Spiritual values, quite apart from matter, have long been recognized. But the concept of man as wholly spiritual, and in no wise material, though set forth in the Scriptures, has remained to be emphasized, and its scientific import understood, through Christian Science.

One of the most radical and important statements made by Mary Baker Eddy is her definition of man beginning on page 475 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures." The first sentence thus challenges the generally accepted concept of man as matter: "Man is not matter; he is not made up of brain, blood, bones, and other material elements." Not a single material cell, not a drop of material blood, not an atom of bone is in the individuality of man.

The definition then declares, with Bible authority, that man is the image and likeness of God; that matter cannot be that likeness, for God is Spirit, and the likeness of Spirit must be like Spirit. "Man is spiritual and perfect." Mrs. Eddy states further. "Man is idea, the image, of Love; he is not physique." God's man then, has no organic, structural, or cellular construction, is not definable within the three material dimensions of length, breadth, and height, nor is he characterized by material weight or mass.

What is meant, then, when we say man is spiritual, not material? The answer is found in the degree thought grasps the allness of divine Mind, embracing its manifestation. The material and the spiritual concepts of man cannot occupy one's thought at the same time. Intelligence, Mind, God, is primal. It has no antecedent. Its consequent, or effect, must be of its own nature, quality, and substance. Logic and reason thus point to the inescapable spiritual nature of man, the effect of Mind, Spirit, intelligence, as the idea of God. There is nothing else for man to be.

But the meaning of man as spiritual is found in the discernment, through spiritual sense, of his spiritual, God-evidencing qualities. Why do we value a friend? Because we love his qualities. Why is Lincoln so beloved? Not because of his physique, but because of his qualities.

So we love God, the Mind, Life, and substance of man, because of His qualities. They are His essence. We find our health, happiness, and spiritual manhood in Him as we love and live the goodness, the loveliness, justice, wisdom, purity, and mercy which are the qualities with which God clothes and characterizes us. Says Mrs. Eddy, "God's preparations for the sick are potions of His own qualities" (Miscellaneous Writings, p. 268). As we love and live spiritual qualities, they heal, happify, and spiritualize us. They unite consciousness or being with their source, the Mind that is their substance and our substance, their Life and our God. It was the self-surrender of the Magdalen, the humility of the publican, the unselfed love of the Samaritan that made Jesus commend them as witnesses of God and exponents, in some degree, of the spiritual nature of man. The Psalmist points thought to the spiritual qualities of being when he says, "Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, my strength, and my redeemer."

If we do not yet see fully what our spiritual manhood and identity is, that is no reason for discouragement. We shall see it in the exact proportion we supplant material beliefs with spiritual qualities. The important thing is to rejoice that it is, and to remember that materiality and spirituality are mutually exclusive. The spiritual will appear as the material, through humble self-surrender and growth in spiritual understanding, disappears. Humility and sincerity join thought to Spirit and spirituality.

Humanly we are in a period of transition. Spiritual truth is appearing; the material fiction is lessening. As the Christ, the spiritual idea of God and man, holds sway in us, the material misconception of cause and effect gives way in us. The result of this more spiritual thinking is externalized in improved human bodies and lives, in less material and more spiritual thinking. Thus we take the first steps toward the ultimate demonstration of the full measure of spiritual manhood. The physical body must first be subjugated, made servient to Mind, before it finally gives way, in the ascension of one's thought, to man's purely spiritual, Godlike identity, more tangible, more understandable, more substantial than material physique has ever even seemed to be.

Every Christian Science treatment has, as its basis and source, God the one Mind, Spirit, and cause; and man, His perfect, spiritual expression and likeness. It is only because man is spiritual that immunity from sin sickness, and death can be claimed for him. It is only that which is spiritual, of the substance of Mind, God, that is impervious to the negative material forces that would tyrannize, afflict, and destroy. These forces can never contact Mind, God, nor can they find, attack, or condition spiritual man, forever in and of God.

Were man actually in matter, God's opposite, he could never escape from the vicissitudes of matter, material forces, and material laws. His godless, mortal span would be at their whim and mercy, and that is what mortals have believed.

Let us think consistently of man as spiritual, as God's idea, living by, for, and in God, infinite Love. Let us claim our godliness, our inherent goodness, wisdom, and immortality. Let us pray to be more consciously absent, in our thinking, from the mortal sense of body, and more continuously one with the ever-present, immortal Love that is our Life, and our God. Then, step by step, will belief in a false material self dissolve before the growing understanding of our God-expressing individuality, and our spiritual being, fetterless, fearless, and limitless, will increasingly appear.

Paul Stark Seeley