# Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures (1898)/09 Some Objections Answered

CHAPTER IX.
SOME OBJECTIONS ANSWERED.
And because I tell you the truth, ye believe me not. Which of you convinceth me of sin? And if I say the truth, why do ye not believe me? — Jesus.
But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, He that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies, by his Spirit that dwelleth in you. — Paul.
THE strictures on this volume would condemn to oblivion that Truth which is raising up thousands from Detached passages. helplessness to strength, and elevating them from a theoretical to a practical Christianity. These criticisms are generally based on detached sentences or clauses, separated from their context. Even the Scriptures, which grow in beauty and consistency from one grand root, appear contradictory when subjected to such usage. The apostolic injunction is, “Prove all things; hold fast that which is good.”
In Christian Science mere opinion is valueless. Proof is essential to a due estimate of this subject. Sneers, at Sarcasm and proofs. the application of the word Science to Christianity, cannot prevent that from being Scientific which is based on divine Principle, demonstrated according to a given rule, and subjected to proper tests. The facts are so absolute and numerous in support of Christian Science, that misrepresentation and ​denunciation cannot overthrow it. Saint Paul alludes to “doubtful disputations.” The hour has struck when proof and demonstration, instead of opinion and dogma, are summoned to the support of Christianity, “making wise the simple.”
In unqualified condemnations of Scientific Mind-healing, one may see with sorrow the sad effects on the sick Ridicule and Jesus. of denying Truth. He that decries this Science, does it presumptuously, in the face of Bible history, and in defiance of the direct command of Jesus, “Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel;” to which command was added the promise that his students should cast out evils and heal the sick. He bade the seventy disciples, as well as the twelve, heal the sick in any town where they should be hospitably received.
If Christianity is not Scientific, and Science is not Christian, then there is no invariable rule of right, and The Christian and Scientific. Truth becomes an accident. Shall it be denied that a system which works according to the Scriptures has Scriptural authority?
Christian Science awakens the sinner, reclaims the infidel, and raises from the couch of pain the helpless Good works. invalid. It speaks to the dumb the words of Truth, and they answer with rejoicing. It causes the deaf to hear, the lame to walk, and the blind to see. Who would be the first to disown the argument of good works, when our Master says, “By their fruits ye shall know them”?
If Christian Scientists were teaching or practising pharmacy or obstetrics according to the common theories, no denunciations would follow them, even if such ​treatment resulted in the death of a patient. The people are taught, in such cases, to say Amen. Shall I then be smitten for teaching Truth as the Principle of healing, and proving my word by my deed? James said: “Show me thy faith without thy works, and I will show thee my faith by my works.”
Is not mortal mind ignorant of God's method? This makes it doubly unfair to impugn and misrepresent Personal experience. the facts, although, without this cross-bearing, one might not be able to say, with the apostle, “None of these things move me.” The sick, the halt, and the blind look up to Christian Science with blessings, and Truth will not be forever hidden from the quickened sense of the people by unjust parody.
Jesus strips all disguise from error, when his teachings are fully understood. By parable and argument he Rejections. explains the impossibility of Good producing evil; and he also Scientifically demonstrates this great fact, proving, by what are wrongly called his miracles, that sin, sickness, and death are beliefs, illusive errors, which he could and did destroy.
It would sometimes seem as if Truth were rejected because meekness and spirituality are the conditions of its acceptance, while Christendom generally demands so much less.
Anciently those apostles who were Jesus' students — as well as Paul, who was not one of his students — healed Disciples. the sick and reformed the sinner by their religion. Alas for the error which allows words, rather than works, to follow such examples! Whoever, meekly and conscientiously, is the first to press along the line of Gospel-healing, is often accounted a heretic.
​It is objected to Christian Science that it claims God as the only absolute Life and Soul, and man to be His Strong position. idea. It should be added that this is claimed to represent the normal, healthful, and sinless condition of man in Science; and that this claim is made because the Scriptures say that God has created man in His own image and after His likeness. Is it too bold to assume that God's likeness is not found in matter, sin, sickness, and death?
Were it more fully understood that Truth alone heals the sickness which is caused by error, the opponents of Misrepresentations. a demonstrable Science would perhaps mercifully withhold their misrepresentations; and until the opponents of Christian Science test its efficacy, according to rules which disclose its merits or demerits, would it not be fair to observe the Scriptural precept against uncharitable judgment?
