One night as I was studying Science and Health I looked out the window and saw a new moon. I thought, "I am not tempted to believe there is only a little piece of the moon up there, just because I can see only this phase of it. I know the whole moon is there." Then, I returned to my study of Science and Health and read Mrs. Eddy's words: "Matter, sin, and mortality lose all supposed consciousness or claim to life or existence, as mortals lay off a false sense of life, substance, and intelligence. But the spiritual, eternal man is not touched by these phases of mortality." Science and Health, p. 311;
Man, I saw, was no more touched by the phases of mortality than the moon was changed by the shadows cast upon it. Each individual progresses by understanding himself as an eternal idea, and this understanding can come only as he lays off the false sense of life. This is what Christ Jesus did when laying aside the swaddling clothes of a mortal beginning and putting off the winding-sheets of a mortal ending. His demonstration of immortal life set aside the beliefs in both birth and death.
Christian Science opens the way for us to follow him. In Christian Science man is understood to be eternal idea, forever coexisting with his divine source. God, the Life of man, is the same yesterday, today, and always. Spiritual man expresses immortality; however, to human sense, we seem to evolve through phases of mortal belief.
