THE theology of Christian Science makes its first strong appeal to those who are suffering in "mind, body, or estate," in telling them that God is as ready to help them today as He was in the time when Jesus healed all manner of disease without recourse to material means. When this statement is supported by actual proof, the one healed is ready to give up his long held belief that the day of miracles is past, but he soon finds out that if he would advance in spiritual understanding (and this is greatly urged in the Bible) he must gain the deeper meaning of the Scriptures which Christian Science insists upon. At this point it is well to remember that each advancing step in spiritual understanding makes the overcoming of sickness and sin more of an assured fact.
The inquirer soon sees for himself that Jesus' wonderful power was due to his understanding of God and His law, and that he was ready to share this understanding with others. St. John says in his first epistle, "We know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding, that we may know him that is true." This recalls Jesus' own words in Matthew's gospel: "No man knoweth the Son, but the Father; neither knoweth any man the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him." He also declared that to know God is life eternal, and Christian Science insists that it is the absence of this knowing which is responsible for all the sin and suffering of mortal experience.
The student of Christian Science takes a very important step when he grasps the fact that God is the only Life of man and the universe. Moses of old declared and proved this truth when he bade the people love and obey God, and said, "He is thy life, and the length of thy days." Besides this, Christ Jesus both taught and demonstrated it, yet it was practically lost sight of by humanity until Mrs. Eddy's discovery of the Science of Life was given to the world. Physical science, so called, confessed to ignorance of the nature and potentialities of life, and Professor Drummond wrote, "The word Life still wanders through Science without a definition." Mrs. Eddy, however, made the word one of the synonyms for God, and linked it to Mind, thus opening up anew the way traversed by the master Christian, a way never darkened by sin, disease, or death. Life was the theme on which he constantly dwelt, and toward it he directed all thought; indeed he declared that the end for which he came to the world was that weary, burdened, and despairing mortals might have life, and "have it more abundantly." Then indeed would mortality be "swallowed up of life."
