Science and Health With Key to The Scriptures

M >> Mary Baker Eddy >> Science and Health With Key to The Scriptures

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Kindred tastes, motives, and aspirations are necessary
to the formation of a happy and permanent companion-
60:6 ship. The beautiful in character is also the
good, welding indissolubly the links of affec-
tion. A mother's affection cannot be weaned from her
60:9 child, because the mother-love includes purity and con-
stancy, both of which are immortal. Therefore maternal
affection lives on under whatever difficulties.
60:12 From the logic of events we learn that selfishness
and impurity alone are fleeting, and that wisdom will
ultimately put asunder what she hath not joined
60:15 together.

Centre for affections

Marriage should improve the human species, becoming
a barrier against vice, a protection to woman, strength to
60:18 man, and a centre for the affections. This,
however, in a majority of cases, is not its
present tendency, and why? Because the education of
60:21 the higher nature is neglected, and other considerations,
- passion, frivolous amusements, personal adornment,
display, and pride, - occupy thought.

Spiritual concord

60:24 An ill-attuned ear calls discord harmony, not appreciat-
ing concord. So physical sense, not discerning the true
happiness of being, places it on a false basis.
60:27 Science will correct the discord, and teach us
life's sweeter harmonies.

Soul has infinite resources with which to bless mankind,
60:30 and happiness would be more readily attained and would
be more secure in our keeping, if sought in Soul. Higher
enjoyments alone can satisfy the cravings of immortal
61:1 man. We cannot circumscribe happiness within the
limits of personal sense. The senses confer no real
61:3 enjoyment.

Ascendency of good

The good in human affections must have ascendency
over the evil and the spiritual over the animal, or happi-
61:6 ness will never be won. The attainment of
this celestial condition would improve our
progeny, diminish crime, and give higher aims to ambi-
61:9 tion. Every valley of sin must be exalted, and every
mountain of selfishness be brought low, that the highway
of our God may be prepared in Science. The offspring
61:12 of heavenly-minded parents inherit more intellect, better
balanced minds, and sounder constitutions.

Propensities inherited

If some fortuitous circumstance places promising chil-
61:15 dren in the arms of gross parents, often these beautiful
children early droop and die, like tropical
flowers born amid Alpine snows. If perchance
61:18 they live to become parents in their turn, they may re-
produce in their own helpless little ones the grosser traits
of their ancestors. What hope of happiness, what noble
61:21 ambition, can inspire the child who inherits propensities
that must either be overcome or reduce him to a loath-
some wreck?

61:24 Is not the propagation of the human species a greater
responsibility, a more solemn charge, than the culture of
your garden or the raising of stock to increase your flocks
61:27 and herds? Nothing unworthy of perpetuity should be
transmitted to children.

The formation of mortals must greatly improve to
61:30 advance mankind. The scientific /morale/ of marriage is
spiritual unity. If the propagation of a higher human
species is requisite to reach this goal, then its material con-
62:1 ditions can only be permitted for the purpose of gener-
ating. The foetus must be kept mentally pure and the
62:3 period of gestation have the sanctity of virginity.

The entire education of children should be such as to
form habits of obedience to the moral and spiritual law,
62:6 with which the child can meet and master the belief in so-
called physical laws, a belief which breeds disease.

Inheritance heeded

If parents create in their babes a desire for incessant
62:9 amusement, to be always fed, rocked, tossed, or talked
to, those parents should not, in after years,
complain of their children's fretfulness or fri-
62:12 volity, which the parents themselves have occasioned.
Taking less "thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or
what ye shall drink"; less thought "for your body what
62:15 ye shall put on," will do much more for the health of the
rising generation than you dream. Children should be
allowed to remain children in knowledge, and should
62:18 become men and women only through growth in the
understanding of man's higher nature.

