Chapter 8: 'Science and Health with Key to The Scriptures' by Mary Baker Eddy

Chapter VIII - Footsteps Of Truth

234:1
Spiritual draughts heal, while material lotions interfere

with truth, even as ritualism and creed hamper spirit-

uality. If we trust matter, we distrust Spirit.

Crumbs of comfort

234:4
Whatever inspires with wisdom, Truth, or Love – be

it song, sermon, or Science – blesses the human family

with crumbs of comfort from Christ's table

feeding the hungry and giving living waters to

the thirsty.

Hospitality to health and good

234:9
We should become more familiar with good than with

evil, and guard against false beliefs as watchfully as we

bar our doors against the approach of thieves

and murderers. We should love our enemies

and help them on the basis of the Golden

Rule; but avoid casting pearls before those who trample

them under foot, thereby robbing both themselves and

others.

Cleansing the mind

234:17
If mortals would keep proper ward over mortal mind,

the brood of evils which infest it would be cleared out.

We must begin with this so-called mind and

empty it of sin and sickness, or sin and sick-

ness will never cease. The present codes of human

systems disappoint the weary searcher after a divine

theology, adequate to the right education of human

thought.

234:25
Sin and disease must be thought before they can be

manifested. You must control evil thoughts in the first

instance, or they will control you in the second. Jesus

declared that to look with desire on forbidden objects was

to break a moral precept. He laid great stress on the

action of the human mind, unseen to the senses.

234:31
Evil thoughts and aims reach no farther and do no more

harm than one's belief permits. Evil thoughts, lusts, and

235:1
malicious purposes cannot go forth, like wandering pollen,

from one human mind to another, finding unsuspected

lodgment, if virtue and truth build a strong defence.

Better suffer a doctor infected with smallpox to attend

you than to be treated mentally by one who does not obey

the requirements of divine Science.

Teachers' functions

235:7
The teachers of schools and the readers in churches

should be selected with as direct reference to their

morals as to their learning or their correct

reading. Nurseries of character should be

strongly garrisoned with virtue. School-examinations are

one-sided; it is not so much academic education, as a

moral and spiritual culture, which lifts one higher. The

pure and uplifting thoughts of the teacher, constantly

imparted to pupils, will reach higher than the heavens of

astronomy; while the debased and unscrupulous mind,

though adorned with gems of scholarly attainment, will

degrade the characters it should inform and elevate.

Physicians' privilege

235:19
Physicians, whom the sick employ in their helplessness,

should be models of virtue. They should be wise spir-

itual guides to health and hope. To the trem-

blers on the brink of death, who understand

not the divine Truth which is Life and perpetuates being,

physicians should be able to teach it. Then when the soul

is willing and the flesh weak, the patient's feet may be

planted on the rock Christ Jesus, the true idea of spiritual

power.

Clergymen's duty

235:28
Clergymen, occupying the watchtowers of the world,

should uplift the standard of Truth. They should so raise

their hearers spiritually, that their listeners

will love to grapple with a new, right idea

and broaden their concepts. Love of Christianity, rather

236:1
than love of popularity, should stimulate clerical labor

and progress. Truth should emanate from the pulpit,

but never be strangled there. A special privilege is vested

in the ministry. How shall it be used? Sacredly, in the

interests of humanity, not of sect.

236:6
Is it not professional reputation and emolument rather

than the dignity of God's laws, which many leaders seek?

Do not inferior motives induce the infuriated attacks on

individuals, who reiterate Christ's teachings in support

of his proof by example that the divine Mind heals sick-

ness as well as sin?

A mother's responsibility

236:12
A mother is the strongest educator, either for or

against crime. Her thoughts form the embryo of an-

other mortal mind, and unconsciously mould

it, either after a model odious to herself or

through divine influence, "according to the pattern

showed to thee in the mount." Hence the importance

of Christian Science, from which we learn of the one

Mind and of the availability of good as the remedy for

every woe.

Children's tractability

236:21
Children should obey their parents; insubordination

is an evil, blighting the buddings of self-government.

Parents should teach their children at the

earliest possible period the truths of health

and holiness. Children are more tractable than adults,

and learn more readily to love the simple verities that will

make them happy and good.

