Many today are saying: "I am so lonely and therefore unhappy. If only I could meet some people and make friends, then I know I should be happy." Lovingly and tenderly the Christian Scientist wants to tell mankind to stop looking for persons or things to bring happiness, but instead to look within and listen to the answer Christ Jesus gave to those inquiring as to the kingdom of God (Luke 17:21), "Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you." The kingdom of God is within us, in the understanding that one is the son of God, the manifestation of infinite Life, Truth, and Love, lacking nothing, needing nothing, but having all that is good and pure and true.
In "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" Mary Baker Eddy, in defining man, says in part (p. 475), "He is the compound idea of God, including all right ideas," and she adds he is "that which has not a single quality underived from Deity." If man includes all right ideas, this means he includes joy, inspiration, peace, harmony, and satisfaction. He does not long for these qualities, but acknowledges them as constituting his present being.
In like manner, loneliness, unhappiness, and despair cannot be ascribed to God; and since man has no quality underived from Deity, such un-Godlike qualities cannot be associated with man, the image and likeness of God. If they try to present themselves in our experience, what a joyous privilege—and it might be added, duty— it is to recognize immediately that these qualities are no part of God and therefore cannot be true of us. They are only suggestions about us and are never true of us. Our work is to refuse to identify ourself with these suggestions and steadfastly acknowledge that which we know to be true of ourself as the son of God.
