Article March 17, 1928 Issue

Our Inheritance

SARA L. MC SHANE

A student of Christian Science was once required several times to call for help regarding a physical difficulty, which presented itself as an inherited belief, before its destruction was complete. This error came to the surface for destruction during the study of "Man" in our weekly Bible Lesson in the Christian Science Quarterly, wherein was taken up the truth of man's heritage. While in pain she came to the realization that the problem was hers; that she might have all the loving help of practitioners and others around her, but it still remained her problem; and that such experiences come to individuals for solution. She arose, though in the very early hours of the morning, to do her work, her part—and was healed almost instantly by seeing the truth. Wrestling brings dominion; self is lost when Truth is found; where bondage claims to be, there is liberty.

If a suggestion comes to us in the form of sickness or sin and we are not awake or alert to the truth, we mentally see the picture and may announce its name. This may result in a physical manifestation of disease; and the next step is that we call for help, to heal—what? Not, primarily, a physical condition, but an illusion caused by wrong thinking; for, as we learn in Christian Science, there is in reality no disease. We have not watched our thought, as Christian Science teaches us to do; and we suffer for our negligence. We have simply lost sight of man's true heritage by giving power to something other than God; we have been disobedient to the Scriptural demand, "Thou shalt have no other gods before me."

Mrs. Eddy writes on page 301 of our textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures": "As God is substance and man is the divine image and likeness, man should wish for, and in reality has, only the substance of good, the substance of Spirit, not matter. The belief that man has any other substance, or mind, is not spiritual and breaks the First Commandment, Thou shalt have one God, one Mind." Again, on page 315 she says, "The likeness of God we lose sight of through sin, which beclouds the spiritual sense of Truth; and we realize this likeness only when we subdue sin and prove man's heritage, the liberty of the sons of God." Thus Mrs. Eddy makes clear that sickness and sin are the results of disobedience, or of ignorance of God.

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