Page:Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures (1898).djvu/407

Rh suffers less, only because it knows loss of material law.

The Apostle John testified to the divine basis of Christian Science, when dire inflictions failed to destroy his body. Idolaters, believing in more than one mind, had “gods many,” and thought they could kill the body with matter, independently of mind.

Admit the common hypothesis, that food is what sustains life, and there follows the necessity for another

admission, in the opposite direction, — namely, that food has power to destroy life, through its deficiency or excess, in quality or quantity. This is a specimen of the ambiguous character of all material health-theories. They are self-contradictory and self-destructive, — “a kingdom divided against itself, which is brought to desolation.” If food preserves life, it cannot destroy it.

The fact is, food does not affect the real existence of man; and this becomes self-evident, when we learn that God is our Life. Because sin and sickness are

not qualities of Soul, or Life, we have hope in immortality; but it would be foolish to venture beyond our present understanding, foolish to stop eating until we gain more goodness, and a clearer comprehension of the living God. In that perfect day of understanding, we shall neither eat to live, nor live to eat.

If mortals think that food disturbs the harmonious functions of mind and body, either the food or this thought

must be dispensed with. Which shall it be? If this decision be not destroyed, it may some day say that they are dying from want of food; for the penalty is thus coupled with the thought. The less we