Our beloved Leader, Mary Baker Eddy, in an interesting manner, links these two words, "home" and "heaven," in her definition of "Jerusalem," on page 589 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures." The material belief, or appearance of things, is mentioned first in this definition, as follows: "Mortal belief and knowledge obtained from the five corporeal senses; the pride of power and the power of pride; sensuality; envy; oppression; tyranny." Here is a formidable array of objectionable conditions which one might hesitate to challenge. But Mrs. Eddy, with her usual spiritual penetration and incisiveness, further defines the true "Jerusalem" as "home, heaven." She knew that however threatening the false picture, it still is unreal, without actual presence or power.

Always the human heart has yearned for heaven. The greatest Scientist of all time, the master Christian, Jesus of Nazareth, uttered words which have gradually changed the outlook of unnumbered multitudes. He said: "The kingdom of God cometh not with observation: neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you." Here is revolutionary truth! The kingdom of God, or heaven, is not to be searched for outside of oneself, but within spiritual thinking. The Commandments left by Moses, together with Jesus' teaching, especially the Beatitudes in the Sermon on the Mount, give mankind a clue to the attainment of home, heaven.

The illumination of Christ Jesus' teachings through Christian Science, discovered by Mrs. Eddy in 1866, has dissipated forever—for those who have understood it—the false belief of heaven as a place. They can see that "the kingdom of God is within," because they understand that spiritual man, the real and only man, the image and likeness of God, partakes of His attributes, by reflection.

It is apparent that mankind's concept of heaven as a place is an illusion of the five physical senses, the evidence of which Christian Science proves untrue, even as did the words and works of Christ Jesus. The mortal concept of place has no existence in Spirit, God. So, instead of a false concept, many now understand heaven to be the harmony of real being, of divine Mind, Love, Principle, Truth. What sense of heaven can there be for an individual who acts, for instance, from a thoroughly unrpincipled standpoint? Is he not making a self-imposed hell? (See Science and Health, p. 588.) But this very hell of suffering and delusion may force him to reach out for something better.

God's child exists forever in infinite Love, oblivious of all that is unlike good. But mortals, sunk in the depths of depravity, must eventually awake and learn that heaven is attained by degrees. Of such as these Mrs. Eddy writes on pages 35 and 36 of Science and Health: "If the sinner's punishment here has been insufficient to reform him, the good man's heaven would be a hell to the sinner. They, who know not purity and affection by experience, can never find bliss in the blessed company of Truth and Love simply through translation into another sphere."

Now, to the majority of mankind the nearest thing to heaven on earth is a happy home. Such is thought to be the acme of human good. The value of being brought up in a good home, the foundations of which are affection, unselfishness, purity, and peace, is inestimable. Home is fundamental to human living. But it is assailed and undermined upon all sides. Looking about us today, we see the wreckage of many homes, and children deprived of the support and affection they justly deserve, on account of the ignorance, selfishness, and false views of happiness entertained by a great part of mankind. Of these unfortunate conditions the last is the most harmful. On pages 9 and 10 of "Miscellaneous Writings" Mrs. Eddy writes, "A false sense of what constitutes happiness is more disastrous to human progress than all that an enemy or enmity can obtrude upon the mind or engraft upon its purposes and achievements wherewith to obstruct life's joys and enhance its sorrows."

Christian Science is helping the human race to build a more stable sense of home, through the understanding of man's eternal, ever-present home in divine Mind. It is showing men how to reflect the divine nature, with its gracious, enduring attributes, and how to see their fellow man as God's perfect child, regardless of appearances. It is teaching men how to handle intelligently insidious false suggestions, which would disunify and disrupt; to give and take individual freedom on a basis of wise and affectionate interest and encouragement.

As the false belief of "Jerusalem" is overcome in the consciousness of each one of us, by the exercise of true, God-given qualities, we shall not sigh for lost Edens, but shall rejoice in present good and legitimate advancement. It is always easy to lay failure or lagging demonstration to the conduct of others, but that does not absolve us from obeying the behests of the divine Principle, Love.

A right concept of heaven is indispensable to a happy, progressive home. While falsity and selfishness remain in thought; while desires are on a material basis, it would be well to remember John's words in Revelation, "And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels, and prevailed not." We see that the dragon, the type of all evil, "prevailed not," and we are told that he was cast out, together with his messages. Thus it must always eventuate. Evil cannot stand in the presence of good.

As we consecrate ourselves to this sacred warfare on the side of Michael and the heavenly host, we shall realize more and more that the victory is becoming world-wide. Greater harmony is bound to appear in individual experience, in the home, the community, the state, the nation, the world. After all, heaven, harmony, is already a divine fact, so that every one of us may dwell constantly in this fact, and be at home in heaven, all consciously joining in claiming our rightful, heavenly state of Mind.