The prisoner at the bar and the witness in the box are characters inseparable from history and fiction; nor is this the extent of their activities, for, as every one knows, a witness is not confined to a court room nor a prisoner to a dock. In the broader view many witnesses are constantly offering evidence in the daily round of individual experience, —captives and witnesses of physical sense, fear, sickness, and superstition, as well as glad messengers of freedom, joy, health, and life. Upon our acceptance or rejection of their pleas in accordance with our understanding or ignorance of the nature, quality, truth, or falsity of their evidence, depends much, even the working out of that all-important problem, salvation—the coming of the kingdom of heaven, harmony, to the individual.
From the human or material point of view we may seem to have many problems, but there is in reality only one, and that one is to put off material-mindedness,—to refuse to hear the testimony of the false witness of material sense, which is all there is that seems to present the many problems. The Master made it very clear just what the one great work is that we all must do, when he answered Pontius Pilate in these words: "To this end was I born, and for this cause came, I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth." To Pilate's question, "What is truth?" Jesus made no verbal answer, and the reason for his silence must appear in the light of Christian Science.
On page viii of the Preface to "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" Mrs. Eddy writes, "The question, What is Truth, is answered by demonstration—by healing both disease and sin." All demonstrations are the direct result of bearing witness to the truth. Truth, however, is not in any sense mortal, material, or human. Truth is Spirit, God, and God is infinite Mind or intelligence. "The Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works," said Christ Jesus. Therefore, to bear witness unto the truth is an entirely metaphysical process; it is the reflecting of intelligence, the true idea, and to reflect the true idea is to be God's witness. Conversely, a lie or erroneous belief claims to bear witness unto the truth; claims as truth that man is human, material, mortal; claims that evil is, and that substance and power exist separate and apart from God. This counterfeit is the supposititious opposite of God; it is the image of the beast, which together with the false witness, or false prophet, as we read in Revelation, is doomed to be cast into the lake of fire and brimstone. Metaphysically interpreted this lake of fire and brimstone symbolizes the annihilation of every form of error through the consuming and cleansing fire of Truth.
