A KNOWLEDGE of the teaching of Christian Science tremendously increases the incentive for overcoming wrong conditions, for it shows that instead of belonging to the universe as it exists in creative Mind, materiality is a transient phenomenon, a fictitious aspect which creation takes on when regarded from a standpoint which is out of unison with that of divine Mind. But, it will be asked, how is it possible to tell what the standpoint of divine Mind is? This is, indeed, out of the question so far as the determinations of material sense, "the carnal mind," or "mortal mind," as Mrs. Eddy terms it, go. As St. Paul observes, "The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: . . . neither can he know them." But in our understanding of Truth we are not restricted to the resources of material sense; for, as the apostle says, "we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God."
This view of the case is fully in accord with the reassuring words of Jesus as he was about to leave the world: "When he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth." The trend of the gospel narratives indicates that so long as their Master was with them the disciples' success in overcoming error was due not so much to spiritual understanding of God and His ways as to the faith which Jesus' example inspired in them. When, however, they no longer had his personality to lean on, they too were led to find in spiritual sense the same avenue for knowing God which had given him power to overcome the flesh by subjugating the fleshly or mortal mind; in other words, "power over all the power of the enemy."
Now there is but one method by which we can ascertain whether Jesus and Paul, and the early Christians in general, were right in their contention that the mysteries of being which lie outside the range of material sense are knowable, and that method is to take up the question of existence spiritually, as they did. When this is done, material exactions correspondingly lessen, and it begins to be evident as a matter of experience that creation is after all spiritually and not materially constituted. The logical inference from object-lessons of this class is, that whatever is materially conceived and developed has no existence from the standpoint of truth and reality, that it is not of God; therefore it sinks into oblivion as soon as the belief which upholds it is wiped out. "Every plant, which my heavenly Father hath not planted, shall be rooted up," was the sweeping declaration of the great demonstrator of the spirituality of being.
