Among the many precepts intended to further the progress of the student of Christian Science in his passage from sense to Soul, few are more practically helpful to him than St. Paul's statement in his first epistle to the Corinthians, "Know ye not that ye are the temple of God." It is followed by a solemn warning against doing aught which would defile this temple. In the second epistle to the Corinthians we read, "Ye are the temple of the living God." Each must therefore cleanse his own consciousness by casting out of it with truth all sense of fear, hate, envy, malice; and a brief analysis of the significance of this behest will suffice to make clear how necessary it is to pay heed to this.
In the case of each individual his sense of what is real is limited to that which occupies his consciousness; consequently it is plain to the student of Christian Science, who has realized that "all is infinite Mind and its infinite manifestation" (Science and Health, p. 468), and that man is the expressed idea of that Mind, that only in so far as his consciousness is filled with pure and spiritual thoughts can it constitute a temple for the living God, who is not to be found sharing any abode with evil of any kind. He who would entertain God must therefore offer Him a dwelling place cleansed from the presence of all phases of error, including every other inharmonious condition not specifically named, but constituting, so to speak, by products of the four primitive elements already mentioned.
To the beginner it may appear to be a large order to require him to dispose summarily of manifestations of evil so formidable and so prevalent to sense as are these. If, however, he inquire into the origin and nature of these undesirable would-be inmates of the temple, he will soon find that the cleansing task is not so difficult as it at first appeared. Dealing with them seriatim, let him ask himself what fear is doing on his premises. This form of error is rightly accorded first place because, as all history and our daily experiences prove, far more of crime and wrong doing is due to it than to all other causes put together; indeed, the activities of the other members of the intruding quartet are in great measure due to it, so that its elimination signifies the successful accomplishment of the greater part of the cleansing process.
