An ancient legend represents the mythical Pandora as possessing a box filled with every form of human ill. When it was opened, they spread over the earth. Hope, which was also in the box, alone remained. In "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," its author, Mary Baker Eddy, the beloved Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, makes reference to this myth. On page 170 she states, "The description of man as purely physical, or as both material and spiritual,—but in either case dependent upon his physical organization,—is the Pandora box, from which all ills have gone forth, especially despair."
Throughout the various departments of human experience, error's claim to life in matter would attempt to rob mankind of hope in ultimate victory over evil. It is hope in and understanding of divine Mind's supremacy which give one spiritual ability to overcome the despair attending times of sickness, suggestions of sin, domestic difficulties, and business burdens.
Christian Science teaches that human hope must be posited in the never-failing, constant source of good, namely, God. The Psalmist surely perceived that hope should be predicated upon the realization of God's allness and goodness, and man's spiritual relation to Him, for he expectantly declared: "Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted within me? hope thou in God: for I shall yet praise him, who is the health of my countenance, and my God."