The Mind creative

We must not attribute more and more intelligence
62:21 to matter, but less and less, if we would be wise and
healthy. The divine Mind, which forms the
bud and blossom, will care for the human
62:24 body, even as it clothes the lily; but let no mortal inter-
fere with God's government by thrusting in the laws of
erring, human concepts.

Superior law of Soul

62:27 The higher nature of man is not governed by the lower;
if it were, the order of wisdom would be reversed.
Our false views of life hide eternal harmony,
62:30 and produce the ills of which we complain.
Because mortals believe in material laws and reject the
Science of Mind, this does not make materiality first and
63:1 the superior law of Soul last. You would never think
that flannel was better for warding off pulmonary disease
63:3 than the controlling Mind, if you understood the Science
of being.

Spiritual origin

In Science man is the offspring of Spirit. The beauti-
63:6 ful, good, and pure constitute his ancestry. His origin is
not, like that of mortals, in brute instinct, nor
does he pass through material conditions prior
63:9 to reaching intelligence. Spirit is his primitive and ulti-
mate source of being; God is his Father, and Life is the
law of his being.

The rights of woman

63:12 Civil law establishes very unfair differences between the
rights of the two sexes. Christian Science furnishes no
precedent for such injustice, and civilization
63:15 mitigates it in some measure. Still, it is a
marvel why usage should accord woman less rights than
does either Christian Science or civilization.

Unfair discrimination

63:18 Our laws are not impartial, to say the least, in their
discrimination as to the person, property, and parental
claims of the two sexes. If the elective fran-
63:21 chise for women will remedy the evil with-
out encouraging difficulties of greater magnitude, let us
hope it will be granted. A feasible as well as rational
63:24 means of improvement at present is the elevation of
society in general and the achievement of a nobler
race for legislation, - a race having higher aims and
63:27 motives.

If a dissolute husband deserts his wife, certainly the
wronged, and perchance impoverished, woman should be
63:30 allowed to collect her own wages, enter into business
agreements, hold real estate, deposit funds, and own her
children free from interference.

64:1 Want of uniform justice is a crying evil caused by the
selfishness and inhumanity of man. Our forefathers
64:3 exercised their faith in the direction taught by the Apostle
James, when he said: "Pure religion and undefiled before
God and the Father, is this, To visit the fatherless and
64:6 widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted
from the world."

Benevolence hindered

Pride, envy, or jealousy seems on most occasions to
64:9 be the master of ceremonies, ruling out primitive Chris-
tianity. When a man lends a helping hand
to some noble woman, struggling alone with
64:12 adversity, his wife should not say, "It is never well to
interfere with your neighbor's business." A wife is
sometimes debarred by a covetous domestic tyrant from
64:15 giving the ready aid her sympathy and charity would
afford.

Progressive development

Marriage should signify a union of hearts. Further-
64:18 more, the time cometh of which Jesus spake, when he
declared that in the resurrection there should
be no more marrying nor giving in marriage,
64:21 but man would be as the angels. Then shall Soul re-
joice in its own, in which passion has no part. Then
white-robed purity will unite in one person masculine wis-
64:24 dom and feminine love, spiritual understanding and per-
petual peace.

Until it is learned that God is the Father of all, mar-
64:27 riage will continue. Let not mortals permit a disregard
of law which might lead to a worse state of society than
now exists. Honesty and virtue ensure the stability of
64:30 the marriage covenant. Spirit will ultimately claim its
own, - all that really is, - and the voices of physical
sense will be forever hushed.

Blessing of Christ

65:1 Experience should be the school of virtue, and human
happiness should proceed from man's highest nature.
65:3 May Christ, Truth, be present at every bridal
altar to turn the water into wine and to give to
human life an inspiration by which man's spiritual and
65:6 eternal existence may be discerned.

Righteous foundations

If the foundations of human affection are consistent
with progress, they will be strong and enduring. Divorces
65:9 should warn the age of some fundamental error
in the marriage state. The union of the sexes
suffers fearful discord. To gain Christian Science and its
65:12 harmony, life should be more metaphysically regarded.

