Christian Science gives an entirely new viewpoint from which to survey creation. Before one knows anything about the truth which Christian Science reveals, he lives in the belief that what is generally known as the universe,—the earth and the other planets, the stars and the nebulæ, which men picture to themselves as existing in space, in other words, the so-called material universe, including so-called material man,—is the most real thing there is or can be. Does he not live in this material universe and is he not part of it, he thinks? Do not the physical senses all alike plead for the reality of its existence? To express a doubt to some as to the reality of the so-called material creation is to incur their ridicule, if not their censure. But nowadays, many have come to look upon the material creation, so called, as altogether unsubstantial or unreal, because of the revelation of the real creation, the real universe of Spirit, which Christian Science has given them.
To thinkers, generally, throughout all generations human existence has been an insoluble problem. Accepting the testimony of the physical senses,—those senses which claim to be cognizant of matter and its phenomena and laws,—they have puzzled continually over the irreconcilable conditions presented to them. On the one hand, they are conscious of good, conscious of love and truth and life, conscious of intelligence and faith and hope, conscious of mercy and right and justice; on the other hand, they are presented by the physical senses with apparent evil,—hate, untruth, and death, inanity, infidelity, and despair, ruthlessness, unrighteousness, and injustice. One moment the sun shines over verdant land-scape and fruitful field; the next, the eye beholds, perhaps, a scene of indescribable chaos, with stricken humanity struggling amid piles of ruins. These are some of the irreconcilable contrasts presented by physical sense, which acclaims the reality of a material universe.
Now, is there a solution to the problem, or must it remain forever tragically inscrutable? Christian Science answers, The riddle of the universe has already been solved, solved through spiritual sense, the divine faculty of which man has ever been possessed, although throughout the years mankind has been believing and trusting the evidence of the so-called physical senses. It is strange that even now, however, spiritual sense is regarded but lightly by the majority of men. But since God has never been without a witness, there have always been spiritual seers in the world, who have exercised spiritual sense in discovering God and His laws, and so have thus been of incalculable benefit to mankind.
