CHAPTER VII.
PHYSIOLOGY.
Because science reverses the positions of personal sense, human reason acts slowly in accepting it, contesting every inch of ground it occupies, while error, self-complacent and applauded, sneers at the slow marches of Truth. Physiology is a name in our land. Institutions honor it, and materia medica bows the knee, but notwithstanding this, it has not improved mankind. We shall yet open our eyes to this fact in theodicy, that depending on matter for what Intelligence is responsible, is a mistake with grave consequences. The fundamental error of mortal man, is the belief that man is matter, but theorizing from mushrooms up to brains, amounts to little in the right direction, and much in the wrong. Classifying the different species of man, mineral, vegetable, and animal, an egg is the author of the genus homo; but we perceive no reason why man should begin thus sooner than in the more primitive state of dust where Adam commenced. Brains are beneath the craniums of animals; then to admit brains are man, furnishes a pretext for saying he was once a monkey, which is met with the reply, if this be the case, he will again be one, according to natural history.
What is man? brain, heart, or the entire human structure? If he is one, or all of the component parts of his body, when you amputate a limb, you have taken away a portion of man, and a surgeon destroys manhood, and worms are the annihilators of man. But losing a limb or injuring structure, is sometimes the quickener of manliness, and the unfortunate body presents more nobility than the statuesque outline, and we find, “a man's a man, for a' that.” Admitting matter, blood, heart, brains, etc., and the five personal senses, man, we fail to see how anatomy makes out the different species of brute and human, or determines when man rises above his progenitors, for both possess these constituent parts, and must, to some extent, be mortal man, if he is matter. According to accepted theories, the genus homo ranges from dust to Deity, the latter having its origin in matter, while the different varieties of man are mineral, vegetable, and animal; but the spiritual is not a link in this chain of so-called being, and is seen only as it disappears. If man was first dust, he has passed through every form of matter, until he became man, and if the material body is man, he is matter, and the dust that returns to dust. But this is not man, the image and likeness of God, but a belief of Soul in sense, and of Life in matter, that Wisdom consigned to annihilation. Anatomy makes man a structural thing; physiology continues this definition, measuring his strength by bones, sinews, etc., and his Life by material law. Phrenology makes him a thief or Christian, according to the development of bumps on the cranium; but not one of these define immortal man. The tendency of all true education is to unfold the infinite resources of being, but to measure our capacities by the size or weight of our brains, and limit our strength to the use of a muscle, holds Life at the mercy of organization, and makes matter the status of man.
Physiology is like fiction in which debauchery is toned down to fascinate, and mankind are in danger of catching its sentiment. The very opposite teachings of physiology, are all that will open again the gates of paradise that beliefs have closed, and reach the personification of Spirit, in winch man is upright, pure, and free, having no need to consult calendars or clouds to learn the probabilities of Life, or brainology, to know how much of a man he is. Mistaking his origin and nature, we call man both matter and Spirit; the latter sifted through the former, Soul put through personal sense, carried on a nerve, and subject to ejection at the hands of matter; the intellectual, moral, and spiritual, that exist as Soul outside the body, subject to the body!
Unless civilization embraces heathenism, why should man, in the nineteenth century, bow down to flesh-brush, flannel, bath, diet, exercise, air, etc., when matter is not capable of doing for him what he can do for himself? The idols of civilization are more fatal to health and longevity than the idols of other forms of heathen homage; they certainly call into action less faith than Buddhism in Intelligence governing man. The Esquimaux restores health by incantations, as effectually as the modus operandi of the schools.
Physiology is anti-Christian; it teaches us to have other gods before “Me,” the only Life of man. The good it claims is positive evil, because it robs man of his birth-right from God. Truth governs it not, and the inharmonious condition that calls for physiology, is the result of physiology, or our beliefs of matter.
Did the teachings of Jesus comprehend the economy of man, less than those of Graham or Cutter? They alone embrace the Principle of man's harmony; but our theories do not. “He that believeth in me shall not see death,” contradicts, not only the systems of man, but points to that which is self-sustaining and eternal. The demands of God are wholly spiritual, and reach the body only through Spirit that controls matter; there are no physical laws; all are mental. The best interpreter of man's needs said, “Take no thought for the body, what ye shall eat or what drink.”
Putting on the full armor of physiology, obeying to the letter, the so-called laws of health, statistics show, has not diminished sickness, nor increased longevity; diseases have multiplied and become more obstinate; their chronic forms more frequent; the acute more fatal and death more sudden, since man-made theories have taken the place of primitive Christianity.
Explaining man a physical being evolved from matter, is a Pandora box opened on mankind, whereby hope escapes, and despair alone remains. If matter laws prevent disease, what causes it? not the laws of God, surely, for Christ, Truth, heals the sick, and brings to light immortality; but not through obedience to physiology. Laws of matter are nothing more or less than a belief of Intelligence and Life in matter, even the procuring cause of disease, and God its cure. Not more sympathy exists between physiology and Christianity, than God and Belial. Failing to recover through adherence to materia medica, physiology and hygiene, the despairing invalid drops these, and turns in his extremity — sometimes to God, the dernier resort of mortal man, and one in which he has even less trust than in drugs, air, exercise, etc., showing we have other Gods before Me. The balance of power is given to matter, by every theory of the schools, whereas Spirit at last asserts its mastery over man, and holds the body harmonious and immortal.
To understand the Principle that embraces the harmony of being, is beyond burnt offerings or sacrifices. If the recovery of the sick is submitted to a personal God we shall reach no higher than faith; understanding will be wanting, therefore man's existence as Soul instead of sense, will not be comprehended. We comprehend Life in science or the harmony of being, only as we deny personal sense. The relative claims we permit Intelligence and matter, determines the harmony of our existence; our health, longevity and Christianity. We cannot serve two masters, and must reach God through science, and not with sense, or material law. The source of all Life and perfection, we should not offset with drugs, laws of health, etc. When man would be both good and evil, he will grow no better, and the result of this error will make him grow worse; so it is with an attempted compromise between Spirit and matter. Even in healing the sick, to gain the advantages of Spirit, we must lose our faith in matter.
The severest part of teaching or learning the science of being, is to empty the mind of the thousand and one beliefs that war against Truth; for you cannot fill a vessel already full. After laboring long with the well or ill-stored mind, to shake its faith in matter, and give it a crumb of faith in God, viz., the capacity of Spirit to make the body harmonious, we have thought yearningly of our Master's love for little children, and understood how, “of such is the kingdom of heaven.”
