Article November 16, 1940 Issue

"The great attainment"

ELIZABETH S. MURRAY

TOWARD what end is the Christian Scientist working? What does he desire to attain? When one begins the study of Christian Science, he usually desires physical healing or that more harmony may be manifested in his human affairs; and it is natural and right to desire these things. As one progresses in his study, however, he finds that as he seeks "first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; . . . all these things" are added unto him; that the attainment of the kingdom of heaven within is what is worth striving for, and that helping others to attain this kingdom brings real happiness.

Our beloved Leader, Mary Baker Eddy, says in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 428), "To divest thought of false trusts and material evidences in order that the spiritual facts of being may appear,—this is the great attainment by means of which we shall sweep away the false and give place to the true." Could there be a greater attainment than the appearance in individual consciousness of "the spiritual facts of being"? Studying this passage, we see that means to this great attainment is mental. We must begin with our thinking and divest it of "false trusts" by trusting God with all our hearts, and by destroying "material evidences" with spiritual truth; then the reality and perfection of God's universe will increasingly appear. We should strive to have the Mind of Christ, where the belief of sin, sickness, and death never enter, and where creation is beheld as it really is, "very good."

Why do we not always see creation as "very good"? Is it not because we believe and trust the evidence of the material senses and do not use our spiritual senses? The testimony of the material or physical senses is not reliable. It tells us that man is sick, or sinful, or dying; but that is not the way God, the only power and creator, expresses Himself. Man, the expression of God, is whole, perfect, and immortal. If we see man in any other light, we are being deceived. By purifying our thinking, rejecting the thoughts of evil and imperfection, holding to pure spiritual facts and knowing that man reflects the one perfect Mind, God, we destroy the false sense of existence. Man expresses God in goodness, love, wisdom, purity, and wholeness, and there is no opposite power to interface with this expression; the actual truth about anything cannot be reversed.

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