Page:The Origin of Christian Science.djvu/73

Rh Truth, for Truth has no sympathy for error.” As the sentence stands it does not make sense. Let us change the verbal form so as to state boldly what the thought really is and read it thus: “Sympathy with one, who is in sin, sorrow or sickness, would dethrone God, for God, who is a being of truth, has no sympathy for one who is in error, sin, sorrow or sickness.” It would dethrone God to sympathize or suffer with any one, for suffering implies passivity or weakness, as the Neoplatonists and Spinoza and Mrs. Eddy reason. Spinoza defines sympathy as he does pity, namely, “pain accompanied by the idea of evil.” He is following Plotinus who classes pity with “vices, envies, jealousies,” etc., in short with all those passions that arise on account of the body. To Spinoza the “idea of evil” is a false notion, as it is to Mrs. Eddy; and to Plotinus the body is a nonentity, as it is to Mrs. Eddy. They all are “making time” on the same track, but Mrs. Eddy is far in the rear. And notwithstanding her slow gait she can receive neither sympathy nor pity from her god, nor can she obtain forgiveness for her false boast that she is leading in the race, for her god does not know any of these unfortunate things.

The second inference is that God does not answer prayer and the only benefit of prayer is what may be termed its reflex influence. Mrs. Eddy says: “The mere habit of pleading with the