ALTHOUGH the majority of persons believe that existence continues after what is called death, comparatively few believe they have lived before birth; yet nothing is more conclusive than Mrs. Eddy's statement, on page 429 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures": "If man did not exist before the material organization began, he could not exist after the body is disintegrated. If we live after death and are immortal, we must have lived before birth, for if Life ever had any beginning, it must also have an ending."
A genuine recognition of God's universal fatherhood would break the common habit of dating life from a material birthday. In the teaching and practice of Christian Science it is as unscientific to acknowledge as real a day of birth as it would be to acknowledge a day of death; and neither can be considered as limiting man's life, for the existence of God's children is not contingent upon materiality.
Human birth fulfills the mortal belief in embryonic origin, but it does not represent the immortality of God's image and likeness. The familiar truism that water can rise no higher than its source disqualifies a material theory of creation, since matter possesses no element of intelligence or life, and imparts no divine or enduring qualities.
