One of the interesting propositions that is engaging the world's attention at the moment is the possibility of communication with the planet Mars. Of course speculation about the mental processes of the supposed Martians is a more or less profitless pastime, but for the sake of concrete illustration, let us presume that invention has made it possible for a Martian visitor to land upon this earth. Naturally the larger and fundamental viewpoints of the respective peoples would and the first information sought on both sides and one of the very early questions on the part of the Martian would be, What is meant by the term Christian? Of course he would be told that a Christian is one who believes in Jesus the Christ, and this statement would be amplified by the story of Jesus' earthly career. But this alone would not satisfy the questioner who was seeking to discover why Jesus the Christ has for more than two thousand years been regarded as the Way-shower for millions of people on the earth. The exact import of his message would, of necessity, be demanded.

If one wishes to test his own concept of Christianity, let him mentally answer this hypothetical other-world inquisitor. And can we not imagine that if he put this question, What is a Christian? to many persons in widely separated geographical areas, the bewildered man from Mars might begin to doubt of professing Christians really knew what they professed? If, on the other hand, the question were put to a true metaphysician, as the term is understood in Christian Science, the answer would be instantly forthcoming in terms so concise and convincing that the questioner could not fail to grasp the truth and forthwith acknowledge himself to be also a Christian.

Let us suppose that this assumed seeker for information had not, previously to propounding his question, been told anything of the human story of the Bible, so that he could not be answered by citing the Scriptures as authority, but must needs be convinced through the medium of pure reasoning in which he himself could participate.

The exposition would, of necessity, be something like this. "You acknowledge, of course, that you exist; that you are not self-created, and therefore your existence is proof of the existence of a creator. This creator must be one, and one only, as more than one would presume a still antecedent cause. Thus the self-evident fact is that there is one infinite, self-existent cause or creator. This creator or cause must be good, in order to be self-existent, inasmuch as evil signifies destruction, and evil in cause would be self-destruction from which there could be no effect. Now one's own existence precludes the possibility of this argument; so the inevitable and only possible conclusion is that the one infinite cause, or God, is good, and, cause being good, effect must be good. Nor can there be two effects from cause, one like it and one unlike it; therefore the conclusion is inevitable that effect is one and good."

This would be a logical points at which to draw attention to the Biblical parable of the fountain, which doth not "sent forth at the same place sweet water and bitter," and to explain that all of the allegories in the Bible are for the purpose of emphasizing monotherism, the oneness of God as Almighty, the all-might, the one cause. The conclusion would be self-evident to any reasonable person that Christianity and monotheism are the same and that monotheism is the acceptance of one cause and one only, phrased in Biblical language, "Thou shalt have no other gods before me."

Would not the Martian be compelled to acknowledge the exactness of this line of argument and to declare it therefore scientific, Christianly scientific? Nor could our hypothetical visitor be long in our midst before the words "Christian Science" would be brought to his attention, and after having had an explanation of Christianity such as has just been given, he would at once see that the two are identical—Christianity and Christian Science. He would perceive that the Bible is a record of men's growing vision of monotheism, of the one Supreme Being, the unrivaled cause of the true spiritual universe. As this fact became clear he would undoubtedly turn to the Scriptures and there find full confirmation. Beginning with the story of Abraham, who was the first man of whom we have record to catch a glimpse of monotheism or the oneness and universality of cause, the Bible is a series of narratives of what transpired in human affairs when these were brought into the orbit of correct reasoning. It is a record of the transition out of paganism,—the belief of more than one cause,—into Christianity, the absolute knowledge of God, the one infinite, perfect cause.

David's query, "Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing?" had its antipode in Solomon's admonition, "in all thy ways acknowledge him." On page 12 of "Christian Science versus Pantheism" Mrs. Eddy writes: "The Science of Christianity is strictly monotheism,—it has one god. And this divine infinite Principle, noumenon and phenomena, is demonstrably the self-existent Life, Truth, Love, substance, Spirit, Mind, which includes all that the term implies, and is all that is real and eternal."

