Many who come into Christian Science at first think it would be easier to present the truth to their former friends and acquaintances, as they certainly desire to do, if they did not have to explain the unreality of matter as well as the unreality of disease and sin. When they attempt to do this many are "offended," even as so many were in the time of Christ Jesus, for they fail to see that when Christian Science insists upon the allness of God, who is Spirit, this necessarily rules out the belief in matter and evil,—belief manifested in sin, disease, and death.
It is noteworthy that critics usually base their strongest objections to Christian Science upon Mrs. Eddy's denial of the reality of matter and evil, and they even insist that this denial is the basic teaching of Christian Science, an opinion which is far from being correct. On page 138 of Science and Health we read, "The supremacy of Spirit was the foundation on which Jesus built;" and it may be added that this is also the foundation on which Christian Science rests. At this point it is well to remember that while Christendom today claims to accept the Master's teachings, the fact is overlooked that the supremacy of Spirit upon which he insisted, to the exclusion of belief in materiality or the flesh, was a great offense to the people of his day. In exactly the same manner this fundamental truth is an offense to people today, until they learn the glorious results of an understanding of the pure spirituality taught by Christ Jesus and made practical in this age through Mrs. Eddy's teachings.
In the sixth chapter of John's gospel we find a long discourse by the Master, which was listened to by murmurers and complainers who undoubtedly claimed to be truth-seekers; but as one criticism followed another, Jesus was more insistent upon the truth which he was presenting to his auditors, and so he said, "What and if ye shall see the Son of man ascend up where he was before?" To the Christian Scientist this would mean the possibility of seeing man in his rightful place as the idea of infinite Mind, the likeness of God, and the statement which follows shows clearly the need of entire separation between material belief and spiritual understanding. It reads, "The flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life."
