Page:Historical Sketch of Christian Science.pdf/27

22 an illusion termed sin, which must be met and mastered, we classify sin, sickness, and death as illusions. They are supposititious claims of error; and error, being a false claim, they are no claims at all. Our duty is to abide in conscious harmony, even health-giving, deathless Truth and Love. To do this, mortals must open their eyes to the subtlety of error, that they may destroy it.

is asked: Why are faith-cures sometimes more speedy than some of the cures wrought through Christian Scientists? Because faith is belief, and not understanding; and it is easier to believe than to understand spiritual Truth. It demands less cross-bearing, self-renunciation, and Divine Science, to admit the claims of the personal senses, and appeal for relief to a humanized God, than to deny those claims, and learn the divine way, drinking Jesus’ cup, being baptized with his baptism, gaining the end through persecution and purity. Millions are believing in God, or Good, without bearing the fruits of goodness, not having reached its Science. Belief is virtually blindness, when it admits Truth without understanding it. Blind belief can not say with the apostle, “I know in whom I have believed.” There is danger in this mental state called belief, for if Truth is admitted, but not understood, it may be lost, and error may enter through this same channel of ignorant belief. The Faith-cure has devout followers, whose Christian practice is far in advance of their theory.

all error there is but one statement: namely, that error is a false belief, and the generic term for belief is Animal Magnetism. Al forms of this belief are illusion, a false sense of life, substance, and intelligence