It is probable that every young student of Christian Science, after struggling between the conceded fact that God to be infinite must be all, and the seeming fact, cognizable by the physical senses, that matter is real, possessing place and power, gets wearied and perplexed, and asks himself desperately, "Well, what is here?" He surveys his room, sees chairs, tables, pictures, walls; and so overwhelming seems the sense testimony, so substantial, so solid, so constant seem these witnesses for the cause of matter, so unvarying in their perpetual plea, that he begins to doubt the existence of an omnipresent being, and to give credence to that which denies the all-presence of Spirit. I know of a man who is a good example of the muddle into which one is likely to get by trying to serve God and mammon, or Spirit and matter, believing in the reality of both. A minister of an orthodox sect, who had read largely in books on so-called mental science, and then began the study of Science and Health, came to the false conclusion that mental science and Christian Science are one and the same thing. During a brief conversation he said, "God is everywhere, therefore He is in this wood: but the wood is not matter, it is a something which is actually here and really exists and is substance." On another occasion, when officiating at a burial service, he gazed down at the lowering coffin and said to himself, "God is there."
This is of course easily seen to be pantheistic materialism of the grossest kind, yet is it not a position to which we are necessarily driven, if we persist in making the contradictory statements that God is omnipresent and that matter exists? This dilemma is unsurpassably described in our text-book (Science and Health, p. 119), where Mrs. Eddy summons the world to answer the question, "What is here?" "Here" may refer to a place, as when the angel said, "He is not here: for he is risen;" it may mean this present life in contrast with what is termed "hereafter," and it may also be used to indicate a state of consciousness, as in the verse:—
If my immortal Saviour lives
Then my immortal life is sure
His word a firm foundation gives;
Here may I build, and rest secure.
