Page:Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures.djvu/153

Rh matter, but less, if we would be wise and healthy. Mind, that forms the bud and blossom, will care for the human body, even as it clothes the lily; but let no mortal interfere with His government, or thrust in human laws of belief.

The higher nature of man is not governed by the lower. This would reverse the order of Wisdom. Our false views of Life hide the eternal harmony, and produce the ills of which we complain. Because mortals believe in laws of matter, and reject the Science of Mind, it does not make materiality true, or the so-called laws of sense superior to the law of Soul.

You would never conclude that flannel is better than controlling Mind, for warding off pulmonary disease, if you understood the Science of Being.

Man is the offspring of Spirit. The beautiful, good, and pure are his ancestors. His origin is not brute instinct, nor does he pass through material conditions prior to reaching the human estate. Spirit is his primitive and ultimate being, and God is his Father.

Recurring once more to Dr. Channing, in his sermon on The Essence of the Christian Religion he has written as follows, thus going to the root of the whole matter, though not of course fully expressing the teachings of Christian Science: —

What do we mean when we call God our Father? Does this term imply nothing more than that He created us? He created the stone; is He therefore its Father? Do we mean that He gives us bodies, and the pleasures of sensitive existence? These He gives to the bird and insect, but the Scriptures nowhere call Him their parent. No! It is clear that this word expresses a spiritual relation. It declares God's