However terrible or tremendous the evidence of hate, havoc, and war before the material senses these days, it is entirely illusory. This accumulated evidence of suffering and cruelty has no more basis in fact than any single case of pain or discord—and the healing of many of these through a practical understanding of God is attested in the weekly and monthly publications issued by The Christian Science Publishing Society, as well as at the midweek testimony meetings held by Christian Science churches and societies. The reiteration of a lie ten thousand times does not make it true.
To look away from the false evidence and regard instead the opposite facts of spiritual being is the scientific way to correct such lies. And we learn how to do this consistently and intelligently through study of the textbook of Christian Science, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker Eddy.
Does duty take one out upon the ocean? Then let us turn to the textbook for spiritual truth. Referring to the wholly spiritual creation as recounted in the first chapter of Genesis, in which specific divine ideas are unfolded as earth, seas, and so on, Mrs. Eddy writes (Science and Health, p. 507), "In metaphor, the dry land illustrates the absolute formations instituted by Mind, while water symbolizes the elements of Mind." There is the truth about sea. The counterfeit sense of sea is defined when our Leader comments on a passage from the book of Revelation (ibid., p. 536): "In St. John's vision, heaven and earth stand for spiritual ideas, and the sea. as a symbol of tempest-tossed human concepts advancing and receding, is represented as having passed away." The false concept, as here indicated, is of necessity but temporary.
