The Birmingham age-herald., 1916-11-06

rely upon him personally, and showed
 that they could not fully demonstrate Truth, the Christ, until Christ, Truth
 became impersonal to them.
 There is one way. It is the menta way, the spiritual way, it is the way O.
 Christ Jesus, for there is no other nam' under heaven given among men, where by we must be saved" (Acts iv, 12). Tha name is the right way of thinking, arc certainly not way of believing in mat
 ter. The thinking that constitutes tn, way in Christ Jesus. is pure spiritual un derstanding. We enter upon 1t when we | begin to understand the truth and sepa rate evil from truth. Entering upon that l way we begin to see what disease is anC
 how it happens, and when we begin tc
 see now 1t happens we see also how il l shall not happen, how there shall b,
 brought to pass that in human experience
 which shall prevent disease from happen.
 ing, or shall stop it if it has happened
 Such IS true mentality. Jesus the Christ
 was powerful for what he knew and not
 because of his appearance, grand ant noble though 1t must have been.
 OVERCOMING FEAR
 Fear is no legitimate part of educa
 tion The Bible says that God has not given us the spirit of fear, and that l statement beyond all question is logical l
 part of the ordinary persons educations
 can be overcome at least gradually through even a slight understanding oi | Christian Science This is especially true Of the fear of disease. No other system but Christian Science has ever recognized the undesirable and afflictive nature of fear, and no other system has ever pro- Vlded TOT the mitigation or complete ex- , tinction of fear. That such result may f0 ness of divine power and help, and such realization comes through Christian Sci ence as one learns more and more how | to test that power No matter how fearful one may be, no matter what the [ difficulty may be under which he labors 1 if he will stand for his understanding and against fear he can prove that his understanding of God, though slight, is
 more powerful than the fear which seems to beset him. and as he thus faces and overcomes his fears step by step they diminish and disappear. This shows that 1t IS the practice of what one understands that is most important, because it Is by means of this practice alone that fear can be destroyed.
 It is far more important to get rid of ] the fear of germs and microbes than it l is to get rid of the germs or microbes ', themselves. Doctors often find that a 1 very harmless germ and much fear pro- duce fatal results, while even con- parative state of fearlessness with the presence of so-called deadly germs gives the patient at least fair chance for | recovery.
 | In view of their own experiences how foolish seems to be all their present prop aganda. It reminds one of the old views of theology in which it was supposed that a person was not properly prepared for 1 heaven unless he was thoroughly afraid of hell. notwithstanding that the Bible says, fear hath torment"-or is hell, and l that fear could never be found in heaven, ! so that one could never find heaven so long as he was afraid of hell. or of any | thing else In the same way health can never be found in the ways of fear for i health and fear are opposues, the one is l legitimate and inevitable incident of heaven, the other has no place therein.
 HEALTH NECESSARY TO
 HEAVEN 1 That healing which is being accom- plished through Christian Science is now acknowledged perforce. The explanation | which Christian Science gives of it Is spiritual, but is objected to quite as often by those who call themselves scientific. This Is not so much to be wondered at. | With postponed heaven and a remote God it is not strange that there should be doubt as to the present attainment 1 of the one or the help of the other. But ! let Christian Science educate you and give enlarged views and nobler concepts I Of the words heaven and God and then observe the result Instead of theories or beliefs one then gains spiritual facts which from their very nature are in i heaven. and which, when they come to you and become your own, constitute heaven in you. The truth is that heaven is a word which, like the word God, has no value at all if you associate absence With it's meaning. Happily there is no proper definition of either given among
 men that justifies such an association. Heaven unquestionably includes and re- quires health. General religious belief promulgates the theory that the way to
 heaven is through disease and death. when the fact is that heaven is attained just in the proportion that disease and death cease.
 LIFE
 Heaven cannot mean more than eter- nal existence with perfect happiness l This Implies uninterrupted life. Ord,- nary ethical systems and the commonly accepted theories of medicine and re- ligion predict the inevitable triumphs of disease. They declare that. however l much man may struggle and however much he may know or gain in knowu , edge, yet finally he will be overcome by I evil. Christian Science, on the other hand. holds out the alluring hope and | establishes the divine and demonstrate /; assurance that man, meaning every per- son. shall eventually triumph over all evil and awake in that dominion which the Bible says God gave to him.
 1 We are not only alive, but we want to live. Practically all of us would be will ing to live forever if we could only be sure that we could be happy forever
 So common is this instinct or desire to live that it is expressed automatically,
 self preservation is the first law of na- ture.' Humanly speaking, it Is not a law, 1t Is only desire, yet so universal | is it, so immeasurable, so without be- ginning or end, that it must indicate a permanent fact. This permanent fact is | fundamental to all things. It must be
 Life, for without Life there is nothing. Such thoughts show why Christian Sci ence is right in teaching that God, divine Mind. Principle, Is Life.
 Even the human sense of life has never been found in matter, however in- dustriously sought there. To suppose that it could be so found Is so manifest
 ly illogical, and so clearly impossible, that it seems strange that thousands of devoted and learned men and women have spent untold years in the vain en- deavor to locate in matter the immeas
 urable, incontainable Principle. Life. God. | Life is eternal now. Nearly all re- ligious doctrine has been to the effect
 that eternal life would come after death. Such theories utterly ignore the meaning of eternality at the same time that they claim to teach it.
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