Page:Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures (1898).djvu/414

394 having authority over it, leaving Soul to master the false evidences of the corporeal senses, and assert its claims

over mortality and sickness. The same Principle cures both sin and sickness. When Christianity overcomes faith in Materia medica, and divine faith destroys faith in drugs, and other material methods of healing, sickness will disappear.

Prayers in which God is not asked to heal, but is besought to take the patient to Himself, do not benefit

the sick. An ill-tempered or complaining person should not be a nurse. The nurse should be full of cheerfulness, faith, light, — a believer in God, Truth.

It is mental quackery to make disease a reality, hold it as something seen and felt, and then attempt its

cure through Mind. It is no less erroneous to believe in the real existence of a tumor, a cancer, or decayed lungs, while you argue against their reality, than it is for your patient to feel these ills in physical belief. Such practice fastens disease on the patient, and it will reappear in some other more alarming form.

The knowledge that brain-lobes cannot kill a man, or affect the functions of mind, would prevent the brain

from becoming diseased; though a moral offence is indeed the worst of diseases. One should never hold in mind the image of disease, but efface all its forms and types in thought, both for one's own sake and for the patient's.

Avoid talking illness to the patient. Make no unnecessary inquiries relative to feelings or disease. Never startle with a discouraging remark about recovery, or