WHEN an accident happened in the presence of the Apostle Paul, he resorted to divine metaphysics, not to physics. It will be recalled that a young man named Eutychus, having fallen asleep during a long talk by Paul, fell from a third-story window and was taken up dead. But the apostle went down and spoke to those who stood about, shocked and frightened. He quieted the fear-filled human thought, reversed its acceptance of tragedy, gave assurance that Eutychus was not hurt, and stated the reason why. "Trouble not yourselves," he said to them, "for his life is in him" (Acts 20:10).
Paul, a Christian Scientist would assume, must have known that God, divine Mind, is All-in-all and that man, His spiritual image and likeness, embodies life and has his entire being in Mind, not in matter. Paul's clear understanding of these fundamental metaphysical propositions must have overruled the mortal belief in physics, namely the supposition that life and intelligence exist in matter, subject to destruction by material forces. The record states, "They brought the young man alive, and were not a little comforted."
Nearly nineteen centuries later, when Mrs. Eddy published Science and Health, the textbook of divine metaphysics, she set forth the rule which Paul must have followed with such perfect results. On page 397 she explains that the thought or exclamation that we are hurt does more than the accident itself to make an injury seem real. The remedy, she says, lies in reversing this mental process. The rule follows: "Declare that you are not hurt and understand the reason why, and you will find the ensuing good effects to be in exact proportion to your disbelief in physics, and your fidelity to divine metaphysics, confidence in God as All, which the Scriptures declare Him to be."
