Christian Science teaches that those who would be genuinely honest and truthful are bound to adopt the code of spiritual perfection indicated in the words of the prophet, "Ye are my witnesses, saith the Lord," and again enjoined upon them by the Master in his sermon on the mount. Such true and honest testimony involves right thinking at every turn: it denies every appearance of evil and mentally maintains the unchangeableness of the infinite good, and its ever-presence. So doing, it is found that each one's standard of thought and action rises higher, in proportion as he gains a more adequate apprehension of the terms truthfulness and honesty.
Denial, in the sense that Christian Science employs the word, is neither flippant, dishonest, nor unpractical; if it were, there would be no cures resulting from it. But the fact of unnumbered cases of the healing of both organic and functional disease through the scientific understanding of both the affirmation of the real and the denial of the unreal, proves that this question holds within itself the secret of health and redemption for the entire human race. It is not denied that, according to the evidence of the physical senses, many sicknesses seem to be in evidence on all sides, but it is emphatically denied that these form any part of God's creation or man's inheritance. Since every Christian has accepted the premise that God pronounced good all that He made, should not every Christian advance from this to the conclusion that evil has no place in creation and no right of invasion?
As nothing evil can ever become good, nor anything good ever become evil, the question of honesty presently resolves itself thus in the mind of the learner; "Is it honest to go on accepting the material standard presented by the physical senses, or is it more genuinely honest and beneficial to contend for the reality and perfection of man in God's image? Which standard is the more Christian?" Becoming convinced that the latter standard is the more Christian, he presently asks himself: "Well, what am I? spiritual or mortal, God-made or man-made?" On the nature of the answer depends whether each one helps to establish the kingdom of heaven on earth or assists in prolonging the seeming reign of sickness, sin, and disorder. The old injunction of the prophet Isaiah still holds good: "Cease ye from man, whose breath is in his nostrils: for wherein is he to be accounted of?" and it has today expanded into Truth's high mandate: "Thou shalt recognize thyself as God's spiritual child only" (Miscellaneous Writings, p. 18).
