Page:Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures (1906).djvu/580

564 them to devour each other and cast out devils through Beelzebub.

As of old, evil still charges the spiritual idea with error's own nature and methods. This malicious animal instinct, of which the dragon is the type, incites mortals to kill morally and physically even their fellow-mortals, and worse still, to charge the innocent with the crime. This last infirmity of sin will sink its perpetrator into a night without a star.

The author is convinced that the accusations against Jesus of Nazareth and even his crucifixion were instigated

by the criminal instinct here described. The Revelator speaks of Jesus as the Lamb of God and of the dragon as warring against innocence. Since Jesus must have been tempted in all points, he, the immaculate, met and conquered sin in every form. The brutal barbarity of his foes could emanate from no source except the highest degree of human depravity. Jesus “opened not his mouth” Until the majesty of Truth should be demonstrated in divine Science, the spiritual idea was arraigned before the tribunal of so-called mortal mind, which was unloosed in order that the false claim of mind in matter might uncover its own crime of defying immortal Mind.

From Genesis to the Apocalypse, sin, sickness, and death, envy, hatred, and revenge, — all evil, — are typified

by a serpent, or animal subtlety. Jesus said, quoting a line from the Psalms, “They hated me without a cause.” The serpent is perpetually close upon the heel of harmony. From the beginning to the end, the serpent pursues with hatred the spiritual idea. In Genesis, this allegorical, talking serpent typifies mortal mind, “more subtle than any beast of the