Powerless promises

The broadcast powers of evil so conspicuous to-day
show themselves in the materialism and sensualism of
65:15 the age, struggling against the advancing
spiritual era. Beholding the world's lack of
Christianity and the powerlessness of vows to make home
65:18 happy, the human mind will at length demand a higher
affection.

Transition and reform

There will ensue a fermentation over this as over many
65:21 other reforms, until we get at last the clear straining of
truth, and impurity and error are left among
the lees. The fermentation even of fluids is
65:24 not pleasant. An unsettled, transitional stage is never
desirable on its own account. Matrimony, which was once
a fixed fact among us, must lose its present slippery foot-
65:27 ing, and man must find permanence and peace in a more
spiritual adherence.

The mental chemicalization, which has brought con-
65:30 jugal infidelity to the surface, will assuredly throw off
this evil, and marriage will become purer when the scum
is gone.

Thou art right, immortal Shakespeare, great poet of
humanity:
66:3 Sweet are the uses of adversity;
Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous,
Wears yet a precious jewel in his head.

Salutary sorrow

66:6 Trials teach mortals not to lean on a material staff, -
a broken reed, which pierces the heart. We do not
half remember this in the sunshine of joy
66:9 and prosperity. Sorrow is salutary. Through
great tribulation we enter the kingdom. Trials are
proofs of God's care. Spiritual development germi-
66:12 nates not from seed sown in the soil of material hopes,
but when these decay, Love propagates anew the higher
joys of Spirit, which have no taint of earth. Each suc-
66:15 cessive stage of experience unfolds new views of divine
goodness and love.

Amidst gratitude for conjugal felicity, it is well to re-
66:18 member how fleeting are human joys. Amidst conjugal
infelicity, it is well to hope, pray, and wait patiently on
divine wisdom to point out the path.

Patience is wisdom

66:21 Husbands and wives should never separate if there
is no Christian demand for it. It is better to await the
logic of events than for a wife precipitately
66:24 to leave her husband or for a husband to
leave his wife. If one is better than the other, as must
always be the case, the other pre-eminently needs good
66:27 company. Socrates considered patience salutary under
such circumstances, making his Xantippe a discipline for
his philosophy.

The gold and dross

66:30 Sorrow has its reward. It never leaves us
where it found us. The furnace separates
the gold from the dross that the precious metal may
67:1 be graven with the image of God. The cup our Father
hath given, shall we not drink it and learn the lessons
67:3 He teaches?

Weathering the storm

When the ocean is stirred by a storm, then the clouds
lower, the wind shrieks through the tightened shrouds,
67:6 and the waves lift themselves into mountains.
We ask the helmsman: "Do you know your
course? Can you steer safely amid the storm?" He
67:9 answers bravely, but even the dauntless seaman is not
sure of his safety; nautical science is not equal to the
Science of Mind. Yet, acting up to his highest under-
67:12 standing, firm at the post of duty, the mariner works on
and awaits the issue. Thus should we deport ourselves
on the seething ocean of sorrow. Hoping and work-
67:15 ing, one should stick to the wreck, until an irresistible
propulsion precipitates his doom or sunshine gladdens
the troubled sea.

Spiritual power

67:18 The notion that animal natures can possibly give force
to character is too absurd for consideration, when we
remember that through spiritual ascendency
67:21 our Lord and Master healed the sick, raised
the dead, and commanded even the winds and waves to
obey him. Grace and Truth are potent beyond all other
67:24 means and methods.

The lack of spiritual power in the limited demonstration
of popular Christianity does not put to silence the labor
67:27 of centuries. Spiritual, not corporeal, consciousness is
needed. Man delivered from sin, disease, and death
presents the true likeness or spiritual ideal.