We admit mind influences the body somewhat, but conclude matter, blood, nerves, brain, etc., hold the balance of power; in accordance with this belief, we continue the old routine, and this deprives us of the available superiority of mind over matter. We cannot control our body, mentally, with a negative position. Spirit works against matter, and vice versa. They can no more unite in action than good and evil, and it is wise not to take a halting, or half-way position on this subject, or think to work equally with right and wrong: there is but one right way, and this we should learn to-day, is Spirit and not matter. To govern the body scientifically, we must admit only mind, and you will find it impossible to gain control over the body on any other ground; a conservative position on this point, or faith strongest in matter, will never do it.
If you manipulate your patients, you lean on electricity more than Truth, and it is matter more than mind you employ to heal the sick, while science teaches you success is on the side of Intelligence, and that you only weaken your power with matter. It is useless to say you manipulate patients, but lay no stress on this manipulation; then why do you do it? We answer for you — because you are not sufficiently spiritual to do otherwise; and if this is so, why do you call it science, explained in this work? If you are too material to understand the science of being, and rub the head as a substitute for living Truth, adopting words and manipulation instead of good deeds, then you adhere to error and flee to electricity because you have not science, and are afraid to trust yourself to heal with your God-being. “Adam, where art thou?” is your question here at every step. If you manipulate the sick, the more to satisfy them that you are doing something for them, this is not necessary, for they are generally satisfied when cured, and manipulation will retard your success. “Where your treasure is there will your heart be also.” Having more faith in electricity than you have in your God-being, balances you on the side of matter, and your power as a mesmerist will diminish your achievements in the direction of science, and vice versa, and this should remind you where your treasure is. Casting out error with Truth shows your real position in science. The sensualist or dishonest man can never rely on Truth to heal the sick; they must depend on personal sense, and their only power is mesmerism and manipulation. Jesus cast out error and healed the sick, not with manipulations or drugs, but his God-being.
Food, fatigue, or sleeplessness, you say may cause distressed stomachs or aching heads, and then cudgel your brains to reproduce in memory what you think hurts you, when your remedy lies in getting the whole thing out of mind, for matter has no sensation and mind only can give pain. To reduce inflammation, dissolve tumors, or cure organic disease, mind is more potent than matter, and why not, since Intelligence is Life, and mind the seat of feeling or sensation, the body has nothing to do with it. When we say the stomach or head is disordered or pained, consider what art thou that repliest to Spirit? can matter speak for itself, or has it the issues of Life? Pain or pleasure belongs to mind alone. Matter has no partnership with Spirit. The head cannot ache, but believing it does, “as a man thinketh so is he.” Mind is all that feels, that produces action or impedes it; but, ignorant of this, or shrinking from its responsibility, you throw the burden on matter, and lose conscious control over your body. Adjust a balance, and a single weight removed from one of the scales gives preponderance to the opposite one; so with body and mind; what you cast into the scale of matter to weigh for or against health, you take away from Intelligence, and its power to hold the balance against matter. Your belief weighs against your health while it ought to weigh for it. When the body is sick according to a belief of matter, you trust in drugs, laws of health and matter to heal it, when you have got yourself into the difficulty through these, very beliefs of Intelligent matter. Disease is caused and cured by mind alone; matter never did it; this you do not understand now, but must before you are immortal. To lay aside our God-being as of little use in sickness, seems anomalous; to depend on matter then and put Truth aside for the hour of health, is to learn it can not do as much for you then as in sickness.
Because materia medica and physiology say man is sick and useless, suffering, or dying, in obedience to laws of God, are we to believe this? despite his laws to the contrary are we to believe what Jesus proved false? he surely did the will of the Father and healed sickness instead of producing it. The demands of God relate to mind alone, but the claims of physiology and what are termed laws of nature, rest upon the body only. Which, then, are we to accept as legitimate and capable of producing most harmony? We cannot obey them both, for one works against the other, and will be supreme in the affections. Spirit and matter are opposites, and we cannot work from the standpoints of both; attempt it and we shall find ourself cleaving to one and forsaking the other.
Heal your body with the science of being if you can, adhering to the old regimen, taking drugs, or yielding your mental control to laws of matter. Obedience to what you call material law, prevents obedience to the spiritual law that enables you to handle deadly serpents unharmed, and put matter under your feet. Like a barrister that would strengthen his plea, introducing the text, “Wo unto you, lawyers, for you shut up the kingdom of heaven against man;” you plead for recovery of God, and then shut out the aid of Spirit through your material means; thus working against yourself, and suffocating your own strength and ability. The plea for matter, medicine, laws of health, etc., goes against the science of mind over matter, and vice versa. There is this clause in the statues of Truth to which we call your attention at such times, viz., that sin, sickness, and death are not governed by laws of God. Error produces error, sin and sickness, for both are errors of belief, and what causes disease cannot cure it, unless it be the homœopathic dose where matter is destroyed and mind says this. Admitting sickness a condition of matter over which God has no control, makes Omnipotence, on some occasions, null and void. The law of Christ, Truth, finds all things possible to Spirit; but the so-called laws of matter find Spirit of no avail, and demand obedience to them, reversing the basis and economy of being; to matter we deny the support of law; our beliefs of matter are not correct, as Jesus clearly demonstrated healing the sick, raising the dead, etc., contrary to them.
Can the agriculturist produce a crop without first sowing the seed and awaiting its germination, according to laws of nature? Yes; if as the Bible says, error caused man to till the ground, for in this case, obedience to Truth, would remove this cause. God never made a necessity for error, or a law to perpetuate it. The opposite of harmony are supposed laws of nature, and by these you mean laws of God, therefore, it is not in harmony with Truth to be well. As you would construe them, laws of nature annul the law of Spirit; But the law of Christ demands man's entire obedience, heart, Soul and strength, which admits no reservation, or obedience to aught else, and we should have no other God. Truth is strength, and error weakness. Physiology is one of the fruits of the “tree of knowledge,” that said, I will open your eyes, and make you as Gods, but instead, closes them to man's God-given dominion over earth. Christ, Truth, cast out physiology and every law of health, giving sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf, etc., contrary to them. If these explanations dishonor the schools, they honor God, and there is no other Truth to honor.
