Truth-&c. and why? Not that God may be manifest and His purposes fulfilled-but that they in their persons may be healthier, happier or more wealthy. They desire these possessions for themselves and desire the removal of inflictions. Is this a worthy motive with which to approach the divine treasure-house? Some among them will deny this. But let them recall their first contact with Christian Science, in the state in which they then were and ask themselves honestly "why did I adopt this line of study and follow it?" Then what answer will be given? For, truly, a bigger bribe was never laid before a suffering humanity. Not only is there the satisfaction of the religious element, but there is a further triple element of health, wealth and happinessand all of it proffered in the name of Jesus. They storm the divine treasure-house determined to wrest from it by violence all that they require or desire, regardless of the laws of the universe, insisting upon the reversal of these in order to fulfill their hopes for themselves and others. Is this right motive?

Christian Science asserts that all is perfect, ("Mortal Mind" covers the rest, so it now appears there is a remainder which is imperfect!) and denies any evolutionary law to God. By the mouth of Mrs. Eddy it would claim to know God's purpose and will, and to put a stop to all the unfoldment of Being. Let us take an example in the domain of force. The electric current exists and is manifested by the flow of the current between points of greater and lesser potential-called positive and negative. It is as if Christian Science, for no apparent reason, identified God with the positive aspect and denied the negative any existence, calling it evil. Whereas both are necessary to the manifestation of the electric force. One could understand the comparison of force-electric to God, as the noumenon behind them is related to the manifestation of the negative and positive phenomena. One can, in the light of metaphysics ancient and modern, understand that all material objects are illusions-that the personal man as he has developed himself, is an illusion, a temporary manifestation of his real Being, just as a suit of clothes is not the man who wears them. Indeed, it is the Soul behind, manifesting its character in the man, which we may regard as important in so far as its evolution and involution are a manifestation of the Divine. But why then are we to accept the Christian Science teaching of the unreality of all phenomena, of linking ourselves to Mind, Truth, Soul, Spirit and so on and concentrating all attention on it, giving our whole life to it, in order that we may have better health for a body which is "Mortal Mind" and therefore has no existence; in order to possess material wealth and obtain a happiness in conditions which are composed of illusory dreams? The evolution of the Universe must stand still on this line or become entirely selfish. Is this

right action? or right motive for action on the part of those who profess Christian Science?

But so far as I have been able to understand them, the professions are otherwise. After having been attracted by the triple bribe in one form or another for themselves, the missionary microbe comes in and infects them with the desire of sharing their joys with others on their own basis, mark, and on no other-of proving themselves right and of making others follow the "truth" which they themselves have accepted: also the glorification of their religion and its prophetess. Accordingly they set to work with fixed mind, and with the development of their power of concentration (a comparatively easy task with such a rigidly defined and concrete object), they hold their neighbors and families in as forceful a hypnotic grip of "Mortal Mind" as ever a Torquemada enforced on his word ad majorem Dei gloriam. But it is not truth for its own sake which guides the majority.

I do not say all, for there are in all communities some who seek truth for its own sake and ensue it. And such come at last into the light. But broadly speaking, the question of sin and its eradication by Christian Science is the method of suppression of its external manifestation, like suppressing the rash of scarlet fever.

Further, there is another source of difference. Christian Science finds things wrong as the result of the action of "Mortal Mind." It saves itself trouble and effort by calling them illusions and denying their existence. Professing a high ideal of duty in this mortal existence, is not such denial a neglect of duty in order to save themselves trouble, in the first place, and to obtain speedy results in the second place? We may be unable as yet to know the Reality behind phenomena. But because we dimly perceive that we do not manifest the Reality, need we therefore abandon the effort and deny the very existence of phenomena? Not their eternal existence, but their temporary existence in Time and Space as necessary factors of Evolution. The conditions of life in which we are acting are not especially good. Are we to run away from them to make them better? Because there is a fire in a college building, are the authorities to run away and save themselves to the neglect of the pupils committed to their charge? In a few words; we have duties peculiar to all states and stages of Consciousness and Being, and may not rightfully deny the temporary existence of a single one, but must work through and beyond all, evolving and being evolved. We may not slur over or drop a single link of the great chain of Being.

From the statement that it is more easy to eradicate disease than iniquity, and from other portions of "Science and Health," one may justly conclude that there are degrees of error in "Mortal Mind." Diseases would seem to be taken as being the phenomena of iniquity. or sin. Both have their root in "Mortal Mind." Obviously then

on these lines-get rid of "Mortal Mind." (Note that you do not purify it-you simply deny its existence and so cover over all its fermentations within your mental sphere of action: again, this is the theory of suppression.) But beyond "Mortal Mind," God is All. How then did iniquity, "Mortal Mind" and the rest arise?

Let us assume that there is no hiatus in the scheme. Have we as individuals the right selfishly, and for our own purposes, to demand and use the powers which are divine for the improvement of our personal possessions in health, wealth and happiness? May Cæsar justly demand of God "the things which are God's" for Cæsar's pleasure or relief? May he, even when he extends "self" to include "his" friends and all that is in a larger sense "his?"