Basis of true religion

67:30 Systems of religion and medicine treat of physical pains
and pleasures, but Jesus rebuked the suffering from any
such cause or effect. The epoch approaches when the
68:1 understanding of the truth of being will be the basis of
true religion. At present mortals progress slowly for
68:3 fear of being thought ridiculous. They are
slaves to fashion, pride, and sense. Some-
time we shall learn how Spirit, the great architect, has
68:6 created men and women in Science. We ought to weary
of the fleeting and false and to cherish nothing which
hinders our highest selfhood.

68:9 Jealousy is the grave of affection. The presence of
mistrust, where confidence is due, withers the flowers
of Eden and scatters love's petals to decay. Be not
68:12 in haste to take the vow "until death do us part."
Consider its obligations, its responsibilities, its rela-
tions to your growth and to your influence on other
68:15 lives.

Insanity and agamogenesis

I never knew more than one individual who believed
in agamogenesis; she was unmarried, a lovely charac-
68:18 ter, was suffering from incipient insanity, and
a Christian Scientist cured her. I have named
her case to individuals, when casting my bread upon
68:21 the waters, and it may have caused the good to ponder
and the evil to hatch their silly innuendoes and lies, since
salutary causes sometimes incur these effects. The per-
68:24 petuation of the floral species by bud or cell-division is
evident, but I discredit the belief that agamogenesis
applies to the human species.

God's creation intact

68:27 Christian Science presents unfoldment, not accretion;
it manifests no material growth from molecule to mind,
but an impartation of the divine Mind to man
68:30 and the universe. Proportionately as human
generation ceases, the unbroken links of eternal, har-
monious being will be spiritually discerned; and man,
69:1 not of the earth earthly but coexistent with God, will
appear. The scientific fact that man and the universe
69:3 are evolved from Spirit, and so are spiritual, is as fixed in
divine Science as is the proof that mortals gain the sense
of health only as they lose the sense of sin and disease.
69:6 Mortals can never understand God's creation while believ-
ing that man is a creator. God's children already created
will be cognized only as man finds the truth of being.
69:9 Thus it is that the real, ideal man appears in proportion
as the false and material disappears. No longer to marry
or to be "given in marriage" neither closes man's con-
69:12 tinuity nor his sense of increasing number in God's in-
finite plan. Spiritually to understand that there is but
one creator, God, unfolds all creation, confirms the Scrip-
69:15 tures, brings the sweet assurance of no parting, no pain,
and of man deathless and perfect and eternal.

If Christian Scientists educate their own offspring
69:18 spiritually, they can educate others spiritually and not
conflict with the scientific sense of God's creation. Some
day the child will ask his parent: "Do you keep the First
69:21 Commandment? Do you have one God and creator, or
is man a creator?" If the father replies, "God creates
man through man," the child may ask, "Do you teach
69:24 that Spirit creates materially, or do you declare that
Spirit is infinite, therefore matter is out of the ques-
tion?" Jesus said, "The children of this world marry,
69:27 and are given in marriage: But they which shall be ac-
counted worthy to obtain that world, and the resur-
rection from the dead, neither marry, nor are given in
69:30 marriage."

CHAPTER IV - CHRISTIAN SCIENCE VERSUS SPIRITUALISM

And when they shall say unto you,
Seek unto them that have familiar spirits,
And unto wizards that peep and that mutter;
Should not a people seek unto their God? - ISAIAH.

Verily, verily, I say unto you, If a man keep my saying, he
shall never see death. Then said the Jews unto him, Now we
know that thou hast a devil. - JOHN.

The infinite one Spirit

70:1 MORTAL existence is an enigma. Every day is a
mystery. The testimony of the corporeal senses
70:3 cannot inform us what is real and what is delusive, but
the revelations of Christian Science unlock the treasures
of Truth. Whatever is false or sinful can
70:6 never enter the atmosphere of Spirit. There
is but one Spirit. Man is never God, but spiritual man,
made in God's likeness, reflects God. In this scientific
70:9 reflection the Ego and the Father are inseparable. The
supposition that corporeal beings are spirits, or that there
are good and evil spirits, is a mistake.

