Words exist for the purpose of conveying thought from one human consciousness to another. The accuracy or inaccuracy of this conveyance determines the benefit to the listener. In God's final revelation of Himself, which has blessed our age, and which is known as Christian Science, Mind is used as a name for Deity. Mind must know all that is knowable all the time and everywhere. Intelligence which emanates from Mind is not encumbered with words. All the words in all the languages of earth will at length bow before the Word which St. John proclaimed when he said (John 1:1), "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God."
The revelator of the Word in our time, Mary Baker Eddy, used words superlatively, as ladders to facilitate ascending thought. There are the terms which are used wholly in relation to the spiritual, the eternal, the unvarying facts of God's creation; also there are terms which always describe the spectral, the suppositious, the counterfeit of the one creation. Certain words she has used in two ways, and these must be understood in relation to their context. They are used at times in relation to absolute Truth, and at other times to describe the human aspect. For this reason students of Christian Science are increasingly grateful for the Concordances to their textbooks, which provide the means for a thorough study of any word.
Because of its importance in the terminology of Science the use of the word "demonstration" requires careful analysis. Our Wednesday evening testimony meetings are unrehearsed. Unlike the testimonies in the periodicals there can, of course, be no editorial supervision. We may be grateful that most of these spontaneous testimonies are helpful and inspiring. However, some of the testifiers, not yet versed in the true and spiritual meaning of demonstration, speak of physical improvement, or an increase in salary, or the obtaining of a house, or some other human objective, as a demonstration. Vividly Mrs. Eddy in her great poem, "Christ and Christmas," links the Master's metaphor of the Christ as the "living Vine" with the word "demonstrate." She says on page 19:
