When the Psalmist declared what he had perceived of the eternal truth in the words, "Lord, thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations," and, "Before the mountains were brought forth, . . . even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God," he set forth a great fact of immortal being, one which from time to time had been more or less clearly revealed to men. This all-inclusive reality of Spirit was what Christ Jesus later perfectly discerned and demonstrated. The material senses opposed this fact then, even as they do today; and materialists undertook to stay the influence of the teaching by slaying the Teacher. But Truth cannot be stayed or destroyed, and because Jesus knew this, he proved through his healing works the truth of all he had taught, and in his resurrection and ascension reached the culmination of his exemplification of man's true nature.
The materialists supposed that, since they had rid the world of the Teacher, they had silenced the troublesome truth. But they felt its influence, as has all the world during the intervening centuries, until, in our own time, the truth that Spirit, or Mind, alone is substance was clearly restated through Mary Baker Eddy's exposition of her discovery. In "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 278) she explains: "Spirit is the only substance and consciousness recognized by divine Science. The material senses oppose this, but there are no material senses, for matter has no mind;" and she adds: "That matter is substantial or has life and sensation, is one of the false beliefs of mortals, and exists only in a supposititious mortal consciousness. Hence, as we approach Spirit and Truth, we lose the consciousness of matter."
In the midst of a material world wherein matter and mortal existence are regarded as substantial and real, Christian Science is proclaiming the purely scientific truth that Spirit is substance, and that man and the universe are wholly spiritual, the same truth which was more or less clearly discerned by the ancients, and perfectly understood and exemplified by Christ Jesus. If this teaching were not proved true through demonstration, it would be of no practical value to mankind. That this teaching is practical, however, is seen in the fact that the adherents of Christian Science, including the child, the sage, the laborer, the scholar, are in the measure of their understanding daily proving true the revelation that Spirit is the only substance, and that man is spiritual. Mrs. Eddy writes (Science and Health, p. 311): "The objects cognized by the physical senses have not the reality of substance. They are only what mortal belief calls them. Matter, sin, and mortality lose all supposed consciousness or claim to life or existence, as mortals lay off a false sense of life, substance, and intelligence."