The pagan viewpoint is that there is more than one cause, more than one noumenon. This alleged dualism is set forth in the allegory of the garden of Eden. In the first chapter of Genesis we read that "God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good," perfect cause expressed in perfect effect. Then the figurative mist went up from the earth, or in modern phrase, confusion arose, and two causes were alleged, the "gods, knowing good and evil."

All the prophets of the Old Testament and Christ Jesus and his apostles and disciples of the New, denounced this fallacy throughout all of their teaching. Of them all Jesus, perhaps, put it the most concisely when he said, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind." Of the supposed power called the devil James said, "Resist the devil, and he will flee from you," not as an actual entity going from one place to another, but as a false theory or belief disappearing, a belief which Jesus also said, "abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him."

Mary Baker Eddy, more than nineteen hundred years later, brought the same message, couched in the language of her own day and generation. On page 468 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" she says, "All is infinite Mind and its infinite manifestation, for God is All-in-all."

So the test of what constitutes a Christian is the same today as it has always been, and that is to be an adherent of the truth that there is one, and not more than one, noumenon responsible for the phenomenon which is the true universe and all that therein is. But this is just what the human mind rejects,—the human mind being but another name for illogical reasoning. Illogical reasoning insists that the suppositional opposite is an actual entity and that there must of necessity be the power responsible for good and a rival power responsible for the so-called evil, and to this alleged, but actually nonexistent, rival many names have been given throughout the ages. Beginning with the name serpent, typifying a voice for evil, through a list which includes devil, red dragon, and others, we have arrived at the most modern designation, used by Mrs. Eddy,—error, mortal mind, or animal magnetism. And throughout all of this successive change in nomenclature the test of a Christian has been the same: Does one accept the claim of an opposite to the one power as a reality or does he reject it as a lie?

Jesus warned against putting old wine into new bottles, and that warning stands for every Christian Scientist to-day. Are we really rejecting the possibility of so-called mortal mind being a mind in competition with divine Mind or are we sure that divine Mind is infinite not only in time and space but infinite in its power of expression, leaving no room for any other expression? Mrs. Eddy is unequivocal on this point. In her definition of mortal mind in the Glossary of Science and Health (p. 591) she says: "Mortal Mind. Nothing claiming to be something, for Mind is immortal; mythology; error creating other errors; a suppositional material sense, alias creating belief that sensation is in matter, which is sensationless; a belief that life, substance, and intelligence are in and of matter; the opposite of Spirit, and therefore the opposite of God, or good; the belief that life has a beginning and therefore an end; the belief that man is the offspring of mortals; the belief that there can be more than one creator; idolatry; the subjective states of error; material senses; that which neither exists in Science nor can be recognized by the spiritual sense; sin; sickness; death."

There remains only the explanation of the phenomenon called evil, and that explanation is extremely simple. Evil is the illusion that a lie is a fact, and can only seem to be phenomenon to mistaken sense. It is, furthermore, a lie to say that there is even a mistaken sense. The misstatement itself is the origin of the hypnosis. A misstatement is instantly destroyed when the correct statement is substituted for it, and with its destruction goes all the hypnosis or illusion of evil, that supposed competitor to omnipresent good. Reducing this to extremely modern language: Do not tell a lie if you wish to escape the mesmerism of the lie. Now it may be asked, How am I to detect the lie every time so that I may reject it? We have an unfailing test for that. Is that statement, whatever it may be, a true statement about God? If not, it is not a true statement, for God is All. So a statement based upon a supposition of more than one influence or power is a denial of the all-might, personalized as the Almighty. To acknowledge God as Almighty constitutes a Christian. Of course acknowledgment includes action as well as words. When a true statement is enacted it is one's religion, otherwise it is merely a philosophy; so a Christian is one who not only states in words but lives the truth he knows.