The spirit of the man and the truth he preached.

"Every disease is the invention of man, and has no identity in wisdom; but to those who believe it, it is a truth. If everything man does not understand were blotted out, what is there left, of man? Would he be better, or worse, if nine tenths of all he thinks he knows were blotted out of his mind, and he existed with what is true?

"I contend that he would, as it were, sit on the clouds and see the world beneath him tormented with ideas that form living errors, whose weight is ignorance. Safe from their power he would not return to the world's belief for any consideration.

"In a slight degree, this is my case. I sit as it were in another world or condition, as far above the belief in disease as the heavens are above the earth, and though safe myself, I grieve for the sins of my fellow-man; and I am reminded of the words of Jesus when he beheld the misery of his countrymen: `O Jerusalem'. How oft would I have gathered thee as a hen gathereth her chickens, but ye would not.'

"I hear this truth now pleading with man, to listen to the voice of reason. I know from my own experience with the sick that their troubles are the effect of their own belief; not that their belief is the truth, but their beliefs act upon their minds, bringing them into subjection to their belief, and their troubles are a change that follows.

"Disease is a reality to all mankind; but I do not include myself, because I stand outside of it, where I can see things real to the world and things that are real to wisdom. I know that I can distinguish that which is false from a truth, in religion, or in disease. To me, disease is always false; but to those who believe it, it is a truth, and the errors in religion the same. Until the world is shaken by investigation, so that the rocks and mountains of religious error are removed, and the medical Babylon destroyed, sickness and sorrow will prevail. Feeling as I do, and seeing so many young people go the broad road to destruction, I can say from the bottom of my soul: O Priestcraft! fill up the measure of your cups of iniquity, for on your head will come, sooner or later, the sneers and taunts of the people. Your theory will be overthrown by the voice of wisdom, that will rouse the men of science, who will battle your error, and drive you utterly from the face of the earth. Then there will arise a new science, followed by a new mode of reasoning, which shall teach man that to be wise and well is to unlearn his errors."

The first person of this age who penetrated the depths of truth so far as to discover and bring forth a true science of life, and openly apply it to the healing of the sick.

That man was Phineas Parkhurst Quimby, of Belfast, ME[1].

[1]Belfast is a city in Waldo County, Maine, in the United States. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 6668.

THE TRUE HISTORY
OF
MENTAL SCIENCE.
A LECTURE DELIVERED AT THE CHURCH OF THE
DIVINE UNITY, BOSTON, MASS., ON SUNDAY
EVENING, FEB. 6, 1887.
By JULIUS A. DRESSER.