In answering a question as to her method of healing the sick, Mary Baker Eddy writes (Rudimental Divine Science, p. 8), "Be honest, be true to thyself, and true to others; then it follows thou wilt be strong in God, the eternal good." In our human relationships the degree of our success in expressing our true selfhood as sons of God measures the good we express toward our brother.
Admonition to be true to himself was given a student of Christian Science who had endured severe denunciation at the hands of an angry associate. This denunciation was a new experience to the student, who had never believed he could submit to such a tirade of abuse without retaliation. After the ordeal the student wrote to a Christian Science practitioner for help and guidance. A postscript added, "I cannot find it within me to love that man."
The practitioner's prompt reply set forth a verity which was especially thought-provoking: "If you find it impossible to love that man, you must at least love yourself enough not to hate that man." This helpful counsel has remained with the student throughout the intervening years. As he awakened to the fact that his true, spiritual self could not hate or be the object of invective, the sense of animosity toward his associate disappeared. This was a signal victory for the student. In returning evil for evil, one obviously would be true neither to himself nor to his fellow man. In expressing misanthropy, one would fail to identify himself as the offspring of God, who is infinite Love.
Does one break the Commandments by killing another's joy, by stealing another's opportunity or affections, by bearing false witness against one's neighbor, thus falsely declaring that man can be less than the perfect, eternally harmonious son of God, as the Bible and Christian Science declare him to be? One thus permitting himself to be false to his neighbor must eventually learn to be true to himself for his own sake if not for his neighbor's. This effort is necessary if he is to be true to his real selfhood, the spiritual expression and reflection of God.
The study of Christian Science reveals what manner of man this is whom God identifies as His spiritual expression. Since God is infinite, all-embracing, limitless Being, as Science reveals, He must include within Himself all the qualities that characterize His creation. This creation must partake of His infinite nature. Consequently man, being the image and likeness of God, must include within himself, within his consciousness, all the qualities that express God's nature.
The unfoldment in human consciousness of man's real, spiritual nature dissolves the beliefs of a false material sense of life and identifies man as the eternal expression of infinite Spirit. These truths constitute a law of annihilation to everything unlike good, such as hate, envy, jealousy, immorality, selfishness, domination, sickness, and death. Attaining an increasingly clearer perception of one's true spiritual selfhood is working out one's salvation.
Can man, God's expression, be found in an immoral atmosphere? The real man includes within himself no such atmosphere. The so-called man of human origin can seem to be in such an atmosphere only to the degree the immoral atmosphere is within him, that is, is accepted as being his mentality. He can be freed from this error by realizing that man is ever consciously expressing the pureness of God.
Can an inharmonious physical condition or a peculiar disposition be the result of inheritance? As one discovers that his real selfhood is spiritual, the son of God, he knows that he can inherit good only. This knowledge releases one from the belief of having been born into a world where sin and disease are rampant, and where the false laws of heredity reign. A loving Father cannot be the creator of such misrule. Correcting these false beliefs with the truths of being, one becomes true to himself and a law unto himself.
The Christian Scientist has enlisted in a great movement to exterminate the mesmeric belief in the reality of mortal existence with its inharmony, accident, disease, deceitfulness and insincerity. Since these are not the progeny of the great first and all-embracing cause, the alert Scientist will deny them any status as effect. He will know that there are not two creations, one good and one bad, but only one—the good and spiritual. He will know that the infinite, perfect nature of God and the consequent perfection of His man and universe preclude imperfect identities. Mankind now suffers from its acceptance of the belief in good and evil as real—the same belief which Adam accepted in spite of the warning (Gen. 2:16,17), "Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die."
Jesus was pointing out the necessity for singleness of spiritual vision when he said (Matt. 6:22), "If therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light." When error appears, the Christian Scientist holds to the vision of God's perfect, complete, and harmonious universe, including spiritual man, primarily to clear his own consciousness of the temptation to believe that which is not true about creation.
This impersonal spiritual knowing blesses all within the radius of his thought. For example, let us suppose that two brothers are falsely arraigned in court on a charge of conspiracy to commit a fraud. The ability of one brother to prove the charge of conspiracy false will, as a consequence, free his brother of the charge, although the brother who offered the proof acted primarily in his own behalf. So the Christian Scientist who is true to himself, when confronted by error of any kind, will, in proving its fraudulent nature, in some degree bless his brother.
Except under very unusual circumstances one has no more right to deal with the mentality of another without permission than one has to enter his home under the same circumstances. On this point Mrs. Eddy speaks in unmistakable language (No and Yes, p. 40): "I instruct my students to pursue their mental ministrations very sacredly, and never to touch the human thought save to issues of Truth; never to trespass mentally on individual rights; never to take away the rights, but only the wrongs of mankind. Otherwise they forfeit their ability to heal in Science."
Having fulfilled this divine requirement, the student has an obligation to himself especially, and to mankind generally, to stamp out the erroneous testimony of the material senses that appears for his acceptance, just as an alert bank clerk stamps out, puts out of circulation, a counterfeit bill. The lies of mortal mind ask only to be accepted as true. The alert Scientist refutes the lie that there can be any reality in anything of which God is not the author; and He is the author of good only.
A friend asked a Christian Scientist to accompany him to a distant place for a few days' stay. Before starting on the trip the friend ran a long, sharp splinter into his hand. When he reached his destination, twenty-four hours later, the swollen condition of the hand and the pain were evidence that all of the splinter had not been removed. After a sleepless and painful night the friend announced that if there were no immediate improvement, they would have to return home, where the hand could be lanced and cared for by his physician.
This announcement aroused the Scientist to see that he was at the point of accepting as real the false material sense testimony. He was alerted to the fact that he must be more than cursory in his efforts to know the unreality of this condition. He worked conscientiously that night to reverse the carnal mind's edict that happiness and harmony could be impaired. He denied that any manifestation of error could fool him into believing in its reality; that there could possibly be an opposite of God's rule of harmonious being. Having made the trip as a result of prayerful guidance, he worked to know that material sense could find no instrumentality to hinder its harmonious completion. He realized that in Truth's perfect spiritual universe evil is unknown, and one child of God cannot be afflicted and thereby another deprived of good.
The morning brought the joyful news of a painless night of restful slumber. Inflammation and swelling had abated. Improvement continued throughout the duration of the stay. After reaching home the friend called the Scientist to see a half-inch splinter that had worked its way out of the hand. Healing had taken place while the splinter remained in the hand. Truly this was a proof of Mrs. Eddy's statement in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" concerning the selfhood of man (p. 463), "A spiritual idea has not a single element of error, and this truth removes properly whatever is offensive."
Thus Christian Science enables us to see that in being true to oneself, one is true to God, and thus he blesses his neighbor without infringing upon the sanctity of another's mentality or breaking the Golden Rule. In the words of a hymn (Christian Science Hymnal, No. 416),
Be true and list the voice within,
Be true unto thy high ideal,
Thy perfect self, that knows no sin,
That self that is the only real.