There are various methods of treating disease, which are not included in the commonly accepted systems; The one divine method. but there is only one which should be presented to the whole world, and that is the Christian Science which Jesus preached and practised, and left us as his rich legacy.
Why should one refuse to investigate this method of treating disease? Why support the popular systems of medicine, when the physician may be perchance an infidel, and loses ninety-and-nine patients while Christian Science cures its hundred? Is it because allopathy and homoeopathy are more fashionable and less spiritual?
In the Bible the word Spirit is so commonly applied to Deity, that Spirit and God are often regarded as ​synonymous terms; and it is thus they are uniformly used and understood in Christian Science. As it Synonyms. is evident that the likeness of Spirit cannot be material, does it not follow that God cannot be in His unlikeness, or matter? When the omnipotence of God is preached, and His absoluteness is set forth, Christian sermons will heal the sick.
It is sometimes said, in criticising Christian Science, that the mind which contradicts itself neither knows Contradictions. itself, nor what it is saying. It is indeed no small matter to know one's self; but in this volume of mine there are no contradictory statements, — at least none which are apparent to those who understand its propositions well enough to pass judgment upon them. One who understands Christian Science can heal the sick on its Principle, and this practical proof is the only feasible evidence that one understands Christian Science.
Anybody who is able to perceive the incongruity between God's ideal and poor humanity, ought to be able to discern the distinction (made by Christian Science) between God's ideal, made in His image, and the sinning race of Adam.
The apostle says: “For if a man think himself to be something when he is nothing, he deceiveth himself.” This idea of human nothingness, which Science inculcates, enrages the carnal mind, and is the main cause of its antagonism.
It is not the purpose of Christian Science to “educate God's idea. the idea of God, or treat it for disease,” as is alleged by one critic. I regret that such criticism confounds man with Adam. When man is spoken ​of as made in God's image, it is not sinful and sickly mortal man who is referred to, but the ideal man, reflected as God's likeness.
It is sometimes said that Christian Science teaches the nothingness of sin, sickness, and death, and then Nothingness and vacuum. teaches how this nothingness is to be saved and healed. The nothingness of nothing is plain; but it should be understood that error is nothing, and that its nothingness must be demonstrated, in order to prove the somethingness — yea, the allness — of Truth. It is self-evident that we are healthy, happy, and good, only as we cease to be diseased, unhappy, and sinful. Disbelief in error destroys error, and causes Truth to be seen. There are no vacuums. How then can this demonstration be “fraught with falsities painful to behold,” as one opponent avers?
We treat error with Truth, because Truth is error's antidote. If a dream ceases, it is self-destroyed, and the Antidotes. terror is over. So when a sufferer is convinced that there is no reality in his belief of pain, because sensation in matter is but a false belief, how can he possibly suffer longer? Do you suffer the pain of tooth-pulling, when you believe that nitrous-oxide gas has made you unconscious? Yet, in your concept, the tooth, the operation, and the forceps are unchanged.
Material beliefs must be expelled to make room for spiritual understanding. We cannot serve both God and Mammon. Mammon at the same time; but is not this what frail mortals are trying to do? Paul says: “The flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh.” Who is ready to admit this?
It is said, by one critic, that to verify this wonderful ​philosophy, Christian Science declares that whatever is mortal or discordant hath no origin, existence, or realness. Heavenly doctoring. As nothing really has Life but the infinite God, who is Life, this writer infers that, if anything needs to be doctored, it must be the one God, or Mind. The critic concludes thus: “Alas for an age when such darkness can be put before the world as wisdom, and find minds so irrational as to immerse themselves in it!”
I sympathize with his despair over mortal minds, as expressed in this last sentence, but critics must consider Signs. the signs of Christ's coming. Christ, as the idea of God, comes now, as of old, preaching the Gospel to the poor, healing the sick, casting out evils. Neither can it be chaos or darkness which restores an essential element of Christianity, — namely, apostolic healing; but Divine Science is the light shining in darkness, which the darkness comprehends not.
If Christian Science takes away the popular gods, — sin, sickness, and death, — remember it is Christ, Truth, who destroys these evils, and so proves their nothingness.
