r of man. Even the spiritual idea, or ideal
man, is not a parent, though he reflects the infinity of good. The great
difference between these opposites is, that the human material concept is
_unreal_, and the divine concept or idea is spiritually real. One is false,
while the other is true. One is temporal, but the other is eternal.

Our Master instructed his students to "call no man your father upon the
earth: for one is your Father, which is in heaven." (Matt. xxiii. 9.)

Science and Health, the textbook of Christian Science, treats of the human
concept, and the transference of thought, as follows:--

"How can matter originate or transmit mind? We answer that it
cannot. Darkness and doubt encompass thought, so long as it bases
creation on materiality" (p. 551).

"In reality there is no _mortal_ mind, and consequently no
transference of mortal thought and will-power. Life and being are
of God. In Christian Science, man can do no harm, for scientific
thoughts are true thoughts, passing from God to man" (pp. 103,
104).

"Man is the offspring of Spirit. The beautiful, good, and pure
constitute his ancestry. His origin is not, like that of mortals,
in brute instinct, nor does he pass through material conditions
prior to reaching intelligence. Spirit is his primitive and
ultimate source of being; God is his Father, and Life is the law
of his being" (p. 63).

"The parent of all human discord was the Adam-dream, the deep
sleep, in which originated the delusion that life and intelligence
proceeded from and passed into matter. This pantheistic error, or
so-called _serpent_, insists still upon the opposite of Truth,
saying, 'Ye shall be as gods;' that is, I will make error as real
and eternal as Truth.... 'I will put spirit into what I call
matter, and matter shall seem to have life as much as God, Spirit,
who _is_ the only Life.' This error has proved itself to be error.
Its life is found to be not Life, but only a transient, false
sense of an existence which ends in death" (pp. 306, 307).

"When will the error of believing that there is life in matter,
and that sin, sickness, and death are creations of God, be
unmasked? When will it be understood that matter has no
intelligence, life, nor sensation, and that the opposite belief is
the prolific source of all suffering? God created all through
Mind, and