CHRIST JESUS declared that mankind must seek first "the kingdom of God, and his righteousness;" adding, that every human need would then be satisfied. Thus the Master brought spiritual capacities and temporal needs into their rightful perspective. But the propensities of the so-called carnal mind have continued to control the great majority of the human race throughout the centuries, and perishable matter has been exalted as the measure and arbiter of life, substance, and power, in spite of the essentially ephemeral nature of even those material forms which are most deeply cherished. Manifestly, that which is real and enduring must be sought elsewhere than in the images of material sense.
Truth expresses itself in ideas, pure, perfect, and yielding fruit after their kind. Matter, which is a falsity, can never do more than, in belief, counterfeit an idea. Though human thought may express its finite perceptions by means of material terms or words, form and weight are but symbols which objectify the thought itself; and thought can appear to be causative only in the degree to which common consent has admitted it. The force of its message has no other foundation than that consent. Separated from its mental impetus, the symbol becomes as inert as a word in a dictionary. It has no inherent capacity to bless or to curse, to add to or to subtract from, to act or to refrain from acting. Hence, to dissect it or expatiate upon it may deceive us as to its true nature, and may even lead us unwittingly to acquiesce in the erroneous thoughts which it is used to elaborate. On page 269 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" Mrs. Eddy says, "Metaphysics resolves things into thoughts, and exchanges the objects of sense for the ideas of Soul."
Some one exclaims, How can I be grateful, when I have no money? How can I be happy, when my body is sick? Gratitude and happiness may go unobserved, because a matter-symbol does not testify to their presence. Yet present they are, and must ever be, proceeding, as they do, from God. They are always evident when through spiritual sense we awaken to and accept them. Intrinsically, matter symbolizes nothing but its own utter falsity, though mortal mind would mendaciously assert that it can be used to express simultaneously one person's joy and another's doom. Mankind yearns to be delivered from its tyranny; and freedom is gained through Christian Science, as we learn and prove that God is the only power. Obedience to spiritual law strengthens our resistance to the argument that there is power in any material form, or activity in that which falsely claims to actuate matter to purposes that do not harmonize with good.