The dream that matter and error are something, must yield to reason and revelation. Then mortals will behold Hallucination. its nothingness, and sickness and sin will disappear to their vision. The harmonious will appear real, and the inharmonious unreal. These critics must then see that error is indeed the nothingness which they chide us for talking about, and which we desire neither to honor nor fear.
Medical theories virtually admit the nothingness of hallucinations, even while treating them as disease; ​and who objects to this? Ought we not, then, to approve any cure effected by making the disease appear to be — what it really is — an illusion ?
Here is the difficulty, that generally it is not understood how one disease is just as much a delusion as All disease a delusion. another. It is a pity that the medical faculty and clergy have not found this out, for Jesus established this foundational fact, when devils were cast out and the dumb spake.
Are we irreverent towards sin, or imputing too much to God, when we ascribe to Him almighty Life and Love? Rights of sickness. I deny His co-operation with evil, because I can have no faith in any other power but God's. Is it not well to eliminate from mortal mind what, so long as it remains within, will show itself in forms of sin, sickness, and death? Instead of tenaciously defending the supposed rights of disease, while complaining of the suffering it brings, would it not be wiser to abandon the defence; especially when, by so doing, our own condition can be improved, and that of other people as well?
I have never supposed this century would witness the full fruitage of Christian Science, or that sin, disease, Full fruitage. and death would not continue for centuries to come; but this I do aver, that, as a result of teaching Christian Science, ethics and temperance have received an impulse, health has been restored, and longevity increased. If such are the present fruits, what may not the harvest be, when this Science is more generally understood?
As Paul asked of the unfaithful in ancient days, so the rabbis of the present day ask concerning our healing ​and teaching, “Through breaking the law, dishonorest thou God?” We have the Gospel, however, and our Law and Gospel. Master annulled material law, by healing contrary thereto. We propose to follow the Master's example. As far as in us lies, we should subordinate material law to spiritual law. Two essential points of Christian Science are that Life never dies, and that God is not the author of sickness.
The chief difficulty, in conveying the teachings of Divine Science accurately to human thought, lies in this, Language inadequate. that, like all other language, English is inadequate to the expression of spiritual conceptions and propositions, through the use of material terms. The elucidation of Christian Science lies in its spiritual sense, and this sense must be gained by its disciples, in order to grasp the meaning of this Science. Out of this condition grew the prophecy concerning the Christian apostles, “They shall speak with new tongues.”
Speaking of the things of Spirit, yet dwelling on a material plane, material terms must be generally employed. Mortal mind does not at once catch the higher meaning; and can only do so as thought is educated up to spiritual apprehension. To a certain extent this is equally true of all learning, even that which is wholly material.
In Christian Science, Substance is understood to be Spirit, while its opponents believe substance to be Spiritual substance. matter. They think of matter as something, and almost the only thing, and of the things which pertain to Spirit as next to nothing, or as very far removed from daily experience; while Christian Science takes exactly the contrary view.
​To understand all our Master's sayings, as recorded in the New Testament, sayings infinitely important, his With words and works. followers must grow into that stature of manhood in Christ Jesus which enables them to interpret his spiritual meaning. Then would they know how Truth casts out error and heals the sick. His words were the offspring of his deeds, both of which must be understood. Unless the works are comprehended which his words explained, the words are blind.
The Master often refused to explain his words, because it is difficult for a material age to apprehend spiritual Truth. He said: “This people's heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed; lest at any time they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and should understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them.”
“The Word was made flesh.” Divine Truth and Love must be seen and felt by mortals, before the Life-link. Science which declares them could be demonstrated. Hence their embodiment in the blessed Jesus, — that Life-link, forming the connection through which the Real reaches the unreal. Soul rebukes sense, and Truth destroys error.
In Jewish worship the Word was materially explained, and the spiritual sense was unperceived. The religion Prayers and health. which sprang from half-hidden Israelitish history was pedantic, and void of healing power. When we lose faith in God's power to heal, we distrust the Principle which demonstrates Christian Science, and then we cannot heal the sick. Neither can we heal through the help of Spirit, if we plant ourselves in a material soil.