236:28
Jesus loved little children because of their freedom

from wrong and their receptiveness of right. While

age is halting between two opinions or battling with

false beliefs, youth makes easy and rapid strides towards

Truth.

237:1
A little girl, who had occasionally listened to my ex-

planations, badly wounded her finger. She seemed not

to notice it. On being questioned about it she answered

ingenuously, "There is no sensation in matter." Bound-

ing off with laughing eyes, she presently added, "Mamma,

my finger is not a bit sore."

Soil and seed

237:7
It might have been months or years before her parents

would have laid aside their drugs, or reached the mental

height their little daughter so naturally at-

tained. The more stubborn beliefs and theo-

ries of parents often choke the good seed in the minds of

themselves and their offspring. Superstition, like "the

fowls of the air," snatches away the good seed before it

has sprouted.

Teaching children

237:15
Children should be taught the Truth-cure, Christian

Science, among their first lessons, and kept from discuss-

ing or entertaining theories or thoughts about

sickness. To prevent the experience of error

and its sufferings, keep out of the minds of your children

either sinful or diseased thoughts. The latter should

be excluded on the same principle as the former. This

makes Christian Science early available.

Deluded invalids

237:23
Some invalids are unwilling to know the facts or to

hear about the fallacy of matter and its supposed laws.

They devote themselves a little longer to their

material gods, cling to a belief in the life and

intelligence of matter, and expect this error to do more

for them than they are willing to admit the only living and

true God can do. Impatient at your explanation, unwill-

ing to investigate the Science of Mind which would rid

them of their complaints, they hug false beliefs and suffer

the delusive consequences.

Patient waiting

238:1
Motives and acts are not rightly valued before they are

understood. It is well to wait till those whom you would

benefit are ready for the blessing, for Science

is working changes in personal character as

well as in the material universe.

To obey the Scriptural command, "Come out from

among them, and be ye separate," is to incur society's

frown; but this frown, more than flatteries, enables one

to be Christian. Losing her crucifix, the Roman Catholic

girl said, "I have nothing left but Christ." "If God be

for us, who can be against us?"

Unimproved opportunities

238:12
To fall away from Truth in times of persecution, shows

that we never understood Truth. From out the bridal

chamber of wisdom there will come the warn-

ing, "I know you not." Unimproved op-

portunities will rebuke us when we attempt to claim the

benefits of an experience we have not made our own, try

to reap the harvest we have not sown, and wish to enter

unlawfully into the labors of others. Truth often remains

unsought, until we seek this remedy for human woe be-

cause we suffer severely from error.

238:22
Attempts to conciliate society and so gain dominion over

mankind, arise from worldly weakness. He who leaves

all for Christ forsakes popularity and gains Christianity.

Society and intolerance

238:25
Society is a foolish juror, listening only to one side of

the case. Justice often comes too late to secure a verdict.

People with mental work before them have

no time for gossip about false law or testimony.

To reconstruct timid justice and place the fact above the

falsehood, is the work of time.

238:31
The cross is the central emblem of history. It is the

lodestar in the demonstration of Christian healing, – the

239:1
demonstration by which sin and sickness are destroyed.

The sects, which endured the lash of their predecessors,

in their turn lay it upon those who are in advance of

creeds.

Right views of humanity

239:5
Take away wealth, fame, and social organizations,

which weigh not one jot in the balance of God, and we

get clearer views of Principle. Break up

cliques, level wealth with honesty, let worth

be judged according to wisdom, and we get better views

of humanity.

239:11
The wicked man is not the ruler of his upright

neighbor. Let it be understood that success in error is

defeat in Truth. The watchword of Christian Science

is Scriptural: "Let the wicked forsake his way, and the

unrighteous man his thoughts."

Standpoint revealed

239:16
To ascertain our progress, we must learn where our

affections are placed and whom we acknowledge and

obey as God. If divine Love is becoming

nearer, dearer, and more real to us, matter is

then submitting to Spirit. The objects we pursue and

the spirit we manifest reveal our standpoint, and show

what we are winning.

