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184 the very opposite of that Maker, by claiming that God is Spirit, while man is matter; that God is good, but man is evil; that Deity is deathless, but man dies. Science and sense conflict, from the revolving of worlds to the death of a sparrow.

The Word will be made flesh and dwell among mortals, only when man reflects God in body as well as in mind. The child born of a woman has the formation of his parents; the man born of Spirit is spiritual, not material. Paul refers to this when speaking of presenting our bodies holy and acceptable, which is our reasonable service; and this brings to remembrance the Hebrew strain, “Who healeth all thy diseases.”

If man should say of the power to be perfect which he possesses, “I am the power,” he would trespass upon divine Science, yield to material sense, and lose his power; even as when saying, “I have the power to sin and be sick,” and persisting in believing that he is sick and a sinner. If he says, “I am of God, therefore good,” yet persists in evil, he has denied the power of Truth, and must suffer for this error until he learns that all power is good because it is of God, and so destroys his self-deceived sense of power in evil. The Science of being gives back the lost likeness and power of God as the seal of man's adoption. Oh, for that light and love ineffable, which casteth out all fear, all sin, sickness, and death; that seeketh not her own, but another's good; that saith Abba, Father, and is born of God!

John came baptizing with water. He employed a type of physical cleanliness to foreshadow metaphysical purity, even mortal mind purged of the animal and human, and submerged in the humane and divine, giving back the