Founded upon the Bible, Christian Science necessarily accepts the Scriptural definition of God as omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient, that is, as having all power, all presence, and all knowledge. But Science does more than simply recognize the accuracy of this idea of Deity; it awakens its students to the practical significance of that idea and teaches them how to make it operative in human problems.

As showing this, let us take the concept of God as all-knowing and see to what conclusions we are led, for Christian Science qualifies its advocates to comply with Peter's admonition, "Be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you."

For Deity to be all-knowing is for Deity to have all wisdom, knowledge, intelligence. What is the one short, everyday word which expresses all these? You at once answer, "Mind." And Mind is one of the names which Christian Science gives to God. Indeed, Mind is God. Since Mind is God, or God is Mind, and there is only one God, it follows that there is only one Mind, one consciousness; and God being good and limitless, that Mind and that consciousness must be good and limitless. Every individual is blessed with that Mind. There is no other. Pause for a moment to realize what this means for you.

Manifestly divine Mind cannot know or experience disease or any of the other supposed forms of evil. Therefore they are not in fact known or experienced, because there is no other mentality to evolve them or to entertain their false pretensions. Here is where Christian Science takes its high, and at the same time practical, position and avers that the ills of the flesh, and all else that makes for suffering and limitation, have no actual existence. Hence it is that the truth about God and man cures them one and all.

Confessedly, sickness and other falsities may appear real to the five deceptive senses, but we should not accept their testimony as final on vital issues. We should pronounce that righteous judgment which is rendered by spiritual understanding. So reasoning, we are driven to the conclusion that divine Mind cognizes only the harmonious and perfect, and does not cognize the imperfect, the discordant, the distressful. Hence you and I, the real you and I, spiritual and immortal, do not experience them. We cannot know anything unknown to infinite Mind. Denouncing them as unreal and affirming the presence of diseaseless life, we discover health and strength in their stead.

Often is reference made to mortal or human mind, which is at once the cause and the locale of supposititious disease and danger. But this mentality is not genuine. It is made up of unfounded fears and erroneous beliefs. "Christian Science," so writes its distinguished Discoverer and Founder, Mary Baker Eddy, "acts as an alterative, neutralizing error with Truth. It changes the secretions, expels humors, dissolves tumors, relaxes rigid muscles, restores carious bones to soundness. The effect of this Science is to stir the human mind to a change of base, on which it may yield to the harmony of the divine Mind" (Science andHealth with Key to the Scriptures, p. 162).

The divine Mind is no less than the presence of God. Never does it depart from man. It directs all the functions of his being, leaving no room for overaction or underaction. It directs the movements of men, hour by hour, as they learn to lean upon it. It imparts to them the intelligence requisite to meet situations as they arise.

An individual can cultivate the habit of turning to divine Mind and relying upon it not only in ordinary pursuits but in extraordinary feats supposed to involve danger. So thinking, the riveter may ply his trade safely on high buildings, the fireman work unconcernedly in subduing flames, and the soldier proceed to his objective fearlessly and without harm. "Fear not: for I am with thee," is the Biblical assurance.

Instructed by this Mind, one learns that he does not live by bread alone. Food shortages, climatic changes, unusual or prolonged exertions, privations of all sorts, do not exhaust or imperil him. Underneath, always, are the everlasting arms. Then, as our Leader exhorts: "Let us feel the divine energy of Spirit, bringing us into newness of life and recognizing no mortal nor materialpower as able to destroy. Let us rejoice that we are subject to the divine 'power that be.' Such is the true Science of being" (Science and Health, p. 249).

The reason for the hope which animates every Christian Scientist lies in his daily acknowledgment that he is spiritual and immortal. Only by accepting the mistaken notion that he is a material mortal does one expose himself to hazard, disease, restriction, weariness. The spiritual, and after all the only man, enjoys freedom and security. He is numbered with those of whom it is written in Isaiah: "They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint."

Peter V. Ross