It is now very generally acknowledged that the world's progress is due to the supremacy of Mind. Through the ever-advancing discoveries and modes of Mind in myriad forms of manifestation, the supposed resistance and unkind forces of matter yield to the quiet march of intelligence, until the hour is struck when the human mind begins to discern the great fact of Truth, that not matter but Mind, when understood, is master. In the closing years of the nineteenth century, the supremacy of Mind was more generally acknowledged than in any former historic period, and progress along all needed lines has been correspondingly great. The strides of march have been so rapid during the past quarter of a century as to surprise even the most optimistic observers. The limitations and earth-bound opinions of the past are melting in the crucible of the present. Those who affirm this supremacy of Mind and the manifest progress ensuing therefrom, if not students of Christian Science, are not aware of the deep meaning which belongs to this growing acknowledgment of an eternal fact. For Mind to dominate or control matter, some real or supposed quality, action, or manifestation of matter must be put off, and some law element, or manifestation of Mind must be put on and take its place. Now if both Mind and matter are forms or elements of Truth, then we have the anomaly of seeing one form of Truth putting off and overcoming one of its own forms or qualities. This would be Truth overcoming or putting off itself, which would certainly not be progress, but destruction. If progress in mathematics consisted in using one true rule to put off or overcome another true rule, however simple this other might be, then the logic of Mind's supremacy over matter on the basis of both being true and real might be tolerated. But it is apparent to any thinker that one form or quality of Truth is as important, immutable, and eternal, as any other of its forms or qualities. If we could take from Truth a single quality of its nature for a single moment it would cease to be Truth and would be error. This everlasting unity of Truth, as taught in Christian Science, is daily more and more attracting the attention of scholars and thinkers. If, however, Mind is Truth and matter error, then we see the overcoming of error with Truth must be progress. It must be apparent that Mind as Truth can be used to overcome matter or error, only to the extent that this Mind, its laws, nature, and action are understood, and its omnipotence conceded. It must be equally apparent that progress cannot result from the supremacy of Mind unless this Mind is good. It will be admitted that Good cannot be understood in any demonstrable degree unless it is experienced. That understanding in its true and provable sense, must be experimental is no longer reasonably open to contention. The mind that is not absolute Good is not Intelligence, but in a greater or less degree must be evil, which is not the foundation of progress but the sure source of decay. It logically follows that human progress must ever result from the understanding of Mind as Good, and that to understand Mind it must be studied from a true, scientific basis. To study Mind as both good and evil can never bring forth that understanding which insures true progress; because to acquire a knowledge of mind as both true and false, both good and evil, would be to experience these qualities, and hence to make evil a part of our experience throughout time and eternity. But to gain the understanding of Mind or Intelligence as wholly good is to bring into our knowledge, and hence our experience, the spiritual nature and wisdom that was in Christ Jesus. The Mind that governed him had no essence of evil in it, and is the foundation rock of all true progress, and the only Saviour of mankind from the woes of sin and flesh. When evil shall be understood as unreal as error and no part of true Mind, then will progress make strides for the weal of man that hitherto have been but feebly known. The teaching of Christian Science, which is so rapidly spreading over the globe, is giving and will continue to give to mankind that divine motive for action and effort which builds human progress upon a basis absolutely impregnable to the winds of time. How evil, which has no foundation in Truth and no origin in the one divine creative Intelligence, could ever have been clothed by mortals with the name and substance of reality, will at no distant day be regarded as one of the inexplicable mysteries of the past.
Where, it may be asked, can this understanding of Mind as Truth, as Good—as the eternal God that heals both mind and body, be acquired?" Surely a desideratum so great and all-important must have thousands, yea, millions of anxious and determined seekers. Ask those who to-day are healing the sick and reforming the sinner through this understanding of God, and the unhesitating reply will he that in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker G. Eddy, a satisfying answer is found, and the problem of the ages solved from the basis of revelation and reason, which now as of old are crowned with the jewels of demonstration. Who can reasonably deny that this understanding of God is the keynote of the Bible and was the foundation and sure basis of the teaching and demonstrations of Jesus, as it must be of those to whom it can be said, "The works that I do shall he do also." Faithful students of Christian Science—those who live and practise what they learn—rejoice in the daily proof that Truth is not a far-off future possibility, but a present demonstrable reality.
