Mary Baker Eddy discovered and demonstrated the value of spiritual discernment in the healing of sin and sickness. For this she is entitled to the gratitude and appreciation of the whole world.
The religion founded by Mrs. Eddy is prophetical in nature, not merely because it fulfills the Master's prophecy concerning the coming of the Comforter, but because it exalts the value of spiritual discernment. This point is brought out in the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," where Mrs. Eddy defines "Elias" in part (p. 585): "Prophecy; spiritual evidence opposed to material sense; Christian Science, with which can be discerned the spiritual fact of whatever the material senses behold." Through this discernment Christian Science is ushering in an era in which Truth is successfully silencing error, the supposition that we live in a universe of conflicting forces in which evil is as real as good and perhaps superior to it.
Christ Jesus declared (Matt. 17:11), "Elias truly shall first come, and restore all things." Spiritual discernment, then, is more than mere observing. It restores all things to Spirit. The forces on which we tread, such as adhesion, cohesion, and attraction, are referred to by Mrs. Eddy in these words (Science and Health, p. 124): "Withdraw them, and creation must collapse. Human knowledge calls them forces of matter; but divine Science declares that they belong wholly to divine Mind, are inherent in this Mind, and so restores them to their rightful home and classification."
