Article August 17, 1912 Issue

"LET A MAN EXAMINE HIMSELF."

STOKES ANTHONY BENNETT

Christian Science has come into the world to establish both by precept and example the spiritually right concept of God and the universe, including man. Pointing first to that passage in Holy Writ which says, "God is a Spirit," or, as the revised version better states it, "God is a Spirit," and then to those other passages which declare that "God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him," and that "all things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made," Christian Science shows its students in a consistent, logical, and sane way that all is Spirit and the idea, expression, of Spirit; or, as it is stated in the Christian Science text-book, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mrs. Eddy, that "all is infinite Mind and its infinite manifestation, for God is All-in-all" (p. 468).

With this brief yet plain and potent statement of the truth of being, the truth about God, man, and all that exists in creation, the intelligent, sincere, and well-meaning students of Christian Science enter upon the study and demonstration of its teaching. With this statement they come to see and know that because God is Spirit, or Mind, and man is the image, likeness, or expression of God; and because everything else is the direct outgrowth of His wisdom and power, there is and can be in reality only that which is spiritual, that which reflects God and is governed by Him. The Scriptures everywhere declare the goodness and love and perfection of God. We also read in Habakkuk: "Thou art of purer eyes than to behold evil, and canst not look on iniquity." To be like God, then, or, in other words, to be spiritual; to reflect His unerring wisdom, His omnipotent might, means that every man, woman, child, yea, all His ideas, must be (and in reality are) good and perfect, harmonious and beautiful.

As Christian Science students begin to ponder these glorious facts, as they begin to look out upon creation with a new, a brighter, holier vision, seeing things as they are and not as they seem to the material senses to be, they realize, as never before, that it is they themselves who have been entertaining wrong concepts, notions, and beliefs concerning God, man, the divine handiwork, purposes, and plans, and that it is they who must correct these concepts, notions, and beliefs, by working out their own salvation according to the example left by "the man of Galilee" and as correctly interpreted by Christian Science, if they would know the truth which really does make free and gain the peace that passes human understanding. They realize, too, that instead of being real, that is, God-make, all so-called material things and their belongings, discord, disease, and death, are unreal, unnatural, and unsustained. Thus they see that the preacher of long ago was quite right when he declared, "Lo, this only have I found, that God hath made man up-right; but they have sought out many inventions,"—material inventions, "other gods," which on every side seem to oppose "the only wise God" and to make Him either the author or permitter of both good and evil, both plenty and poverty, concord and discord, joy and sorrow, health and sickness, life and death.

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