PRESUMABLY, everyone wants to understand his real identity and to express it more and more perfectly. From the early training of a child and on through the years, self-expression of some kind takes place, and character is developed, but not always satisfyingly, in spite of earnest efforts. A child, and even an adult, often feels as though he were being pulled two ways, and this sense of mental struggle proves detrimental to the development of talent and general efficiency. Yet man's true identity exists in all its original and definite perfection, and Christian Science enables one to discern and express it rejoicingly.
In speaking of "the Science that Jesus demonstrated," Mrs. Eddy writes on page 21 of "No and Yes," "This Science demonstrated the Principle of all phenomena, identity, individuality, law; and showed man as reflecting God and the divine capacity." Man's identity, then, is exempt from any hazard or duality, for it originates in divine Principle and is maintained by it. As such, it is distinct from genealogy and from human theories regarding heredity. Christian Science has annulled many a seeming handicap by showing an individual how to demonstrate his relationship to divine Principle with increasing exactness, fidelity, and joy. In the case of every man, woman, and child, it is in God alone that man's real identity can be found.
When tempted by suffering, temptation, or any discord, one should at once declare with conviction that God endows His likeness with the divine capacity to express righteousness, intelligence, health, wisdom, purity, and every other good and perfect gift. Man's spiritual capacity to express God's harmony and completeness is established through spiritual law and has never been reversed or annulled. One who turns to Christian Science for healing must therefore cease arguing for the peculiarities of his case. He must put the whole weight of his thought, effort, and aspiration on the side of his unalterably true identity as God's child.
Isaiah commands, "Cease ye from man, whose breath is in his nostrils: for wherein is he to be accounted of?" This imperative command demands that we shall cease entertaining the belief that man's origin and heritage are material, subject to imperfection, degeneration, and dissolution. It demands that wrong thought and speech shall cease, and that, in loyalty to God and man, we shall voice that which is spiritually real and harmonious. The effect of this practice is to expel wrong concepts of God's perfect creation and to bring one's true identity into evidence. Whatever is evil is but an impersonal lie against the perfection and harmony of God and man, and this can be proved by everyone who faithfully applies the teachings of Christian Science to his own needs.
There is never a moment when evil beclouds the consciousness of man, for he is endowed by God with the spiritual sense whereby he cognizes perfection, harmony, and never anything else. "The true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world," stands for spiritual illumination, and material sense cannot extinguish this light, nor mar its reflection. Every veil of error can be rent, and every mystifying fear banished through the practice of Christian Science. Spiritual illumination, serenity, and substance are forever reflected by man, God's likeness, and no law exists which could incapacitate him from expressing his divine identity. Evil beliefs are overcome in so far as we demonstrate our identity as man through expressing divine qualities. This is the business of life, and it brings blessings and emancipation. Light includes no darkness; Love imparts no fear, and Spirit begets no materiality.
"That which is born of the flesh is not man's eternal identity" (No and Yes, p. 25). Man's identity is untouched by the imperfections and limitations of the belief in mortal personality, even as a genuine coin is unaffected by its counterfeit. Whatever is good is born of God and is safe in the infinite unity of good; so one must untiringly claim his spiritual birthright here and now.
What might be used as a companion to the text previously quoted from Isaiah reads, "Look unto the rock whence ye are hewn." He who looks steadfastly to Christ, Truth, for the discernment of man must needs cease thinking of a mortal or as a mortal. The substance of true identity is wholly spiritual and inviolable. It is exempt from beliefs in time or circumstance, and it includes no matter. One effect of loyalty to God and man is to cause us to silence materialistic reasoning and groundless fears. In the Rock, the truth whence man is "hewn," there is neither untruth, dishonesty, disability, nor fear.
The Christian Scientist must love God and his genuine identity with an undivided love and loyalty, for this love of good acts as a lever in every Christian Science demonstration. It equips one to combat scientifically and successfully every claim of error and to triumph in his divine ability, to respond to the healing power of Christ, Truth.
Paul wrote, "We all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord." We may correctly gauge any sensation or situation by considering whether or not it reflects "the glory of the Lord," whether or not it forms part of God's reflection. The effect of looking into the glory of the Lord is to banish the mirage of error and to find the substance of real being, real identity.
Whether or not he has any especially pressing problem to meet, the Christian Scientist must be faithful in perpetually aligning himself with man's true identity. Then in his daily experience he will find himself proving more and more unmistakably the truth of Mrs. Eddy's statement, "Identity is the reflection of Spirit, the reflection in multifarious forms of the living Principle, Love" (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 477).
