Referring to our Master's complete and glorious victory over the mortal sense of life, Mary Baker Eddy writes in the textbook of Christian Science, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 494): "Is it not a species of infidelity to believe that so great a work as the Messiah's was done for himself or for God, who needed no help from Jesus' example to preserve the eternal harmony? But mortals did need this help, and Jesus pointed the way for them. Divine Love always has met and always will meet every human need."
The last sentence, which is often reproduced on the walls of Christian Science branch churches, has brought healing and comfort to countless individuals. But someone may ask how such a statement can possibly be true when so many urgent needs, basic world-wide needs, such as shelter, food, friendship, security, still persist. If, however, the whole context of this wonderful statement is pondered, it will be seen that our Leader recognized the human need to be fundamentally always the same, namely, a need to awaken from the mesmeric fears and limitations of material sense testimony to the consciousness of man's present spiritual existence as the indestructible expression of God's being.
In the light of Christian Science we come to see that whenever mankind has faithfully followed the example of Jesus and the prophets and has sought divine Love's guidance it has awakened somewhat to the ever-presence and harmony of real being, and to that extent the spell of materiality with its distressing manifestations has been broken. Insofar, however, as mankind has still looked to false gods, to material remedies alone, to meet its needs, to that extent it has circled helplessly and uselessly within its own deluded state of self-mesmerism and has seemed to suffer the consequences.