Real and unreal identity

70:12 The divine Mind maintains all identities, from a blade
of grass to a star, as distinct and eternal. The
questions are: What are God's identities?
70:15 What is Soul? Does life or soul exist in the thing
formed?

71:1 Nothing is real and eternal, - nothing is Spirit, - but
God and His idea. Evil has no reality. It is neither
71:3 person, place, nor thing, but is simply a belief, an illusion
of material sense.

The identity, or idea, of all reality continues forever;
71:6 but Spirit, or the divine Principle of all, is not /in/ Spirit's
formations. Soul is synonymous with Spirit, God, the
creative, governing, infinite Principle outside of finite form,
71:9 which forms only reflect.

Dream-lessons

Close your eyes, and you may dream that you see a
flower, - that you touch and smell it. Thus you learn
71:12 that the flower is a product of the so-called
mind, a formation of thought rather than of
matter. Close your eyes again, and you may see land-
71:15 scapes, men, and women. Thus you learn that these
also are images, which mortal mind holds and evolves
and which simulate mind, life, and intelligence. From
71:18 dreams also you learn that neither mortal mind nor
matter is the image or likeness of God, and that im-
mortal Mind is not in matter.

Found wanting

71:21 When the Science of Mind is understood, spiritualism
will be found mainly erroneous, having no scientific basis
nor origin, no proof nor power outside of
71:24 human testimony. It is the offspring of the
physical senses. There is no sensuality in Spirit. I never
could believe in spiritualism.

71:27 The basis and structure of spiritualism are alike ma-
terial and physical. Its spirits are so many corporealities,
limited and finite in character and quality. Spiritualism
71:30 therefore presupposes Spirit, which is ever infinite, to be
a corporeal being, a finite form, - a theory contrary to
Christian Science.

72:1 There is but one spiritual existence, - the Life of
which corporeal sense can take no cognizance. The
72:3 divine Principle of man speaks through immortal sense.
If a material body - in other words, mortal, material
sense - were permeated by Spirit, that body would
72:6 disappear to mortal sense, would be deathless. A con-
dition precedent to communion with Spirit is the gain of
spiritual life.
Spirits obsolete

72:9 So-called /spirits/ are but corporeal communicators. As
light destroys darkness and in the place of darkness all
is light, so (in absolute Science) Soul, or God,
72:12 is the only truth-giver to man. Truth de-
stroys mortality, and brings to light immortality. Mortal
belief (the material sense of life) and immortal Truth
72:15 (the spiritual sense) are the tares and the wheat, which
are not united by progress, but separated.

Perfection is not expressed through imperfection.
72:18 Spirit is not made manifest through matter, the anti-
pode of Spirit. Error is not a convenient sieve through
which truth can be strained.

Scientific phenomena

72:21 God, good, being ever present, it follows in divine
logic that evil, the suppositional opposite of good, is never
present. In Science, individual good derived
72:24 from God, the infinite All-in-all, may flow
from the departed to mortals; but evil is neither com-
municable nor scientific. A sinning, earthly mortal is
72:27 not the reality of Life nor the medium through which
truth passes to earth. The joy of intercourse becomes
the jest of sin, when evil and suffering are communicable.
72:30 Not personal intercommunion but divine law is the com-
municator of truth, health, and harmony to earth and
humanity. As readily can you mingle fire and frost as
73:1 Spirit and matter. In either case, one does not support
the other.

73:3 Spiritualism calls one person, living in this world, /ma-
terial/, but another, who has died to-day a sinner and sup-
posedly will return to earth to-morrow, it terms a /spirit/.
73:6 The fact is that neither the one nor the other is infinite
Spirit, for Spirit is God, and man is His likeness.

One government