Article June 24, 1905 Issue

Escape from Delusion

EMILY H. REEVES.

A MINISTER said the other day, in speaking of Christian Science, "Our religion is exactly the same as the Christian Science religion, with the exception of the healing part." He also said, "I believe in mind-cure, but God does not do the healing." We may well ask, If God does not heal, who does then? Surely mortal man has no power of his own, apart from God, to heal the sick. We have been taught from childhood that God has all power, all knowledge or science, and is present everywhere. The word "all" certainly means complete, perfect, or whole, and must exclude everything unlike God. If we cannot accept this central fact of the Scriptures, we may as well reject the whole. If we do accept it, we must also accept the logical conclusion, which is taught in Christian Science, that if God is all, there can be no evil in reality, for if there were it would be a part of God. "Yes, but," says one, "we see evil all about us every day." Yes, and you will continue to see it, so long as you look for it and believe in its reality. As a man thinketh so is he, and "Evil be to him that evil thinks." It is not the physical body that is evil, for one could not do an evil deed without an evil thought to prompt it. The hand could not strike unless the mind prompted the action, as the body has no independent power, therefore all evil is a product of mortal mind. Mrs. Eddy teaches this in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," and we have proved it to be true, and yet she is censured for declaring the truth. If our minds produced only good thoughts, how could we do evil deeds? Christ said, "There is nothing from without a man, that entering into him can defile him: but the things which come out of him, those are they that defile the man." There is no evil to the purely spiritual thought; but how many of us have reached the spiritual state wherein we may realize this truth? Evil seems very real indeed to the man who thinks it, but if we turn from evil and deny it, we grow more spiritual, and realize more and more the reality of good and the unreality of evil. When we turn from every evil thought, angels come and minister unto us. Paul says, "To be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace."

Christian Science teaches that sickness is no more a part of God's creation than is sin. We sometimes hear a person say, "It is God's will that I should be an invalid, and I must submit to His will," yet all the time that person is taking drugs in order to cure himself, and believing that there is a power, apart from God, in material things which will annul a law of God. If God sends sickness to us, it is decidedly wrong for us to try to get rid of it. God is infinite goodness; He made all that was made and pronounced it good—we all know this, therefore there can be nothing real and eternal but God and His creation. God being Spirit, His creation must be spiritual, not material, but those who are lost or asleep in materialism, cannot see the grandeur of Spirit or of spiritual creation. "The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolish unto him; neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned." As a man seeks spiritual joys he loses his false, material concept of the universe. Christ Jesus condemns materiality at every point and teaches us to turn from it. He said, "The flesh profiteth nothing."

Scholastic theology holds that we can find a scientific cause for everything in material existence, yet teaches that God has no scientific law of eternal life. Does man live in accordance with law and order, and God in disorder? He who is omniscient would not be likely to make of eternal life a haphazard existence. The Bible says, "The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death." We are further told that we shall awake in His likeness. Does not this show us plainly that our material life has been a dream or delusion, in which everything is false and inharmonious because it is without God? Our mortal sense of life is only a dream, but it will seem real to us until we awaken. Adam ate the fruits of the tree of false knowledge which made him believe that there was a power, opposed to God, called evil. His descendants will awaken only as they grow weary of material beliefs, which bring no real pleasure. In our dreams, we see a friend, hear his voice, and feel the touch of his hand, when in reality he is not with us, but we do not realize our delusion until we awaken. We dream sometimes of a terrible monster in pursuit of us, we feel sensations of pain, and suddenly awaken to find ourselves safe and unharmed. Does not this prove how mortal mind may be misled? Even in our waking hours the senses deceive us,— they tell us that sky and ocean meet, that the sun revolves around the earth, and that the earth is flat, until the understanding corrects these errors and illusions. Here are cases, right in our every-day life, where we prove that what we see with our own eyes is not true.

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