Sincere students of Christian Science are sometimes heard to deplore their own or another's lack of understanding. They may say, or think, that they lack sufficient understanding to work out certain problems which confront them, and to protect themselves from adverse influences. Or they may declare that church, home, business, or governmental situations would be more harmonious if only the individuals involved were not so deficient in spiritual understanding. Humanly speaking, these statements are frequently quite accurate, for men walk in mental and spiritual darkness until they are illumined by divine Science. But from a Christianly scientific standpoint these statements are false, and it is the duty of the Christian Scientist to dispute and annul the belief of spiritual ignorance just as he would any other erroneous claim of mortal mind.
A student was awakened to this duty and to the proper way to fulfill it by reading the following statement by Mrs. Eddy in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 506): "Understanding is a quality of God, a quality which separates Christian Science from supposition and makes Truth final." Pondering the phrase "a quality of God," she saw that understanding must be ever present and everywhere reflected in the infinite universe of Spirit. Since it is "a quality of God," understanding must be, and is, by reflection, a quality of man. Therefore it is never absent, deficient, darkened, faulty, or perverted.
When we take our first steps in Christian Science, we learn that we must not admit as a reality any disease, or other erroneous bodily condition. As. we advance, it becomes clear to us that if we ourselves are to conquer sin and show forth the divine nature, we must penetrate the mist of error, and know our brother man as he really is—pure, truthful, kind, and lovable. Then, later, we shall learn that economic conditions of poverty and debt are also unreal, and shall maintain a scientific sense of the omnipresence of spiritual supply.