What we term laws of nature, are simply laws of belief regarding matter, the premises whereof are error; therefore their conclusions are such. The All-wise has made no laws regulating sickness, sin, and death, these are errors, that Truth destroys. Belief produces the results of belief, and the penalty it affixes will be as positive as the belief that causes it; therefore, our remedy lies in reaching the bottom of the thing, in finding out the error or mind that produces the discord we see on the body, and not to honor it with the title of law, and then yield obedience to it. Truth, Life, and Love are the only demands that rest on man, and the only laws that govern him. We say my hand hath done this; but what is the “my” in this case, but mind, the universal cause whence proceedeth all harmony and inharmony. Discord is not a thing, but a belief, and the action of our hand is either produced by Intelligence or belief, by harmony or discord. The so-called voluntary and involuntary action of the body is governed by mind, and not matter. And, controlled by Intelligence, the body is governed by the Principle of being, in which man is harmonious and immortal; but governed by man's belief, it is discordant and mortal. Under extreme cold, heat, fatigue, etc., we say, the body suffers, but this is belief only, and not the Truth of being; matter cannot suffer, mind alone suffers, and not because we have transgressed a law of nature, matter, but a law of belief. Our proof is, that if you destroy the belief in regard to the suffering, it disappears, and the effect of what you term broken law, producing catarrhs, fevers, consumptions, etc., goes with the belief. A lady whom we cured of consumption, breathed with great difficulty when the wind was east; we sat silently by her side a few moments, and her breath came gently, the inspirations becoming deep and natural; we then requested her to look at the weather-vane; she saw it was due east; the wind had not changed, but her difficult breathing had gone; therefore it was not the wind that produced it, and our explanations broke this mental hallucination, and she never suffered again from east winds. Here is testimony on this point.
I was suffering from pulmonary difficulties, pains in the chest, a hard and unremitting cough, hectic fever, and all those fearful symptoms that made my case alarming. When I first saw Mrs. Glover, I was reduced to such a state of debility as to be unable to walk any distance, or to sit up but a portion of the day; to walk up stairs gave me great suffering for breath. I had no appetite, and seemed surely going down the victim of consumption. I had not received her attention but a short time, when my bad symptoms disappeared, and I regained health. During this time, I rode out in storms to visit her, and found the damp weather had no effect on me. From my personal experience I am led to believe the science by which she not only heals the sick, but explains the way to keep well, is deserving the earnest attention of community; her cures are not the result of medicine, mediumship, or mesmerism, but the application of a Principle that she understands.
East Stoughton, Mass.
Mortal man is divided into five points of sensation, called personal sense; these five points constitute pleasure, pain, sin, sickness, and death; what would be left of man at the mercy of personal sense? Spirit is superior to matter, and the body that is ours, should be under our control; settle the question then, which shall be master, Soul or body, but do not think to serve both, for you cannot. Soul, owns man now and forever; let the owner of man then govern him, and the body will be harmonious and eternal. Neither a blade of grass appears, nor a spray buddeth within the vale, nor a leaf unfolds its fair outlines, nor a flower starts from its cloistered cell, without the Principle of man, even that Intelligence which the winds and sea obey, hath done it; naught but universal Soul, that numbers the very hairs of our head, and marks the sparrow's fall, can govern man. Sin, sickness, and death are inharmonies; they are not identity, action, or being, they are matter-beliefs, that appear and disappear, governed alone by mind, but without the reality or support of law or Spirit. That God is the law of discord, is morally impossible, or that Wisdom instituted penalties to protect us from what is without law, except to belief, is again impossible. Wisdom never made matter to subdue Spirit; to say it did is like concluding it made Hades to get ready for sinners; but there were so many sinners they had to make their own Hells. God is too pure to behold iniquity, “in Him was Life,” etc.; and harmony never produced discord, or Life death. Goodness makes its own heaven, sin its own hell, and belief its own sufferings. A dream seemeth a reality while it lasts; a falsehood is true to those that believe it, and sickness is real to such as have it, but mind and not the body is responsible for it all. Pain and pleasure are mind, not matter; the body has no sensation of its own. Discord is unreal, harmony is real; admitting the same reality to discord we do to harmony, one has as high a claim on confidence and obedience as the other. If evil is as real as good, error is as real and immortal as Truth. What we name diseased action is discord, but harmony is the reality of being; hence the former is a belief only, and not the Truth of being; if death is as real as Life, immortality is a myth, and if pain is as real as the absence of pain, it will be immortal, and harmony is not the order of being. Personal sense discords, and is therefore a belief only; matter has no sensation; the action proceeding from Soul is harmonious and eternal.
In Mohammedan belief, a pilgrimage to Mecca was salutary to save man's Soul, and in still another belief, inanimate matter is able to save man; one is paganism, the other materia medica. Disease germinates in unconscious mind, until it reaches what is termed conscious matter, or the body, named personal sense, but there is no conscious matter; therefore disease is mind still, named matter; thus the belief of sickness is developed as a germ, rising above its soil, and we have a crop abundant or scanty, according to the variety and strength of soil, the mind full of materia medica, laws of health, physiology, etc. The diagnosis of disease helps more than most things to cultivate the seeds of disease, causing them to take deeper root in the patient's mind, and to spring up, bearing fruit “after its own kind.” Doctors deport themselves, generally, as if there was no law of mind; at least, they regard not this law, or they would sooner administer poison in matter than mind. They fight disease with matter and admit it with mind, and this makes it a certain thing. They propagate it mentally, and then consider a thing of mind should be dosed with matter; but after all, 'tis faith in drugs, etc., that cures, mind is their remedy at last.
Faith is all that ever made a drug remedy the ailments of a man. Mortal mind is belief, the immortal is understanding, the latter is Spirit, the former personal sense; we must learn to hold immortal and mortal mind or belief separate. The cause and cure of disease is solely mental, and to understand this renders mind less productive of disease, and able to destroy it. Matter has neither action nor sensation of its own; mind moves the body, and feels for it. We cannot retain the old positions diametrically opposite to metaphysical science, and conquer disease with mind. And because physics must eventually yield to metaphysics, it will keep the old schools fighting science for the next century. Ignorance, superstition, or avarice will shut the door on health and harmony not obtained through their systems. When there were fewer doctors and less thought bestowed on sanitary subjects there were better constitutions and less disease.
In olden times, who ever heard of a case of dyspepsia; if one had chanced to appear it would have yielded at once to benevolence, or hard work; people had little time then to be selfish, or to think of their bodies, and for sickly after-dinner-talk. The exact amount of labor the stomach could perform was not mapped out in mind by physiology; therefore a man's belief was not a law to his digestive organs. The action of mind on the body was more harmonious before the “tree of knowledge” had taken deeper root in man's belief. The primitive privilege was to take no thought about the bowels, or gastric juices, letting these act in obedience to Truth, instead of error. A ghastly array of diseases was not constantly kept before the mind by works on physiology, hygiene and materia medica; hence the greater longevity and more harmony of man. Before these got the floor, dyspepsia, consumption, spinal diseases, etc., were not heard of in all the land. The duties of man were thought of, and the naturally undisturbed mechanism of man not interrupted by sorrow, cares, or materia medica, went on harmoniously. Damp atmospheres, and freezing snows, empurpled the cheeks of our fore-fathers; but never reached the refinement of inflaming bronchial tubes; they were as ignorant as Adam, before informed by his wife, of bronchial tubes, or troches for bronchitis.
