Page:Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures.djvu/358

346 is understood of material existence. Mortals are here without their consent, to be removed as involuntarily, not knowing why or when. As children look everywhere for the imaginary ghost, so sick humanity sees danger in every direction, and looks for relief in all ways except the right one. Darkness induces fear. The adult no more comprehends his own being than does the child; and he must be taken out of his darkness before he can get rid of the illusive sufferings that throng it.

That Life is not contingent on bodily conditions is proven, when we see that Life and man survive this body. Spiritually we cannot discern either sin, sickness, or death; and they disappear in the ratio of our spiritual growth. Sickness is not imaginary. It is more than fancy, for it is a solid conviction.

An animal may infuriate another by looking him in the eye, and both will fight for nothing. A man's gaze, fastened fearlessly on a ferocious beast, often causes him to retreat in terror. This latter occurrence represents the power of Truth over error, — the might of Intelligence exercised over mortal fears, to destroy them; whereas the hygienic drilling and drugging, adopted to cure disease, are represented by the two beasts who quarrel on an intensely material basis, into which mind scarcely enters.

The sick are more deplorably lost than the sinner, if the sick cannot rely on God for help, and the sinner can.

The movement-cure — pinching and pounding the poor body, to make it sensibly well, when it ought to be insensibly so — is another medical mistake, resulting from the usual notion that health depends on inert matter,