dent
propositions of Truth are immeasurably paramount to rubric and dogma in
proving the Christ.

From my very childhood I was impelled, by a hunger and thirst after divine
things,--a desire for something higher and better than matter, and apart
from it,--to seek diligently for the knowledge of God as the one great and
ever-present relief from human woe. The first spontaneous motion of Truth
and Love, acting through Christian Science on my roused consciousness,
banished at once and forever the fundamental error of faith in things
material; for this trust is the unseen sin, the unknown foe,--the heart's
untamed desire which breaketh the divine commandments. As says St. James:
"Whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is
guilty of all."

Into mortal mind's material obliquity I gazed, and stood abashed. Blanched
was the cheek of pride. My heart bent low before the omnipotence of Spirit,
and a tint of humility, soft as the heart of a moonbeam, mantled the earth.
Bethlehem and Bethany, Gethsemane and Calvary, spoke to my chastened sense
as by the tearful lips of a babe. Frozen fountains were unsealed. Erudite
systems of philosophy and religion melted, for Love unveiled the healing
promise and potency of a present spiritual _afflatus_. It was the gospel
of healing, on its divinely appointed human mission, bearing on its white
wings, to my apprehension, "the beauty of holiness,"--even the
possibilities of spiritual insight, knowledge, and being.

Early had I learned that whatever is loved materially, as mere corporeal
personality, is eventually lost. "For whosoever will save his life shall
lose it," said the Master. Exultant hope, if tinged with earthliness, is
crushed as the moth.

What is termed mortal and material existence is graphically defined by
Calderon, the famous Spanish poet, who wrote,--

What is life? 'Tis but a madness.
What is life? A mere illusion,
Fleeting pleasure, fond delusion,
Short-lived joy, that ends in sadness,
Whose most constant substance seems
But the dream of other dreams.

MEDICAL EXPERIMENTS

The physical side of this research was aided by hints from homoeopathy,
sustaining my final conclusion that mortal belief, instead of the drug,
governed the action of material medicine.

I wandered through the dim mazes of _materia medica_, till I was weary of
"scientific guessing," as it has been well called. I sought knowledge fr