“Remember that it is of the very highest importance that you should know what you are, and determine to be the best that you may be.” Next meeting will be Ruth’s meeting on Christian Science. FIFTEENTH MEETING We had our meeting on Christian Science. I wish to record it in so far only as it related to our planned work, as I think neither Ruth’s exposition nor our answers were original or enlightening. I had given her a list of topics. The first was the idea of God. In this we found we agreed, and it gave occasion for much reviewing. Ruth had translated all her ideas from the vocabulary of Christian Science to that of our club, and this helped her to shape her thoughts. We spoke at some length of the personal and universal self. They called it “two selves,” and I answered them that it was only one, the one including the other. With the subject and matter and spirit we had some trouble. They all understood what I said, but failed—I, too—to understand Ruth; and we are not sure now whether she and I agree. Marian said: “Scientists speak of ‘dead matter,’ of all matter as dead. Is that so?” I repeated my ideas on spirit and matter—all form is an expression of spirit—and also insisted on the limitations of our knowledge. I said: “Matter seems never to be dead, because when one force takes leave of it, another comes into possession, and decay is always the beginning of new life.” Marian answered: “You mean the particles in this table are held together by a force?” “Surely.” “What is it? Does it feel?” Again I pleaded ignorance. We spoke of form as the eternal changing expression of spirit, of time as merely the measure and rhythm of progress or change. So Ruth found me willing to grant that all bad was a condition, not an unalterable thing, and that time was only a convention. Concerning immortality Ruth believed all I do, and more besides. Alfred now agrees with me. He, too, feels that in some way he must continue to be. Of the individual—or soul—Ruth thought as I. We also agreed on moral good and bad, and on the use and manner of prayer. Marian asked me: “Why, if mind force forms body, can we not make our bodies perfect at once?” I answered her that mind force had formed our bodies in the past, as they were now, and that our present, mental force was making future physical conditions; that all things went slowly, and the results of the past were inevitable. I spoke of the influence mind and action had on the body, on circulation, for instance. I said again that physical perfection could not be the aim, but only one of the conditions of progress. On the subject of disease and cure Ruth and I disagreed entirely. But this we both held to be not tremendously important. I do not care here to record the arguments—not in the least bitter or heated—which we gladly left in air. None of us was in the least convinced by Ruth, and we were frank—she, as well as we—in our expressions of opinion.