d-healing, or any name given to it other than
Christian Science, or an attempt to demonstrate the facts of this Science
other than is stated in Science and Health--is a departure from the Science
of Mind-healing. To becloud mortals, or for yourself to hide from God, is
to conspire against the blessings otherwise conferred, against your own
success and final happiness, against the progress of the human race as
well as against _honest_ metaphysical theory and practice.
Not by the hearing of the ear is spiritual truth learned and loved; nor
cometh this apprehension from the experiences of others. We glean spiritual
harvests from our own material losses. In this consuming heat false images
are effaced from the canvas of mortal mind; and thus does the material
pigment beneath fade into invisibility.
The signs for the wayfarer in divine Science lie in meekness, in unselfish
motives and acts, in shuffling off scholastic rhetoric, in ridding the
thought of effete doctrines, in the purification of the affections and
desires.
Dishonesty, envy, and mad ambition are "lusts of the flesh," which uproot
the germs of growth in Science and leave the inscrutable problem of being
unsolved. Through the channels of material sense, of worldly policy, pomp,
and pride, cometh no success in Truth. If beset with misguided emotions, we
shall be stranded on the quicksands of worldly commotion, and practically
come short of the wisdom requisite for teaching and demonstrating the
victory over self and sin.
Be temperate in thought, word, and deed. Meekness and temperance are the
jewels of Love, set in wisdom. Restrain untempered zeal. "Learn to labor
and to wait." Of old the children of Israel were saved by patient waiting.
"The kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by
force!" said Jesus. Therefore are its spiritual gates not captured, nor its
golden streets invaded.
We recognize this kingdom, the reign of harmony within us, by an unselfish
affection or love, for this is the pledge of divine good and the insignia
of heaven. This also is proverbial, that though eternal justice be
graciously gentle, yet it may seem severe.
For whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth,
And scourgeth every son whom He receiveth.
As the poets in different languages have expressed it:--
Though the mills of God grind slowly,
Yet they grind exceeding small;
Though with patience He stands waiting,
With exactnes
|