Antagonistic sources

239:23
Mortal mind is the acknowledged seat of human mo-

tives. It forms material concepts and produces every

discordant action of the body. If action pro-

ceeds from the divine Mind, action is harmo-

nious. If it comes from erring mortal mind, it is discord-

ant and ends in sin, sickness, death. Those two opposite

sources never mingle in fount or stream. The perfect

Mind sends forth perfection, for God is Mind. Imper-

fect mortal mind sends forth its own resemblances, of

which the wise man said, "All is vanity."

Some lessons from nature

240:1
Nature voices natural, spiritual law and divine Love,

but human belief misinterprets nature. Arctic regions,

sunny tropics, giant hills, winged winds,

mighty billows, verdant vales, festive flowers,

and glorious heavens, – all point to Mind, the spiritual

intelligence they reflect. The floral apostles are hiero-

glyphs of Deity. Suns and planets teach grand lessons.

The stars make night beautiful, and the leaflet turns nat-

urally towards the light.

Perpetual motions

240:10
In the order of Science, in which the Principle is above

what it reflects, all is one grand concord. Change this

statement, suppose Mind to be governed by

matter or Soul in body, and you lose the key-

note of being, and there is continual discord. Mind is

perpetual motion. Its symbol is the sphere. The rota-

tions and revolutions of the universe of Mind go on

eternally.

Progress demanded

240:18
Mortals move onward towards good or evil as time

glides on. If mortals are not progressive, past failures

will be repeated until all wrong work is ef-

faced or rectified. If at present satisfied with

wrong-doing, we must learn to loathe it. If at present

content with idleness, we must become dissatisfied with

it. Remember that mankind must sooner or later, either

by suffering or by Science, be convinced of the error that

is to be overcome.

240:27
In trying to undo the errors of sense one must pay fully

and fairly the utmost farthing, until all error is finally

brought into subjection to Truth. The divine method

of paying sin's wages involves unwinding one's snarls

and learning from experience how to divide between sense

and Soul.

241:1
"Whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth." He, who

knows God's will or the demands of divine Science and

obeys them, incurs the hostility of envy; and he who

refuses obedience to God, is chastened by Love.

The doom of sin

241:5
Sensual treasures are laid up "where moth and rust

doth corrupt." Mortality is their doom. Sin breaks in

upon them, and carries off their fleeting joys.

The sensualist's affections are as imaginary,

whimsical, and unreal as his pleasures. Falsehood, envy,

hypocrisy, malice, hate, revenge, and so forth, steal away

the treasures of Truth. Stripped of its coverings, what

a mocking spectacle is sin!

Spirit transforms

241:13
The Bible teaches transformation of the body by the

renewal of Spirit. Take away the spiritual signification

of Scripture, and that compilation can do no

more for mortals than can moonbeams to melt

a river of ice. The error of the ages is preaching without

practice.

241:19
The substance of all devotion is the reflection and

demonstration of divine Love, healing sickness and

destroying sin. Our Master said, "If ye love me, keep

my commandments."

241:23
One's aim, a point beyond faith, should be to find the

footsteps of Truth, the way to health and holiness. We

should strive to reach the Horeb height where God is re-

vealed; and the corner-stone of all spiritual building is

purity. The baptism of Spirit, washing the body of all

the impurities of flesh, signifies that the pure in heart

see God and are approaching spiritual Life and its

demonstration.

Spiritual baptism

241:31
It is "easier for a camel to go through the eye of a

needle," than for sinful beliefs to enter the kingdom of

242:1
heaven, eternal harmony. Through repentance, spiritual

baptism, and regeneration, mortals put off their material

beliefs and false individuality. It is only a

question of time when "they shall all know

Me [God], from the least of them unto the greatest."

Denial of the claims of matter is a great step towards

the joys of Spirit, towards human freedom and the final

triumph over the body.

The one only way

242:9
There is but one way to heaven, harmony, and Christ

in divine Science shows us this way. It is to know no

other reality – to have no other conscious-

ness of life – than good, God and His reflec-

tion, and to rise superior to the so-called pain and pleasure

of the senses.

242:15
Self-love is more opaque than a solid body. In pa-

tient obedience to a patient God, let us labor to dis-

solve with the universal solvent of Love the adamant

of error, – self-will, self-justification, and self-love, –

which wars against spirituality and is the law of sin

and death.

