As students of Christian Science, we must come to respect our religion as Science and ourselves as Scientists. Working as we must in the laboratory of divine Science, our equipment consists of an understanding of God and a knowledge of Him as He is, for in Mrs. Eddy's words in Science and Health, "God is incorporeal, divine, supreme, infinite Mind, Spirit, Soul, Principle, Life, Truth, Love" (p. 465). It also consists of an understanding of the impossibility, the unreality, of anything unlike or opposed to God. In this scientific approach we accept Mrs. Eddy's statement, "Matter disappears under the microscope of Spirit" (ibid., p. 264). Thus to be proficient in our spiritually scientific program, we must screen out matter concepts and learn to separate the real from the unreal.
With the development of spiritual insight comes the realization that error accrues only to the belief that matter has power, function, or sensation. When we become convinced of the spiritual nature of God, of man, and of the universe, we shall cast out false beliefs and claim our God-given dominion. The absolute conviction that God is All and that all good is possible to Him, and therefore to man as His reflection, liberates thought and opens the door to demonstration.
The Bible gives accounts of Jesus' vanquishment of matter concepts. Understanding, as he did, the supremacy of infinite Spirit, he proved powerless every force or condition founded on finite belief. The support of Spirit was evident in his walking upon the sea. Time and space were negated at the time the ship was immediately at the land whither he and his disciples went. The substantiality of matter was disproved when he joined his disciples "the doors being shut" (John 20:26).
Although the Master overcame every argument of mortal belief, he never claimed power apart from God. He said, "The Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works" (John 14:10). Until the discovery of Christian Science, men stood in awe of his mighty works, for they were unable to equal them.
Mrs. Eddy's inspiration is nowhere more apparent than in her designating "Christian Science" as the name of her discovery, for what name could more adequately express its Christian function of enabling men to learn to repeat Jesus' healing works? Founded upon the rock of Christ, Truth, this exact Science knows no failure. Individual demonstration, however, depends upon individual recognition and conviction of God's all-power and all-presence. Acceptance of the divine fact of the perfection of both God and His reflection, man, opens thought to spiritual reality, whereby the Christ enters in.
To illustrate the working of the spiritual truths that God is All and that Christ is the spiritual idea of sonship, let us consider a problem solved wholly in the laboratory of divine Science. While she was still living in another country, my grandmother cared for a friend's son, aged six. She had had no news of him for seventy-two years. I was to try to locate him when I visited this country, and I had twenty-four hours only in which to do it. Added to the problem itself was inability on my part to speak or understand the language of the country of the individual sought.
Beginning with the conviction that all things are possible to God, it was seen that all of His children, as spiritual ideas, are known to the Father and, by reflection, to man. Pondering God's sevenfold nature, I saw that language is no barrier, because Love is the universal language. Mind, intelligently directing all right activity, guides every idea into right associations. Spirit obliterates the belief of material obstruction. Principle governs through fixed law. Truth dispels confusion. Soul assures right seeing, hearing, and acting, and Life, which is without beginning or end, denies the mortal sense of time and its lie of limitation.
Inquiry at the hotel showed no such name listed in the town directory, nor was there anyone who had knowledge of such a person. However, alert to Mind's direction, I acted upon the urge to visit the old town square; and during the six- or seven-block walk there, I continued to separate the real from the unreal in consciousness.
Once there, I took snapshots to take back to the one at home. Thought was so filled with the joy of taking the pictures that the quest was momentarily forgotten. Focusing for perhaps the third or fourth picture, I was surprised to realize that the building mirrored in the lens was a police station. I entered and found no one able to speak English, but one of the men on duty motioned me to wait while he went in search of an officer who was able to converse with me.
At first, neither he nor the others recalled the name I mentioned, but after discussion among themselves I was told that there had been two families of that name in the town; one of the families had moved away many years ago and the other was that of a woman who was employed in an office on an upper floor of that very building. I learned from a telephone call to the woman that the gentleman sought was her father and that he was well and lived nearby. That evening I visited the father. This problem, harmoniously solved by spiritual means alone, was accomplished in less than one hour.
Every student, working with the Science of Christ, must be convinced that all good is possible to God, who is all-powerful and ever present. This conviction and an understanding of God in His sevenfold nature give one the lens whereby he may see the pure and perfect universe of God's government and God's creating.
With our thought opened to the realities of Spirit and to our sonship with the Father, we shall emulate Jesus' mighty works, for we too shall know that "the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works."
