Christian Science teaches that any appearance of error— disease, discord, or poverty—is due to wrong thinking. Therefore, the place in which to correct the error is in thought. To admit a mistake is a step toward the right solution of a problem—an important step, to be sure, since it implies the admission that an error has been made and the willingness to rectify it. But there also is the necessity to put the right concept in place of the false, that the individual never again may be tempted to make that particular mistake, and that all who see may be encouraged to work out their problems. This further effort tests the inclination of the student for sustained activity,—for persistence, patience, determination,— and the understanding which he has gained while making and correcting the mistake. The wise student wastes no time in self-condemnation, but is grateful that experience has taught him how to work rightly. He gladly gives up the ignorance, willfulness, or self-sufficiency which has prevented him from seeing the rule which he should have applied to his problem, and enjoys the larger liberty arid wider opportunity for achievement which comes to one striving to work in accordance with infinite, omnipotent, omniscient divine Mind. And he recognizes that he has lost nothing by giving up the wrong way, but has gained immeasurable by accepting the right.
Occasionally some one, not a student of Christian Science, may be heard to say, "I just used Christian Science and denied that I had a headache." But one who comprehends something of the teaching of Christian Science denies not only that he has a headache, but also that a headache can exist; and in the place of the human belief of a suffering, sinning mortal, subject to disease, accident, and poverty, the student of Christian Science strives to understand man as spiritual, made in the image and likeness of God, and therefore incapable of sickness, discord, or sin. He corrects his thought by knowing that his human belief of man as entertaining pain was wrong; and he completes his healing by establishing in his consciousness the right concept of man as the child of God, who knows no pain. The mistake is obliterated by the understanding of the spiritual fact; and this reliance upon the truth of God points to an important difference between healing by the Science of Christianity and attempting to control the human body through the so-called carnal or mortal mind.
The student of Christian Science who is faced with a problem of poverty strives to wipe out the belief that he can suffer loss or lack with the understanding that Mind's idea reflects the all-inclusive power which formed it, and therefore always is possessed of all that it needs, and never can be deprived of any good. So he turns his thinking in such a direction that he is enabled to make wise decisions with regard to his expenditures; to deal generously, so that he is "rich toward God" and toward his fellow-man; and to prove that hands which are ready to serve God never can lack an opportunity for right activity. When he has taken a right position mentally, such position will be manifested in his daily affairs.