Divided vestments

242:21
The vesture of Life is Truth. According to the Bible,

the facts of being are commonly misconstrued, for it is

written: "They parted my raiment among

them, and for my vesture they did cast lots."

The divine Science of man is woven into one web of

consistency without seam or rent. Mere speculation or

superstition appropriates no part of the divine vesture,

while inspiration restores every part of the Christly gar-

ment of righteousness.

242:30
The finger-posts of divine Science show the way our

Master trod, and require of Christians the proof which

he gave, instead of mere profession. We may hide

243:1
spiritual ignorance from the world, but we can never

succeed in the Science and demonstration of spiritual

good through ignorance or hypocrisy.

Ancient and modern miracles

243:4
The divine Love, which made harmless the poisonous

viper, which delivered men from the boiling oil, from

the fiery furnace, from the jaws of the lion,

can heal the sick in every age and triumph

over sin and death. It crowned the demon-

strations of Jesus with unsurpassed power and love. But

the same "Mind . . . which was also in Christ Jesus"

must always accompany the letter of Science in order to

confirm and repeat the ancient demonstrations of prophets

and apostles. That those wonders are not more com-

monly repeated to-day, arises not so much from lack of

desire as from lack of spiritual growth.

Mental telegraphy

243:16
The clay cannot reply to the potter. The head, heart,

lungs, and limbs do not inform us that they are dizzy,

diseased, consumptive, or lame. If this in-

formation is conveyed, mortal mind conveys

it. Neither immortal and unerring Mind nor matter,

the inanimate substratum of mortal mind, can carry

on such telegraphy; for God is "of purer eyes than

to behold evil," and matter has neither intelligence nor

sensation.

Annihilation of error

243:25
Truth has no consciousness of error. Love has no

sense of hatred. Life has no partnership

with death. Truth, Life, and Love are a law

of annihilation to everything unlike themselves, because

they declare nothing except God.

Deformity and perfection

243:30
Sickness, sin, and death are not the fruits of Life.

They are inharmonies which Truth destroys. Perfection

does not animate imperfection. Inasmuch as God is

244:1
good and the fount of all being, He does not produce

moral or physical deformity; therefore such deformity is

not real, but is illusion, the mirage of error.

Divine Science reveals these grand facts. On

their basis Jesus demonstrated Life, never

fearing nor obeying error in any form.

244:7
If we were to derive all our conceptions of man from

what is seen between the cradle and the grave, happi-

ness and goodness would have no abiding-place in man,

and the worms would rob him of the flesh; but Paul

writes: "The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath

made me free from the law of sin and death."

Man never less than man

244:13
Man undergoing birth, maturity, and decay is like the

beasts and vegetables, – subject to laws of decay. If

man were dust in his earliest stage of exist-

ence, we might admit the hypothesis that he

returns eventually to his primitive condition;

but man was never more nor less than man.

244:19
If man flickers out in death or springs from matter into

being, there must be an instant when God is without His

entire manifestation, – when there is no full reflection

of the infinite Mind.

Man not evolved

244:23
Man in Science is neither young nor old. He has

neither birth nor death. He is not a beast, a vegetable,

nor a migratory mind. He does not pass from

matter to Mind, from the mortal to the im-

mortal, from evil to good, or from good to evil. Such

admissions cast us headlong into darkness and dogma.

Even Shakespeare's poetry pictures age as infancy, as

helplessness and decadence, instead of assigning to man

the everlasting grandeur and immortality of development,

power, and prestige.

245:1
The error of thinking that we are growing old, and the

benefits of destroying that illusion, are illustrated in a

sketch from the history of an English woman, published

in the London medical magazine called The Lancet.

Perpetual youth

245:5
Disappointed in love in her early years, she became

insane and lost all account of time. Believing that she

was still living in the same hour which parted

her from her lover, taking no note of years,

she stood daily before the window watching for her

lover's coming. In this mental state she remained young.

Having no consciousness of time, she literally grew no

older. Some American travellers saw her when she was

seventy-four, and supposed her to be a young woman.

