Article May 18, 1918 Issue

When man's spiritual being is understood as the idea of...

Miss Mary Lascelle Struve—Paris, France

La Science et la Vie

When man's spiritual being is understood as the idea of intelligence, or infinite Mind, this understanding dissipates the belief in matter, which until then had obscured the scientific and spiritual facts of existence, and this new understanding brings health and happiness; for the body being only the manifestation of this belief in matter, it follows that the mental change which is produced when the spiritual understanding of being appears, produces a salutary effect on the body. This proves also that Christian Science healing has no relation to faith healing as in the case of Doctor Carel's patient referred to by Doctor Philipon, although this healing was the result of a mental change produced through faith, but without scientific and spiritual understanding.

Christian Science has no connection with spiritualism or occultism, for it is an absolutely exact and logical Science. Since its Principle admits of only one Spirit or Mind, it does not admit that there can be in reality either spirits or minds; and consequently it does not admit the control of so-called finite spirits or minds, as is clear from a reading of the chapter entitled "Christian Science versus Spiritualism" from "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker Eddy. Christian Science declares that there can be only one First Cause or infinite Principle, Mind, and that this Mind being the only cause, "there can be no effect from any other cause" (Science and Health, p. 207),—the effect being ideas which are like itself, and consequently spiritual and not material; that man is the creation, the idea, the image of infinite Mind, and is therefore spiritual and not material. It is the understanding of this truth which produces the mental change resulting in healing. I should like to add that matter, having in itself no intelligence, can neither suffer nor experience pleasure.

Christian Science is the herald of a new era in the history of the world, bringing to the chaotic conditions of humanity the light of supreme Mind. About fifty years ago Mrs. Eddy, seeing discord and despair on all sides, seeing that human ideals were unfulfilled in spite of the most earnest endeavors, consecrated her life to the search after a permanent Principle and rule upon which one might depend to solve all problems.

Send a comment to the editors

NEXT IN THIS ISSUE

Article

Quietness and Confidence