CHRISTIAN SCIENCE through its holy ministry is not only bringing cure to the sick, spiritual freedom to the sin-enslaved, joy to the heavy-hearted, but it is also performing a wonderful service to mankind by teaching them how disease may be prevented. So long as disease is held to be a condition of matter, men will believe that they are to a large extent helpless before it; but when they learn that disease springs from mental discord of some kind, they see that it can be prevented through spiritual illumination.
That thought holds the body in direct control is now admitted by almost every thinking person. On all sides we see examples, such as a sad thought causing tears to flow; states of temper and of fear retarding or increasing circulation, as shown by pale or flushed cheeks. Persons have fainted when sitting in a dentist's chair before work had been begun. It is recorded in a medical journal that a prisoner who had a violent temper was examined during several of these spells to ascertain if the body was really affected by this mental state. The saliva and perspiration both showed poison, which was not found when the man was in a quiet condition. These illustrations, and hundreds which could be cited, prove that our bodies are embraced in our thoughts, and that they will manifest true health only as we dwell mentally in purity, moral courage, gentleness, humility, and unselfed love; only as we let that Mind be in us "which was also in Christ Jesus," for Christlike thoughts neither suffer nor produce suffering.
As the thermometer registers the temperature surrounding it, so the body shows the rise and fall of thought. If one entered a closed room where a thermometer registered one hundred degrees, he would not think of it as causative, but as simply indicating the atmosphere. The cure would be to open the windows, and soon the thermometer would indicate the change. The body, like the thermometer, is never causative, and should not be feared. When it registers the wrong temperature, or disease, it simply shows that the mental atmosphere is not normal, and the preventive of this is to keep the windows of consciousness open to divine Love, that the pure atmosphere of godlike thought may flood being, — then the body will indicate health.
