Only the exalted teaching of Mary Baker Eddy can satisfy mankind's longing for a religion based on proof rather than profession. This teaching declares that the spiritual ideal—the unity of God and man as taught in the Bible and exemplified by Jesus—is already an established fact. Referring to this fact, the Master said, "I and my Father are one." When practically understood in Christian Science, this spiritual ideal is revealed as the high objective of all true religious effort and is capable of meeting every human need.

Furthermore, it is not a new Bible which Christian Science presents, but the beloved King James Version of our forefathers, explained and spiritually illumined and so made practicable in healing sickness and destroying sin. Christian Science presents, instead of that which the world as a whole has believed to be more or less visionary and impractical, the applicability and availability of the power of God.

Although popular opinion is accustomed to look upon religion as incapable of enduring the test of scientific investigation and proof, the striking successes of Christian Science show that spiritual facts are more than the opinions of religiously-minded persons. Spiritual facts do not tremble before the prospect of scientific test. On the contrary, spiritual facts, viewed in the light of Christian Science, loom larger and more substantial according to the investigator's powers of reason and observation, and according to his freedom from antiquated religious preconceptions.

Unobtrusively, Christian Science calls upon the religious world to review and, if necessary, revise its beliefs about God, man, and the universe. It holds that absolute Truth has always called for clearer revelation and more exact statement. Why should everything else in human experience be expected to go forward, but religious belief to stand still? Should it not be possible for the truth of being to be better understood generally today than it was yesterday? Of course it should. Not material belief, but that which antedates such belief, namely, spiritual perfection, is the only sure premise from which to draw exact, scientific, demonstrable conclusions.

How unstable is the nature of physical science, alias the science of the physical world! Many of its former theories sound fantastic even to the physical scientists of our day. The atomic theory about the supposed composition of matter, for instance, was accepted generally for many years; but later on it gave way to the amended theory that matter in the final analysis was electronic force or energy. Now, however, as here and there in the past, some of the more enlightened physical scientists are admitting that matter is a concept of the human mind. With the progressive disappearing of this so-called mind in the light of the all-inclusive Mind which Christian Science reveals, even this latest theory will one day be consigned to the Valhalla of abandoned beliefs.

Meanwhile, reality remains intact, "the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever." It is as untouched and uninfluenced by the changing hypotheses and theories based upon sense testimony as the sun and moon are untouched and uninfluenced by the clouds that pass between them and the earth. It is the function of enlightened religion to lead mankind closer to the goal of changeless reality, to acquaint it with true being, and to expose the nothingness of any supposed existence apart from the spiritual and divine. Above all, in order to keep step with progress and survive, religion must be prepared to give satisfying answer to that all-important question, "What is God?"

In the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," Mrs. Eddy incisively answers this question as follows (p. 465): "God is incorporeal, divine, supreme, infinite Mind, Spirit, Soul, Principle, Life, Truth, Love." It may not be venturing too far to say that the happiness, health, and prosperity of mankind will depend more and more upon an understanding of God based upon the foregoing definition. Why? Because mortal existence is materially mental; hence, the physical and moral status of those who understand and apply Christian Science will inevitably improve under the same regimen that improves the thought. For the same reason, it will improve their homes and their businesses, their community and their country. Everything in the finite realm is individually mental, whether appearing to be subjective or objective, here or there. For this reason, all false concepts can be changed by turning from individual material belief to the indivisible spiritual nature of true being.

Therefore, spiritually to understand the basic unity which exists between God and man, divine Principle and divine idea, requires more than adherence to ecclesiastical creeds and dogmas. The moment one grasps through Christian Science the significance of God's allness and man's indivisible oneness with Him, one begins to understand life eternal; one begins to disbelieve and disprove whatever tends to impair and limit human health and happiness; one begins to be free from the baseless besetments of fear. "This is life eternal," said Jesus, "that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou has sent."

Unlike the teachings of false theology, Christian Science promises present salvation instead of present affliction and future salvation. It declares that if one were to be consistently aware of God's allness and man's indissoluble oneness with Him, eternal life would be a present experience and the illusion of death would lose its hold upon human consciousness. The wise man of Scripture must have had this truth in view when he wrote, "Understanding is a wellspring of life unto him that hath it."

Surely, mankind does not grumble when confronted by the need of correcting mistakes in numerical calculations! It recognizes that obedience to law is the only way to mathematical proficiency. Similarly, it should recognize the need of correcting the mistaken belief that man, the divine idea, is separated from divine Principle; it should recognize the unity of God and man as scientific truth to be demonstrated, instead of an arbitrary demand of a supposedly tyrannical God.

Because God, the changeless divine Principle, sees your true self and mine as perfect and immortal now, we should be cheerfully willing to do likewise if we would be uniformly happy and at peace. This is the effectual prayer of spiritual understanding which heals. This is the fervent prayer whereby spiritual power expresses itself through thought which is in accord with divine law. Obviously, one cannot see God and the real man by looking through the lens of matter and mortality.

In an unlighted room, we are not able to see others plainly, if at all. Consequently, in moving about in the darkness we may collide with them. Similarly, in order to avoid mental conflicts in the darkness of material belief, we need to awaken spiritually; we need spiritual enlightenment, in order to see man as the child of God, as the incorporeal offspring of Spirit, as the inorganic idea of divine Mind, instead of a sick, unhappy, discordant person.

Claiming man's present spiritual, indivisible oneness with God in the presence of what seems to be human divisibility and imperfection opens the way for divine law—the truth of being—to take possession of human consciousness and enlighten it, even as rolling up a window shade enables daylight to flood a darkened room. Paul writes, "Ye are all the children of light, and the children of the day: we are not of the night, nor of darkness."

According to this Science, indivisible man is not one of many mortals worshipfully trying to reach heaven in order to establish his oneness with the indivisible God. A mortal could never become the real man. Paul makes it plain that mortality is not saved, but "put off." Mrs. Eddy writes on pages 465 and 466 of Science and Health that "Principle and its idea is one, and this one is God, omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent Being, and His reflection is man and the universe." Man coexists with God as the spiritual ideal entirely independent of the so-called mortal mind and entirely independent of the appearing and disappearing of persons. In Science, man is now and always has been the full, complete, satisfied manifestation of God. Infinite Mind, aware of its own allness, manifests itself in the divine idea forever at one with its divine Principle, Love. Having never departed from Principle, the divine idea does not have to return to it.

When mankind understands the scientific unity of God and man, any mystery that may now seem to enshroud Christian Science healing will be dispelled; for the primary purpose of Christian Science practice is not to make bad persons good, sick persons well, unemployed persons employed, and so on, although that is the necessary and inevitable effect. The primary purpose of Christian Science practice is to spiritualize consciousness, to proclaim and demonstrate in human experience the allness and oneness of infinite Mind, and of man as Mind's infinite idea.

Writing on page 202 of Science and Health, Mrs. Eddy says, "The scientific unity which exists between God and man must be wrought out in life-practice, and God's will must be universally done." To attain this end is the high objective of all true religious effort.

Copyright, 1942, by The Christian Science Publishing Society, One, Norway Street, Boston, Massachusetts. Entered at Boston post office as second-class matter. Acceptance for mailing at a special rate of postage provided for in section 1103, Act of October 3, 1917, authorized on July 11, 1918. Published every Saturday.