There is a beautiful story of a holy man of the Middle Ages who so fully recognized his relation to his heavenly Father, and became so imbued with the sense of His immanence and power, that he declared it to be his chief aim as well as his constant obligation to practice the presence of God. Christian Scientists early learn that the demand upon them is insistent to live in the certainty of the ever-presence of divine Love to the degree which enables them to exemplify before the world the real man, the image and likeness of God. To be apart from the world, while yet being in it; to be separate, that is, to abandon the familiar and ofttimes supposed pleasurable ways of the flesh for the more truly satisfying path of Spirit which alone leads to unfoldment of the true selfhood; to be instant and faithful in recognizing the nothingness of evil's claims to reality, while knowing the allness and goodness of divine Love,—this is the "practice of the presence of God."
Mrs. Eddy has expressed one phase of this necessity and obligation in definite language in the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," where she says(p. 451), "Christian Scientists must live under the constant pressure of the apostolic command to come out from the material world and be separate." Christ Jesus emphatically expressed the other phase to his followers in the well-known words, "Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven." Surely, nothing less than the understanding and faithful demonstration of divine Principle could follow this high example.
Christian Science teaches us that the attributes of God, His perfect qualities, are made manifest as they find expression in human lives, reflecting the attributes of His being; and, accordingly, that we know no more of the real man than we know of his Maker. The earnest seeker after Truth who strives constantly for that spiritual illumination which signalizes the presence of God is approaching the state of perfection comprising man's real selfhood, the true state of his being, to be realized in its completeness only upon awaking in His likeness.
