"If we look to the body for pleasure, we find pain; for Life, we find death; for Truth, we find error; for Spirit, we find its opposite, matter," writes Mary Baker Eddy on pages 260 and 261 of the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures." Who that has experienced many of the discords of the flesh would deny the truth of this statement? The physical senses affirm this testimony and mesmerically insist that in the physical body is precisely where the difficulty exists. Regardless of the nature of the discord— be it a headache or a cancer—material sense emphatically claims that if relief or a cure is to be effected, something must definitely be done. The body must be examined, dosed, treated, or operated upon, or the results may be disastrous.
This erroneous assumption has been consciously or unconsciously accepted by mortals for centuries without challenge. Christian Science has reinstated the purely spiritual method of healing established and practiced by Christ Jesus. The Way-shower never advocated examining the material body for either the cause or the cure of its apparent ills. Although he never failed to be most compassionate with a sufferer, the New Testament records show no instance when he implied that the malady was physical. He declared, as recorded in his great Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 6:25): "Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment?" And he told his listeners (verse 33), "Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you."
Could it not be intelligently considered that "all these things" include health, supply, freedom, and everything else necessary to one's well-being? And it is reasonable to conclude that strict obedience to this command will result now, as it did in his time, in physical harmony.
