When Christ Jesus declared (Luke 17:21), "The kingdom of God is within you," he was showing his complete understanding of the fact that life, or being, is subjective, that consciousness is one and all-inclusive. Humanity in general has failed to understand and appreciate what the Master was explaining in his inspired exposition of being. His demonstrations of divine healing and control over the vicissitudes and circumstances of existence were considered by scholastic theology to be miraculous personal interferences with the laws of nature, and this view obtains largely today. The intellectuals of his day did not perceive that he was giving proof of the fact that life, or being, is truly spiritual and that to apprehend this affords a dominion over conditions and circumstances which is not at variance with spiritual law, but in consonance with it.
It remained, therefore, for a divinely inspired woman, Mary Baker Eddy, to discover the real meaning of the Master's ministry and to awaken mankind to understand and demonstrate his spiritually scientific teaching. This discovery took place in 1866, and since that date the evidence of the unerring Science of being has been accumulating, and by it we are arriving at a true estimation of the Master's work. On this foundation was built the Church of Christ, Scientist, and its phenomenal growth in the world can only be explained by the hunger of the people for the true Church, which contains the eternal remedy for destruction and despair.
There is a complete consistency in every statement of the Master's, as recorded in the Gospels. In the light of our present growing understanding of spiritual existence these records are no longer obscure, but as clear as the crystal water of that river of Life described by John in Revelation (22:1). Jesus taught the true nature of God and man. In this nature and essence is to be found the true understanding of Life. This understanding of the Divine Being is the key to all existence and endows mankind with true dominion.