But, alas! the nineteenth century would load with disease the very airs of paradise, and hunt mankind down with airs in dress and airs of heaven. Metaphysics hold mind the only friend or foe to man, and Truth destroying error, the great panacea. It is important to learn the exact belief that has produced disease, if you would destroy it, unless your spirituality is equal to this by holding a balance over matter; when you destroy disease in mind it disappears on the body. A surgeon must hit the ulcer with his lance to cure it, unless he is able to destroy it without the sharp point; and you must reach the mind by argument, unless the Spirit reaches it without speech. A strongly material, bigoted, or opinionated man yields more slowly to scientific treatment than the more liberal and logical mind, but the spiritual is more easily affected than either.
Do you say, let an M. D. attend to the real malady, and the metaphysician take up hysteria and imaginary disease? But facts are stubborn things; we have found in healing the sick on the Principle herein stated, severe and acute disease yields more readily than the chronic. This method of healing is far from temporizing with disease, or unsafe in cases difficult and dangerous; ignorance of science and the force of education, are all that would lead to such a conclusion. A physician who understands the science of being is the only one I would venture to conduct a dangerous or difficult case. We had tried all others and failed to recover before learning this “more excellent way.” Many great and good men have passed away within the two years we have been writing this work, that might have been saved by the science of which it treats.
An accident once happening to us, would have proved fatal, but for the Truth herein stated, that saved us; hundreds of cases given over by materia medica and the minor hosts of Esculapius, we have since cured by it. Had we depended on materia medica, or used the means ordinarily employed in such emergencies, or allowed the weight of our former beliefs regarding structural and organic life, or the opinions expressed regarding the fatal nature of our case, to balance the scale of mind at the time the accident occurred, we should have passed away, or survived only to be a hopeless invalid and cripple. The Principle of science herein explained, saved us, and the triumph we achieved over our body at that time made us stronger in the Truth, and consequently more healthy ever since. A supreme moment, more than ordinary circumstances, tests this science insomuch as it proves more clearly than others the superiority of mind over matter, drugs, and material law. Ignorance of the relations of mind to the body, and the superiority of the former over the latter, are all that occasion skepticism regarding mental pathology.
A physician said to us, “I know mind affects the body somewhat, and advise my patients to be hopeful and take less medicine, but there are organic diseases that mind cannot affect.” To this we replied, it is poor logic that facts contradict; we have many cases on record of cures wrought through mind alone, that materia medica had failed to reach. You admit death has occurred from fright, and this proves every function of the body controlled by mind; death covers the whole ground, it stops the action of brain, heart, blood, lungs, etc., and if all organic action can be stopped by mind, it is controlled by it, and can be cured also. Mind produces what is termed organic disease, as directly as it does hysteria, and cures it as readily; the demonstration we have given of this removes the question beyond cavil. We predicate this science on proof, and have not more evidence of our existence, than we have gained of the utter control mind holds over the entire organization and functions of the body. Through mind alone we have cured organic disease of the lungs, liver, heart, brains, bones, muscles, etc., that defied physiology and materia medica to heal.
But to govern the body harmoniously with mind, you must understand the science of being predicated on mind and not matter. Few will admit that what is termed involuntary organic action is governed alone by mind, or that mind unconsciously controls the body, but man presents this phenomenon every moment, who comprehends not his own being, for this proves ignorance of mind's action on the body. Supposing a dose of poison be administered through mistake, and physician and patient are looking for favorable results when the patient dies, — did mind produce this? As surely as if it had been consciously done. Mind is ever active, for action signifies mind and the remote and predisposing thought furnishes a link to the present, although what we term personal sense knows this not. Accordingly, the thought that has risen above the verge of unconscious mind is the only one recognized, but it has acted before, and effects have followed this action all the same as when the thought became conscious. The mortal body, of matter, is but a grosser strata of mortal mind.
When darkness is over the earth, personal sense cannot say where the sun is, or that there is a sun; our antipodes must tell us this, or we must learn it of science. Thus it is with mind; the very reverse of what we are thinking at present, is often the remote cause or belief that has produced the inharmony of the body, and we must learn this belief of its opposite thought or the effect on the body, or submit its character and relations to science. We are willing to leave the explanation of light and its effect on the earth, to science, and because sense takes no cognizance, a portion of the twenty-four hours, of the sun, never say it has no effect on the earth, or deny there is a sun, or that the earth borrows light and heat from the sun. No more should we deny the effect of mind on the body because the belief that produces this effect is below the mental horizon, not having risen yet to recognition. The valve of the heart, opening and closing for the blood, is not less obedient to mind than our hands, that perform the offices of our will; but because mind embraces one action consciously and not the other, we say the cause is physical and not mental. Stop the action of mortal mind wholly, by what is termed death, and every function of the body mortal ceases; proving organic action produced by mind and not matter. Brains are totally ignorant of thoughts; matter has no consciousness of its own, and its propelling power is mind; all mechanism is controlled by mind.
Personal sense is a supposition that matter is conscious, that brains are competent to say how much mind a man has; that heart, lungs, stomach, etc., are capable of determining his harmony and continuance. Soul is not heard in all this; the immortality of man is silenced with utterances of mortality, Intelligence mute before non-Intelligence. This personal sense is the source of sickness, sin and death; but there is no personal sense; matter has no Intelligence, and Soul is incapable of error. Life goes on scientifically in Soul, undisturbed in its harmony, but personal sense has no recognition of Soul or Truth. All discord is error, belief; the Truth of being is harmony and understanding. Destroy the belief or error, and the discord disappears.
The metaphysician understanding this, in case of decaying lungs, destroys in the mind of his patient this belief and the Truth of being and immortality of man assert themselves over the error and belief of decomposition, and the lungs become sound and regain their original proportions.
