely old. This new system will make us younger at seventy than at seventeen, for then we will have more of genuine philosophy.

Mrs. Eddy meets this matter in the style of Jules Verne:

The error of thinking that we are growing old, and the benefits of destroying that illusion, are illustrated in a sketch from the history of an English lady, published in the London "Lancet." Disappointed in love in early years she became insane. She lost all calculation of time. Believing that she still lived in the same hour that parted her from her lover, she took no note of years, but daily stood before the window, watching for his coming. In this mental state she remained young. Having no appearance of age, she literally grew no older. Some American travelers saw her when she was seventy-four, and supposed her a young lady. Not a wrinkle or gray hair appeared, but youth sat gently on cheek and brow. Asked to judge her age, and being unacquainted with her history, each visitor conjectured that she must be under twenty.

That the above should be adduced as proof of anything would be wonderful if the person adducing it had not previously adopted a theory which supersedes the necessity of demonstration. It is important to notice that if the belief had anything to do