ON page 324 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" our Leader, Mary Baker Eddy, writes, "Gladness to leave the false landmarks and joy to see them disappear,—this disposition helps to precipitate the ultimate harmony." In our endeavor to leave "false landmarks," we must determine their seeming origin and nature, and acquaint ourselves with the right method of destroying them.
Mrs. Eddy tells us in the Glossary to Science and Health (p. 585) that "to material sense, earth is matter; to spiritual sense, it is a compound idea." This being so, the landmarks pertaining to material sense are to be found in a false sense of man's origin and existence, namely, the belief of life in matter, seemingly originating in and depending upon that which is the very opposite of God. Since whatever seems to originate in the opposite of infinite God is false, is not the true or real creation, the outcome or emanation of infinite Life, Truth, and Love, it has no real existence in the universe of divine Mind, which expresses itself through its ideas.
From this basis of reasoning we begin to see that evil or error of any sort is not real, but, rather, is an imposition, a so-called intelligence which attempts to cope with God; and through the right apprehension of God as All and of man as His image, idea, we joyfully proceed to negate that which we have come to know is no part of the perfect creation of divine Mind. With an intelligent understanding of man's true origin and existence, the erroneous concept of man as material begins to disappear, the landmarks of false thinking are exchanged for right concepts, and man is found to be reflection, idea, the representative of God, good.