Physiology has never explained Soul, and had better not undertaken to explain body. Truth has no beginning, and therefore no end. Life was, and is, and ever will be, for Life is God, and its idea was, and is, and ever will be, and this idea is man, that Spirit has made, and matter cannot unmake. Our body is as dead that we call living as ever it will be, and when dead, as much alive as it ever was. Life is Spirit, not matter, and if you understand the law of Spirit you understand how to make the body immortal. Physiology is like the drugs we say make man suffer because he took too little of them; it causes sickness, and then to cure it we double the dose. “Take no thought about the body what ye shall eat or what drink or wherewithal it shall be clothed, and the body, or matter, will give you no intimation of its own wants, for it has no requirements of its own. Happiness or misery belongs to mind and not body; sensation is mind and not matter, and mesmerism proves this when belief is seen to determine sensation.
Every new method of obtaining health has its advocates, and when you get the consent of mind to this method as preferable to others, the body will demand it and be benefited by it so long as this belief lasts. You can educate a healthy horse to take cold without his blanket, but the wild animal left to his instincts, snuffs the wind with delight. Epizootic is an educated finery that a natural horse has not. The Principle of being reveals the immortality of man, on the basis of Spirit; but personal sense defines him as matter, hence the mortality of this man.
We have discerned some diseases approaching, weeks before they made their appearance on the body, and because they were latent things of mind before they appeared as matter, that grosser strata of mind, and never in a single instance, were mistaken in results. Again, during an aggravation of symptoms that occur in the changes, or chemicalizations that sometimes alarm the patient, we have seen the mental signs that assured us the danger was over, and said to the patient, you are healed, sometimes to his discomfiture, when he was incredulous of the fact, but it always proved as we foretold. We name this merely to explain the mental, instead of physical origin of disease, therefore, that rules of health, taking strong hold of the belief of the patient, beget and foster disease, by keeping mind on this subject, fearing and trying to avoid sickness. The faith reposed in drugs had better remain in one's self; understanding the control mind holds over the body, we should have no faith in matter. Science reveals the origin of disease wholly mental and not physical, also that it is cured through mind and not matter. However much we trust the drug, or medium through which this faith is exercised, it is the faith and not the medium that heals the sick. The spirituality that enables us to read the minds of patients, enables us to heal them also, for the action of Spirit on matter is to restore the harmonious relations of mind and body. Healing the sick through mind instead of matter, enables us to heal the absent as well as the present. The spiritual capacity to apprehend thought, is reached only when man is found not having on his own righteousness, which is the law, but the righteousness which is of God. Science fits us to read the mind of the sick, and heal them through mind; for having learned man is governed by Spirit that understands all things, we know Spirit is that to which all things are possible. The approaches to this great affluence of Truth that heals the sick, are made through the footsteps of our Master. Christianity alone is its basis, and physiology, that pins our trust to matter instead of God, its very opposite. Ignorant of the footsteps and foundation of this science, the world may call it mesmerism, trance, mediumship, electricity, etc., but not one of these in the least express it, and whoever reaches the science of being in the high sense of its sudden cures, learns it is by taking up the cross and following Christ. We are scientific only as we let go material things, drugs, manipulations, etc., for the spiritual, and leave all for Christ, trusting only Truth to heal the sick. Our beliefs are not spiritual, they are from the hearing of the ear, from personal sight and sense.
Spirit never believes in God because it understands Him. Power is a belief of matter, a blind force, the offspring of will and not Wisdom, of the mortal, and not the immortal mind,—yea, of error, and not Truth. The headlong cataract, the devouring flames, the tempest's breath, the lightning and storm, together with all that is selfish, dishonest, and impure, represent power. Might belongs to Spirit, the very “winds are in His fists;” and, controlled by Spirit and not matter, they are harmonious. Error is the prototype of will; and willing the sick to recover, or man to do this or that, infringes on his rights; it is mesmerism capable of all evil, instead of the science of being. Christ, Truth, stills the tempest and is the “peace be still” to destructiveness or disease.
To personal sense opposites affinitize; but not so in science, the mind of Soul, where Truth never mingles with error or the so-called mind of the body, and therefore is able to cast it out. Spirit is Intelligence; matter is not; there is a mind of Soul, but not of body, of God, but not man. The mind of Soul is the aroma of being, the atmosphere of Intelligence thrown off by Spirit; but the so-called mind of man is the belief that a pulpy substance under the skull contains mind, yea, that matter is Intelligent, and this belief is false, the mocker of Intelligence, even error calling itself Truth. This is the scientific statement of mortal man, but man is immortal, therefore this is not man, but a belief anatomized metaphysically. To classify Spirit and matter thus, that Spirit is distinct from matter but must pass through it to be identified, is a mistake. The limitless would destroy limits if it entered them, and Spirit cannot be limited. It is a dream and illusion that Soul is in body and matter the medium of Spirit. We are not aware it is a dream, the terrible nightmare, that makes suffering or enjoyment just as the dream chances to run. We would prefer the suffering that makes one willing to be aroused from this dream, to the pleasure that tends to hold it.
We frequently heal the sick who are absent from us, without the least consciousness of it on their part, except from their recovery. Now reverse the case, and mathematically you prove that if mind eschewing laws of health, dietics, physiology, etc., restores the sick, an opposite mind crammed with physiology, etc., might make them sick. This proof we gain of our body, for such mind causes us what are termed the physical sufferings that matter is powerless to do and could not produce. Whenever we have taken charge of a practice to establish a student, it was not necessary for us to see the patients to heal them; we could do this without seeing them; if the student was not advanced spiritually, we failed to benefit the sick so much in connection with him. Mind acts mesmerically or scientifically; it is will in mesmerism, and Truth in Science, that heals the sick. I can have no effect on the sick through manipulation, and cannot affect them mesmerically. Cases of healing the sick without seeing them, we record as proof of our statement. Mrs. Sarah Crosby, of Albion, Maine, sent for our aid, in case of an injury to her eye. At the time of writing she was hundreds of miles away, but after receiving her first letter, as soon as the mail could bring it, we received another from her, of which the following is an extract: —
“Since the accident to my eye, it has been so exceedingly sensitive to the light, I have shaded it, unable to do any writing or sewing of any note. The Sunday I mailed you a letter I suffered a great deal with it; Monday it was painful until towards night, when it felt better; Tuesday it was well, and I have not worn my shade over it since a week ago Monday, and I have read, sewed, and written, and still all is well. Now you may form your own conclusions. I told a friend the other day you had cured my eye, or perhaps my fear of my eye, and it is so; though I am sure, for the life of me, I cannot understand a word of what you tell me about the possibility of a spirit like mine having power over a hundred and seventy pounds of live flesh and blood to keep it in perfect trim.”
The following is a case of heart disease described in a letter from a lady at New York.
