Chapter III - Spirit and Matter
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leadeth not into the guest-chamber of Wisdom; ye can-
leadeth not into the guest-chamber of Wisdom; ye can-
not enter now." Our unimproved opportunities gone,
are not easily reproduced; nor can we borrow Wisdom,
therefore we must then learn from suffering. The
hour of darkness will come to those who improve not
the preparatory school of the present, to fit them for the
future, but would step suddenly into all the benefits of
experience; alas! what were the science of being to
them in that hour? – a blessing? yea, a blessing infi-
nite. The dream of Life in matter, based on the evi-
dence of personal sense, will vanish ere long, when we
would gladly turn from its fading vision and the pains
of sense, to peace and immortality; but the accumulated
error of years dies slowly, and sometimes with severe
struggles. As a general rule, man will not seek Truth
until suffering shows him the need he has of it, or sci-
ence opens the eyes of his understanding to see it; for
science guides man safely over the quicksands and shoals,
making Life what it is, harmony, and not discord.
Personal sense is a broken reed that leaves man to fall
to the earth; but science raises him up to the resources
within himself. The very logic of Truth declares the
higher and more enduring claims of Spirit over matter
in all our experiences, showing that something besides
the body, and perishable things of earth, demand our
care and must furnish our support. Soul is heard above
the din of sense, saying to error, "Depart from me, ye
that work iniquity." Man should obey the voice of
Wisdom outside his body, that calls him away from a
sense or contemplation of sickness, sin, and death, to
harmony, health, and Life.
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It is not from matter, personal sense, or from doc-
It is not from matter, personal sense, or from doc-
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trines and beliefs, that we catch divine echoes. We
trines and beliefs, that we catch divine echoes. We
must be "absent to the body to be present with the
Lord;" only by caring less and less for the body, shall
we attain harmony and Life. Our Master's command
"Take no thought what ye shall eat, or what drink,"
etc., means something. We must seek God, Spirit,
outside of our bodies, and through a disregard for them,
and not until we find Truth thus, shall we ever obtain
it. Looking to the body for pleasure or pain, for Life
or death, is error, and asking amiss to consume it on
our lusts. After severe toil, we say, I am fatigued,
naturally concluding the muscles have been overtasked
and need repose; but our only safe and permanent
method to overcome a sense of fatigue is to deny the
ability of personal sense, to make us weary, and let
mind triumph over matter, with the opposite argument,
that saith, I am not tired, for the "I" is Spirit, and not
matter; bid the physical report depart, even as you
would a temptation to sin. It is science, to put down
the arguments of personal sense, with the higher ones
of Soul. Why this mental method of curing physical
ailments is better than yielding to the feeling of tired,
and taking a respite from labor, is because it is the
science of being, that Spirit should control matter; ac-
tion or sensation belongs not to matter, independent of
mind, and when you conquer through mind, the next
occasion for fatigue will find you less apt to feel it, and
you will not suffer from fatigue as you did before; the
belief that body has a sense of fatigue independent of
what mind says, is error, that the opposite Truth of
being will destroy.
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Your body is as unconscious of action, or weariness,
Your body is as unconscious of action, or weariness,