WHOEVER starts his reckonings from a material and finite premise reaches but finite and faulty conclusions. When calculating the prospects of children or adults, mankind is apt to consult genealogy, tradition, precedent. Does not the egotism of human parents sometimes cause them to look for their own features, temperament, and characteristics in their offspring; and may they not even go so far as to regard them as limited by the physical stature and the achievements of their antecedents?
To those who are apt to dwell complacently on physical stature or personal achievements, Isaiah's trenchant message carries a warning: "Behold, . . . the high ones of stature shall be hewn down, and the haughty shall be humbled." Before he can in the least discern and express the characteristics of true spiritual manhood and be worthy and willing to shine only by spiritual reflection, a mortal must first of all see through the hollow pretense, the farce of physical personality, whether it call itself good or bad, unattractive or attractive. And then he must see beyond this to the true man, who, as God's reflection, is now and forever untouched by materiality, and therefore is immune from disease, sin, death. Because these lies are forever extraneous to Truth, they are no part of man's stature in Truth.
On page 11 of "Christian Science versus Pantheism" Mrs. Eddy writes, "Shall the opinions, systems, doctrines, and dogmas of men gauge the animus of man? or shall his stature in Christ, Truth, declare him?" Christian Science reveals man as eternally showing forth the full glory of God as His representative. So doing, it removes the old mental confines, and widens one's horizon of thought and true expectancy, born of God and divinely fulfilled.
