Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures (1889)/00 Preface
PREFACE.
LEANING on the sustaining Infinite, to-day is big
with blessings. The wakeful shepherd beholds the
first faint morning beams ere cometh the full radiance
of a risen day. So shone the pale star to the
prophet-shepherds; yet it traversed the night, over to where, in
cradled obscurity, lay the young child who should
redeem mortals, and reduce to human understanding the
way of salvation. Now, across a night of error, dawn
the morning beams, and shines the guiding orb of Truth.
The wise men are led to behold and follow the day star
of Divine Science, as it repeats the eternal harmony.
The time for thinkers has come. Truth, independent of doctrines and time-honored systems, knocks at the portal of humanity. Contentment with the past, and the cold conventionality of materialism, no longer bar the door to progress. Though empires fall, “He whose right it is shall reign.” Ignorance of God is no longer the stepping-stone to faith. The only guaranty of obedience is a right apprehension of Him “whom to know aright is life eternal.”
A book is inadequate to introduce new thoughts and make them speedily understood. It is the sturdy task of the pioneer to hack the tall oak and cut the rough granite. Future ages must declare what the pioneer has accomplished.
Since my discovery of the adaptation of Truth to the treatment of disease, my system has been fully tested and not found wanting; but to reach the heights of Christian Science man must live in obedience to its Divine Principle. To develop the full glory of this Science, the discords of personal sense must yield to harmony; even as the science of sound corrects false tones caught by the ear, and gives the sweet concord of music.
Theology and Physics agree that both Matter and Spirit are real and right; whereas the fact is that one is good, and the other its opposite. Demonstration will answer by evidence the question, What is Truth? and prosper that method of Christian healing found to give the most health and make the best men. Christian Science will thus have a fair fight. Sickness has had its doctors; but the question arises, Is there less sickness because of these practitioners. The longevity of the Antediluvians answers, No!
The cowardly claim that I am not the originator of my own writings, but that one P. P. Quimby is, has been legally met and punished. The departed, helplessly dragged into this mad scheme, is silent on earth, or with honest pride he would deny this post mortem falsehood.
Mr. Quimby died in 1865, and my first knowledge of Christian Science, or Metaphysical Healing, was gained in 1866. He was an uneducated man; but he was a distinguished mesmerist, and personally manipulated his patients. This I know, having been one of them. When he doctored me I was ignorant of the nature of mesmerism, but subsequent knowledge has convinced me that he practised it. Hence he did not really heal me, and my disease returned.
After his death I was healed, and this healing followed the revelation to me of the Principle of Christian Science. His method of treating disease was obviously physical, rather than mental. When I first conversed with him he believed matter, sin, sickness, and death to be verities. He also believed matter to possess sensation, and its verdicts to be valid. Matter was quite as real to him as Mind.
I healed some of his patients, and also corrected some of the desultory paragraphs which he had committed to paper, besides leaving with him some of my own writings, which are now claimed as his.
Mr. Quimby's son has stated, over his own signature, that he has in his possession all his father's written utterances; and I have offered to pay for their publication, but he declines to publish them; for their publication would silence the insinuation that Mr. Quimby originated the system of healing which I claim to be mine.
Before writing “Science and Health” I made copious notes of Scriptural exposition, that have never been published. This was about the year 1867-68. These efforts show my ignorance of the subject up to that time, and the degrees by which I came at length to the solution of the great Life-problem; but I value them as a parent may treasure the memorials of childhood's growth, and would not have them changed.
My first pamphlet on the subject was copyrighted in 1870, though it did not appear in print until 1876. From 1867 until 1875 copies were in friendly circulation. One of my students had over three hundred pages of this manuscript. He subsequently carried these pages into court, making oath that they were mine, and holding them up for a reproach against me.
After the efhcacy of my system became publicly known, this student declared that those very manuscripts were Mr. Quimby's.
The manuscripts with which Mr. Quimby was acquainted were not properly an exposition of Christian Science. As before stated, this important revelation did not possess my mind till the year after his death.
Though I began immediately to jot down my thoughts on the subject, these jottings were but infantile lispings of Truth. A child drinks in the outward world through the eyes, and rejoices in the draught. He is as sure of the world's existence as of his own; yet he cannot describe it to his mother. He finds a few words for the conveyance of his thought, and stammers “I see,” till the phrase becomes his household name. Later the tongue voices the more definite thought, though still imperfectly.
So was it with me. Like a certain noted poet, —
I lisped in numbers, for the numbers came.
My great joy, when I was healed, found expression in speech and on paper. I began to write down, and gave to my friends, the results of my Scriptural study, for the Bible was my sole teacher; but these statements were crude, the first steps of a child in a new world of Spirit.
The physician who had attended me. but who could not cure me, begged that I would tell him how I had raised myself from imminent death. I could only tell him that God had wrought the cure, through Mind. This I knew, but could not as yet put my knowledge into words.
Essays of mine, written at that early date, are still in circulation among my first pupils; but they are feeble attempts to state the Principle and practice of Christian Healing, and are not complete or satisfying expositions of Truth. To-day, though able to teach others, I find myself still a willing disciple at the heavenly gate, waiting for the Mind of Christ to fully possess me.
The first edition of “Science and Health” was published in 1875. Various books on mental healing have since been issued, in imitation of mine; but they are all more or less plagiaristic, and also incorrect. They regard the human mind as a healing agent, whereas this mind is not a factor of the Principle of Mental Science. The differences are to evade the law or support Animal Magnetism. These works are set forth as scientific, when they are far from scientific, and are simply the thoughts of one erring mind transferred to another, not an influx of the Eternal Mind.
I have not compromised conscience to suit the general drift of thought, but bluntly and honestly given the text of truth. There has been no effort, on my part, to embellish, elaborate, or treat in full detail so infinite a theme in books. When personally teaching Christian Science, I have more freedom, and my students can prove the truth of what I teach.
The Principle of my system is demonstrable. Its purpose is good, and its practice is more safe and potent than other sanitary methods. The unbiassed Christian thought is soonest touched by Truth, and convinced of it. Those only quarrel with my method who have not understood my meaning. No intellectual idiosyncrasy is requisite in the learner, but sound morals are indispensable.
Hoping all things, enduring all things, — in the spirit of Christ's charity, — ready to bless them that curse me, glad to bear consolation to the sorrowing and healing to the sick, I commit these pages to posterity.
Note. — The authoress takes no patients, and has no time for medical consultation.