During the latter half of the last century, a keen English observer of nature was recording his findings and used a unique method of developing his subject. When giving a lecture at a certain place, he began by recalling a visit to that town as a boy, when he noticed the stain on the marble fountain in the public park. From this stain he developed his subject, and before he had finished he had traced the importance of iron in its relationship to color and of its use in industry, commerce, and art.
During the same period, another keen observer and great thinker, an American, was investigating and recording her researches in the mental and metaphysical realm. Her method also was arresting: instead of starting with a small beginning and enlarging upon her subject, she reversed the process and gave the keynote to her findings in one paragraph of seven lines, of sixty words. In so doing she gave to mankind one of the most powerful declarations of truth of all time. This great American was Mary Baker Eddy, and her summary is "the scientific statement of being," to be found on page 468 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures." It reads: "There is no life, truth, intelligence, nor substance in matter. All is infinite Mind and its infinite manifestation, for God is All-in-all. Spirit is immortal Truth; matter is mortal error. Spirit is the real and eternal; matter is the unreal and temporal. Spirit is God, and man is His image and likeness. Therefore man is not material; he is spiritual." While it is not to be found at the beginning of a chapter, and is not given particular prominence in her writings, yet it is a statement of primal importance in relation to the fundamentals of Christian Science and the application thereof.
Our Leader indicated its importance by stating in "Miscellaneous Writings," on page 21, that her "first plank in the platform of Christian Science" is this "scientific statement of being." She provided that it be given a prominent place in all the Sunday services in the Christian Science church. Beginners in the study of Christian Science are encouraged to memorize it; it can properly be used in treatment; and it is no doubt held in consciousness and repeated by every Christian Scientist more often than any other paragraph in the writings of Mrs. Eddy.
