THE human footsteps are essential to the Christian Scientist, but they are not taken in matter. They are the advancing steps in the spiritualization of individual human consciousness, and they have their manifestation in improved spiritual understanding, therefore in improved experience. Never should it be said of or by the Christian Scientist, or of anyone, that he must take the human footsteps, if one means that he must concede in some present respect the reality of and necessity for matter. It is divine Mind which is real and divine Mind which is necessary; and the progressive understanding of divine Mind, verified by its progressive results in removing evil from consciousness, therefore from experience, is inescapable and inevitable for the honest seeker of Truth.
Statements on this subject by Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, are as clearly in accord with her teaching that the one true objective of human endeavor is to understand and love divine Mind as are all her statements elucidating her religion. For instance, in her textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," she makes the pronouncement containing the phrase which is the subject of this editorial (pp. 253, 254), "The divine demand, 'Be ye therefore perfect,' is scientific, and the human footsteps leading to perfection are indispensable."
She follows this statement with an explanation to the effect that the demand for spiritual perfection should not discourage anyone who seems to fall short of it, so long as he is honestly desiring it and doing his best to attain it. In this connection she acknowledges, in effect, that the spiritual consciousness of sustenance and nourishment may well be attested in the wisdom of obtaining and consuming food and drink when necessary. The important fact is that the Christian Scientist understand the whole situation spiritually in terms of consciousness. And in so doing he will not let his consciousness of sustenance be a mere abstraction. He will not take a position he has not won. He will continue to demand of himself that his understanding be more spiritual so that the manifestation of it also may be more spiritual. But always he will accept the manifestation in terms which his thought at his present stage of progress will acknowledge as having meaning.
