Page:Medicine and the church; being a series of studies on the relationship between the practice of medicine and the church's ministry to the sick (IA medicinechurchbe00rhodiala).pdf/311

 too many fell apart, and the spiritual world floated away, if one may say so, to nowhere, whilst the physical, with all its limitations, its ruthless laws, its indifference to the individual, its total disregard of pain, and its insurmountable barriers, reigned alone. Materialism had triumphed with its apparently hard-and-fast solidity; whilst the ideals of Poetry, the truths hinted at by Art, the revelations of the prophet, the dreams of the young and the visions of the old, and our intuitions of unseen realities which cannot be uttered, were consigned by many, supposed to be wise, to the region of illusions, the realm of nothingness, and Man seemed indeed to be nothing more than a creature helplessly subject to circumstance, the sport of every wind, and entirely beyond the region of hope wherever physical aid failed.

It was in the midst of a state of things something like this that Christian Science came with its contrary announcement that all is Spirit, and this given forth with the energy and freshness which always accompanies the discovery of a new aspect of truth, or, as in this instance, the rediscovery of a world-old truth which had been for a time despised or forgotten. And with it came a message of hope, the assurance that we are not the creatures of mere circumstance, that we are