Registered U.S. Patent Office Published by The Trustees under the Will of Mary Baker G. Eddy BOSTON, U.S.A. Authorized Literature of The First Church of Christ, Scientist in Boston, Massachusetts Copyright, 1887, 1891, 1908 By Mary Baker G. Eddy Copyright renewed, 1915 Copyright renewed, 1919 All rights reserved PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA...

Perhaps no doctrine of Christian Science rouses so much natural doubt and questioning as this, that God knows no such thing as sin. Indeed, this may be set down as one of the "things hard to be understood," such as the apostle Peter declared were taught by his fellow-apostle Paul, "which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest ... unto their own destruction." (2 Peter iii. 16.) Let us then reason together on this important subject, whose statement in Christian Science may justly be characteri

Let another query now be considered, which gives much trouble to many earnest thinkers before Science answers it. Is anything real of which the physical senses are cognizant? Everything is as real as you make it, and no more so. What you see, hear, feel, is a mode of consciousness, and can have no other reality than the sense you entertain of it. It is dangerous to rest upon the evidence of the senses, for this evidence is not absolute, and therefore not real, in our sense of the word. All that

Science reverses the evidence of the senses in theology, on the same principle that it does in astronomy. Popular theology makes God tributary to man, coming at human call; whereas the reverse is true in Science. Men must approach God reverently, doing their own work in obedience to divine law, if they would fulfil the intended harmony of being. The principle of music knows nothing of discord. God is harmony's selfhood. His universal laws, His unchangeableness, are not infringed in ethics any mo

A lie has only one chance of successful deception,—to be accounted true. Evil seeks to fasten all error upon God, and so make the lie seem part of eternal Truth. Emerson says, "Hitch your wagon to a star." I say, Be allied to the deific power, and all that is good will aid your journey, as the stars in their courses fought against Sisera. (Judges v. 20.) Hourly, in Christian Science, man thus weds himself with God, or rather he ratifies a union predestined from all eternity; but evil ties its wa

How is a mistake to be rectified? By reversal or revision,—by seeing it in its proper light, and then turning it or turning from it. We undo the statements of error by reversing them. Through these three statements, or misstatements, evil comes into authority:— By a reverse process of argument evil must be dethroned:— Try this process, dear inquirer, and so reach that perfect Love which "casteth out fear," and then see if this Love does not destroy in you all hate and the sense of evil. You will

In Romans (ii. 15) we read the apostle's description of mental processes wherein human thoughts are "the mean while accusing or else excusing one another." If we observe our mental processes, we shall find that we are perpetually arguing with ourselves; yet each mortal is not two personalities, but one. In like manner good and evil talk to one another; yet they are not two but one, for evil is naught, and good only is reality. Evil. God hath said, "Ye shall eat of every tree of the garden." If y

From various friends comes inquiry as to the meaning of a word employed in the foregoing colloquy. There are two English words, often used as if they were synonyms, which really have a shade of difference between them. An egotist is one who talks much of himself. Egotism implies vanity and self-conceit. Egoism is a more philosophical word, signifying a passionate love of self, which doubts all existence except its own. An egoist , therefore, is one uncertain of everything except his own existenc

We read in the Hebrew Scriptures, "The soul that sinneth, it shall die." What is Soul? Is it a reality within the mortal body? Who can prove that? Anatomy has not descried nor described Soul. It was never touched by the scalpel nor cut with the dissecting-knife. The five physical senses do not cognize it. Who, then, dares define Soul as something within man? As well might you declare some old castle to be peopled with demons or angels, though never a light or form was discerned therein, and not

"God is a Spirit" (or, more accurately translated, "God is Spirit"), declares the Scripture (John iv. 24), "and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth." If God is Spirit, and God is All, surely there can be no matter; for the divine All must be Spirit. The tendency of Christianity is to spiritualize thought and action. The demonstrations of Jesus annulled the claims of matter, and overruled laws material as emphatically as they annihilated sin. According to Christian Scien

Jesus not only declared himself "the way" and "the truth," but also "the life." God is Life; and as there is but one God, there can be but one Life. Must man die, then, in order to inherit eternal life and enter heaven? Our Master said, "The kingdom of heaven is at hand." Then God and heaven, or Life, are present, and death is not the real stepping-stone to Life and happiness. They are now and here; and a change in human consciousness, from sin to holiness, would reveal this wonder of being. Bec

Many misrepresentations are made concerning my doctrines, some of which are as unkind and unjust as they are untrue; but I can only repeat the Master's words: "They know not what they do." The foundations of these assertions, like the structure raised thereupon, are vain shadows, repeating—if the popular couplet may be so paraphrased— In the days of Eden, humanity was misled by a false personality,—a talking snake,—according to Biblical history. This pretender taught the opposite of Truth. This

It is fair to ask of every one a reason for the faith within. Though it be but to repeat my twice-told tale,—nay, the tale already told a hundred times,—yet ask, and I will answer. Do you believe in God? I believe more in Him than do most Christians, for I have no faith in any other thing or being. He sustains my individuality. Nay, more—He is my individuality and my Life. Because He lives, I live. He heals all my ills, destroys my iniquities, deprives death of its sting, and robs the grave of i

Jesus accepted the one fact whereby alone the rule of Life can be demonstrated,—namely, that there is no death. In his real self he bore no infirmities. Though "a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief," as Isaiah says of him, he bore not his sins, but ours , "in his own body on the tree." "He was bruised for our iniquities; ... and with his stripes we are healed." He was the Way-shower; and Christian Scientists who would demonstrate "the way" must keep close to his path, that they may win th

If there is no reality in evil, why did the Messiah come to the world, and from what evils was it his purpose to save humankind? How, indeed, is he a Saviour, if the evils from which he saves are nonentities? Jesus came to earth; but the Christ (that is, the divine idea of the divine Principle which made heaven and earth) was never absent from the earth and heaven; hence the phraseology of Jesus, who spoke of the Christ as one who came down from heaven, yet as "the Son of man which is in heaven

All that is , God created. If sin has any pretense of existence, God is responsible therefor; but there is no reality in sin, for God can no more behold it, or acknowledge it, than the sun can coexist with darkness. To build the individual spiritual sense, conscious of only health, holiness, and heaven, on the foundations of an eternal Mind which is conscious of sickness, sin, and death, is a moral impossibility; for "other foundation can no man lay than that is laid." (1 Corinthians iii. 11.) T