​The author became a member of the Orthodox Congregational Church when a child. And later she learned that her own prayers failed to heal, and so did the prayers of devout, loving parents and the church; but when the spiritual sense of the creed was discerned, in the Science of Christianity, it was a present help. It was the living, palpitating presence of Christ, Truth, which healed the sick.
We cannot bring out the practical proof of Christianity, which Jesus required, while error is as potent and Starting-points. real to us as Truth, and while we make a personal devil and an anthropomorphic God our starting-points; especially if we consider Satan as a being coequal in power with Deity, if not superior to Him. Because such starting-points are neither spiritual nor Scientific, they cannot work out the Spirit-rule of Christian healing, which proves the nothingness of error by the all-inclusiveness of Truth.
The Israelites centred their thoughts on the material, in their attempted worship of the spiritual. To them Fruitless worship. matter was substance, and Spirit was shadow. They thought to worship Spirit from a material standpoint, but this was impracticable. They might appeal to Jehovah, but their prayer brought down no proof that it was heard, because they did not sufficiently understand God as able to demonstrate His power to heal, — to make harmony a reality, and to make discord the unreality.
Our Master declared that his material body was not The tangible. spirit, evidently considering it a mortal and material belief of flesh and bones; whereas the Jews took a diametrically opposite view. To Jesus ​not materiality, but spirituality, was the reality of man's existence; while to the rabbis, the spiritual was the intangible and uncertain, if not the unreal.
If a mother had a child who was frightened at imaginary ghosts, and sick in consequence of her fear, would Ghosts. she say to her: “Ghosts are real. They exist, and are to be feared; but you must not be afraid of them”?
Children, like adults, ought to fear a reality which can harm them, and which they do not understand; for at any moment they may become its helpless victims; but instead of increasing children's fear by declaring ghosts to be real, merciless, and powerful, thus watering the very roots of childish timidity, the children should be assured that their fears are groundless, that ghosts are not realities, but traditional beliefs, erroneous and man-made.
In short, children should be told not to believe in ghosts, because there are no such things. If belief in their reality is destroyed, terror will depart and health be restored. The objects of alarm will then vanish into nothingness, no longer seeming worthy of fear or honor. To accomplish a good result, it is certainly not irrational to tell the truth about ghosts.
The Christianly Scientific real is the sensuous unreal. What seems real to material sense is unreal in Science. The real and unreal. The physical senses and Science have ever been antagonistic; and they will so continue, till the testimony of the physical senses yields entirely to Christian Science.
How can a Christian — having the stronger evidence of Truth, which contradicts the evidence of error — think ​of the latter as real or true, either in the form of sickness or sin? You admit that Truth is Life, and that Life is the omnipotent God; and certainly omnipotent Truth should destroy error.
The age has not wholly outlived the sense of ghostly beliefs. It still holds them, more or less. Time has not Superstition. yet reached eternity, immortality, complete reality. All the real is eternal, Perfection underlies reality. Without it, nothing is real. All things will continue to disappear, until perfection appears and reality is reached. We must give up the spectral at all points. We must not continue to admit the somethingness of superstition, but yield up all belief in it and be wise. When we learn that discord is not immortal harmony, we shall be ready for progress, “forgetting those things which are behind.”
The grave does not banish the ghost of materiality. So long as there are supposed limits to mind, and those limits are human, so long will ghosts continue. Mind is limitless. It never was material. The true idea of Being is spiritual and immortal; and from this it follows that whatever is laid off is the ghost of some unseen reality. Our material beliefs can neither demonstrate Christianity, nor apprehend the reality of Being.
Are the protests of Christian Science, against the notion that there can be material life, substance, or mind, Christian warfare. “utter falsities and absurdities,” as some aver? Why then do Christians try to obey the Scriptures, and war against “the world, the flesh, and the Devil”? Why invoke the divine aid to enable them to leave all for Christ, Spirit? Why do they use ​this phraseology, and yet deny Christian Science, when it teaches precisely this thought? The words of Divine Science find their immortality in deeds, for their Principle heals the sick and spiritualizes humanity.
On the other hand, the Christian opponents of Christian Science neither give nor offer any proofs that their Healing omitted. Master's religion can heal the sick. Do they think it is enough to cleave to barren and desultory dogmas, derived from the traditions of the elders, who thereunto have set their seals?
