The Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, Mary Baker Eddy, has written on page 428 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," the textbook of Christian Science, this important statement: "We must realize the ability of mental might to offset human misconceptions and to replace them with the life which is spiritual, not material." Christian Science shows men how to utilize mental might, or the power of God, to destroy sin, heal disease, and understand eternal life. Its message is, therefore, a healing and a loving message. It comes to tell of the goodness and love of God, and to show how you and I may immediately benefit therefrom.
Christian Science teaches that God is Mind. The very corner-stone of Christian Science is that man is not separate from God. He is united to God. But how can this be? Have you ever stopped to consider where your good thoughts come from, your right desires and high ideals? You do not originate them yourself. You accept them as the correct expression of being; but their origin is greater than yourself. Christian Science shows us that the source of all good thoughts is the one Mind, named God. Since God is Mind, He is as near as Mind is; and Mind is always present, here and everywhere. But how is man united to God? Christian Science teaches that the true individuality of man is not temporal and material; it is eternal and spiritual. Man's true individuality is the living expression of the Mind that is God. Deity and His expression must forever be united. Man lives to express God. Could he have a grander destiny? As this foundational fact, that God and man are inseparably united in being, thought, and action, becomes more fully understood, it brings to us that sense of life in which health is natural and harmony and happiness the only order of existence.
It is, of course, apparent that what we term the devil or evil opposes the supremacy of good, denies that man has unity with God, and disputes the statement that there is but one true Mind or God, with the assertion that there is another mind, which fills the consciousness of men with fear, hate, selfishness, sin, and disease. If evil's claim to place and power is legitimate, all thought of progress and deliverance must be abandoned, and we must accept the works of evil,—sin, disease, hatred, and war,—as effacing the work of God, and find ourselves without effective means to overthrow them. But is evil's claim valid? Christian Science answers with a positive No. Let us see how it is that this conclusion is reached.
