ON page 1 of "The People's Idea of God," Mrs. Eddy writes, "The footsteps of thought, as they pass from the sensual side of existence to the reality and Soul of all things, are slow, portending a long night to the traveller; but the guardians of the gloom are the angels of His presence, that impart grandeur to the intellectual wrestling and collisions with old-time faiths, as we drift into more spiritual latitudes."
The mental journey from the material to the spiritual sense of existence involves us in a warfare with the flesh, in which spiritual ideas overcome material beliefs. One of the first discoveries we make is the effect this spiritualization of thought has upon our present experience. We find that as our thought obeys the laws of divine Mind, it is able to exercise the supremacy of this Mind over our body and our entire environment. And so when impelled by the spiritual idea, "the footsteps of thought" enable us to exchange a faulty material sense of existence for the true spiritual sense of who we are and what the purpose of our existence is.
"The sensual side of existence" is that which involves us in the belief that we live in a physical body and that the five physical senses are the media through which we are aware of ourselves and our environment. This belief makes the physical body the center of our interest and concern. It would induce us to devote ourselves to material rather than spiritual objectives, needs, and considerations.
