Page:Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures (1906).djvu/410

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
394
Science and Health

to be hopeful is still better; but to understand that sickness is not real and that Truth can destroy its seeming reality, is best of all, for this understanding is the universal and perfect remedy.

By conceding power to discord, a large majority of doctors depress mental energy, which is the only real Recuperation mental recuperative power. Knowledge that we can accomplish the good we hope for, stimulates the system to act in the direction which Mind points out. The admission that any bodily condition is beyond the control of Mind disarms man, prevents him from helping himself, and enthrones matter through error. To those struggling with sickness, such admissions are discouraging, — as much so as would be the advice to a man who is down in the world, that he should not try to rise above his difficulties.

Experience has proved to the author the fallacy of material systems in general, — that their theories are sometimes pernicious, and that their denials are better than their affirmations. Will you bid a man let evils overcome him, assuring him that all misfortunes are from God, against whom mortals should not contend? Will you tell the sick that their condition is hopeless, unless it can be aided by a drug or climate? Are material means the only refuge from fatal chances? Is there no divine permission to conquer discord of every kind with harmony, with Truth and Love?

We should remember that Life is God, and that God Arguing wrongly is omnipotent. Not understanding Christian Science, the sick usually have little faith in it till they feel its beneficent influence. This shows that faith is not the healer in such cases. The sick