There is a marked correlation between the eleventh chapter of the epistle to the Hebrews, which deals primarily with faith, and the opening paragraph of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker Eddy, in which she states, "The prayer that reforms the sinner and heals the sick is an absolute faith that all things are possible to God,—a spiritual understanding of Him, an unselfed love."
Through common usage the meaning of the word "faith," like so many other figures of speech by means of which spiritual ideas are conveyed to human consciousness, has become materially corrupted. Mrs. Eddy therefore employs the qualifying adjective "absolute," in order to restore to the meaning of the word "faith" its proper value; and thus she distinguishes it from the lower sense of the term in which it is used as a synonym for mere belief. With this clarified sense of faith, the definition of it as "the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen," becomes vastly more significant. It is through this living faith, the writer to the Hebrews tells us, "we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear."
Failing to appreciate the necessity of this essential quality of faith in their so-called scientific researches, the wise men of the world ignore the divine method of interpretation, and seek the explanation of all natural phenomena through material observation and reasoning. It was obviously this misdirected use of the physical senses and of the human intellect, on the part of the Jews, which called forth from Jesus that incisive rebuke, "Judge not according to the appearance, but judge righteous judgment." These words of the most successful practitioner of spiritual healing who has ever appeared on earth, contain the very keynote of Christian Science. As an illustration of this Mrs. Eddy writes under the marginal notation, "Mind's true camera," in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p.264): "Mortals must look beyond fading, finite forms, if they would gain the true sense of things. Where shall the gaze rest but in the unsearchable realm of Mind?"
