Page:Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures (1906).djvu/198

182 ability to become a Scientist, and vice versa. The act of healing the sick through divine Mind alone, of casting out error with Truth, shows your position as a Christian Scientist.

The demands of God appeal to thought only; but the claims of mortality, and what are termed laws of nature,

appertain to matter. Which, then, are we to accept as legitimate and capable of producing the highest human good? We cannot obey both physiology and Spirit, for one absolutely destroys the other, and one or the other must be supreme in the affections. It is impossible to work from two standpoints. If we attempt it, we shall presently “hold to the one, and despise the other.”

The hypotheses of mortals are antagonistic to Science and cannot mix with it. This is clear to those who heal the sick on the basis of Science.

Mind's government of the body must supersede the so-called laws of matter. Obedience to material law

prevents full obedience to spiritual law, — the law which overcomes material conditions and puts matter under the feet of Mind. Mortals entreat the divine Mind to heal the sick, and forthwith shut out the aid of Mind by using material means, thus working against themselves and their prayers and denying man's God-given ability to demonstrate Mind's sacred power. Pleas for drugs and laws of health come from some sad incident, or else from ignorance of Christian Science and its transcendent power.

To admit that sickness is a condition over which God has no control, is to presuppose that omnipotent power is powerless on some occasions. The law of Christ, or