“Please find inclosed a check for five hundred dollars in reward for your services, that can never be repaid. The day you received my husband's letter I became conscious, for the first time for forty-eight hours; my servant brought my wrapper and I rose from bed and sat up. The attack of the heart had lasted two days, and no one thinks I could have survived but for the mysterious help I received from you. The enlargement of my left side is all gone, and the M. D.'s pronounce me entirely rid of heart disease. I have been afflicted with it from infancy, until it became organic enlargement of the heart and dropsy of the chest. I was only waiting, and almost longing, to die; but you have healed me; and yet how wonderful to think of it, when we have never seen each other! We return to Europe next week. I feel perfectly well. L. M. Armstrong.”
Mr. R. O. Badgeley, of Ohio, wrote: — “My painful and swelled foot was restored at once on your receipt of my letter, and that very day, I put on my boot and walked several miles.” He had previously written me, “A stick of timber has fallen from a building on the top of my foot, crushing the bones somewhat.”
A lady at Louisiana wrote: — “Your wonderful science is proved to me. I was a helpless sufferer six long years, confined to my bed, unable to sit up one hour in the long, long twenty-four. All I know of my cure is this; the day you received my letter I felt a change pass over me, I sat up the whole afternoon, went to the table with my family at supper, and have been growing better every day since; I call myself well. Jenny R. Coffin.”
The following is from a lady in Lynn: “My little son, one year and a half old, was a great sufferer from disease of the bowels, until he was reduced to almost a skeleton, and growing worse constantly; could take nothing but gruel, or some very simple nutriment. At that time the physicians had given him up, saying they could do no more for him, but you came in one morning, took him up from the cradle in your arms, kissed him, laid him down again and went out, In less than an hour he called for his playthings, got up and appeared quite well. All his symptoms changed at once. For months previously nothing but blood and mucous had passed his bowels, but that very day the evacuation was natural, and he has not suffered since from his complaint, and it is more than two years since he was cured. Immediately after you saw him, he ate all he wanted, and one thing was a quantity of cabbage just before going to bed, from which he never suffered in the least. L. C. Edgecomb, Lynn, Mass.”
We were called to Mr. Clark, in Lynn, with hip disease, saw him in the afternoon for the first time; his physicians had probed the ulcer that day, and informed us the bone was carious; the patient had not been up nor turned on his couch for months. On entering the house we were told he was dying; his wife stood over him weeping. We stood at his bedside a moment; he sank to sleep; woke presently, saying, “I feel like a new man, my suffering is all gone.” In a few hours he rose from his bed, dressed himself, and that afternoon took supper with his family. The next day we saw him in the yard, and have not seen him since, but are informed he went to work in two weeks, and is now well. Hundreds of similar cures might be named, that we wrought contrary to what are termed laws of nature regulating disease and recovery, but prefer you should learn the Principle of these cures and be able to do your own work. Experience also has taught us the greater the moral or spiritual distance between us and an individual, the more they persecute us; as with individuals so with the general thought, those cures remote from the comprehension of the age, have only afforded our enemies new opportunity for detraction.
Theories admit the limbs are matter and moved by mind, but the fact is, all is mind of different admissions and constructions. Mind increases or retards action, causing sickness or health; but this is not because of physical action, for it is effect and not cause. You say man cannot exist with a headless trunk, or consumed lungs; but man was never for a moment despoiled of his fair proportions; it is matter you are talking of, and not man. Nerves have neither consciousness nor sensation; the body has no life; Spirit is the only Life and Principle of man; but never for a moment enters matter, or is destitute of its idea or man. Hearing is not because of the ear or its mechanism; if the construction of the ear or auditory nerve is destroyed, man is not deaf. Intelligence is left, and hears, sees, etc., independent of matter or organization. The error or belief of Life in matter should give place to this understanding of Spirit's indestructible faculties, that cannot be lost, because they exist without the necessities of matter; otherwise, they were mortal.
Again, a change of belief changes all the reports of personal sense, and man sees, hears, etc., independent of the organs that you say determine the existence of these faculties. If the mesmerized subject whom you call man, accepts the belief that he sees, with closed eyes, or from the top of his head, or hears without sound, such will be the case. To him sight is not confined necessarily to organization, and is only what his belief says of a thing. Change his belief of cold and heat, pleasure or pain, and cold is to him heat, and pleasure pain, and vice versa. Here you perceive nerves bear a changed report with a change of belief; therefore personal sense is not a standard, nor is sensation dependent on organization; it is not matter, but mind that determines sensation. Science reveals to spiritual understanding the body without sensation, and man the reflex shadow of Soul, and Soul embracing all the faculties of being, having no lack of emotion, speech, sight, or sound; and possessing the consciousness of all things, its blessings are not at the disposal of organization, that accident or disease can destroy. All being is spiritual and not material, for this is the scientific statement of being, the basis of immortality, and we shall all ultimately learn this. Nor can we begin to understand Life a day too soon. Every theory opposed to this prolongs sickness, sin and death, making that which is immortal in understanding, mortal in belief. When the belief of Life and Intelligence in matter disappears, its physical manifestation will cease, and mortal man return to dust, and why? because he was simply a belief, and this belief an error, instead of the reality of being; for man is not matter, and never dies. To prove the body called mortal man error and not Truth, we have only to find it mortal. The belief of Life and Intelligence in matter is destroyed; but Life and man, still are, and ever will be.
Matter is not the medium through which Spirit acts, or is manifested. Spirit is never individualized, and there is no medium for it. Spirit is infinite, because it is Intelligence, what then can limit it? Again, to Spirit Intelligence alone is Substance, and there is no matter. If the body was intelligent, it could never return to dust, for mind dies not, and Intelligence never developed from matter.
Physiology makes man both Spirit and matter; and this error would make man mortal. If brains are mind matter is mind; and a stone, a lesser degree of man. To admit Spirit is not in matter, and then say it is manifested through it, contradicts facts, for matter manifests mortality only, and Spirit is immortal; not a glimpse or manifestation of Spirit is obtained through the erring or decaying. Spirit is positive to all things, and if it passed through matter it would destroy it, or become negative to it. Metaphysical science, dry and abstract though it appears, should not be overlooked for the transient and mortal sense of things; health, harmony and immortality are gained through spirituality only; and this will be understood sooner or later. Truth has but one department for its students, and but one branch of education, viz., the science of being. Studying into the nature of matter, that embraces sin, sickness and death, hath no real advantage; and matter-laws of health lay the foundation of sickness. Knowledge embraces neither Life nor Truth; but when we define the material with the spiritual, and look from nature up to nature's God, learning is profitable. Prof. Rudolph's astronomical explanations are of this sort. The researches and experiences of our great minds are of the utmost importance, when given thus.
