Two students of Christian Science were talking of experiences in overcoming which had meant spiritual growth to them, when one of them said, "It is not that we think we are better than anyone else, but that we know we are better than we were when Christian Science found us." A disciple of this teaching quickly learns the importance of right thinking and its connection with right acting, resulting in regeneration of character through holding to elevated ideals.
In "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 248) Mrs. Eddy likens the process of disciplining thought to sculpturing. She says: "The sculptor turns from the marble to his model in order to perfect his conception. We are all sculptors, working at various forms, moulding and chiseling thought." Going farther, she stresses the importance of forming perfect models in thought, and indicates the benefits accruing from such practice. No doubt, each one can recall occasions when he allowed some undesirable mental design to install itself in his thought, and so found himself reproducing it in his experience. Models of deformity, distortion, perversion may have seemed so much a part of the mental sculptor's thought that he forgot there were true and lovely models to contemplate.
This condition must be adjusted before harmonious and constructive living can be attained. Pointing the way, our Leader writes on the same page: "To remedy this, we must first turn our gaze in the right direction, and then walk that way. We must form perfect models in thought and look at them continually." In the light of the Science of Christianity, or knowledge of true being, this is not an irksome task. Once thought is aroused to realize the difference between the real and the false, the individual turns joyfully to the perfect model, and begins his mental sculpturing along lines of spiritual grace and beauty. Models or mental practices of dishonesty, hypocrisy, or lust, however obdurate, are ousted, and honesty, sincerity, and chastity take their place. Sickness, however inveterate, gives way to health. Poverty, however deeply rooted, is supplanted by abundance. For there is no circumstance that cannot be harmoniously adjusted by our reliance on God. There is no sorrow that cannot be turned into joy, no tear that cannot be forever wiped away, no heartbreak that cannot be healed, no sin that cannot be proved powerless, no death that cannot be proved unreal through an understanding of Love.
