Retrospection and Introspection | Page 9

commandments. As says St. James: "Whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all."
Into mortal mind's material obliquity I gazed, and stood abashed. Blanched was the cheek of pride. My heart bent low before the omnipotence of Spirit, and a tint of humility, soft as the heart of a moonbeam, mantled the earth. Bethlehem and Bethany, Gethsemane and Calvary, spoke to my chastened sense as by the tearful lips of a babe. Frozen fountains were unsealed. Erudite systems of philosophy and religion melted, for Love unveiled the healing promise and potency of a present spiritual afflatus. It was the gospel of healing, on its divinely appointed human mission, bearing on its white wings, to my apprehension, "the beauty of holiness,"--even the possibilities of spiritual insight, knowledge, and being.
Early had I learned that whatever is loved materially, as mere corporeal personality, is eventually lost. "For whosoever will save his life shall lose it," said the Master. Exultant hope, if tinged with earthliness, is crushed as the moth.
What is termed mortal and material existence is graphically defined by Calderon, the famous Spanish poet, who wrote,--
What is life? 'Tis but a madness. What is life? A mere illusion, Fleeting pleasure, fond delusion, Short-lived joy, that ends in sadness, Whose most constant substance seems But the dream of other dreams.

MEDICAL EXPERIMENTS
The physical side of this research was aided by hints from homoeopathy, sustaining my final conclusion that mortal belief, instead of the drug, governed the action of material medicine.
I wandered through the dim mazes of materia medica, till I was weary of "scientific guessing," as it has been well called. I sought knowledge from the different schools,--allopathy, homoeopathy, hydropathy, electricity, and from various humbugs,--but without receiving satisfaction.
I found, in the two hundred and sixty-two remedies enumerated by Jahr, one pervading secret; namely, that the less material medicine we have, and the more Mind, the better the work is done; a fact which seems to prove the Principle of Mind-healing. One drop of the thirtieth attenuation of Natrum muriaticum, in a tumbler-full of water, and one teaspoonful of the water mixed with the faith of ages, would cure patients not affected by a larger dose. The drug disappears in the higher attenuations of homoeopathy, and matter is thereby rarefied to its fatal essence, mortal mind; but immortal Mind, the curative Principle, remains, and is found to be even more active.
The mental virtues of the material methods of medicine, when understood, were insufficient to satisfy my doubts as to the honesty or utility of using a material curative. I must know more of the unmixed, unerring source, in order to gain the Science of Mind, the All-in-all of Spirit, in which matter is obsolete. Nothing less could solve the mental problem. If I sought an answer from the medical schools, the reply was dark and contradictory. Neither ancient nor modern philosophy could clear the clouds, or give me one distinct statement of the spiritual Science of Mind-healing. Human reason was not equal to it.
I claim for healing scientifically the following advantages: _First_: It does away with all material medicines, and recognizes the antidote for all sickness, as well as sin, in the immortal Mind; and mortal mind as the source of all the ills which befall mortals. _Second_: It is more effectual than drugs, and cures when they fail, or only relieve; thus proving the superiority of metaphysics over physics. _Third_: A person healed by Christian Science is not only healed of his disease, but he is advanced morally and spiritually. The mortal body being but the objective state of the mortal mind, this mind must be renovated to improve the body.

FIRST PUBLICATION
In 1870 I copyrighted the first publication on spiritual, scientific Mind-healing, entitled "The Science of Man." This little book is converted into the chapter on Recapitulation in Science and Health. It was so new--the basis it laid down for physical and moral health was so hopelessly original, and men were so unfamiliar with the subject--that I did not venture upon its publication until later, having learned that the merits of Christian Science must be proven before a work on this subject could be profitably published.
The truths of Christian Science are not interpolations of the Scriptures, but the spiritual interpretations thereof. Science is the prism of Truth, which divides its rays and brings out the hues of Deity. Human hypotheses have darkened the glow and grandeur of evangelical religion. When speaking of his true followers in every period, Jesus said, "They shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover." There is no authority for querying the authenticity of this declaration, for it already was and is demonstrated as practical, and its claim is substantiated,--a claim too immanent to fall to the ground beneath the stroke