Astronomy, Natural History, Chemistry, Music, Mathematics, etc., as ideas of a Principle, are mile-stones in the pathway of science; but when we attempt to put Principle into these ideas, we give them the interpretations of personal sense, that mislead our conclusions. Let spiritual sense give the last, because the highest explanation of all things, and “the last shall become first, and will be final.” If material man was really man, when this body is destroyed man would be annihilated; identifying man through matter you have no authority for saying, he lives after that is destroyed. Education is all that develops sense, but it cannot develop Soul; Casper Hauser, without this education, manifested less Intelligence than a mouse, was unable to feed himself, even knew less than the lower species, guided by instinct. The infant boy, incarcerated in a dungeon where neither sight nor sound could reach him, at the age of an adult, was not a man, — showing years make not men — he was an infant still, and a belief of Life in matter, that proved itself neither Intelligence nor the idea of God, but in reality nonentity. Thus mortal man for whom laws of health are conjured up from the abyss of condemned “knowledge,” is just this material nothingness, “dust to dust;” therefore, what availeth it to plant him deeper in matter-belief, whence he sprang and was accursed.
The least thought or said of physical structure, laws of health, etc., the higher will become manhood and woman-hood, the fewer diseases appear, and less harm be derived from change of climate, unwholesome diet, laying aside flannels, severe mental labor, sedentary habits, heated rooms, and all the et cetera of physiological rules based on man as a structural thing, whose life is at the mercy of circumstance. The scriptural warning against “knowledge” ought to be heeded, but it is not; the stronger constitutions of our forefathers compared with this age, should furnish a hint, but they do not; the difficulty lies in our nameless theories; sin, sickness, and death, all over the land, are the fruits of the belief of Life and Intelligence in matter.
The simple food our forefathers ate would not cure dyspepsia to-day; with rules of health in the head and the most digestible food in the stomach, there would be dyspeptics; the effeminate constitutions of this period will never grow robust until the science of being takes the place of materia medica, physiology, etc. The ignorance of our forefathers of the knowledge that to-day walks to and fro in the earth, made them more hardy than our physiologists, and more honest than our politicians. We by no means deprecate learning, deep research, original thought, history, observation, invention, science and understanding; it is the scheming barbarisms of learning, the mere doctrine, theory, or nauseous fiction, we deplore. Novels, remarkable only for exaggerated pictures of depravity, works on materia medica, hygiene, or laws of health, remind you of Æsop's mountain in labor with a mouse; introduce but a scandal and humbug and you please society. What I wish to know is, if this taste be not a fault of our systems of thinking and writing. All is mechanical; nature is suffocated; the core of mankind is not reached, and its coverings thickly inlaid with foreign devices. Let us be individually what we are; not swallowing camels for popularity, or mincing at gnats in the shape of honest ideas, because they come from the Soul of man. If knowledge is power, it is not Wisdom, but blind force, whose material origin is made known by losing in time, what it gains in power.
To eschew error would usher in a new era, pulling down the bars of sects, and the conventionalities of knowledge, would build up spiritual foundations, whereby we take God into our experiences, and become healthy and harmonious, noble men and women, instead of despairing invalids and matter-automata. The less we have of personal sense, the more we have of Soul; and the fewer laws material, the more longevity and spiritual understanding. Learning all was vanity “in the flesh,” made Solomon a wise man, that before had been the fool of sense.
Ancient theories separated a personal Satan from man by horns and hoofs; modern opinions compromise; eschewing his satanic majesty in such proportions, they retain a sinful and mortal man, the opposite of God's idea, at war with his Maker, and swaying his own destinies in defiance of Him, yet supposed to have God dwelling in him! Whatever is sinful, sick, or dying, is not man, but that which Paul described “without hope, and without God in the world,” and the psalmist said, was “a sleep, and dream that is told.” “He that dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.” Relinquishing the belief of Intelligent matter, man abides in Spirit and is harmonious; but this is a most high, and most secret place to personal sense, that knows nothing about it.
When the relation between Soul and body, and God and man is understood in science, we shall become harmonious mind and body, and never until then.
If Life is affected in the least by exercise, food, clothing, etc., God is discordant, the harmony of Spirit beclouded, and Life at length put out. Physiology and materia medica direct us not, as David did, to God, “a present help in time of trouble,” but change the tones of Life to a minor key that flattens into discord, while the science of Life that sharpens its sweet tones and conscious harmony into immortality, asks in vain for a hearing. That “old things shall pass away and behold, all things shall become new,” I for one, anticipate with joy, willing, if need be, that Truth shall cut off right hands and pluck out right eyes, in amputating error. We perceive the “irresistible conflict” that awaits the ages when Truth shall overturn the beliefs of man.
Let the science of Life be taught in our institutions of learning and taken up by pulpit and press; give it but the place of physiology and it would eradicate sickness, sin and death, in less time than these have been increasing on the old systems and stereotyped plans to beat them. Simply to understand the nothingness of error, saves a Don Quixote warfare with windmills, and we gain the immortality and liberty of being, by control over our bodies. Since man “hath sought out many inventions,” he has not learned that knowledge can save him from the dire effects of knowledge. Many a hopeless case of disease has been induced by a single post-mortem examination, not because of virus taken into the system, (one condition of blood is as harmless as another if mind says so, but not otherwise,) it is some fatal belief that is admitted, that does the harm. Mind alone affects the secretions of the body, gives action, and increases or diminishes it; a simple blush or fright tells us this. When the unconscious mental conception of disease takes place, its symptoms and locality appear on the body, the same as in optics, when the image is formed on the retina that becomes visible to personal sense. The error of talking over sickness and peering into the symptoms of disease to conjure up from the dark depths of discord some new discovery, is little understood. When a physician names an ailment, describing its symptoms and their danger, he has committed an unconscious offence against being, against his patient's happiness and liberty, and will make a sure job for himself, if not a fatal one for his patient.
A lady was etherized and died while under its effects, her physicians affirming it was not safe to perform the surgical operation without ether. The case was brought to trial, the evidence found conclusive, and the verdict returned that death was occasioned, not by the ether, but her fear of taking it. Her sister testified the deceased protested against inhaling the vapor, saying it would kill her, but after this, was compelled by her physicians to inhale it. Had those surgeons understood the action of mind on the body, they would have allayed her terror before administering the ether, or much sooner have risked a severe surgical operation than the effects of fear. Such ignorance, yea, cruelty, should arouse the community; diplomas give no more claim to a dupe or a victim, than the assassin's steel. Inert matter taken wholly into account, and mind disregarded! when the sequel proved the patient died of mind instead of matter.
