Page:The People's Idea of God.djvu/13

Rh prophecy of the full liberty of the sons of God as found in Christian Science. The defenders of the rights of the colored man were scarcely done with their battles before a new abolitionist struck the keynote of higher claims, in which it was found that the feeblest mind, enlightened and spiritualized, can free its body from disease as well as sin; and this victory is achieved, not with bayonet and blood, not by inhuman warfare, but in divine peace.

Above the platform of human rights let us build another staging for diviner claims, — even the supremacy of Soul over sense, wherein man cooperates with and is made subject to his Maker. The lame, the blind, the sick, the sensual, are slaves, and their fetters are gnawing away life and hope; their chains are clasped by the false teachings, false theories, false fears, that enforce new forms of oppression, and are the modern Pharaohs that hold the children of Israel still in bondage. Mortals, alias mortal minds, make the laws that govern their bodies, as directly as men pass legislative acts and enact penal codes; while the body, obedient to the legislation of mind, but ignorant of the law of belief, calls its own enactments “laws of matter.” The legislators who are greatly responsible for all the woes of mankind are those leaders of public thought who are mistaken in their methods of humanity.

The learned quacks of this period “bind heavy burdens,” that they themselves will not touch “with one of their fingers.” Scientific guessing conspires unwittingly against the liberty and lives of men. Should we but