There is another serious danger. Let us grant the "fruitage" obtained by these means. Let us say that disease is cured in its external manifestation, that wealth and happiness are obtained in place of poverty and misery: that all this is done by drawing on the powers of the Soul. What if this be only the suppression of the disease, or the causes of poverty and misery? Believing as I do, in the Immortality of Soul, I earnestly say that the last state of such human beings is worse than the first. They are more securely bound down by the chain of mortal

error.

Let us grant that God is All; let us grant that personal man and "Mortal Mind" are one and that these are temporary conditions. Then our effort should be to attune ourselves, our Consciousness to the divine or Soul Consciousness-or real man-as we pass through things temporal, that they also may be attuned and obtain real existence and life. But because we have an ideal of life and thought, have we the right to run away from the duty we owe, to repair conditions we have created or allowed to spring up around us? If we do so we are cowardly sentinels at the gate of life, and for the sake of improving our own conditions we desert the soldiers we have brought to enlist in the battle of life. The units of thought or life of which mortal man or the body are compounded, also have their own forms of life and Consciousness: we train them (it may be mistakenly), but have we the right to desert them, as Christian Science would have us do, by denying their existence? Or are we to devote our energies (on the line enjoined by Christian Science) to getting rid of "Mortal Mind," because we desire to attain a heaven for ourselves, whether or not we attain health, wealth and happiness in this condition of existence? Is not either course selfish-selfish to so great an extent as to defeat the aim, however altruistic the professed motive? If there be the least taint of selfishness in the motive with which a man breaks through and steals the treasures of the kingdom of heaven, he will infallibly add to the intensity of "Mortal Mind" (whether he denies its existence or not, for his very

denial strengthens it, as error adds to error), and this by the very concentrated devotion on the negative side of nature, by which he attains his object. If man tries to run away from the duties which he owes to nature, for his own pleasure, he betrays his trust in diverting to his own selfish use, spiritual powers to which he has rightful access only as the servant of all. The powers are real-their exercise is magical in effects. The wrong motive in using them makes it "Black Magic."

I think we should clearly realize this. By the sustained effort to "deny" the existence of "Mortal Mind," the Christian Scientist is continually thinking about "Mortal Mind," i. e., his lower nature) and thus supplies it with a constant flow of mental energy and force; while denying its existence he is perpetually feeding it with currents of life force, energizing it anew. It is then more than ever bound to break out somewhere! It matters nothing whether we think about a thing as existent or non-existent. So long as we think about it at all, whether in positive or negative fashion, we give it new life: the difference in the fashion only denotes the nature of the force with which we keep it supplied. The negative modes of thought and force are those, precisely, which are most injurious to nature and to man. One trembles to think of the amount of potential mischief which is thus being stored up-and with concentrated determination-adding a deadly element. Having re-discovered the marvellous power of the individual creative will and the force of the imagination, which have their real place in nature on immaterial planes and work for good there, Christian Science drags them down on to material planes (while decrying the existence of the matter!) and makes them subservient to the procuration of material prosperity and happiness. Truly a wolf in sheep's clothing. From the point of view of life eternal, material well being is of no consequence at all, and Christian Science is thus beguiling man to sell his own birthright, his heavenly treasures for a mess of pottage. By betrayal of man's real life and desertion of his duty, Christian Science leads him away by a mirage of material prosperity, and by an appearance of vastly improved minds and characters on the surface of things.

Motive is at the root of it all, and is the only touchstone by which a human being may examine Christian Science. Not its professed motives; for it cloaks itself carefully in an altruistic guise: with the apparent object of casting away the material, it rivets material chains more firmly on the victim by debasing the spiritual forces to material ends, enticing men to desert their posts and leave their duty. Verily a "d'evil" masquerading in most specious fashion as an angel of light.

A. KEIGHTLEY.

D

CYCLES.

EAR FRIEND: You will have noticed that the word "cycle" is quite frequently used by writers on Theosophical subjects, and it is very likely that you have been perplexed by its application to so many different things and in so many different ways. That is exactly my experience, and it is my reason for writing this letter, for I want to help you out of the tangle and lead you into a study that is both helpful and interesting. I do not say this because I have come to a perfect understanding of the number and nature of cycles, far from it. I am but a student like yourself, although I may have gone one step farther, on this way that seems to have no end.

The subject was one of great interest to the ancients, as it now is to some of our modern historians. It has been noticed that certain diseases reappear at regular intervals, and I recently read an able and interesting article which undertook to prove that this was true of great wars-that they recur at stated times and come in waves. This seems also to be true of famines, and also of the duration of fevers. A few philosophical historians have gone further and assure us that the rise and fall of civilizations is governed by a law as sure and regular as that which governs the rise and fall of the ocean tides.

This has led to the two sayings, "Cycle and Epicycle," and "History repeats itself." The word cycle means a ring, a wheel, or a turning round, that is, one periodical recurrence of events.

In eastern books the word Yuga is synonymous with our word cycle, but the words Kalpa and Manvantara are sometimes used with that meaning. Some cycles are greater and some are smaller, and as the Hebrew prophet Ezekiel says (Ez. I, 16) there is "a wheel within a wheel"-cycles within cycles. Cycles physical, psychic, and spiritual, out of which comes individual, national, and race cycles.

Our planets circle round the sun, and it is said that our sun and many other solar systems circle round the star Alcyone. It may be that many such systems circle around some point central to them all.