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HISTORICAL SKETCH OF

understand the omnipresence of Good (the Saxon term for God) sufficiently to demonstrate, even in part, the Science of the perfect Mind and divine healing.

I had learned that thought must be spiritualized, in order to apprehend Spirit. It must become pure, in order to have the least understanding of God in Divine Science. The “first must become last.” My reliance upon material things must be transferred to a perception of and dependence on spiritual things. For Spirit to be supreme in demonstration, it must be supreme in our affections, and we must be clad with divine power. Purity, self-renunciation, faith, and understanding must reduce all things real to their own mental denomination, Mind, which divides, subdivides, increases, diminishes, constitutes, and sustains, according to the law of God.

I had learned that Mind reconstructed the body, and that nothing else could. How it was done, the Science of Mind must reveal. It was a mystery to me then; but I have since understood it. All Science is a revelation. Its Principle is divine, not human, reaching higher than the stars of heaven.


In 1870 I copyrighted a pamphlet on Metaphysical Healing, entitled The Science of Man. This little book I converted into the chapter Recapitulation, in Science and Health. It was so new,—the basis it laid down for physical and moral health was so hopelessly original, and men were so unfamiliar with the subject, that I did not venture upon its publication until 1876. I had learned that the merits of Christian Science must be proven, before a work on this subject could be profitably published. Five years after taking out my first copyright I taught Metaphysical Healing, by writing out my manuscripts for students, and distributing them unsparingly. This will account for certain unpublished manuscripts extant, which the evil-minded would insinuate did not originate with me. The lady who held the copies that have since been published by Mr. Dresser as