Page:Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures (1898).djvu/182

162 from sense to Soul, where the creations of God are good,

“rejoicing the heart.” Such is the sword of Science, whereby Truth decapitates error, and mortality gives place to man's higher individuality and destiny.

Would existence be to you a blank without personal friends? Then the time cometh when you will be

solitary, left without sympathy and alone; but this seeming vacuum is already filled with divine Love. When this hour of development comes, even if you cling to a sense of personal joys, spiritual Love will force you to accept what best promotes your growth. Friends will betray and enemies will oppose, until the lesson is sufficient to exalt you; for “man's extremity is God's opportunity.” Thus He teaches mortals to lay down their fleshliness in order to gain spirituality. This is done through self-abnegation. Universal Love is the divine way in Christian Science.

The sinner believes himself happier for wrong-doing, and the saint that he suffers for doing right. Both inferences are untrue. They are the cobweb misconceptions of material sense, mixing Truth with error, in cause and effect.

Mortals must follow Jesus' sayings and demonstrations, which destroy the flesh. The throne of perfect

and eternal Mind is Good, but the beliefs which originate in matter must disappear. Man is the idea of Spirit; he reflects the beatific presence, illuming the universe with light. Man is deathless, spiritual; he is above mortal frailty, he does not cross the barriers of time, into the vast forever of Life, but coexists with God and the universe.