Article May 28, 1927 Issue

Liberation

KATHARINE FIELDING STATHAM

In reading an account in a daily newspaper of the much needed reform that is taking place in some of the prisons, the writer's attention was arrested by the following sentence: "If you treat a man as a man ... he will behave like a man." Underlying these words is a profound truth. A dictionary meaning of "treat" is "to handle in a particular manner." And Mrs. Eddy writes in "Miscellaneous Writings" (p. 334), "You must find error to be nothing: then, and only then, do you handle it in Science."

Treatment in Christian Science consists in handling error by realizing that since God, good, is infinite and the only real power, evil is unreal and powerless. In Genesis we are told that "God created man in his own image." Consequently, man, the image and likeness of God, is Godlike; and in proportion as we behold him thus, false testimony about mankind will gradually fade from consciousness, and God's idea, man, will stand forth revealed—sinless, unfettered, liberated. Christ Jesus did not free people from disease, discord, and death by first admitting that there was something real to heal, but by realizing that evil is a lie, that it never emanated from God, and that therefore it is not to be feared. Thus he displaced false concepts with the truth.

"Perfect God and perfect man,—as the basis of thought and demonstration" (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 259), is the foundation for all spiritual healing as taught by Mrs. Eddy, for the destruction of supposititious evil and the obliteration of its supposititious action even as belief. God is perfect, and creation must be seen to accord with the creator. In I John we read, "Beloved, now are we the sons of God." This also brings out the fundamental truth that since man is the son of God, good, or the expression of divine Mind, man must reflect all of God's qualities. Man reflects love, strength, life, intelligence; and any discordant condition—physical, temperamental, or otherwise—is not part of man, but merely a falsity. This understanding discards false reasoning; it separates the chaff from the wheat; it is the truth that frees mankind.

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