Section 1

The Bible

4The spirit of God hath made me, and the breath of the Almighty hath given me life.

1The Lord is my light and my salvation;

4One thing have I desired of the Lord, that will I seek after; that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in his temple.

13I had fainted, unless I had believed to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.

14Wait on the Lord: be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thine heart: wait, I say, on the Lord.

10put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him:

6Seek the Lord, and ye shall live;

Science and Health with Key to the Scripturesby Mary Baker Eddy

We all must learn that Life is God.

Because Life is God, Life must be eternal, self-existent. Life is the everlasting I am, the Being who was and is and shall be, whom nothing can erase.

Love imparts
beauty

God fashions all things, after His own likeness. Life is reflected in existence, Truth in truthfulness, God in goodness, which impart their own peace and permanence.

Man, made in His likeness, possesses and reflects God’s dominion over all the earth. Man and woman as coexistent and eternal with God forever reflect, in glorified quality, the infinite Father-Mother God.

So far as the scientific statement as to man is understood, it can be proved and will bring to light the true reflection of God — the real man, or the new man (as St. Paul has it).

The immortal
birth

As a material, theoretical life-basis is found to be a misapprehension of existence, the spiritual and divine Principle of man dawns upon human thought, and leads it to “where the young child was,” — even to the birth of a new-old idea, to the spiritual sense of being and of what Life includes.

When we wait patiently on God and seek Truth righteously, He directs our path.

Gladness to leave the false landmarks and joy to see them disappear, — this disposition helps to precipitate the ultimate harmony.

The way is straight and narrow, which leads to the understanding that God is the only Life.

Section 2

The Bible

1The king shall joy in thy strength, O Lord; and in thy salvation how greatly shall he rejoice!

4He asked life of thee, and thou gavest it him, even length of days for ever and ever.

1Lord, thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations.

2Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God.

4For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night.

14O satisfy us early with thy mercy; that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.

8he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting.

23be renewed in the spirit of your mind;

24put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.

Science and Health

True life
eternal

Life is eternal. We should find this out, and begin the demonstration thereof. Life and goodness are immortal. Let us then shape our views of existence into loveliness, freshness, and continuity, rather than into age and blight.

The real man is spiritual and immortal, but the mortal and imperfect so-called “children of men” are counterfeits from the beginning, to be laid aside for the pure reality. This mortal is put off, and the new man or real man is put on, in proportion as mortals realize the Science of man and seek the true model.

Old and
new man

If man were solely a creature of the material senses, he would have no eternal Principle and would be mutable and mortal. Human logic is awry when it attempts to draw correct spiritual conclusions regarding life from matter. Finite sense has no true appreciation of infinite Principle, God, or of His infinite image or reflection, man.

Renewed
selfhood

Let the “male and female” of God’s creating appear. Let us feel the divine energy of Spirit, bringing us into newness of life and recognizing no mortal nor material power as able to destroy. Let us rejoice that we are subject to the divine “powers that be.” Such is the true Science of being. Any other theory of Life, or God, is delusive and mythological.

Intelligent
consecration

We should consecrate existence, not “to the unknown God” whom we “ignorantly worship,” but to the eternal builder, the everlasting Father, to the Life which mortal sense cannot impair nor mortal belief destroy.

Eternal
beauty

Immortality, exempt from age or decay, has a glory of its own, — the radiance of Soul. Immortal men and women are models of spiritual sense, drawn by perfect Mind and reflecting those higher conceptions of loveliness which transcend all material sense.

Section 3

The Bible

2My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God:

22Understanding is a wellspring of life unto him that hath it:

35And Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every sickness and every disease among the people.

5Then cometh he to a city of Samaria, which is called Sychar, near to the parcel of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph.

6Now Jacob’s well was there. Jesus therefore, being wearied with his journey, sat thus on the well: and it was about the sixth hour.

7There cometh a woman of Samaria to draw water: Jesus saith unto her, Give me to drink.

9Then saith the woman of Samaria unto him, How is it that thou, being a Jew, askest drink of me, which am a woman of Samaria? for the Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans.

10Jesus answered and said unto her, If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, Give me to drink; thou wouldest have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water.

14whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.

17if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.

Science and Health

Effective
triumph

Jesus taught the way of Life by demonstration, that we may understand how this divine Principle heals the sick, casts out error, and triumphs over death.

The divinity of the Christ was made manifest in the humanity of Jesus.

Divine Truth, Life, and Love gave Jesus authority over sin, sickness, and death. His mission was to reveal the Science of celestial being, to prove what God is and what He does for man.

Our Master taught no mere theory, doctrine, or belief. It was the divine Principle of all real being which he taught and practised. His proof of Christianity was no form or system of religion and worship, but Christian Science, working out the harmony of Life and Love.

The purpose of his great life-work extends through time and includes universal humanity. Its Principle is infinite, reaching beyond the pale of a single period or of a limited following. As time moves on, the healing elements of pure Christianity will be fairly dealt with; they will be sought and taught, and will glow in all the grandeur of universal goodness.

Love is impartial and universal in its adaptation and bestowals. It is the open fount which cries, “Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters.”

Universal
brotherhood

Having one God, one Mind, unfolds the power that heals the sick, and fulfils these sayings of Scripture, “I am the Lord that healeth thee,” and “I have found a ransom.”

Man and his Maker are correlated in divine Science, and real consciousness is cognizant only of the things of God.

