There are times in nearly every one's experience when the bondage of matter seems intolerable; when there is an impelling desire to strike for freedom—if one only knew where to strike! And then, perhaps after a fruitless effort, the sigh follows, "How long, oh, how long!" These experiences are really tokens that there is a glorious land of freedom which man should now be enjoying. Mrs. Eddy says in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 227): "Slavery is not the legitimate state of man.... All men should be free.... Love and Truth make free, but evil and error lead into captivity." While one is still laboring in uncertainty, however, the thought may come that it is impossible to realize the heart's desire—for the present at least; and he may settle down into his routine of submission to the material laws which seem so relentless in their government of his every movement.
Rebelling against that which seems to limit him in the realization of his hopes, one person may wish for money to free him from his narrow round; another pines for health and strength; another yearns for ability and opportunity; another for beauty and grace; and all seek for an open door leading out of the deep darkness of the prison house. That which, under this spell, seems their only hope of deliverance is clearly their most cruel taskmaster—matter. Are not their bodies flesh, and their food and homes material? Do not their pastimes partake of material things, and must they not work for material sustenance? To such mentalities how real matter clearly seems to be—solid material bounds, as ever present as the little atom, whose mark appears on everything which the five senses pass down as man's heritage. Cannot some way be found to elude them?
That is the problem—to obtain freedom from the sense of matter as substance. But would it be a problem if there were no solution? The consideration of this question reveals another view, and a gleam of light dawns. Is it true that matter holds a governing position in human affairs? Are these material bodies, material homes, material means of exchange, the masters which control us? In order, however, to be free from them—from matter—something else must not only be recognized as the controlling factor in our lives, but must actually be more real to us as substance than matter now seems to be. And what is this "something else"? It is that which really impels us to seek freedom, though we may know it not; it is Spirit. In other words, matter must be to us insubstantial, and Spirit must be known as the substance of all things.
