Page:Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures.djvu/65

Rh images of disease distinctly in thought. A new name for an ailment affects people like a Parisian name for a novel garment. Every one hastens to get it. A minutely described disease has cost many a man all his earthly days of comfort. What a price for human knowledge! But the price does not exceed the original cost. God said, “In the day thou eatest thereof, thou shalt die.” The doctor's mind reaches his patient's. His belief in disease — its reality and fatality to him — harms his patients more than his calomel and morphine; inasmuch as the higher stratum of mortal mind is more potent to injure than its lower substratum, called matter. A patient hears the doctor's verdict as a martyr hears his death-sentence. He may seem calm under it, but he is not. His fortitude may sustain him, but his fear has already developed the disease which is gaining the mastery.

The power of mortal mind over its own body is little known. Its destructive action, if reversed, would restore health.

Take away the penalty that must follow sin, and mortal mind could not destroy its own body. Sin alone brings death, for it is the only element of destruction. “Fear him who is able to destroy both Soul and body in hell,” said Jesus; and a careful study of this text shows that these words were a warning to beware, not of Rome, nor of Satan, nor of God, but of sin. Sickness, sin, and death are not concomitants of Life. No law supports them. They have no relation to God that can establish their power.

The doctor is the artist who outlines disease, and fills his delineations with sketches from class-books. After