"HOW much more should we seek to apprehend the spiritual ideas of God, than to dwell on the objects of sense! To discern the rhythm of Spirit and to be holy, thought must be purely spiritual." Thus writes Mrs. Eddy, the beloved Leader of Christian Science, in her textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 510). Here she unquestionably presents the way to enter the heaven of Soul; for only through purely spiritual thinking can men apprehend—understand and lay hold of—the facts of eternal, divine existence. Christian Science shows very plainly that this turning from sense to Soul is the necessity of every individual, and none should hesitate to enter upon the sacred task, since all good must be the inevitable outcome. To the most casual thinker it would seem as though all men would hail the opportunity to leave evil for good, sickness for health, sin for holiness, the temporary and transitory for the eternal and unchangeable—yes, to turn from the belief of sonship with the devil or evil to sonship with God. When Jesus said to mortals, "Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do," he stated the plain truth in regard to the belief in an existence in matter.
Now Christian Scientists often talk volubly of their relationship to God, and if words were all that were necessary to demonstrate such relationship, ascension might be expected soon to occur. But the overcoming of all belief in an existence apart from God, Spirit, is not accomplished merely with the grasping of the letter of Christian Science; there is much earnest mental wrestling with the beliefs of the flesh to be done before Spirit can triumph in the thoughts and lives of the votaries of this Science. The way, however, has been pointed out in such multiform fashion by our precious Leader that one can never complain of lack of freshness of viewpoint or of glorious light thrown upon Truth's invincible method.
Take, for instance, the wonderful statement already quoted from Science and Health, "How much more should we seek to apprehend the spiritual ideas of God, than to dwell on the objects of sense!" And yet how many of us have accepted this fully as God's demand, or how many of us have learned to watch our thinking so carefully that this demand has become a ruling purpose in our thinking and living? It seems so easy to slip along with the tide of human belief, considering the objects of sense, accepting sense-testimony as the real and satisfying, asleep to its mistaken allurements and betrayed inevitably into its final dissatisfactions and disappointments. Instead, how surely must we awaken to the blissful occupation of seeking to lay hold of God's all-satisfying, all-exalting spiritual ideas.
