The Birmingham age-herald., 1921-03-21

yet the deepest material thinkers main
 tain that matter has no existence in and
 of itself They say that 1t Is simply a manifestation of law. Our education has
 been such that we have accepted any ma
 terial object such as iron, or wood, or stone. to be very real and substantial
 and having this reality and substantially
 within itself. It can readily be seen that the seeming substantially of piece Of
 iron is not within the iron, for if the ma-
 terial laws of cohesion and attraction
 which bind the atom and molecules to-
 gether, the law of gravitation which
 gives the iron weight and the various
 other laws which go to make up it's ma
 terial appearing were removed the iron
 would vanish into nothingness. So these
 material thinkers see and admit that
 matter is simply a manifestation of ma
 teral thought, but they go on with a
 line of thought which maintains that
 these material laws proceed from the
 Infinite Being.
 Now Christian Science agrees with
 them in admitting that matter Is simply
 an expressin of thought but denies ab-
 solutely that this thought is of God. On
 the contrary it maintains that the ma
 terial man and the material universe are
 expressions of beliefs that are counter
 feits of the true ideas On page 60 of Miscellaneous Writings" Mrs. Eddy has
 said that every creation or idea of Spirit
 has it's counterfeit in some matter be-
 lief" All the beliefs which are termed
 material laws, the beliefsS known as sin,
 sickness and death the belief in ma
 terial man and material universe are
 commercials of the spiritul creation. These
 various beliefs are not of God because
 they are contrary to His nature. The material man manifests sin. sickness and materiality, which are the direct oppo- sites of those qualities of health, holi- ness and spirituality, which the real and spiritual man must inevitably manifest
 as the image and likeness of God. Tn, material man is therefore but a counter
 felt, an expression of material belief and not of that truth which is God.
 It is not maintained that we-have beer able fully to demonstrate that matter
 is unreal, but thousands have been able to annul what are thought to be un changing material laws through the recognition of the law of the Spirit Now to break and annul any of the laws of matter through the application o spiritual laws. proves that they can al be overcome when we understand Gods law more fully. For the present we ap ply our understanding of the law of Love to those material conditions of sickness
 
 we most clearly see are no part of Gods creation.
 OUT OF MATTER INTO SPIRIT In beginning the study of Christian
 Science one need not trouble about. the vital thing is to learn more about God As our spiritual understanding increases one after another of our material be Nefs is seen to be false, and healthfu material conditions and harmonious men tai conditions are brought about throusf our righteous thinking, and we are en couraged to press on till we shall have completely demonstrated the unreality ol matter.
 We get rid of the belief in the reality of matter only by degrees; but the de struction of any single diseased condl tion by mentally unseeing it is proo that disease is mental. and falsely men tai. If 1t were not 1t could not bt changed by correct thinking. Ever, physical healing resulting from Chris tian Science treatment is evidence no only that disease is mental but tha matter itself is but an expression of ma terial thought. Entirely apart from tht conclusions deduced from Christian Science there is ample evidence that dis ease is mental. There are many authen
  been instantaneously freed from long es tablished infirmities through some sud den mental shock such as fire or light ming. A mental shock could not destroy disease unless the disease were In human consciousness to be destroyed Man, peculiarities about disease which art readily explainabe from a mental stand Doinf are accounted for materially through the most fantastic flights O speculation:
 MATERIAL BELIEFS DECEIVE Since the advent of the germ theory oi disease~ there has been a constant effort l to include as many diseases as possible l in this category. The very fact that the previous conviction of the cause of g disease could be so readily discarded fol ] the belief that germs were the offenders sh ows how nesitant the world should bs in accepting any conclusion along this line.
 Some investigators became convinccc lthaf certain microscopic forms of veg etabIe life which they found present ir disease were the cause of it. They con Iducted experiments which to them seemed Ito prove conclusively that this was true rue foundation of their theory was that each disease was produced oy q different 1 germ. that is that the pneumococcus pro. duced pneumonia, the tubercle bacillus tuherculosis. and so on. A few of these gersns were such common everyday sor1 . of vegetable that they were present nt matter what the disease. and so. they did not count very much, but there were q dozen or so that were sufficiently se- | lect to be accounted the cause of q, many diseases. Unfortunately there art many diseases that seen contagious ol Infectious, but there are not enough va lrfeties of germs to go around. No suit able germ has been found for many oi the diseases which are presumed to b< , caused by them, and this failure is ofter accounted for by maintaining that these microscopic growths are so small thal the most powerful microscope fails to re. lveaI theni-a most accommodat ting theory. To add to the confusion it is now asserted that the pneumococcus whict