not
venture upon its publication until later, having learned that the merits of
Christian Science must be proven before a work on this subject could be
profitably published.

The truths of Christian Science are not interpolations of the Scriptures,
but the spiritual interpretations thereof. Science is the prism of Truth,
which divides its rays and brings out the hues of Deity. Human hypotheses
have darkened the glow and grandeur of evangelical religion. When speaking
of his true followers in every period, Jesus said, "_They_ shall lay hands
on the sick, and they shall recover." There is no authority for querying
the authenticity of this declaration, for it already was and is
demonstrated as practical, and its claim is substantiated,--a claim too
immanent to fall to the ground beneath the stroke of artless workmen.

Though a man were girt with the Urim and Thummim of priestly office, and
denied the perpetuity of Jesus' command, "Heal the sick," or its
application in all time to those who understand Christ as the Truth and the
Life, that man would not expound the gospel according to Jesus.

Five years after taking out my first copyright, I taught the Science of
Mind-healing, _alias_ Christian Science, by writing out my manuscripts for
students and distributing them unsparingly. This will account for certain
published and unpublished manuscripts extant, which the evil-minded would
insinuate did not originate with me.

THE PRECIOUS VOLUME

The first edition of my most important work, Science and Health, containing
the complete statement of Christian Science,--the term employed by me to
express the divine, or spiritual, Science of Mind-healing, was published in
1875.

When it was first printed, the critics took pleasure in saying, "This book
is indeed wholly original, but it will never be read."

The first edition numbered one thousand copies. In September, 1891, it had
reached sixty-two editions.

Those who formerly sneered at it, as foolish and eccentric, now declare
Bishop Berkeley, David Hume, Ralph Waldo Emerson, or certain German
philosophers, to have been the originators of the Science of Mind-healing
as therein stated.

Even the Scriptures gave no direct interpretation of the scientific basis
for demonstrating the spiritual Principle of healing, until our heavenly
Father saw fit, through the Key to the Scriptures, in Science and Health,
to unlock this "mystery of godliness."

My reluctance to give