GOD'S promise of deliverance from every affliction is fulfilled today as it was of old. If one is confronted with a sense of hopelessness because of an inherited deformity and feels that there is no hope for him, he can be comforted, for the Comforter—Christian Science—is at hand to bless and heal him.
Mankind has long been erroneously educated to believe that there exists a law of heredity which has power to fashion man after the imperfect pattern of so-called ancestors. Christ Jesus, however, taught the perfection of man as the son of God. He was not deceived by material laws claiming to govern man, but exposed their fraudulent nature by healing the sick and the sinning, raising the dead, and making whole the imperfectly formed.
As time went on, however, his divinely natural works, as well as those of his disciples, came to be regarded as miraculous and impossible of repetition. The practice of healing through the understanding of God's spiritual law of perfection, the only method by which real and permanent healing is ever accomplished, was thus lost sight' of for many centuries. In the year 1866, this law was again discovered by Mary Baker Eddy, who recognized that her revelation was the Comforter promised in the Gospel of John, and gave to her discovery the name of Christian Science.
This Science brings hope to the hopeless and courage to the fainthearted, for it reveals that the ever-present healing Christ, the Word of God, is available today, as it always has been and always will be, to enlighten and save mankind. And it reveals man as he really is, the spiritual idea of Mind, the reflection of Spirit, the beloved child of his Father mother Mother God. Our Leader tells us (Retrospection and Introspection, p. 22): "God is over all. He alone is our origin, aim, and being. The real man is not of the dust, nor is he ever created through the flesh; for his father and mother are the one Spirit, and his brethren are all the children of one parent, the eternal good."
Man is "free born." He is not subject to, hampered with, or bound by any false law of mortal mind which says: "Your great-grandmother and your mother both had such and such a condition. You cannot escape; you will manifest it too, for I am the law of heredity and I have power over you." Viewed in the truth-revealing light of Christian Science, the falsity of such a claim is soon uncovered, for in this light it is seen that God is the only lawmaker and His laws of harmony alone govern man. Thus we see that no material, contradictory law exists to proclaim itself. This right understanding of God and His law strips the illusory, counterfeit law of its assumed power, reducing it to its native state of nothingness.
We have definite Scriptural authority for declaring man's perfection. In the first chapter of Genesis we read that "God created man in his own image," and that "God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good" (verses 27, 31). Imperfection then is a delusion, for it is not of God's creating. In the Christian Science textbook. "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," Mrs. Eddy says (pp. 243, 244), "Inasmuch as God is good and the fount of all being, He does not produce moral or physical deformity; therefore such deformity is not real, but is illusion, the mirage of error."
Here mortal mind may argue, "It is all very well to say there is no deformity, but I can see it." Jesus' healing ministry, as recorded in the four Gospels of the New Testament, furnishes ample proof that he refuted all such arguments by proving that what material sight sees is not the truth concerning man. An earnest study of Science and Health in conjunction with the Scriptures makes plain that we too may refute with authority every such argument of the carnal mind.
Under the definition of "Elias" we find these illuminating words (ibid., p. 585): "Spiritual evidence opposed to material sense; Christian Science, with which can be discerned the spiritual fact of whatever the material senses behold." As we lift our thoughts Spiritward and let Christian Science declare what is true, we shall increasingly cognize that which is spiritually real, even before it is evidenced in our human experience.
The basis of all correct reasoning lies in knowing God and man aright, namely, perfect God and perfect man, perfect cause and perfect effect, perfect creator and perfect creation, perfect Principle and perfect idea, perfect Mind and perfect manifestation. As we grasp this truth and lay firmer hold upon it, material concepts lose their seeming power to victimize us, and increasingly we see man as God reveals him. The one thing needful is to discern man as he is, the perfect expression of God's being. A positive realization of this truth, even in a small degree, is sufficient to dispel any discord, though to human sense it may have assumed mountainous proportions. Jesus told his disciples (Matt. 17:20), "If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you."
Not long ago the writer had the joy of seeing demonstrated in the experience of her son the truths which Christian Science teaches. From babyhood the boy's crooked upper teeth had caused his lower jaw to protrude. The writer had manifested the same malformation, said to have been inherited from her grandmother. In her case the condition had been changed by means of dental braces, but such unfortunate aftereffects followed that this method of correction had proved not to be the hoped for permanent cure.
During the intervening years she had become a student of Christian Science and had had many valuable proofs of its healing benefits. But she had so firmly accepted the belief in a law of heredity that she found it difficult to see how Christian Science could help her child in this instance. She prayed earnestly for guidance and enlightenment, and at length consulted a Christian Science practitioner, although she did not request treatment for the child. She also made an appointment to consult a dentist several weeks later.
Immediately after she had made the appointment, as distinctly as though a voice had spoken she seemed to hear the words, "You will never keep the appointment." At that moment the truth that God, the all-knowing, unerring divine Mind, is the only creator, and that therefore His creation is perfect, came to her with great clarity. Instantly she saw both herself and the child as in reality God's offspring, the children of the one parent Mind. She saw clearly the falsity of human beliefs of parentage and inheritance and glimpsed the truth of creation—God as the Father and Mother of all. With this revelation came immediate release from the bondage of fear of and submission to the false law of heredity.
During the days that followed she clung steadfastly to the truth that since Mind creates or forms all ideas, these spiritual ideas or formations are as perfect as their creator. She plainly perceived that an imperfectly formed or deformed idea never was created, and therefore did not exist. She felt free and happy.
One morning about four weeks later, as the child was leaving for school, he asked his mother to look at his teeth. She had not looked at them since the day she had made the appointment with the dentist. A great wave of gratitude and rejoicing swept over her, for they were all in their proper position. The boy's bite was normal, and his protruding jaw had also become normal.
We are told in the first book of the Bible that God gave man dominion over all the earth, that is, over every false supposition of the lying material senses. Let us, therefore, assert our God-given ability and rise above the deceptive evidence of -corporeal sense into the realm of Spirit, where the spiritual sense of being is supreme and is found to be the real consciousness of man. Thus we shall behold the full beauty, harmony, and perfection of God's creation.
"O blest assurance from our risen Lord;
O precious comfort breathing from the Word.
How great the promise, could there greater be?
Ask what thou wilt, it shall be done for thee."