Consistency is seen in example more than in precept. Inconsistency is shown by words without deeds, which Scientific consistency. are like clouds without rain. If our words fail to express our deeds, God will redeem that weakness, and out of the mouth of babes He will “perfect praise.” “The night is far spent,” and, with the dawn, Truth will open the spiritual senses to hear and speak the “new tongue.”
Sin should become unreal to every one. It is in itself inconsistent, a divided kingdom. Its supposed realism has no divine authority, and I rejoice in the apprehension of this grand verity.
The opponents of Christian Science must be charitable, if they would be Christian. If the letter of Christian Charity. Science appears inconsistent, they should try to learn its spiritual meaning, and then the ambiguity will forever vanish.
The charge of inconsistency, in Christianly Scientific methods of dealing with sin and disease, is met by something practical, — namely, the proof of the utility of these methods; and proofs are better than mere verbal arguments, which evince no spiritual power.
​As for sin and disease, Christian Science says, in the language of the Master, “Follow me; and let the dead Discord, avaunt! bury their dead.” Let discord of every name and nature be heard no more, and let the harmonious and true sense of Life, or Being, take possession of human consciousness.
What is the relative value of these two conflicting theories? One, according to the commands of our Master, heals the sick. The other, popular religion, denies that Christ's religion has exercised any healing power since the first century.
The statement that the teachings of Christian Science in this work are “absolutely false, and the most Conditions of criticism. egregious fallacies ever offered for acceptance,” is an opinion wholly due to a misapprehension both of the Principle and practice of Christian Science, and to a consequent inability to demonstrate that Science. Without this understanding, no one is capable of impartial or correct criticism; because demonstration and understanding are God's harmonious and immortal keynotes, proven to be such by our Master, by the sick who are cured, and by the sinful who are enlightened.
Strangely enough, we ask for material theories in support of spiritual and eternal truths, when the two Weakness of material theorems. are so antagonistic that the material must disappear before the spiritual can be attained. This material existence affords no evidence of spiritual existence and immortality. Sin, sickness, and death do not prove man's entity or immortality. Discord can never establish the facts of harmony. Matter is not the vestibule of Spirit.
Jesus reasoned on this subject practically, and ​controlled sickness, sin, and death on the basis of his argument. Understanding the nothingness of material Irreconcilable differences. things, he spoke of flesh and Spirit as the two opposites, — as Truth and error, not contributing in any way to each other's happiness and existence. Jesus said: “Do men gather grapes of thorns?” Paul asked: “What concord hath Christ with Belial?”
Is there a present or an eternal copartnership between error and Truth, between flesh and Spirit? God is as Copartnership. incapable of producing sin, sickness, and death, as He is of experiencing these errors. How then is it possible for Him to create man subject to this triad of errors, when man is made in the divine likeness?
Does God create man, who is called material, out of Himself, Spirit? Does evil proceed from Good? Does God commit a fraud on humanity, by making man capable of sin, and then condemning him for it? Would any one call it wise and good to create the primitive, and then punish its derivative?
Can evil be derived from Good? Impossible! Was there original self-creative sin? Then there must have Two creators. been more than one Creator, more than one God. In common justice, we must admit that God will not punish man for doing what He created him capable of doing, and knew, from the outset, that he would do. God “is of purer eyes than to behold evil.” We sustain Truth, not by accepting, but by condemning a lie.
Jesus said of personified evil, that he was “a liar, and the father of it.” Truth neither creates a lie, a capacity to lie, nor a liar. If we would only relinquish the ​belief that God makes sickness, sin, and death, or makes man capable of suffering on account of this malevolent triad, we should begin to sap the foundations of error, and ensure its destruction; but if we theoretically endow mortal mind with the creativeness and authority of Deity, how dare we attempt to destroy what He hath made, or even to deny that God made man evil, and made evil human?
History teaches that the popular and false notions about the Divine Being and character have originated in Anthropomorphism. the human mind. As there really is no mortal mind, this wrong notion about God must have originated in a false supposition, not in immortal Mind; and it is fading out. It is a false claim, which will eventually disappear, according to the teachings of the Apocalypse.
