ONE of the first effects that Christian Science has upon the learner is to lead him to declare with Jacob, "Surely the Lord is in this place; and I knew it not." When first taking up this study, the average learner grasps the truth by degrees, "here a little, and there a little." He believes that God is "a very present help in trouble," and that although sickness and discord seem to be everywhere, God also is here and more powerful than any form of evil. The student derives much comfort, courage, and practical benefit from this first degree of comprehension, this first footstep toward the land of Spirit. Then, as thought travels on and discovers more of the Science of being, he perceives with mingled awe and joy unspeakable that God, Spirit, alone is present, and that sickness, matter,sin,and death are all of them to be regarded as chimerical nightmares, possessing neither substance, time, place, nor power.
The more clearly this fact is understood, the more rapidly will it be demonstrated by the individual Christian Scientist, who "has enlisted to lessen evil, disease, and death" (Science and Health, p. 450) by regarding them as phenomena rather than fact, as unreality rather than reality. The partial realization that good is everywhere present, brings with it the dawning conviction that evil can be nowhere present. The remedy for the fear of evil is to learn and to live more of good. In every department of life knowledge is the remedy for ignorance, and as humanity seeks the genuine education offered to it by Christian Science, the glorious fact of the ever-presence of Life, Truth, and Love obliterates by sure degrees the dark consequences of the former belief in evil. Provided we always remind ourselves of the promise, "My presence shall go with thee, and I will give thee rest," there need be no more struggle than when darkness gives place to dawn at the turn of day. When the "seven days" of realization of God's creation are fulfilled, the very belief in evil "shall not be remembered, nor come into mind."
The divine presence is a healing presence. It is the presence of Truth versus false belief, Love versus fear, peace versus pain, joy versus sorrow, possession versus dispossession, substance versus shadow. Matter is in itself a false belief about substance, and a convenient medium of expression for mortal mind, whose insensate accomplice it represents. Can a lie be said to be "present"? Can ignorance be said to be "present"? No. and consequently the supposed results of the lie and of ignorance are not, strictly speaking, "present"; they are only false beliefs about reality, and false beliefs have no presence. Reality is present, but unreality is not, and since good is ever and everywhere present, evil is ever and everywhere absent. Hence we go on to discover that the divine presence is the infinite and only spiritually-discernible presence, in which we "live, and move, and have our being," and it is a healing presence only in the sense that heavenly inspiration shows us there is really no evil to heal and no matter to be made sick or sinful.
