l be able to live quite differently,
for hygienic conditions--even those considered most indispensable--will
no longer be of any importance.

One of the most irresistible attractions of Christian Science lies in
its declaration that it will be possible at some future time to
overcome death--a dream that has been known in all epochs. Yet, for
all our love of life, how unprofitably we squander it! Our normal life
could be prolonged to a hundred and fifty, or even two hundred
years,[1] but we have stupidly imposed upon ourselves an artificial
barrier which we scarcely ever surpass!

Mrs. Eddy knew well what charm the possibility of destroying the "King
of Terrors" would add to her doctrine, and she made effective use of it.

We may note that the idea of overcoming death can be traced back for
some three thousand years or so. Hermes, the "Thrice Greatest One,"
taught that only "by error" had death become installed upon our planet,
and that nothing in the world could ever be lost. "Death does not
exist; the word 'mortal' is void of meaning, and is merely the word
'immortal' without its first syllable." He taught further that the
world was the second God, immortal and alive, and that no part of it
could ever die; that "the eternal" and "the immortal" must not be
confused, for "the eternal" was God Uncreate, while the world which He
had created and made in His own image was endowed with His immortality.
Hermes also suggested that it was only necessary to send our bodily
sensations to sleep in order to awake in God and rejoice in immortality!

There was a close relationship between Hermes, the Essenes of Egypt,
and St. John, the author of _Revelation_. Indeed, if we search
carefully, we find that the Gnostics of every school believed in the
possibility of banishing death from the earth.

"Whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never
thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of
water springing up into everlasting life." (St. John iv. 14).

And what superiority over the claims of Mrs. Eddy is shown by Hermes,
when he declares that in order to reach the spiritual worlds we only
need to free ourselves from sensation!

Unsuspected sources of inspiration, as yet unutilised, abound in the
writings of the Pythagoreans, the Essenes, and even the Neo-Platonists.
The creators of future religions are likely to draw much water from
these wells, but Christian Science can lay claim