divine and eternal, but the application of it to heal the sick had been
lost sight of, and required to be again spiritually discerned and its
science discovered, that man might retain it through the understanding.
Since our discovery in 1866 of the divine science of Christian Healing,
we have labored with tongue and pen to found this system. In this
endeavor every obstacle has been thrown in our path that the envy and
revenge of a few disaffected students could devise. The superstition and
ignorance of even this period have not failed to contribute their mite
towards misjudging us, while its Christian advancement and scientific
research have helped sustain our feeble efforts.
Since our first Edition of Science and Health, published in 1875, two of
the aforesaid students have plagiarized and pirated our works. In the
issues of E. J. A., almost exclusively ours, were thirteen paragraphs,
without credit, taken verbatim from our books.
Not one of our printed works was ever copied or abstracted from the
published or from the unpublished writings of anyone. Throughout our
publications of Metaphysical Healing or Christian Science, when writing
or dictating them, we have given ourselves to contemplation wholly apart
from the observation of the material senses: to look upon a copy would
have distracted our thoughts from the subject before us. We were seldom
able to copy our own compositions, and have employed an amanuensis for
the last six years. Every work that we have had published has been
extemporaneously written; and out of fifty lectures and sermons that we
have delivered the last year, forty-four have been extemporaneous. We
have distributed many of our unpublished manuscripts; loaned to one of
our youngest students, R. K c . . . . . y, between three and four
hundred pages, of which we were sole author–giving him liberty to copy
but not to publish them.
Leaning on the sustaining Infinite with loving trust, the trials of to-
day grow brief, and to-morrow is big with blessings.
The wakeful shepherd, tending his flocks, beholds from the mountain’s top
the first faint morning beam ere cometh the risen day. So from Soul’s
loftier summits shines the pale star to prophet-shepherd, and it
traverses night, over to where the young child lies, in cradled
obscurity, that shall waken a world. Over the night of error dawn the
morning beams and guiding star of Truth, and “the wise men” are led by it
to Science, which repeats the eternal harmony that it reproduced, in
proof of immortality. The time for thinkers has come; and the time for
revolutions, ecclesiastical and civil, must come. Truth, independent of
doctrines or time-honored systems, stands at the threshold of history.
Contentment with the past, or the cold conventionality of custom, may no
longer shut the door on science; though empires fall, “He whose right it
is shall reign.” Ignorance of God should no longer be the stepping-stone
to faith; understanding Him, “whom to know aright is Life eternal,” is
the only guaranty of obedience.
This volume may not open a new thought, and make it at once familiar. It
has the sturdy task of a pioneer, to hack away at the tall oaks and cut
the rough granite, leaving future ages to declare what it has done. We
made our first discovery of the adaptation of metaphysics to the
treatment of disease in the winter of 1866; since then we have tested the
Principle on ourselves and others, and never found it to fail to prove
the statements herein made of it. We must learn the science of Life, to
reach the perfection of man. To understand God as the Principle of all
being, and to live in accordance with this Principle, is the Science of
Life. But to reproduce this harmony of being, the error of personal
sense must yield to science, even as the science of music corrects tones
caught from the ear, and gives the sweet concord of sound. There are
many theories of physic and theology, and many calls in each of their
directions for the right way; but we propose to settle the question of
“What is Truth?” on the ground of proof, and let that method of healing