An amusing story relates that the devil once said to a friend that he was going to make a new world. "What are you going to make it out of?" asked the friend. "Oh," replied the devil, "I don't have to make it out of anything. I have only to tell a lie about the one that has already been created."
"Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" states that the history of error is "a material view of creation" (p. 521), and again that the opposite of Truth is a "false view of God and man" (p. 545). The whole need of mankind, the whole progress of humanity, therefore, consists in gaining the correct view of what exists, or the true concept of things. That which actually is, is all right. What we need is to see it aright, to see it as it is, which would mean to experience it. We as mortals believe a lie, we see a lie, we feel a lie, we voice a lie, and the only way to destroy a lie is to tell the truth about it.
It is clear, then, that education, spiritual education, is what is required to enable us to reject the lie and to discern the fact. The inspired Word of the Bible gives one spiritual education. What an educator Jesus was! And what an educator we have in Mary Baker Eddy through her writings! The fact that we call ourselves students of Christian Science shows that we are all engaged in the work of spiritual education. It is translation work which we are engaged upon—spiritual translation. The whole aim of the student of Christian Science is to attain the true concept of existence, and if we look back we shall see that human history consists of the gradual acquiring of improved concepts of both God and man. Let us very briefly trace this progress.