If the opposite of God is as real as He, there must be two supreme powers, and God is not all-powerful. Can Two supremacies. Deity be almighty, if another mighty and supreme self-creative being exists, and sways mankind? Hath the Father “Life in Himself,” as the Scripture saith? and, if so, can Life, or God, dwell in evil, and create it? Can matter drive Spirit hence, and so defeat omnipotence?
Is the woodman's axe, which destroys a tree's so called life, superior to omnipotence? Can a leaden All-powerful matter. bullet deprive a man of Life, — that is, of God, who is his Life? If God is at the mercy of matter, then matter is omnipotent. Such doctrines are “confusion worse confounded.” If two statements directly contradict each other, one must be false. Is Science thus contradictory?
​Christian Science, rightly understood, coincides with the Scriptures, and sustains logically and demonstratively Biblical facts. every point it presents. Otherwise it would not be Truth, and could not present its proofs. Christian Science is not made up of contradictory aphorisms, nor of the inventions of those who scoff at God. It presents the calm and clear verdict of Truth against error, uttered and illustrated by the Prophets, by Jesus, by the Apostles, as recorded throughout the Scriptures.
Why are the words, rather than the remarkable works of Jesus, more frequently cited for our instruction? Is it not because there are few who have gained a true knowledge of the great import, to Christianity, of those very works?
Sometimes it is said: “Rest assured that whatever effect Christian Scientists may have on the sick, it Personal confidence. comes through rousing within them a belief that these healers have a wonderful power, derived from the Holy Ghost, in the removal of disease.” Is it likely that church-members have more faith in some Christian Scientist, whom they have perhaps never seen, and against whom they have been warned, than they have in their own accredited and orthodox pastors, whom they have seen, and been taught to love, trust, and revere?
Let any clergyman try to cure his friends by their faith in himself. Will that faith heal them? Yet Infidelity. Scientists will take the same cases, and cures will follow. Is this the result of their faith in the Scientist, rather than in their pastor? I have healed infidels, whose only objection to this method ​was, that I as a Christian Scientist believed in the Holy Spirit, while the patients did not.
Because the evidence of the existence of Spirit, or Soul, is palpable to spiritual sense only, and not apparent Cognizance. to the material senses, which only cognize the unrealities of existence, — though you aver that these senses are indispensable to man's existence or entity, — you must change the human concept of yourself as matter disappears, and at length know yourself spiritually.
True Christianity is to be honored wherever found; but when shall we arrive at the goal that word implies? Parentage. From Puritan parents, the discoverer of Christian Science early received her religious education. In childhood she often listened with joy to these words, falling from the lips of her sainted mother: “God is able to raise you up from sickness;” and she pondered the meaning of that Scripture she so often quotes: “And these signs shall follow them that believe; . . . they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover.”
A Christian Scientist and an opponent are like two artists. One says: “I have spiritual mind-pictures, Two artists. indestructible and glorious. When others see
them as I do, in their true light and loveliness, — and know that these pictures are real and eternal, because drawn from Truth, — they will find that nothing is lost, and all is won, by a right estimate of what is real.”
The other artist replies: “You wrong my experience. I have no mind-pictures except those which are material. It is true that materiality renders my pictures imperfect and destructible; yet I would not exchange mine for ​yours, for they give me much personal pleasure, and they are not excruciatingly transcendental. They require less self-abnegation, and keep Soul well out of sight. Moreover, I have no notion of losing my old doctrines or human opinions.”
Dear reader, which mind-picture, or eternalized thought, shall be real to you, — the material or the spiritual? Both Mental pictures. you cannot have. You are bringing out your own ideal. This ideal is either temporal or eternal. Either Spirit or matter is your model. If you try to have two models, then you practically have none. Like a pendulum in a clock, you will strike the ribs of matter, and be thrown back and forth, swinging forever between the real and the unreal.
Hear the wisdom of Job, as given in the excellent translation of the late Rev. George R. Noyes, D.D., of Harvard University:
* Shall mortal man be more just than God?
* Shall man be more pure than his Maker?
* Behold, He putteth no trust in His ministering spirits,
* And His angels He chargeth with frailty.
* What then are they who dwell in houses of clay,
* Whose foundation is in the dust,
* Who crumble to pieces as if moth-eaten?
* Between morning and evening they are destroyed;
* They perish forever, and none regardeth it.
* The excellency that is in them is torn away;
* They die before they have become wise.