When the wonder and glory of the Christ in its measureless application to the needs of humanity dawned upon her spiritual and receptive consciousness, Mary Baker Eddy cherished the eager hope that her revelation and discovery would be immediately and universally accepted. She soon saw, however, that she was confronted with the tenacious and deeply rooted material beliefs of human beings individually and collectively and that the redemptive activity of the Christ would have to be gradual, governed and measured only by the spiritual receptivity of the individual.
She saw that the revelation of the Christ, which she named Christian Science, set forth the absolute truth of being—God, man, and the universe—and that the application of this Science was specifically related to humanity. She saw that the practice of this Science is concerned with the material, false beliefs and wrong thinking entertained by human beings. Christian Science, then, specifically is adapted to and concerned with the redemption of the human and mortal consciousness. The Christ, as revealed in Christian Science, is not a metaphysical abstraction. It speaks to the human consciousness. It does not ignore it.
It is always the function of truth to dissipate a lie. The child in school yields, gives up, his error of two times two equals five as he accepts the mathematical truth that two times two equals four. He then finds himself freely and harmoniously proving mathematical truth. Somewhat the same thing occurs in Christian Science as Christ, the spiritual idea of man's present perfect sonship, displaces in individual consciousness the false concept of man and the beliefs of fear, sin, and disease, which are associated with a mortal selfhood. As these beliefs disappear into their obvious nothingness, what remains? Only man's individual consciousness of the Christ, Truth.
