Chapter VIII - Healing the Sick
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depends on eating. This were like denying the Prin-
depends on eating. This were like denying the Prin-
ciple of harmony, because man is not yet harmonious,
or saying Soul is not immortal, because Personal sense
takes no cognizance of this fact. Man's Life is Soul,
that eats not to live, and immortal man is the idea of
Soul instead of sense. We have no evidence of food
sustaining Life, except false evidence, even the belief
of Life in matter, and this belief an error. A telegram
announcing incorrectly the death of a friend, produces
the same sorrow the reality would give; but you say
your anguish is occasioned by your loss, until another
message arrives, informing you it is a mistake, and
your friend lives. Now did you not experience the
same sufferings the reality would have brought, and
did you not say it was the death of your friend that
caused these sufferings; but afterwards learn your mis-
take, realizing you suffered from a belief, and not a
reality. Thus it is with all sufferings; belief and not
Truth occasions them. Had a scientist attempted to
calm the grief of your supposed bereavement before the
second news arrived, whereby you learned the suffer-
ings were produced by error and not Truth, would you
have thanked your comforter, though she gave you re-
lief, until this fact was made plain to your understand-
ing. The body or matter never yet informed man of
disease; a belief carries the telegram to the body, and
the body manifests only the sufferings of mind. Never
a formation of Truth was diseased, or needed to be
destroyed; error is all that suffers, sins or dies. The
body manifests only what mind embraces. The mortal
body is mortal error, even a belief of Life in matter;
Truth holds man immortal, and no portion of him lost;
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Science and Scripture declare this, "He that believeth
Science and Scripture declare this, "He that believeth
in me shall never see death"; we are exempt from
error or belief, and immortal only as we understand
God. Giving heed to inharmony is personal sense that
in its ignorance of God silences the voice of Soul; in
other words is "total depravity." Soul and personal
sense are antagonists, one disputes every position of
the other – which evidence do you accept? Reason
instructs us immortality is the friend of man. Hear
the opposite testimonies of personal sense and Soul.
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Sense;
Sense;
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I am intelligent matter, a body of sickness,
I am intelligent matter, a body of sickness,
sin and death that constitutes a mortal intelligence.
The lungs, with alarming resonance, repeat this warn-
ing; the fevered throbbing of arteries tells how fast the
sands of life are running; the failing pulse, that the
places once knowing man shall know him no more for-
ever; the inevitable law of Life is death; that aught
is beyond this who knoweth. The evidence changes –
mortal man is in health, at ease in his possessions, and
sense says, eat, drink, and be merry; what a happy
life is this. I am unjust, and no person knoweth it, take
vengeance on my fellow beings, cheat, lie, and propa-
gate this species; am brutish, but this is obedience to
the nature God hath given me. What a nice thing is
sin, what a joy, sense; my kingdom is of this world, and
I am at peace. But a touch, an accident, one wheel in
the mechanism stopped, all is lost, for I am mortal!
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Soul;
Soul;
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I am the Spirit of man that giveth understand-
I am the Spirit of man that giveth understand-
ing, beauty and Omnipotence, full of unutterable per-
fections, height upon height of holiness, the wonder of
being, imperishable glory, for I am God, grasping, and
gathering in all bliss, for I am Love, giving immortality