In times of moral and economic crises, nations look to their womenfolk as the upholders of standards. Men going down into mines, fighting on battlefields, or catching the morning bus for the office often carry with them a mental picture of a loved woman who represents to them the qualities for which they are striving.
It is of timely significance that those entering the United States by way of New York Harbor see first the Statue of Liberty —a woman holding aloft a torch. It is also significant that the cover design of the Christian Science Sentinel shows a woman in Grecian robe, carrying a lamp, with this inscription from the poet Longfellow:
A Lady with a Lamp shall stand
In the great history of the land,
A noble type of good,
Heroic womanhood.
In Christian Science, man is the generic term for the man and woman of God's creating. The word "man" is sometimes used individually and sometimes collectively in human parlance. Mary Baker Eddy once was asked, "What say you of woman?" Her reply, in part, was, "Woman is the highest species of man, and this word is the generic term for all women; but not one of all these individualities is an Eve or an Adam" (Unity of Good, p. 51). She continues: "The Ego is divine consciousness, eternally radiating throughout all space in the idea of God, good, and not of His opposite, evil. The Ego is revealed as Father, Son, and Holy Ghost; but the full Truth is found only in divine Science, where we see God as Life, Truth, and Love."
The world does not yet understand the distinction which Christian Science makes between the real man in God's likeness, spiritual and perfect, and mortal man, mythically created. Eve, who is supposed to be the mother of mankind, is not of God's creating, for she represents materiality, mortality, and limitation. Envy, jealousy, passion, selfishness, idleness, rivalry, and gossip inhere in Eve; that is, in a material sense of life and creation, and not in the true womanhood of God's creating.
Unless we recognize and claim true manhood and womanhood, we are not accepting the fullness of God's being. "God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness" (Gen. 1:26). This "our," which is Life, Truth, and Love, is reflected by the compound idea, man. Man is the incorporeal, forever idea of the one infinite God, who is eternally radiating Himself in perfect being. One idea is neither superior nor inferior to another idea, but blends co-operatively, although distinctively, in the perfect whole, the Ego forever remaining Mind.
Jesus' beloved disciple John, whose revelation of the new heaven and the new earth was wholly spiritual, beheld the spiritual ideal as "a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars" (Rev. 12:1). A Bible dictionary quotes Canon Bentham as saying: "It has become a conventional rule in sacred art that because St. John speaks more about Love than the other apostles, and was specially beloved by his Master, he must have had a soft, feminine, sentimental countenance. . . . Such a fancy is strangely contradicted by facts." The dictionary promptly notes: "John was indeed the apostle of Love, but Love is 'the greatest thing in the world,' the most difficult, the most divine, the most manly and virile." Yes, Love is the greatest power in the world. Love divine, pure, unselfed, forgiving, seeing itself everywhere reflected in man and the universe!
Sweetness, purity, gentleness, tenderness, modesty, joy, and patience are not the possessions of women alone. Nor are moral courage, strength, wisdom, intelligence, ability, and stability personal concomitants of men. All these qualities are inherent in the manhood and womanhood of God's creating, the complete reflection of the one Ego or I AM, who is Mind, Soul, Spirit, Life, Truth, and Love.
Men, as well as women, will express more of the fullness of God's being as they keep their concept of the motherhood of God steady and shining in their consciousness. As a result, they will radiate beauty, loveliness, order, and harmony in their lives.
Jesus demonstrated his sonship with the Father by his expression of true manhood and womanhood. When he was told that his mother and brothers were waiting to speak to him, did he not perceive true womanhood, as well as genuine manhood, saying to his disciples (Matt. 12:50), "Whosoever shall do the will of my Father which is in heaven, the same is my brother, and sister, and mother"? In his healing ministry Jesus saw man in Science as complete, perfect, and unassailable. He healed, freed, comforted many, among whom were Mary Magdalene bearing her precious alabaster box of ointment to anoint his feet; the widow who gave all that she had, her mite; the woman who had had an issue of blood twelve years; Peter's mother-in-law, and others.
A woman in business, a student of Christian Science, although well liked by her associates and clients, was thoroughly disliked by a male official. No matter how hard she tried, she did not please him. Finally, she perceived that he was resenting her status as a woman, and so she began affirming the perfect manhood and womanhood of God's creating. She saw that man, the reflection of the one Mind, Principle, Love, includes no disunity of thought or action. Gradually jealousy, rivalry, and dislike were erased through the understanding of man in God's likeness, the compound idea. Soon these two became good friends. Her colleague believed that she had changed, but the Scientist knew that the destruction of the false concept of man in her consciousness had brought about harmony.
Mrs. Eddy, in her great work for mankind, was often the object of much curiosity. People wondered about this woman who had written a textbook, established a church, and healed many diseases, and they often sought her out to question her. In an interview reported in the New York Herald our Leader said that her successor would be a man. This brought forth so many conjectures that she made this statement to the Associated Press: "I did say that a man would be my future successor. By this I did not mean any man to-day on earth. Science and Health makes it plain to all Christian Scientists that the manhood and womanhood of God have already been revealed in a degree through Christ Jesus and Christian Science, His two witnesses. What remains to lead on the centuries and reveal my successor, is man in the image and likeness of the Father-Mother God, man the generic term for mankind'" (The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, p. 346).
Does not the Bible say of the virtuous woman (Prov. 31:31), "Give her of the fruit of her hands; and let her own works praise her in the gates"? A writer in The New Century said (Pulpit and Press by Mrs. Eddy, p. 84): '"The time of times' is near when 'the new woman' shall subdue the whole earth with the weapons of peace. Then shall wrong be robbed of her bitterness and ingratitude of her sting, revenge shall clasp hands with pity, and love shall dwell in the tents of hate; while side by side, equal partners in all that is worth living for, shall stand the new man with the new woman."
