SPIRITUAL thoughts are the products of divine Mind. This one and only Mind is God, and the creations of Mind must have the qualities of their creator. Because the one God, the only creator, is Mind, the one and only creation must be the expression of this Mind, or the thoughts of God, and because these thoughts are as perfect as God Himself, the only creation that really exists must in reality be the perfect one of divine Mind. "Christian Science," Mrs. Eddy says (Miscellaneous Writings, p. 69), "is the unfolding of true metaphysics; that is, of Mind, or God, and His attributes." Since God is Mind and His attributes are mental, that which Christian Science is continually unfolding to its students must be the thoughts of God.
The word "unfolding" immediately suggests degrees of progress. Even the first awakening of mortals to a desire to know God and His thoughts must come through orderly process of scientific unfoldment of good in their thinking. Just as certainly as it is impossible to force the rise of the temperature and the growth of vegetation in earth's spring awakening, so impossible is it to force mental awakening in individuals or nations; but as hope leads on to faith and through growth faith unfolds into understanding, Christian Science will be found bringing the kingdom of God to men. The first glimpse of God as Mind and of His thoughts as reality, sometimes effects in the human so-called mind so great a release that thinking jumps far beyond its present power of demonstration. Neither in individuals nor in groups of individuals can this be called growth. Unfoldment is orderly and sane, and all truly inspired thought progresses by ascending, demonstrable degrees. As it is certain that spiritual growth cannot be hurried or forced, equally certain is it that spiritual growth is inevitable. Progress is unavoidable for individuals or the world, because one right thought leads in another, and as thought is leavened by Truth the work of regeneration will go on. Truth, because of its own inherent power, brings reality to light.
Having begun to accept this revelation of reality as spiritually mental, and of Truth as the divine All-power, the student of Christian Science faces the seeming substantiality of the material universe, and the apparent power of evil, from a new standpoint. He finds by observation of the so-called natural sciences that even there progress is leading men into less and less material explanations of matter, time, and space, and that the failure of many theories is gradually showing that matter is but a mental phenomenon. Then humanity begins to realize that its world of matter is but a changing picture of the thoughts in mortal mind. Through the declarations of Christian Science as to the oneness of divine Mind, the falsity of mortal mind and all its presentments becomes apparent, and the correction of these false claims by divine Mind becomes possible.
