Page:Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures (1898).djvu/440

420 If such be the case, explain to them the law of this action. As when an acid and alkali meet and ferment,

bringing out a third condition, so mental and moral fermentation change the material base of man, giving more spirituality to mortal sense, and causing it to depend less on material evidence. The changes which go on in mortal mind serve to reconstruct the body. Thus Christian Science, by the alchemy of Spirit, neutralizes disease.

Let us suppose two parallel cases of bone-disease, both similarly produced, and attended with the same

symptoms. A surgeon is employed in one case, and a Christian Scientist in the other. The surgeon, believing that matter forms its own conditions, and renders them fatal at certain points, entertains fears and doubts as to the ultimation of the injury. Not holding the reins of government in his own hands, he believes that something stronger than Mind — namely, matter — governs the case. His treatment is therefore tentative. This mental state invites defeat. The belief that he has met his master in matter, and may not be able to mend the bone, increases his fear; yet neither should be communicated to the patient, either verbally or otherwise, for thus the tendency towards a favorable result is greatly diminished. Remember that the unexpressed belief oftentimes affects the sensitive patient more strongly than the expressed belief.

The Christian Scientist, understanding that all is Mind, commences with mental causation, the Truth of

Being, to destroy the error. This corrective is an alterative, reaching to every part of the human system. According to Scripture, it searches