Retrospection and Introspection/The Great Revelation
THE GREAT REVELATION
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 the antipodes of Life, or God, and of health and holiness, both in idea and demonstration.
Christian Science reveals Mind, the only living and true God, and all that is made by Him, Mind, as harmonious, immortal, and spiritual: the five material senses define Mind and matter as distinct, but mutually dependent, each on the other, for intelligence and existence. Science defines man as immortal, as coexistent and coeternal with God, as made in His own image and likeness; material sense defines life as something apart from God, beginning and ending, and man as very far from the divine likeness. Science reveals Life as a complete sphere, as eternal, self-existent Mind; material sense defines life as a broken sphere, as organized matter, and mind as something separate from God. Science reveals Spirit as All, averring that there is nothing beside God; material sense says that matter, His antipode, is something besides God. Material sense adds that the divine Spirit created matter, and that matter and evil are as real as Spirit and good.
Christian Science reveals God and His idea as the All and Only. It declares that evil is the absence of good; whereas, good is God ever-present, and therefore evil is unreal and good is all that is real. Christian Science saith to the wave and storm, “Be still,” and there is a great calm. Material sense asks, in its ignorance of Science, “When will the raging of the material elements cease?” Science saith to all manner of disease, “Know that God is all-power and all-presence, and there is nothing beside Him;” and the sick are healed. Material sense saith, “Oh, when will my sufferings cease? Where is God? Sickness is something besides Him, which He cannot, or does not, heal.”
Christian Science is the only sure basis of harmony. Material sense contradicts Science, for matter and its so-called organizations take no cognizance of the spiritual facts of the universe, or of the real man and God. Christian Science declares that there is but one Truth, Life, Love, but one Spirit, Mind, Soul. Any attempt to divide these arises from the fallibility of sense, from mortal man's ignorance, from enmity to God and divine Science.
Christian Science declares that sickness is a belief, a latent fear, made manifest on the body in different forms of fear or disease. This fear is formed unconsciously in the silent thought, as when you awaken from sleep and feel ill, experiencing the effect of a fear whose existence you do not realize; but if you fall asleep, actually conscious of the truth of Christian Science, — namely, that man's harmony is no more to be invaded than the rhythm of the universe, — you cannot awake in fear or suffering of any sort.
Science saith to fear, “You are the cause of all sickness; but you are a self-constituted falsity, — you are darkness, nothingness. You are without ‘hope, and without God in the world.’ You do not exist, and have no right to exist, for ‘perfect Love casteth out fear.’ ”
God is everywhere. “There is no speech nor language, where their voice is not heard;” and this voice is Truth that destroys error and Love that casts out fear.
Christian Science reveals the fact that, if suffering exists, it is in the mortal mind only, for matter has no sensation and cannot suffer.
If you rule out every sense of disease and suffering from mortal mind, it cannot be found in the body.
Posterity will have the right to demand that Christian Science be stated and demonstrated in its godliness and grandeur, — that however little be taught or learned, that little shall be right. Let there be milk for babes, but let not the milk be adulterated. Unless this method be pursued, the Science of Christian healing will again be lost, and human suffering will increase.
Test Christian Science by its effect on society, and you will find that the views here set forth — as to the illusion of sin, sickness, and death — bring forth better fruits of health, righteousness, and Life, than a belief in their reality has ever done. A demonstration of the unreality of evil destroys evil.