The perception that reality is spiritual and not material was clear to Jesus the Christ, and he showed by word and deed that he did not deem it at all impossible that it should be so to others as well. He even chided his immediate disciples for their lack of spiritual perception, shown in many instances, as when they failed to heal the epileptic boy. Although he "suffered" (bore with) them and their apparent lack of spiritual understanding, this fact never once diminished his own scientific, exact knowing that reality is spiritual in all quality and quantity and that matter is nothing.
In "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" Mary Baker Eddy declares this same truth. She writes on page 14 as follows: "Become conscious for a single moment that Life and intelligence are purely spiritual, —neither in nor of matter,—and the body will then utter no complaints." This "consciousness" has on occasion raised me at once from sickness to complete health, but this truth, when written by Mary Baker Eddy, found no readier acceptance in the world than it did when uttered by Jesus the Christ two thousand years before. The efforts of Mrs. Eddy to find one who would and could perceive spiritual fact with sufficient clearness to heal sickness were finally rewarded, and all the world knows the result; but she labored years before she had one student whose perception of spiritual reality was adequate to qualify him to teach Christian Science. In "Christian Healing" (p.14) she says, "I waited many years for a student to reach the ability to teach; it included more than they understood."
The spirituality in fact of all things was the touchstone of Jesus' teaching and demonstration and it is of record that he continually put it to the test in himself and in his demands upon his disciples. Men said that he was John the Baptist, Elias, Jeremias, or some other of the prophets, but he who had looked upon earthly kingship and worldly riches as nothing was not to be satisfied with any cloak of material personality. As a test of their apprehension of his teaching, he demanded to know from his disciples, "Whom say ye that I am?" Only one of them was ready with the answer, "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God." And Jesus, perceiving that this answer proceeded from a qualitative and quantitative mentally correct grasp of creation as entirely spiritual gave to that answer the seal of his approval in the words, "Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-jona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven."
