The student of Christian Science finds his former concept of God, man, and the universe wholly inadequate to form any basis of salvation from disease or sin; in fact his mental view-point has been completely revolutionized, for he no longer looks to the material senses for evidence or draws any conclusions as to man's immortality from matter or mortal mind. From a false belief in good and evil as commingling, that both matter and spirit are included in the divine purpose, his thought is turned to the recognition of God as the only Mind, the All-in-all of being, the infinite good, expressed through its perfect idea, man and the universe. From the moment this spiritual understanding appears in the consciousness of any individual, the foundations of material belief begin to collapse and all thoughts, actions, and conditions are mentally analyzed, accepted, or rejected from the standpoint of spiritual reality. In this mental sifting it is learned that much which has been considered good as well as evil in mortal mind is a false belief because it emanates from a so-called mind claiming to know both good and evil. As one progresses in scientific knowledge and demonstration, many phases of mortal thought can be dispensed with at once, others pass through transition states and stages and thus become helpful stepping-stones in one's experience before reaching the spiritual height where error disappears forever.
In Science and Health (page 115), the different degrees of mortal mind are scientifically translated and the transitional qualities defined as "humanity, honesty, affection, compassion, hope, faith, meekness, temperance." Gratitude also is one of the essential elements of human thought strongly emphasized in Christian Science. It is the spontaneous offspring of honesty and affection and should be the inevitable concomitant of the blessings derived from Christian Science.
No one in the world knows as well how to be grateful or has as much reason to manifest gratitude as the Christian Scientist. When one has been delivered from hopeless suffering and sin through the understanding and demonstration of this truth, his thought is filled with thankfulness to God, to the great Wayshower, then to Mrs. Eddy, -the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science. The patient is taught from the first that God, and not personality, is the healer of the sick, and right at this point, even if one has the true sense of the relationship which the practitioner bears to the case, there is danger of entertaining a wrong sense of what God has done, including a wrong sense of gratitude. To thank God with the belief that He has done something which He could not or possibly would not do before, is to hold a wrong sense of God, man, and the universe. A very general concept of thankfulness makes it a human attribute which refers to the transitional stages of human consciousness. In the usual acceptance of the term it indicates that a favor has been bestowed upon one to the exclusion of another. Such thankfulness implies a comparison with some other state or a remembrance of some other state in which there was nothing to be thankful for. In Christian Science, however, we learn that God has already done all for all; nothing can be added to or taken away from the omnipresent ministry of infinite good, which has regard for the eternal welfare, happiness, and health of man. Jesus' expressions of gratitude reveal the two conditions of thought, human and divine, but manifest the positive understanding and assurance that all good has existed for man always and is available now.