She had no care-lined face, no wrinkles nor gray hair, but

youth sat gently on cheek and brow. Asked to guess her

age, those unacquainted with her history conjectured that

she must be under twenty.

245:18
This instance of youth preserved furnishes a useful

hint, upon which a Franklin might work with more cer-

tainty than when he coaxed the enamoured lightning

from the clouds. Years had not made her old, because

she had taken no cognizance of passing time nor thought

of herself as growing old. The bodily results of her belief

that she was young manifested the influence of such a be-

lief. She could not age while believing herself young, for

the mental state governed the physical.

245:27
Impossibilities never occur. One instance like the

foregoing proves it possible to be young at seventy-four;

and the primary of that illustration makes it plain that

decrepitude is not according to law, nor is it a necessity of

nature, but an illusion.

Man reflects God

245:32
The infinite never began nor will it ever end. Mind

246:1
and its formations can never be annihilated. Man is not

a pendulum, swinging between evil and good, joy and

sorrow, sickness and health, life and death.

Life and its faculties are not measured by

calendars. The perfect and immortal are the eternal

likeness of their Maker. Man is by no means a material

germ rising from the imperfect and endeavoring to reach

Spirit above his origin. The stream rises no higher than

its source.

246:10
The measurement of life by solar years robs youth and

gives ugliness to age. The radiant sun of virtue and truth

coexists with being. Manhood is its eternal noon, un-

dimmed by a declining sun. As the physical and mate-

rial, the transient sense of beauty fades, the radiance of

Spirit should dawn upon the enraptured sense with bright

and imperishable glories.

Undesirable records

246:17
Never record ages. Chronological data are no part

of the vast forever. Time-tables of birth and death are

so many conspiracies against manhood and

womanhood. Except for the error of meas-

uring and limiting all that is good and beautiful, man

would enjoy more than threescore years and ten and

still maintain his vigor, freshness, and promise. Man,

governed by immortal Mind, is always beautiful and

grand. Each succeeding year unfolds wisdom, beauty,

and holiness.

True life eternal

246:27
Life is eternal. We should find this out, and begin the

demonstration thereof. Life and goodness are immortal.

Let us then shape our views of existence into

loveliness, freshness, and continuity, rather

than into age and blight.

246:32
Acute and chronic beliefs reproduce their own types.

247:1
The acute belief of physical life comes on at a remote

period, and is not so disastrous as the chronic belief.

Eyes and teeth renewed

247:3
I have seen age regain two of the elements it had lost,

sight and teeth. A woman of eighty-five, whom I knew,

had a return of sight. Another woman at

ninety had new teeth, incisors, cuspids, bi-

cuspids, and one molar. One man at sixty

had retained his full set of upper and lower teeth without

a decaying cavity.

Eternal beauty

247:10
Beauty, as well as truth, is eternal; but the beauty

of material things passes away, fading and fleeting as

mortal belief. Custom, education, and fashion

form the transient standards of mortals. Im-

mortality, exempt from age or decay, has a glory of its

own, – the radiance of Soul. Immortal men and women

are models of spiritual sense, drawn by perfect Mind

and reflecting those higher conceptions of loveliness

which transcend all material sense.

The divine loveliness

247:19
Comeliness and grace are independent of matter. Be-

ing possesses its qualities before they are perceived hu-

manly. Beauty is a thing of life, which

dwells forever in the eternal Mind and re-

flects the charms of His goodness in expression, form,

outline, and color. It is Love which paints the petal

with myriad hues, glances in the warm sunbeam, arches

the cloud with the bow of beauty, blazons the night with

starry gems, and covers earth with loveliness.

247:28
The embellishments of the person are poor substitutes

for the charms of being, shining resplendent and eternal

over age and decay.

247:31
The recipe for beauty is to have less illusion and

more Soul, to retreat from the belief of pain or pleasure

248:1
in the body into the unchanging calm and glorious free-

dom of spiritual harmony.

Love's endowment

248:3
Love never loses sight of loveliness. Its halo rests upon

its object. One marvels that a friend can ever seem less

than beautiful. Men and women of riper

years and larger lessons ought to ripen into

health and immortality, instead of lapsing into darkness

or gloom. Immortal Mind feeds the body with supernal

freshness and fairness, supplying it with beautiful images

of thought and destroying the woes of sense which each

day brings to a nearer tomb.

