CHRISTIAN SCIENCE teaches that God is infinite and perfect Mind and that man is the perfect idea, image, or reflection of Mind. Thus, the standard of Christian Science may be said to be perfect God and perfect man. Indeed, this standard is maintained throughout the whole of Mrs. Eddy's writings. Continually she states it in varying terms; continually she draws attention to it as the basis of righteous thought; continually she points out that on the understanding of it depends one's power of demonstration over the beliefs of evil, one's ability to heal disease and sin. "God is the creator of man," she writes on page 470 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," "and, the divine Principle of man remaining perfect, the divine idea or reflection, man, remains perfect."
The Christian Scientist, then, whatever the nature of the problem that may present itself to him, has always a perfect standard to turn to in his thought. Suppose the problem is a case of disease: how helpful it is to be able at once to summon the truth, the unalterable truth, about God and man to our aid! Disease—what is it? Christian Science declares that it is not of God, that it is not created by God, since He is infinitely good. It must therefore be unreal—illusion, or false belief. Further, since man is the perfect reflection of God, man cannot possibly be subject to imperfection. Hence the real man can never be diseased. When we acknowledge and hold to these truths we are adhering to the standard of Christian Science. And what must result? Healing; healing of the false belief of disease.
Nothing is more wonderful to witness than the healing of a serious case of disease—serious, that is, to mortal sense—by the understanding of the truth of perfect God and perfect man. Let one who may have been suffering from some disease and who has failed to get relief from drugs or physical manipulation, turn to absolute Christian Science and grasp its fundamentals, perceiving the perfection of God and man, the allness of Spirit, the unreality of matter, the fact that good is real and evil, including disease, unreal—with the realization of the truth will come the healing. There never was the least vestige of reality in evil in any form, since God, good, is infinite. There never was a trace of reality in any form of disease, for God's idea, man, cannot lose his perfection. Mankind is deceived by material sense into believing evil to be real. Mankind must be freed from false belief through spiritual sense, the sense through which we perceive reality.
