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Show n THE CITIZEN 10 THE SCIENCE OF SPIRITUAL UNDERSTANDING (Continued from page 7.) of the senses, was rewarded and her son was restored to life through the the fearless illumined prayer of , prophet. Corporeal Sense Evidence Misleading. Christian Scientists, therefore, do not accept the conclusions of the pnysical senses as they formerly did. They truly have, to a degree at least, made the discovery that spiritual sense alone guides them and that the physical senses cognize a world which has no real existence. Like the great spiritual thinkers of the Bible, they see differently, think differently, and act differently than they did when they accepted the evidences of the corporeal senses. Let us notice their attitude toward disease. Before they became Christian Scientists, they associated fear with disease. They felt themselves more or less hopeless in contending with it. They thought of disease as a condition of tne physical body, whereas they now know that it is a wrong state of mind. And then, in the background of thought always lurked the spectre that sooner or later death would be the inevitable outcome. Of many things mor-tals are uncertain, but of one thing they believe that they are certain, namely that death is unescapable. How differently Christian Scientists view these things. They know' that God never created disease, and that a right understanding of Him completely destroys disease. They see that all there is of disease is fear and the acceptance by the sufferer of a false mental picture. When a mental picture of disease gains a lodgment in thought, either consciously or unconsciously, it may sooner or later apparently be manifested on the body as a so called disease. How does a Christian Scientist handle this situation? By prayer, scientific righteous prayer, in which he declares the purity and perfection of God and his creation, man and the universe. He denies that man, as the perfect child of God, can manifest anything less than the purity and perfection of his Creator. He reduces the disease to a false concept of the human mind, denies the power of that concept to control the man, and when the mesmerism of the false belief has been broken through the application of the Truth as levealed through Chris-ttiaScience, and the mental picture eradicated from thought, the patient is healed. This spiritual healing illumines the patient. He sees that the healing is of God and he gives to God the glory. You remember that when Jesus healed the sick, they glorified God. When Peter healed the lame man at the gate of the temple, we are told that he entered with them into the temple, walking, and leaping, and praising God. Joy, gratitude, and praise of God, always follow spiritual nealing. The healed one enters into the temple, the consciousness of divine Truth, and beholds the glory and perfection of God and man, and the nothingness of the mortal dream. In a like manner, Christian Scientists do not accept the teachings of physiology and medical works. Physiology and medical works are deductions regarding man gained from the physical senses. These deductions are that man. is physical, lives in the flesh, and is subject to birth, maturity, decay and death. Christian Science accepts the statement about man given in the first chapter of Genesis: And God said, Let us make man in our Since God image, after our likeness. is Spirit, man, Gods image and likeness, is spiritual, and this fact is eternally true despite all the medical theories and human conclusions to the n . , contrary. What, then, is wrong about accepting the conclusion that man lives in the flesh? Much. If a man accepts that belief, his consciousness of things divine is darkened. He is unable through prayer to prove his divine sonship with God. He is shut out from the kingdom of heaven unui that false conclusion is destroyed. The Fallacy of Drugs. On the same basis that they refuse to accept physiology and medical works, Christian Scientists do not use drugs. They have no occasion to do so, for the simple reason that they have found in Christian Science a vastly superior system of healing. Furthermore, they have found that reliance on drugs obscures spiritual and alienates men understanding cannot God. We from rely on drugs and God at the same time. Drugs do not really heal sickness. The only power of a drug is the false human faith in its efficacy. When that faith fails, as it surely will, the drug no longer has any effect on the body. Our great Master, Jesus Christ, knew that there was no innate value in them, drugs, never recommended never used them. He knew they had no power over the spritually minded. He declared of those who believed and understood the Christ Truth that "if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them. Now let us examine briefly the results of the drugging system. It is of pagan origin. Historians tell us that the system has been in operation some four thousand years. What results accrued to the race from have this expenditure of talent and effort over forty centuries? Several things stand out prominently. Diseases have multiplied, and today there is not a single drug upon the market that is an infallible panacea for any human ill. The drugging system is purely tentative, experimental. A drug is used to cure a disease; it fails. Another is substituted, and so an endless round of drugs is paraded before the public, each claiming virtue but each destined to the same failure. With this record of failure after four thousand years of effort, is it not proved that there is something fundamentally wrong with the drugging system. The Psalmist tells us that it is God who healeth all thy diseases, and since God is the healer, there cannot possibly be any other healer. Suppose you should pick up your morning paper and read that a drug had been discovered which was claimed to be an infallible panacea for disease. What would that mean? It would mean that a power was claimed which was based on matter and which of the divine assumed the God all has power, then power. Since evil, drugs, and disease have no power. Omnipotence includes all and there is no power left for any other agency to use, and this fact is eternally true. Material Knowledge Leads to Disease and Death. pie-rogatiye- s Christian Scientists have learned from the study of the Bible, and the writings of Mrs. Eddy, and from their own experiences, that there is a vast amount of knowledge floating around in human thought which is ephemIt is eral, illusive, unnecessary. evion based the knowledge entirely dences of the physical senses, and the more we know of this knowledge, the more deeply our thought is impregnated with it, the more darkness, pain, and disease we manifest. Why is it that specialists frequently become the victims of the diseases they study so assiduously? and why it is that the