Page:The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany.djvu/330

302 be, is, the vehicle of all modes of healing disease and of producing disease. Through the mandate of mind or according to a man^s belief, can he be helped or be killed by a drug; but mind, not matter, produces the result in either case.

Neither life nor death, health nor disease, can be produced on a corpse, whence mind has departed. This self-evident fact is proof that mind is the cause of all effect made manifest through so-called matter. The general craze is that matter masters mind; the specific insanity is that brain, matter, is insane.

It is a fact well understood that I begged the students who first gave me the endearing appellative “Mother,” not to name me thus. But without my consent, the use of the word spread like wildfire. I still must think the name is not applicable to me. I stand in relation to this century as a Christian Discoverer, Founder, and Leader. I regard self-deification as blasphemous. I may be more loved, but I am less lauded, pampered, provided for, and cheered than others before me — and wherefore? Because Christian Science is not yet popular, and I refuse adulation.

My first visit to The Mother Church after it was built and dedicated pleased me, and the situation was satisfactory. The dear members wanted to greet me with escort and the ringing of bells, but I declined and went alone in my carriage to the church, entered it, and knelt in thanks upon the steps of its altar. There the foresplendor of