The practitioner should also endeavor to free the minds of the healthy
from any sense of subordination to their bodies, and teach them that the
divine Mind, not material law, maintains human health and life.
A Christian Scientist knows that, in Science, disease is unreal; that
Mind is not in matter; that Life is God, good; hence Life is not
functional, and is neither matter nor mortal mind; knows that pantheism
and theosophy are not Science. Whatever saps, with human belief, this
basis of Christian Science, renders it impossible to demonstrate the
Principle of this Science, even in the smallest degree.
A mortal and material body is not the actual individuality of man made
in the divine and spiritual image of God. The material body is not the
likeness of Spirit; hence it is not the truth of being, but the likeness
of error--the human belief which saith there is more than one God,--there
is more than one Life and one Mind.
In Deuteronomy (iv. 35) we read: "The Lord, He is God; there is none
else beside Him." In John (iv. 24) we may read: "God is Spirit." These
propositions, understood in their Science, elucidate my meaning.
When treating a patient, it is not Science to treat every organ in the
body. To aver that harmony is the real and discord is the unreal, and
then give special attention to what according to their own belief is
diseased, is scientific; and if the _healer realizes_ the truth, it
will free his patient.
_What are the means and methods of trustworthy Christian Scientists?_
These people should not be expected, more than others, to give all their
time to Christian Science work, receiving no wages in return, but left to
be fed, clothed, and sheltered by charity. Neither can they serve two
masters, giving only a portion of their time to God, and still be Christian
Scientists. They must give Him all their services, and "owe no man." To do
this, they must at present ask a suitable price for their services, and
then _conscientiously earn their wages_, strictly practising Divine
Science, and healing the sick.
The author never sought charitable support, but gave fully seven-eighths
of her time without remuneration, except the bliss of doing good. The only
pay taken for her labors was from classes, and often those were put off
for months, in order to do gratuitous work. She has never taught a Primary
class without several, and sometimes seventeen, free students in it; and
has endeavored to take the full price of tuition only from those who were
able to pay. The student who pays must of necessity do better than he
who does not pay, and yet will expect and require others to pay him. No
discount on tuition was made on higher classes, because their first classes
furnished students with the means of paying for their tuition in the higher
instruction, and of doing charity work besides. If the Primary students
are still impecunious, it is their own fault, and this ill-success of
itself leaves them unprepared to enter higher classes.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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