r pain or death or similar nonexistences
in your presence. Such talk only encourages the mind to continue its
empty imaginings." Just at that point the Stuben-madchen trod on the
cat's tail, and the cat let fly a frenzy of cat-profanity. I asked, with
caution:

"Is a cat's opinion about pain valuable?"

"A cat has no opinion; opinions proceed from mind only; the lower
animals, being eternally perishable, have not been granted mind; without
mind, opinion is impossible."

"She merely imagined she felt a pain--the cat?"

"She cannot imagine a pain, for imagining is an effect of mind; without
mind, there is no imagination. A cat has no imagination."

"Then she had a real pain?"

"I have already told you there is no such thing as real pain."

"It is strange and interesting. I do wonder what was the matter with
the cat. Because, there being no such thing as a real pain, and she not
being able to imagine an imaginary one, it would seem that God in His
pity has compensated the cat with some kind of a mysterious emotion
usable when her tail is trodden on which, for the moment, joins cat and
Christian in one common brotherhood of--"

She broke in with an irritated--

"Peace! The cat feels nothing, the Christian feels nothing. Your empty
and foolish imaginings are profanation and blasphemy, and can do you an
injury. It is wiser and better and holier to recognize and confess that
there is no such thing as disease or pain or death."

"I am full of imaginary tortures," I said, "but I do not think I could
be any more uncomfortable if they were real ones. What must I do to get
rid of them?"

"There is no occasion to get rid of them since they do not exist. They
are illusions propagated by matter, and matter has no existence; there
is no such thing as matter."

"It sounds right and clear, but yet it seems in a degree elusive; it
seems to slip through, just when you think you are getting a grip on
it."

"Explain."

"Well, for instance: if there is no such thing as matter, how can matter
propagate things?"

In her compassion she almost smiled. She would have smiled if there were
any such thing as a smile.

"It is quite simple," she said; "the fundamental propositions of
Christian Science explain it, and they are summarized in the four
following self-evident propositions: 1. God is All in all. 2. God is
good. Good is Mind 3. God, Spirit, being all, nothing is matter 4. Life,
God, omnipotent Good, deny death, evil, sin