IN Science and Health, Mrs. Eddy presents an allegory in which a case of sickness is tried as one would try a case in court. The defendant, Mortal Man, has been accused of committing liver complaint, and an array of false witnesses is present to testify against him. The plaintiff is Personal Sense, who is found at the conclusion of the trial to be so unreliable that he is enjoined to keep perpetual silence. Then the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Spirit decrees, "Let what False Belief utters, now and forever, fall into oblivion, 'unknelled, uncoffined, and unknown'" (p. 441).
This allegory illustrates in graphic language the situation in which a mortal may find himself, regardless of the specific ailment involved, when he is uninformed of his true identity, for every symptom, every bit of physical sense testimony at this unjust trial, is based on ignorance of man's real selfhood.
In the first chapter of Genesis we are told that man was created by God in His image and likeness and given dominion. One of the great gifts which Christian Science has bestowed on humanity is the clarifying delineation of man as the unique image of divinity, totally unlike the mortal picture of sin and suffering presented by the material senses.