Books that would rule disease out of the mind instead of impressing it more strongly on the belief, would abate sickness ten per cent. in a short period. Instruct your patient that he is not an involuntary subject of disease, but can resist it, and overcome it too, with mind that is superior to matter. To understand their God-given dominion over the body, would reassure and encourage the sick and impart healthy action to the body. Knowing their mental power, they would meet sickness as fearlessly as we encounter a swarm of insects that flee before us.
Science and personal sense are antagonists, bearing very different reports of man, but demonstration proves science right and personal sense wrong, and that mind instead of matter controls matter. Doctors examine the body to ascertain the exact power matter is bringing to bear on man to kill him, and render judgment accordingly. Giving all precedence to discord, they poison the minds of patients with the belief they have no defense, mentally, over their bodies, when the fact is, mind produces all action, whether it be sickness or health. Reverse the case, and when the symptoms of disease appear administer to the mind and not the body; teach the patient that pain, swelling, ulceration, morbid or acute action, etc., appear on the body only because they are mapped out in mind, for the latter transfers its images to the body. Ask the patient what he thinks of the ailment; and what his mind admits on the subject is what you must destroy in order to relieve the obedient body of discord. Go to the fountain head to heal your patient. But what a task! say you, to teach the present age mind's control over the body. Admitting it changes the stand-point of old theories, turning them upside down, and the sick may not understand your sayings at first, still they will produce an effect on their minds, and this will affect their bodies. This is the science of being, that Truth, brought to bear on error, begins to destroy it. You will heal the sick with Truth despite the odds against you, and inaugurate a perception of science that will be for “the healing of the nation.” You may be quite sure that not understanding your metaphysical process of healing, your patients will have little faith in it until they feel its beneficial effects, showing you their faith is not what heals them. Your demonstration must be the only proof of what you say. The sick are sooner restored by Truth than error, and through mind than matter. The mental cure is higher proof of power, because it is made against fearful odds, even the weight of universal opinion in favor of matter, and the preconceived views of your patient working unconsciously against themselves and the metaphysical cure.
Physiology insists the body is diseased independent of mind, and despite its protest; that its functions are interrupted without the co-operation of mind, and that matter-laws control the body. This error is quite as palpable to us, and will be to others at some future day, as the rejected tenet of theology, that “all are lost who are not elected to be saved.”
The body is our servant, obedient not only to mind in one instance, but in every case. The shocking theory that man is governed all his days, and killed at last by his body, is too absurd to last another century. Our press sends forth, unwittingly, many a plague spot on the human family, in treatises on disease, hygiene, and therapeutics; giving names for maladies and long explanations regarding them, affects people like a Parisian name for a new dress; every one that can, will have it. A minutely-described, long-syllabled name for disease has cost a man all his earthly days of usefulness. What a price for knowledge! but not exceeding its original market value, when God said, “In the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt die.” A doctor's belief in disease harms his patients more than calomel, morphine, ether, or the forceps; mind is more potent than matter. A patient hears the doctor's verdict like a culprit his death-sentence. He may seem calm under it, and to exercise fortitude worthy a better cause, or an occasion more real, but he is not calm; fear is mastering the case and developing the disease. The mind's power to harm the body, reversed in action, would heal it, and the sick would triumph over the disease they resign themselves to suffer on the ground of inevitableness. If mind can kill, as has been proved, it has power to cure also. Ah! patient, or impatient sufferer, may your eyes be opened to behold your way of escape from sickness; to this end we have pledged our endeavors, and labored since God raised us up from hopeless disease and unspeakable sufferings. The doctor is the artist that delineates in mind most distinctly the image of disease, and causes belief to fill up his outlines on the body. Possibly disease had appeared before you saw your doctor, but it could not be so positive or defined as afterward; you must have felt the influence of his mind, his belief in disease affected yours, even if he said nothing, and but for this it might have gradually left your mind and you would have recovered.
We would not deny to physicians, as noble men and women, great philanthropy of purpose; we only urge them to make their endeavors more effectual by changing their basis of action from body to mind, and from personal sense to science. If the science of being was familiar to them as the edicts of the schools, blessings numberless would flow from such high sources. In every case of disease, or of health, to heal the one or preserve the other, the science of Life is all that is necessary. But the various methods of healing have not been science, else disease would have disappeared ere this remote period since Adam, error, first introduced it. The so-called laws of health are not science, for the latter delivers man from their penalty and destroys the law, establishing a higher law, even the superiority of Soul over sense, and of Spirit over matter. It annuls the oppressive bondage that our theories enforce on man. The law of God is opposed to laws of matter, and entitled to more obedience and respect. His law is Intelligence, that recognizes no higher law, and if this be not apparent to more than myself, why appeal to God to restore the sick, when the so-called laws of health are of no avail. God should control man at all times, and under all circumstances; and controlled thus, he is harmonious and immortal. Sickness, sin, or death will never trouble man, or the body controlled by Soul and not sense, Spirit and not matter. If the law of Truth, Life and Love, produced sickness, no law of matter could destroy it, and it were morally wrong to employ means acting against this government; the law of God is the only admissible authority in the universe, but this law pertains to mind and not matter. What, then, is left to physiology but crossbones and skulls? Man will never be learned in harmony and immortality until the error of physiology is destroyed by Spirit triumphing over matter.
Because the muscles of a blacksmith's arm are strongly developed, it does not follow that exercise did this, or that he whose habits are sedentary must be fragile. If matter was the cause of action, and muscles without mind used the anvil and smote the nail, such an inference might be true; but muscles act in obedience to man, hence the fact that mind and not matter enlarges and strengthens them only through the demand man makes on them, and the corresponding power he supplies, and not because of exercise or muscles, but the blacksmith is the strength of his arm.
Man moves his own body and develops it in whatever direction mind determines; whether consciously or unconsciously, it matters not. The feats of the gymnast are proofs that the latent powers of man are unknown to him; mind fixing on some achievement, makes its accomplishment easy. Had Blondin believed he could not walk a rope over Niagara's abyss of waters, to accomplish that feat would have been impossible; but, understanding it could be done, he lost his fear and gave his muscles flexibility and power that was attributed, perhaps, to a lubricating oil. When Homer sang of Grecian gods, how dark was Olympus compared with Sinai. David expressed the science of being when he said, “Thou madest man to have dominion over the works of thy hands; thou hast put all things under his feet.”