study of medical work3 tends to bring on ill health? He who imbibes material sense testimony and relies on it is like a man working his way into the depths of a bog. He is in danger at any moment of being swallowed up in its dark depths. Mrs. Eddy states in Science and Health, page 299, Knowledge gained from material sense is figuratively represented in Scripture as a tree, bearing the fruits of sin, sickness .and death. Ought we not then to judge the knowledge thus obtained to be untrue and dangerous, since the tree is known by his fruit? Christian Scientists rejoice that they have accepted the great discovery of the difference between false ternalize in improved Burrow If he has been under the boM sickness, he will begin to health; if he has been limited erty, he, will begin to prove tb,' uie divine Mind supply and i are always equal; if h6 Aed with fear, he will begin, hold of peace and confidence, h fi place of the constant fear thy human testimony and that genuine is inevitable, he will grasp & knowledge of God which heals ana tnat Life is eternal. These saves. The apples of the tree of results of working rightly, oft, knowledge of good and evil no longer Spirit and refusing the claim allure them. They know that they pnysical senses. A man has u must worship the Father in spirit and notable advance when he has in truth, as the Master declared, to work rightly. Blessed is b and in their demonstration of Chrishas found his work, said Carljj to hold these tian Science they clearly him ask no other blessedness: fundamentals; that God is not man Jesus was a worker. He g and man is not God, but man is the Spirit and repudiated the false creation, the reflection of God. They tions of the material senses, g know that God is not in matter nor I must work the works of is matter a part of God. Matter is a sent me. part of mortal mind, the fictitious The Work of Christ Jess opposite of .God. Only as we recogDown through the centuries is kat nize the allness of Spirit and the nothli. story, patriarch, and prophet g ingness of mortal man and a material Uodai world can we prove the supremacy of the world thetotruth about But as revealea them. they! Spirit. receive the full' revelation of Mans Oneness with God the Ultimate 'They had the spirit, if not ness pf the letter. They foretol; 4 'ea of Christian Science. ' mu revelation of truth which Christian Science heals the sick; ture there is no doubt about that. He would come with the Messiah, Shiloh, be a reckless critic indeed, who, at Jesus of Nazareth brought tom the present time, would deny that revelation of the Fatherhood of man. He Christian Science does heal the sick. and the brotherhoodthe gospel t But the healing of physical ills is not and demonstrated whole the. that duty lie taught the ultimate of Christian Science. God to love is supremely, Christian Science goes to the bottom The as himself. neighbor of the human mentality, uncovers the so perfer. of ness Jesus Christ latent errors of the human mind anu uected God that no suggestions destroys them, and arouses men to or mortality could enter. In claim their divine heritage as sons of ence of nis unparalleled God. Christian Science arouses men of God, sin, disease and death to see that man lives because God darkness flees before the lig: lives for mans life is derived from knew that the men and wont God. A Christian Scientist sees that his real business is- - to know and to hung upon his words, the of mm who spake as neve glorify God. The healing of sickness and sin is only the preliminary step spake, were not sick, sinning l ing mortals; he saw them tot by which a man sees that his real of Love, the perfect duty, his ideal, is to understand God children God work of ,and because he w and to live according to His eternal as they really were, he loved The writer of Ecclesiastes laws. a summed, up the matter when he said, with a divine compassion, healed Fear God, and keep His Command- 'cause he loved them, hethat he: are told in Matthew ments; for this is the whole duty of We maner of disease. Christ all man. A mans regeneration has conceded that there ft merely commenced when he is healed never such thing as an incurable dis of physical ills by Christian Science. knew that disease was a part Perhaps dimly at first, but nevertheand It less surely, he begins to see a perfect sum total of human error h model a vision of God who is Spirit, irresistible power of divine Life, Love, and man and the universe able to destroy it. Diseases soever nature were all contrary spiritual and eternal. He begins to divine purpose and he destroys see a perfect ideal of manhood based classic upon mans eternal sonship with God. all equally. asThe modern nenrc functional, He notes how lamentably inadequate of diseases entiret were his former habits and ideals and organic he disregarded beaE he finds that a transformation of proved this for others by sick and raising the dead. thought must take place if he is ever he proved it by the supreme: to attain this perfect model. This death for himsell perfection of God is the model all destroying his enemies to attempt great spiritual thinkers have seen. lowed his body in order to piMoses saw it on Sinai, Christ Jesus stroy eman is deathless. In the 8 on the mountain of transfiguration, the on the cross, in t apostle John on the Isle of Patmos. Gethsemane, hefc And so the man begins to undergo that ulchre, he overcame pain, against hatred arrayed change of thought described in the human he arose the view H$ro Love; Bible by various-terms- : conversion, death and he robbed the g regeneration, renewing of the su victory. He proved for all btit mind, born of the Spirit," reconcilcannot senses the t: psysical iation with God. He begins to measthose to He rose superior ure himself by the model of a perfect cause he thought Gods God and perfect man and to grow to thoughts, that perfection of thought which the These ideas, these clothed came to him tjXipli Psalmist saw when he said, I shall be gels, science and omnipotence, satisfied, when I awake with thy likecause the angels ministers ness. endued with po This process of regeneration re- him, he wasdeath and the stroy sin, quires work. We do not jump from had an unparalleled victory matter to Spirit at a single bound, but and because when a man begins work on the basis physical senses, stauds out; of the allness and perfection of Spirit, victory his career inuueasui he is on the right road. As tory a beacon light an he works and prays, striving to be scending all other human Sickled of the divine Mind which knows His Healing the all things, the path of spiritual light Now what is the explanatW for sooner or later shines straight and healing works? Were clear before him. When his thought natural? Did they set Mp?5flli is illumined by spirituality, it will ex law which ordinarily oVC n it c hfc the tfe c com the S . & j jgh 1 - |