The unity or oneness of good, which underlies all truth, has been obscured by the belief that man has life and mind separate from God. This perversion of spiritual fact, from which spring all mortal phenomena, has produced the theory of dualism which teaches that man is both spirit and matter, both good and evil. A mistaken premise results in faulty conclusions, and this dualistic doctrine has tainted the conception which mortal man holds of himself, of the conditions of his life, and of the universe which he beholds. Dualism, in other words the belief in both good and evil, is the cause of all evil, of materiality, of the bondage of humanity to sin, sickness, and death.
In nothing does the materiality of the human mind show itself more plainly than in the notion which it has evolved of the nature of prayer and work. The quality of a man's prayer has always reflected his conception of a supreme being, and the unaided human mind has never risen above the belief in a God knowing both good and evil and dispensing at will conditions of happiness or misery. There have been occasional instances throughout the Dark Ages which followed the loss of true Christianity, three hundred years after Christ Jesus taught in Palestine, when a more spiritual sense of prayer shone in minds humble enough to receive it. These were but rare instances, however, and the modern world is still seeking for relief from its woes in a direction totally opposite to the source of all life and truth, which Jesus termed "Father."
Closely connected with humanity's ignorance of the nature of prayer is the bondage under which its wholly material sense of work has placed it. The necessity for work as a normal condition of a man's life, when viewed rightly, is the reflection of a divine characteristic, but materiality has perverted it into a means for satisfying the instinctive sense of self-preservation which Jesus rebuked in the words, "Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat." As an expression of human energy, uncontrolled by the divine Mind, work in whatever category has partaken of the conditions and limitations of materiality. The transformation which a knowledge of Christian Science brings to the human mode of thought, radically changes the basis and nature of mortal man's conception of work and prayer. It is often the light which the first chapter of Mrs. Eddy's book, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," throws on the subject of prayer which reveals to the inquirer that he has entered into the presence of Truth. The great fundamental statement of Christian Science, "There is no life, truth, intelligence, nor substance in matter. All is infinite Mind and its infinite manifestation, for God is All-in-all" (Science and Health, p. 468), when understood even in a slight degree enforces the necessity of bringing every activity into agreement with infinite Spirit, God.