Mental sculpture

248:12
The sculptor turns from the marble to his model in

order to perfect his conception. We are all sculptors,

working at various forms, moulding and chisel-

ing thought. What is the model before mortal

mind? Is it imperfection, joy, sorrow, sin, suffering?

Have you accepted the mortal model? Are you repro-

ducing it? Then you are haunted in your work by vicious

sculptors and hideous forms. Do you not hear from all

mankind of the imperfect model? The world is holding

it before your gaze continually. The result is that you

are liable to follow those lower patterns, limit your life‑

work, and adopt into your experience the angular outline

and deformity of matter models.

Perfect models

248:25
To remedy this, we must first turn our gaze in the right

direction, and then walk that way. We must form perfect

models in thought and look at them continually,

or we shall never carve them out in grand and

noble lives. Let unselfishness, goodness, mercy, justice,

health, holiness, love – the kingdom of heaven – reign

within us, and sin, disease, and death will diminish until

they finally disappear.

249:1
Let us accept Science, relinquish all theories based on

sense-testimony, give up imperfect models and illusive

ideals; and so let us have one God, one Mind, and that

one perfect, producing His own models of excellence.

Renewed selfhood

249:5
Let the "male and female" of God's creating appear.

Let us feel the divine energy of Spirit, bringing us into

newness of life and recognizing no mortal nor

material power as able to destroy. Let us re-

joice that we are subject to the divine "powers that be."

Such is the true Science of being. Any other theory of

Life, or God, is delusive and mythological.

249:12
Mind is not the author of matter, and the creator of

ideas is not the creator of illusions. Either there is no

omnipotence, or omnipotence is the only power. God is

the infinite, and infinity never began, will never end, and

includes nothing unlike God. Whence then is soulless

matter?

Illusive dreams

249:18
Life is, like Christ, "the same yesterday, and to-day,

and forever." Organization and time have nothing to do

with Life. You say, "I dreamed last night."

What a mistake is that! The I is Spirit. God

never slumbers, and His likeness never dreams. Mortals

are the Adam dreamers.

249:24
Sleep and apathy are phases of the dream that life, sub-

stance, and intelligence are material. The mortal night-

dream is sometimes nearer the fact of being than are the

thoughts of mortals when awake. The night-dream has

less matter as its accompaniment. It throws off some

material fetters. It falls short of the skies, but makes its

mundane flights quite ethereal.

Philosophical blunders

249:31
Man is the reflection of Soul. He is the direct oppo-

site of material sensation, and there is but one Ego. We

250:1
run into error when we divide Soul into souls, multiply

Mind into minds and suppose error to be mind, then mind

to be in matter and matter to be a lawgiver,

unintelligence to act like intelligence, and mor-

tality to be the matrix of immortality.

Spirit the one Ego

250:6
Mortal existence is a dream; mortal existence has no

real entity, but saith "It is I." Spirit is the Ego which

never dreams, but understands all things;

which never errs, and is ever conscious; which

never believes, but knows; which is never born and

never dies. Spiritual man is the likeness of this Ego.

Man is not God, but like a ray of light which comes from

the sun, man, the outcome of God, reflects God.

Mortal existence a dream

250:14
Mortal body and mind are one, and that one is called

man; but a mortal is not man, for man is immortal. A

mortal may be weary or pained, enjoy or suffer,

according to the dream he entertains in sleep.

When that dream vanishes, the mortal finds himself

experiencing none of these dream-sensations. To the

observer, the body lies listless, undisturbed, and sensa-

tionless, and the mind seems to be absent.

250:22
Now I ask, Is there any more reality in the waking

dream of mortal existence than in the sleeping dream?

There cannot be, since whatever appears to be a mortal

man is a mortal dream. Take away the mortal mind,

and matter has no more sense as a man than it has as

a tree. But the spiritual, real man is immortal.

250:28
Upon this stage of existence goes on the dance of mortal

mind. Mortal thoughts chase one another like snowflakes,

and drift to the ground. Science reveals Life as not being

at the mercy of death, nor will Science admit that happi-

ness is ever the sport of circumstance.

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