Our Leader, Mary Baker Eddy, has given us many valuable statements concerning the application of Christian Science to human problems. One of these is on page 242 of "The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany," and reads: "Christian Science is absolute; it is neither behind the point of perfection nor advancing towards it; it is at this point and must be practised therefrom. Unless you fully perceive that you are the child of God, hence perfect, you have no Principle to demonstrate and no rule for its demonstration." The conviction of the allness, goodness, changelessness, omnipresence, omniscience, and omnipotence of God, the perfection of man, His idea, and the consequent nothingness of evil, is the basis for Christianly scientific practice.
Absolute Truth, as unveiled by Christian Science, has no consciousness of error. Nevertheless, Truth's all-inclusive self-existence acts as a law of elimination to the false claims and appearances of evil in human experience, even as light dispels its supposititious opposite, darkness. Christ Jesus stated the modus operandi of Christian healing simply and perfectly when he said, "Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." The Master did not have to battle laboriously with problems or give extended treatment, because his spiritual consciousness summarily rejected all phases of evil that came to his notice. In the light of Truth, which exposed them as baseless belief, the errors no longer seemed real to those who had experienced them.
The Christian Scientist understands material existence to be the changing, unreal belief of a fictitious mortal mind, appearing as material conditions, persons, and things. He also knows that real being is wholly spiritual, not material, as it seems to be. Physical scientists now admit that material phenomena are not what they seem to be, but they do not, in general, see, as Christian Science teaches, that there is but one Mind, God, Spirit, and that the material universe, with its imperfection and limitation, is not real. The Christian Scientist knows that in order to correct discordant material conditions scientifically and permanently, he must not only reject the suggestions of mortal mind, but destroy the erroneous belief that mortal mind exists. He does not endeavor to heal, change, or eliminate matter, but denies its reality, together with its supposititious origin, mortal mind. If he understandingly maintains the oneness and allness of divine Mind and its harmonious manifestation, he will not be mesmerized by the rehearsal or evidence of error, and this spiritual poise will enable him to speak to every adverse appearance with authority, with positive results in healing, even as Jesus commanded his followers to do.
