CHRISTIAN SCIENTISTS are profoundly grateful for the understanding that God is permanent and unchanging throughout all eternity. On page 120 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" Mrs. Eddy declares with characteristic directness, "Soul, or Spirit, is God, unchangeable and eternal; and man coexists with and reflects Soul, God, for man is God's image." One concludes from this explicit statement that man, as the reflection or expression of God, must partake of His immutable and permanent character. That man is now possessed of perfection and that man's perfection is unchangeable are definite and demonstrable teachings of Christian Science; definite, because they specifically reveal his attributes and qualities; demonstrable, because on the assumption that man as God's likeness is now and always has been perfect and stable, are accomplished all the healing works which have drawn much attention to Christian Science the world over.
Perhaps no phase of Mrs. Eddy's teachings brings a greater sense of peace and satisfaction than the knowledge that man, perfect now and forever, is as unchanging as his Maker. It follows, then, that since man is eternal and perfect, his individual qualities also are eternal and without variance. The contrast between man so regarded and mortals, changing with the constant ebb and flow of human experience, is so marked that mankind turns with grateful heart to Him in whom, James assures us, there is "no variableness, neither shadow of turning."
Mrs. Eddy convinced her followers that existence is based upon fixed, demonstrable, divine Principle; and she furnishes complete proof that the understanding of Principle, properly applied, inevitably and invariably heals the sick, restoring the harmonious conditions of normality. On page 259 of Science and Health she says, "The Christlike understanding of scientific being and divine healing includes a perfect Principle and idea.— perfect God and perfect man,—as the basis of thought and demonstration." Moreover, she proved the truth of her doctrines, not by hypothetical examples, but by works actually performed by herself and repeated almost times without number by a host of her students, who have become Christian Scientists through the study and practice of her teachings.
