work. Mothers should be able to produce perfect health and perfect morals in their children—and ministers, to heal the sick—by studying this scientific method of practising Christianity. Many say, “I should like to study, but have not sufficient faith that I have the power to heal.” The healing power is Truth and Love, and these do not fail in the greatest emergencies.
Materia medica says, “I can do no more. I have done all that can be done. There is nothing to build upon. There is no longer any reason for hope.” Then metaphysics comes in, armed with the power of Spirit, not matter, takes up the case hopefully and builds on the stone that the builders have rejected, and is successful.
Metaphysical therapeutics can seem a miracle and a mystery to those only who do not understand the grand reality that Mind controls the body. They acknowledge an erring or mortal mind, but believe it to be brain matter. That man is the idea of infinite Mind, always perfect in God, in Truth, Life, and Love, is something not easily accepted, weighed down as is mortal thought with material beliefs. That which never existed, can seem solid substance to this thought. It is much easier for people to believe that the body affects the mind, than that the mind affects the body.
We hear from the pulpits that sickness is sent as a discipline to bring man nearer to God—even though sickness often leaves mortals but little time free from complaints and fretfulness, and Jesus cast out disease as evil.
The most of our Christian Science practitioners have plenty to do, and many more are needed for the advancement of the age. At present the majority of the acute cases are given to the M. D.'s, and only those cases that are pronounced incurable are passed over to the Scientist. The healing of such cases should certainly prove to all minds the power of metaphysics over physics; and it surely does, to many thinkers, as the rapid growth of the work shows. At no distant day, Christian healing will rank far in advance of allopathy and homœopathy; for Truth must ultimately succeed where error fails.
Mind governs all. That we exist in God, perfect, there is no doubt, for the conceptions of Life, Truth, and Love must be perfect; and with that basic truth we conquer sickness, sin, and death. Frequently it requires time to overcome the patient's faith in drugs and material hygiene; but when once convinced of the uselessness of such material methods, the gain is rapid.
It is a noticeable fact, that in families where laws of health are strictly enforced, great caution is observed in regard to diet, and the conversation chiefly confined to the ailments of the body, there is the most sickness. Take a large family of children where the mother has all that she can attend to in keeping them clothed and fed, and health is generally the rule; whereas, in small families of one or two children, sickness is by no means the exception. These children must not be allowed to eat certain food, nor to breathe the cold air, because there is danger in it; when they perspire, they must be loaded down with coverings until their bodies become dry—and the mother of one child is often busier than the mother of eight.
Great charity and humility is necessary in this work of healing. The loving patience of Jesus, we must strive to emulate. “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself” has daily to be exemplified; and, although skepticism and incredulity prevail in places where one would least expect it, it harms not; for if serving Christ, Truth, of what can mortal opinion avail? Cast not your pearls before swine; but if you cannot bring peace to all, you can to many, if faithful laborers in His vineyard.
Looking over the newspapers of the day, one naturally reflects that it is dangerous to live, so loaded with disease seems the very air. These descriptions carry fears to many minds, to be depicted in some future time upon the body. A periodical of our own will counteract to some extent this public nuisance; for through our paper, at the price at which we shall issue it, we shall be able to reach many homes with healing, purifying thought. A great work already has been done, and a greater work yet remains to be done. Oftentimes we are denied the results of our labors because people do not understand the nature and power of metaphysics, and they think that health and strength would have returned naturally without any assistance. This is not so much from a lack of justice, as it is that the mens populi is not sufficiently enlightened on this great subject. More thought is given to material illusions than to spiritual facts. If we can aid in abating suffering and diminishing sin, we shall have accomplished much; but if we can bring to the general thought this great fact that drugs do not, cannot, produce health and harmony, since “in Him [Mind] we live, and move, and have our being,” we shall have done more.
Love Your Enemies
Who is thine enemy that thou shouldst love him? Is it a creature or a thing outside thine own creation?
Can you see an enemy, except you first formulate this enemy and then look upon the object of your own conception? What is it that harms you? Can height, or depth, or any other creature separate you from the Love that is omnipresent good—that blesses infinitely one and all?
Simply count your enemy to be that which defiles, defaces, and dethrones the Christ-image that you should reflect. Whatever purifies, sanctifies, and consecrates human life, is not an enemy, however much we suffer in the process. Shakespeare writes: “Sweet are the uses of adversity.” Jesus said: “Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake; … for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you.”
The Hebrew law with its “Thou shalt not,” its demand and sentence, can only be fulfilled through the gospel's benediction. Then, “Blessed are ye,” insomuch as the consciousness of good, grace, and peace, comes through affliction rightly understood, as sanctified by the purification it brings to the flesh—to pride, self-ignorance, self-will, self-love, self-justification. Sweet, indeed, are these uses of His rod! Well is it that the Shepherd of Israel passes all His flock under His rod into His fold; thereby numbering them, and giving them refuge at last from the elements of earth.
“Love thine enemies” is identical with “Thou hast no enemies.” Wherein is this conclusion relative to those who have hated thee without a cause? Simply, in that those unfortunate individuals are virtually thy best friends. Primarily and ultimately, they are doing thee good far beyond the present sense which thou canst entertain of good.
Whom we call friends seem to sweeten life's cup and to fill it with the nectar of the gods. We lift this cup to our lips; but it slips from our grasp, to fall in fragments before our eyes. Perchance, having tasted its tempting wine, we become intoxicated; become lethargic, dreamy objects of self-satisfaction; else, the contents of this cup of selfish human enjoyment having lost its flavor, we voluntarily set it aside as tasteless and unworthy of human aims.
And wherefore our failure longer to relish this fleeting sense, with its delicious forms of friendship, wherewith mortals become educated to gratification in personal pleasure and trained in treacherous peace? Because it is the great and only danger in the path that winds upward. A false sense of what constitutes happiness is more disastrous to human progress than all that an enemy or enmity can obtrude upon the mind or engraft upon its purposes and achievements wherewith to obstruct life's joys and enhance its sorrows.
We have no enemies. Whatever envy, hatred, revenge—the most remorseless motives that govern mortal mind—whatever these try to do, shall “work together for good to them that love God.”
Why?
Because He has called His own, armed them, equipped them, and furnished them defenses impregnable. Their God will not let them be lost; and if they fall they shall rise again, stronger than before the stumble. The good cannot lose their God, their help in times of trouble. If they mistake the divine command, they will recover it, countermand their order, retrace their steps, and reinstate His orders, more assured to press on safely. The best lesson of their lives is gained by crossing swords with temptation, with fear and the besetments of evil; insomuch as they thereby have tried their strength and proven it; insomuch as they have found their strength made perfect in weakness, and their fear is self-immolated.
This destruction is a moral chemicalization, wherein old things pass away and all things become new. The worldly or material tendencies of human affections and pursuits are thus annihilated; and this is the advent of spiritualization. Heaven comes