Page:Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures (1898).djvu/402

382 the grooming of his horse; and possibly the animal sensation of scrubbing has more meaning, to such a man, than the pure and exalting influence of the divine Mind; but the Christian Scientist takes the best care of his body when he leaves it most out of his thought, and, like the Apostle Paul, is “willing rather to be absent from the body, and present with the Lord.”

A hint may be taken from the emigrant, whose filth does not affect his happiness, inasmuch as mind and body

rest on the same basis. To the mind equally gross, dirt gives no uneasiness. It is the native element of such a mind, symbolized, and not chafed, by its surroundings; but impurity and uncleanliness, which do not trouble the gross, could not be borne by the refined.

The tobacco-user, eating or smoking poison for half a century, sometimes tells you that the weed preserves

his health; but does this make it so? Does his assertion prove the use of tobacco to be a salubrious habit, and man the better for it? Such instances only prove the illusive physical effect of belief, confirming the Scriptural conclusion, “As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.” 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 common notion that health depends on inert matter, instead of on Mind. Can matter, or what is termed matter, act without mind?

We should relieve our minds from the depressing thought that we have transgressed a material law, and must of necessity pay the penalty. Let us reassure