Perfection
requisite

If God is admitted to be the only Mind and Life, there ceases to be any opportunity for sin and death. When we learn in Science how to be perfect even as our Father in heaven is perfect, thought is turned into new and healthy channels, — towards the contemplation of things immortal and away from materiality to the Principle of the universe, including harmonious man.

Section 4

The Bible

3your life is hid with Christ in God.

41And, behold, there came a man named Jairus, and he was a ruler of the synagogue: and he fell down at Jesus’ feet, and besought him that he would come into his house:

42For he had one only daughter, about twelve years of age, and she lay a-dying.

49there cometh one from the ruler of the synagogue’s house, saying to him, Thy daughter is dead; trouble not the Master.

50But when Jesus heard it, he answered him, saying, Fear not: believe only, and she shall be made whole.

51And when he came into the house, he suffered no man to go in, save Peter, and James, and John, and the father and the mother of the maiden.

52And all wept, and bewailed her: but he said, Weep not; she is not dead, but sleepeth.

53And they laughed him to scorn, knowing that she was dead.

54And he put them all out, and took her by the hand, and called, saying, Maid, arise.

55And her spirit came again, and she arose straightway:

6to be spiritually minded is life and peace.

35Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?

37Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us.

4as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.

23the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Science and Health

Our great example, Jesus, could restore the individualized manifestation of existence, which seemed to vanish in death.

Jesus said (John viii. 51), “If a man keep my saying, he shall never see death.” That statement is not confined to spiritual life, but includes all the phenomena of existence. Jesus demonstrated this, healing the dying and raising the dead.

The present
immortality

The great spiritual fact must be brought out that man is, not shall be, perfect and immortal. We must hold forever the consciousness of existence, and sooner or later, through Christ and Christian Science, we must master sin and death. The evidence of man’s immortality will become more apparent, as material beliefs are given up and the immortal facts of being are admitted.

Careful
guidance

The author has healed hopeless organic disease, and raised the dying to life and health through the understanding of God as the only Life. It is a sin to believe that aught can overpower omnipotent and eternal Life, and this Life must be brought to light by the understanding that there is no death, as well as by other graces of Spirit. We must begin, however, with the more simple demonstrations of control, and the sooner we begin the better.

Our footsteps
heavenward

The discoverer of Christian Science finds the path less difficult when she has the high goal always before her thoughts, than when she counts her footsteps in endeavoring to reach it.

When it is learned that disease cannot destroy life, and that mortals are not saved from sin or sickness by death, this understanding will quicken into newness of life.

Mind cures
hip-disease

I was called to visit Mr. Clark in Lynn, who had been confined to his bed six months with hip-disease, caused by a fall upon a wooden spike when quite a boy. On entering the house I met his physician, who said that the patient was dying.

The doctor went out. Mr. Clark lay with his eyes fixed and sightless. The dew of death was on his brow. I went to his bedside. In a few moments his face changed; its death-pallor gave place to a natural hue. The eyelids closed gently and the breathing became natural; he was asleep. In about ten minutes he opened his eyes and said: “I feel like a new man. My suffering is all gone.”

It has been demonstrated to me that Life is God and that the might of omnipotent Spirit shares not its strength with matter or with human will. Reviewing this brief experience, I cannot fail to discern the coincidence of the spiritual idea of man with the divine Mind.

Section 5

The Bible

6Remember, O Lord, thy tender mercies and thy loving kindnesses; for they have been ever of old.

18Look upon mine affliction and my pain;

20O keep my soul, and deliver me:

8I have set the Lord always before me: because he is at my right hand, I shall not be moved.

9Therefore my heart is glad, and my glory rejoiceth: my flesh also shall rest in hope.

11Thou wilt shew me the path of life:

3Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God.

4And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.

5And he that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new.

Science and Health

Whatever is governed by God, is never for an instant deprived of the light and might of intelligence and Life.

Keep in mind the verity of being, — that man is the image and likeness of God, in whom all being is painless and permanent.

The true idea of God gives the true understanding of Life and Love, robs the grave of victory, takes away all sin and the delusion that there are other minds, and destroys mortality.

Childlike
receptivity

The effects of Christian Science are not so much seen as felt. It is the “still, small voice” of Truth uttering itself. We are either turning away from this utterance, or we are listening to it and going up higher. Willingness to become as a little child and to leave the old for the new, renders thought receptive of the advanced idea.

Life not
contingent
on matter

If it is true that man lives, this fact can never change in Science to the opposite belief that man dies. Life is the law of Soul, even the law of the spirit of Truth, and Soul is never without its representative. Man’s individual being can no more die nor disappear in unconsciousness than can Soul, for both are immortal.

God, Life, Truth, and Love make man undying.

Take heart, dear sufferer, for this reality of being will surely appear sometime and in some way. There will be no more pain, and all tears will be wiped away.

Section 6

The Bible

11I, even I, am the Lord;

19Behold, I will do a new thing; now it shall spring forth; shall ye not know it?

1O Lord, thou art my God; I will exalt thee, I will praise thy name; for thou hast done wonderful things;

19The living, the living, he shall praise thee, as I do this day: the father to the children shall make known thy truth.

3the Lord commanded the blessing, even life for evermore.

Science and Health

Truth makes a new creature, in whom old things pass away and “all things are become new.”

Scientific
man

Man reflects infinite Truth, Life, and Love.

To those leaning on the sustaining infinite, to-day is big with blessings.