Article February 18, 1933 Issue

Dominion over Matter

HAROLD C. LEWIS

The goal of every Christian Scientist is the understanding and demonstration of man's God-given dominion, through which alone material beliefs and conditions are mastered. It is evident that, humanly speaking, most of us have but started on the journey toward this goal, which still seems far beyond us. How we long for this dominion when, confronted by some phase of disease, lack, or discord, we find our best efforts to overcome it seemingly vain and our understanding apparently not equal to the emergency!

Pondering the reason for some delay in demonstrating the truth as taught in Christian Science, we perhaps ask ourselves why we have not succeeded in proving spiritual dominion in the solving of some particular problem. Let the student asking himself this question turn to "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 369) and ponder well the loving counsel of our revered Leader, Mary Baker Eddy, given in these words: "In proportion as matter loses to human sense all entity as man, in that proportion does man become its master. He enters into a diviner sense of the facts, and comprehends the theology of Jesus as demonstrated in healing the sick, raising the dead, and walking over the wave." This profound statement indicates the step that is requisite to the gaining of complete mastery of the material beliefs of disease and evil, and it calls for our careful study. The statement shows that dominion over matter comes only as we, in our consciousness, strip matter of all entity. It shows clearly that we must stop believing that man is material and seek to understand man's real being. And what is this real being?

In music, as an illustration, printed characters used to represent certain notes are not the actual tones. The printed characters might be erased, but the musical tones remain to be recognized and reproduced by the musician. In like manner the material sense of body might be destroyed, but man's real spiritual selfhood is ever untouched by any phase of mortality. The material body is not man, but represents a false concept of man.

Send a comment to the editors

NEXT IN THIS ISSUE

Article

The Way of His Appointing