All Christendom will agree that Christ Jesus was the most perfect example of true manhood that the world has ever known; yet, has the world made the knowledge of this fact practical? Is it not, rather, holding before the gaze the very opposite of this perfect model,—men governed by the so-called laws of matter and controlled by the shifting weather vanes of circumstance?

Jesus said, "The kingdom of God is within you;" in other words, we must look within our own consciousness for the revelation of the truth which will free us from the old beliefs that have been handed down to us. In revealed truth a search for correct knowledge of one's self and one's relation to God and the universe is neither a dry nor an obtuse undertaking; but, on the contrary, when one is actuated by an unselfish longing to be of some practical use in the world, it becomes glad and buoyant. A careful study of the Bible in conjunction with the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker Eddy, has proved a safe, sure guide to unnumbered thousands of weary searches for health and happiness. This Christ-method is well worth the serious consideration of all who are struggling out of the sense-dreams of matter and are striving for the spiritual sense of all true being; in the language of the apostle, "Whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely." Whoever is ready for the revelation of Truth to this age, which brings healing on its wings, will surely find it if he seeks earnestly and faints not. But he must remember that his journey is mental all the way. "Metaphysics resolves things into thoughts, and exchanges the objects of sense for the ideas of Soul," our Leader tells us (Science and Health, p. 269). In making this exchange, the searcher gains immeasurably on his life-journey, and gains also a knowledge of himself which he could find in no other way.

The plowman-poet Burns wrote:—

If to see ourselves as others see us awakens us to see our errors in order that we may correct them, it may be wholesome and constructive. It is, however, only as we look into the mirror of Truth, where we are privileged, through the teachings of Christian Science, to see man according to the pattern of Holy Writ, that we shall gain the understanding whereby we may know ourselves properly. On page 571 of the textbook of Christian Science, Mrs. Eddy wisely counsels, "Know thyself, and God will supply the wisdom and the occasion for a victory over evil." Really to know one's self in these days of accumulated human knowledge is no small matter; yet, according to Christian Science, this is a necessary procedure, and is the open secret of victory over the material senses, with their train of sin, sickness, and death in their various component stages.

The incredulous and doubtful may ask at this point, How can I know any more about myself than I already know? Are you knowing yourself as the perfect man of God's creating, as revealed in the first chapter of Genesis; or are you believing that you are wholly human, composed of muscles and bones, flesh and blood, with a mentality emanating from a pulpy gray matter under the skull? To know yourself as God knows you is to know the truth about man; and this knowledge is not found in human philosophy, in ethics, nor yet in intellectuality, but rather in the childlike faith which seeks to know God aright, as infinite Spirit, and to know man as God's own spiritual offspring. Starting the solution of one's life-problem with this basic knowledge, one is able to claim and actually demonstrate his God-bestowed dominion over the earth, including all the evils to which flesh is seemingly heir.

Again turning to the textbook of Christian Science (p. 462) we read, "Anatomy, when conceived of spiritually, is mental self-knowledge, and consists in the dissection of thoughts to discover their quality, quantity, and origin." Through self-examination one is privileged to "prove all things" and to "hold fast that which is good." Truly, as a man "thinketh in his heart, so is he." Through right or wrong thinking, mortals are continually building a bodily structure for weal or for woe; but earthly experience is a good, if dear teacher, and when mortals learn through experience to dissect thoughts spiritually, then will they control the mental cause which produces the physical effect, and thus govern themselves harmoniously. How logical and conclusive it is so to understand God and His creation that one may know beyond cavil that if wrong thinking has brought evil conditions upon him, then right thinking becomes a sure and permanent remedy for all these ills! Thus we see that only through "mental self-knowledge" do we gain the victory over all the conditions that beset our journey heavenward; and the journey will be long or short in proportion to our fidelity to Truth.

Worldly knowledge offers poor substitutes for the dignity and potency of Christian healing; and humanity is fast awaking to its need of something higher and more powerful than drugs or an anthropomorphic God to lean upon in its hour of trial. So why wait to take the first footstep forward? Looking upon himself from the altitude of true spirituality, every one may approximate the Christ-model by healing himself and others; and his perpetual privilege is to watch his every thought to see that its trend is ever God-ward. Thus may "we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ."