Chapter III - Spirit and Matter
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other's error we must conquer our own. If you are
other's error we must conquer our own. If you are
fettered by sin you are unfit to free another from the
fetters of disease; could you break the manacles from
other wrists, with your own hands bound? and yet this
would be equally easy. A little that is true regarding
man's being, does wonders for the sick, so infinite are
the resources of Truth; but alas! how much more good
could be done by the good and honest practitioner, with
more Truth. When a student learns the rules of this
science we expect him to use them according to their
Principle, or not parade his poor example before the
world as a demonstrator. Our hands have been made
weak by this mal-practice; we must not seek the ap-
proval of man, but of God, leaving futurity to explain
us and our motives. It is science to do right, and noth-
ing short of this can lay claim to it. The injunction to
"come out from the world and be separate" has its in-
evitable fulfilment in Christianity, not only from the
natural tendency of opposites to separate, but because
the abuse it receives from sinners who verily believe
they do right to wrong Truth, or cannot see the wrong
they do, separates them. The spiritual are apart from
the material from the necessity of opposite natures. The
immortality of man is only gained by his spirituality,
hence material things are not what he needs; besides,
all things are finally resolved into Spirit, their ultima-
tum, for Life and heaven are of Spirit. What fellow-
ship, then, hath light with darkness, and matter with
the kingdom of heaven that shall come on earth? Mor-
tal man is but a dream; even the belief that Life,
sensation and substance are matter, all of which the
ultimatum of being proves illusion. A dream comes in
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darkness, and this belief comes from error, an igno-
darkness, and this belief comes from error, an igno-
rance of real existence; but the light of science will
awaken us all to the understanding of Life that is real,
and the grave is not its goal; sickness, sin, and death,
enter not into Life; they are mortality's self. The
dream that Life or Intelligence is in matter, Soul in
body, and God in man, is fatal as it is false. To admit
Spirit in matter is an attempt to limit the limitless, and
make immortality a myth; like saying frost is in fire,
and with this belief dream you get into the fire, but are
glad to waken to live and recognize Life independent of
your illusion or matter. Science reverses every belief
of personal sense, for every condition of mortality is
destroyed in immortal man. Socrates understood this
when pledging the superiority of Spirit over matter in
a cup of poison hemlock, refusing to care for the body
mortal. The malice of that age would have killed
the venerable philosopher because of his high regard for
spiritual things and indifference to the body. When
nothing that loveth or maketh a lie is left, the reign of
Spirit will come on earth; science will not always wait,
but lifting its voice far above the centuries, will be
heard, and old things be done away, and all become
new. Who can say that man is alive to-day and to‑
morrow dead? What has touched Life to such strange
issues? matter may destroy itself, but cannot destroy
Spirit. What, then, has unstrung this harp of many
strings? Theories stop here, and science alone rolls
back the mystery and solves the problem of immortal
man. Error bites the heel of Truth, but cannot destroy
it; Truth bruises the head of error and kills it; error
is mesmerism; one lie scaring off another and taking