Page:Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures (1898).djvu/438

418 disease and ward it off, just as positively as they can the temptation to sin. This fact of Christian Science

should be explained to invalids when they are in a fit mood to receive it, — when they will not array themselves against it, but are ready to become receptive of the new idea. This fact reassures depressed mortal mind. It imparts a healthy stimulus to the body, and regulates the system. It increases or diminishes the action, as the case may require, better than any drug, alterative, or tonic.

Mind is the natural stimulus of the body; but mortal belief, taken at its best, is not promotive of health

or happiness. Tell the sick that they can meet sickness fearlessly, if they only realize their mental power over every physical action and condition.

If it becomes necessary to startle mortal mind, in order to break its dream of suffering, vehemently tell

your patient that he must awake. Turn his gaze from the false evidence of the senses, to the harmonious facts of Soul and immortal Being. Tell him that he suffers only as the insane suffer, from a mere belief. The only difference is, that insanity implies belief in a diseased brain, while physical ailments (so called) arise from belief that some other portions of the body are deranged. Derangement, or disarrangement, is a word which conveys the true definition of human belief in ill-health, — disturbed harmony. Should you thus startle the mind, in order to remove its beliefs, afterwards make known to the patient your motive for this shock, showing him that it was to facilitate recovery.