IN Science and Health, Mrs. Eddy writes of a heavenly conviction that came to her as a gift from God. She describes this conviction as follows (p. 108): "It was the divine law of Life and Love, unfolding to me the demonstrable fact that matter possesses neither sensation nor life; that human experiences show the falsity of all material things; and that immortal cravings, 'the price of learning love,' establish the truism that the only sufferer is mortal mind, for the divine Mind cannot suffer."
The vision infinite always comes on the wings of heavenly conviction. A conviction involves firm belief. A heavenly conviction must be a state of pure thought characterized by Christly qualities of spiritual consciousness. From early childhood our Leader was an earnest student of the Bible. In its pages she found the answer to many perplexing questions relating to her human experiences.
Many years elapsed before she learned why she was sick so much of the time and why the efforts of her medical helpers and the prayers of her pastor were so unsuccessful. A most convincing experience came after a near fatal accident. She arose restored after she had read in the Bible, in the ninth chapter of Matthew, the account of Jesus' healing of the palsied man. She writes of her great discovery resulting from this healing experience as follows: "I had learned that Mind reconstructed the body, and that nothing else could. How it was done, the spiritual Science of Mind must reveal. It was a mystery to me then, but I have since understood it" (Retrospection and Introspection, p. 28).
