How important it is to identify oneself properly! Whether one wishes to cash a check, apply for employment, or travel to a foreign country, he must be able to prove his identity. How much greater is the duty of the Christian Scientist in presenting proof of his identity as the spiritual representative of God, not only in justice to himself, but in faithfulness to the Cause of Christian Science. When one becomes a student of this liberating religion, he begins to learn the truth regarding himself. He learns that "there is no life, truth, intelligence, nor substance in matter. All is infinite Mind and its infinite manifestation, for God is All-in-all," as Mary Baker Eddy states in "the scientific statement of being" on page 468 of her textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures." The student finds further by study of the textbook that he lives in a spiritual universe, instead of in a material universe. He proves the statements of Christian Science by his understanding of scientific arguments based on the premise that "all is infinite Mind and its infinite manifestation," and he no longer doubts the veracity of that premise, even though the testimony of the material senses is totally contradictory.
Why does the student accept the statements of Mind-science in spite of sense testimony? Because, as a result of the application of Christian Science, he has experienced healing of untoward circumstances or conditions to which he has faithfully and understandingly applied the truths he has learned. Through reading the Christian Science periodicals and attending Wednesday testimony meetings at a Church of Christ, Scientist, he learns of the blessed results of the ministration of divine Science. As he progresses in the study and practice of the healing power of Principle, his joy knows no limits. He has indeed found the pearl of great price.
Later in his study of Christian Science the student perhaps finds himself in a circumstance or condition which fails to yield to his best and most unremitting efforts. He does not doubt that Christian Science can heal whatever it is that confronts him, but he must refuse to accept the mesmeric suggestion that he seems somehow incapable of proving that it can. Right there is the place for him to stop and ask, "With what am I identifying myself?" On page 477 of the Christian Science textbook we are told, "Identity is the reflection of Spirit, the reflection in multifarious forms of the living Principle, Love." We also learn through Christian Science that all inharmony is illusion, possessing no reality or identity. That which is real must of necessity be eternal, and that which is to be destroyed—proved unreal—must be temporal.
