THESE words of Jesus, recorded by Mark in the eleventh chapter of his Gospel, are most significant: "What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them." In order to prove this statement to be true, we must understand three things: What God is; what man is; what prayer is.
In the Bible we learn that God is the creator of infinite good, of perfection. From the first chapter of Genesis, where we are told that "God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good," to the chapter of Revelation where God is declared to be "Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end," the nature of God may be traced as the Giver of good and the preserver of harmony, knowing no evil or discord.
Mrs. Eddy has solved the mystery of good and evil by her discovery that all is Mind and Mind's idea. On page 468 of her textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," we find her statement: "There is no life, truth, intelligence, nor substance in matter. All is infinite Mind and its infinite manifestation, for God is All-in-all." Here she refers to God as "Mind." It is evident that the idea of divine Mind must be perfect. Perfection is the original and only state of the universe, including man. The Bible teaches that God made man in His own likeness. What is the likeness of supreme intelligence? It must be the spiritual idea which reflects Mind in outline, form, quality, quantity, and activity; which completely expresses the beauty, the perfection, the harmony of the creative divine Mind.
