3

PREFACE.

Leaning on the sustaining Infinite with loving trust, the  trials of to-day are  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 the 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, to that which repeats the  eternal harmony reproduced in proof  of immortality and God.  The time for thinkers has come;  and the time for revolutions, ecclesiastic and social, must come.  Truth, independent of doctrines of 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 " is the only guaranty of obedience.

Since the hoary centuries but faintly  shadow forth the  tireless Intelligence  at work for man, this volume

4

SCIENCE AND HEALTH.

may not open at once a new thought, and make it familiar ;  it has the task of a pioneer to hack away at the tall oak and cut the rough granite, leaving future ages to declare what has been done.  We made our first discovery that science mentally applied would heal the sick, in 1864, and since then have tested it on ourselves and hundreds of others, and never found it fail to prove the statement herein made of it.   The science of man alone can make him harmonious, unfold his utmost possibilities, and establish the perfection of man. To admit God the Principle of all being, and live in accordance with this Principle,  is the Science of  Life, but to reproduce the harmony of being, errors  of personal sense must be destroyed, even as the science of music, must correct tones caught from the ear, to give 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.  Let  that  method of healing the sick  and  establishing  Christianity,  be adopted, that  is found to give the most health, and make the best Christians, and you will then give science a fair  field; in  which case  we are assured of its triumph  over all opinions and beliefs.   Sickness and sin have ever had their doctors, but the  question is, have they become less because of them ?   The longevity of our  antediluvians  would say,  no!  and  the  criminal records of to-day  utter  their voices  little in favor of such a conclusion.  Not that we would deny to Ccesar the things that are his, but  that we ask for  the tilings that  are Truth's, and safely affirm, from the demonstra tions we have been  able  to make, that science would

5

PREFACE.

have eradicated sin, sickness, and death, in a less period than six thousand years.  We find great difficulties  in starting this work right:  some shockingly false claims are already made to  its practice; mesmerism (its very antipode), is one.  Hitherto we  have never  in a single instance of our discovery or practice found the slightest resemblance between  mesmerism  and  the  science  of Life.  No especial idiosyncrasy is requisite for a learner; although spiritual sense is more adapted to it than even the intellect;  and those who would learn this science without a high moral standard will fail to understand it  until  they go  up higher.  Owing to our explanations constantly vibrating between  the  same points an irksome repetition of words  must occur; also, the use  of capital letters, genders and technicalities peculiar to the science, variety of language, or beauty of diction, must give place to close analysis, and unembellished thought. " Hoping all things, enduring all things: "to do good to the upright in heart, and to bless them that curse us, and bear to the sorrowing and the sick consolation and healing, we commit these pages to posterity.

MARY BAKER GLOVER.