Page:Science and Health.djvu/254

250 knowledge. Truth's question to Adam, error, viz., “Is Life and Intelligence in matter?” rebuked and exposed this would-be material consciousness.

“The Lord formed man of the dust, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of Life, and he became a living Soul,” put Truth in error! Intelligence in matter! made the body mortal embrace the Principle of being that embraces man! Did the Infinite enter matter through man's nostrils? did God, the Truth and Life, enter the sick, sinning, and dying body? then Deity would be man, or man Deity, and Life mortal! this absurd belief is atheism. “When God, who is our Life, shall appear, then shall we be like Him.” Man will be perfect, sinless, and eternal, when Spirit permeates man. Principle never entered its idea, nor Spirit matter. We have no record in Genesis that God gave Adam, error, dominion over the earth, and yet, to belief, error holds this sway. Adam was a product of belief, and Eve, of Adam, and both were beliefs of Life in matter; we say beliefs because that is not the Truth of being. Principle, and not person, Spirit and not matter, Truth and not error, God and not man, made male and female.

“And the Lord said, behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good from evil, and now lest he put forth his hand and take also of the tree of Life and live forever, therefore the Lord sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground whence he was taken.” No one can doubt this scripture is allegorical, pointing out the results of a belief of God in man, or Intelligence in matter; we cannot accept it in a literal sense without impugning the Love that made man, and gave him earth for a possession, and blessed it for his sake. A