Such is the nature of every metaphysical truth that when it is superficially studied it excites doubt, and may even seem to be self-contradictory and absurd; but when thoroughly weighed and tested it dispels doubt and converts the apparent self-contradictions and absurdities into additional proofs of its trustworthiness; and this for the reason that all true philosophy can never be found at fault in the slightest particular when the square and compass of pure logic are applied to it. The tests we are quite likely to apply to a philosophical or metaphysical proposition, when we approach it in a superficial way, are not the square and compass of pure logic, but, on the contrary, they are tests which are a compound of ideas and habits of thinking that have come to us largely through the deceptive avenue of our physical senses.

A straight line may seem crooked when viewed through a distorting medium, and such a medium is human prejudice which warps and perverts well-nigh every good and beautiful thing. It is the experience of every reader of the Christian Science text-book that many of its statements seem, at the first reading at least, to be enigmatical, and some of them perhaps self-contradictory. If the reader take up the text-book as a hostile critic this result is quite sure to follow, and he may be led to close his inquiry and possibly become yet more hostile.

The writer personally knows of the instance of a clergyman of fair repute who announced that he would preach a sermon on the next Sunday upon Christian Science. He then borrowed the text-book, so that he had only a few hours to study it, having never looked at a page of it before, and when the time came, actually presumed to denounce it as a tissue of foolishness and falsehood. This was a flagrant instance, of course; and it is plain that such amazing narrowness will always be found like Moses on Mount Nebo, with no power to enter into the land.

Intellectual narrowness is a common fault, and many readers of Christian Science literature, although free from all conscious bias at the outset, mistake the limitations of their own ignorance of this subject for critical acumen. They are too much like the New Zealander who, because he had never seen anything of the kind, believed the missionary's description of ice to be an attempt to deceive him with an absurd falsehood. It is difficult, and often it appears to be useless, to reason with these people. Their preconceived ideas hang down like a thick curtain before their intelligence, and it is a matter of common observation that the critic who is most ignorant is likely to be most egotistical and unconvertible.

The readers of the Christian Science text-book may be divided into four classes: those who are hostile critics at the outset, and who persist in reading its lines, and often between its lines, through colored glasses; those who are reasonably free from adverse prejudices at the outset, or whose prejudices may be even inclined favorably, but who seem to be so equipped as reasoners that they are wholly unable to weigh a metaphysical proposition in the scales of pure reason, and invariably are found weighing it in the scales of their own incomplete or erroneous sense of things; those who find many of the metaphysical propositions difficult to comprehend for a long time, but who are fortunately brought into observation of its practical "works," so that their incredulity never solidifies into the unteachable conceit of either Pharisee or Sadducee, and is at last slowly dissipated like a mist, as the gray dawn deepens into the radiant day; and lastly those, comparatively few in number, whose habits of thought and religious experiences, from the very beginning of their search, render it possible for the logic of Christian Science to come to them as the unveiled presentment of Truth.

Although there are many metaphysical propositions whose verity is as absolute and indubitable as the proposition that two parallel straight lines can never meet, they are, nevertheless, of such a nature that it is difficult either to prove or explain them in the language of common experience. This difficulty in putting an abstract idea into a concrete mould explains why metaphysics has so largely baffled even the most acute intellects; why the most profound metaphysicians are frequently found wholly to misunderstand each other, and this is why the Nazarene found it so difficult to teach even his immediate disciples by means of abstract propositions, and resorted, in consequence, so largely to parables, and placed his main dependence, after all, in the "works" which he did to persuade them of the genuineness of his mission and the veracity of his doctrines. This is why Christian Science must rely mainly upon its physical demonstrations, such as the healing of the sick, to persuade the world of the soundness of its metaphysics. Tell a young child, or even the adult of some living barbarian tribes, that twice three is six, and the listener may fail to grasp the idea clearly, and merely "believe that he believes;" but take physical objects and demonstrate the abstract rule before his eyes, and the way is found to make him understand, and so persuade him that the proposition is of some value.

There are some Christian Scientists whose understanding of the metaphysics of the new-old religion is so constant and cloudless that they never relapse into those darker periods when the mists seem to rise about them so that they, for the time only, "believe that they believe." But there are many others whose understanding has not attained to such excellence. Let these remember, when their periods of darkness come, that the shadows of night always rise from the earth and never descend from above. And, above all, let them not despond. The measure can be filled and emptied even many times, and yet be filled again. The lid may seem to grow tired, and may fall down over the eye, but if the light of the eye remain, it shall see again. "Nevertheless when it shall turn to the Lord, the vail shall be taken away." It is our duty never to suffer ourselves to let discouragement darken our vision, "while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen."

When the adherents of a theology which has no "works" like that of Jesus, becomes entangled in the intricacies of its metaphysics, it is a Cretan labyrinth from which they may never find a safe deliverance. But our state as Christian Science adherents is happily different. Though the metaphysics may become to us a labyrinth at times, yet the thread by which we may find our way again from darkness into light remains in our hands. One instance of spiritual healing in accordance with the metaphysics of Christian Science brought to our knowledge after we have gained an intelligent insight, suffices to renew a faltering faith and to dispel the earth-born shadows of the night of doubt and restore the joyous radiance of the sunlight of an assured and trusting conviction. One assured instance proves the rule, for there could be no such instance if the rule did not exist; and failures are only negative evidence which can have no just weight whatever against the affirmative proof. No matter how many mistakes and failures may be met with on account of our failing to work our problems correctly, the working of even one problem successfully according to a scientific rule and because of the rule, unveils the rule as an eternal and unchangeable verity. We may puzzle and split hairs over the metaphysics involved in the rule, but assured "works" under the rule ought, in all sound reason, to fortify our consciousness of the rule as an ever-acting force against all disquieting doubts thenceforward.