Article February 22, 1947 Issue

Let Us Realize Our Real Selfhood

[Original Article in French]

GASTON CHERRIÈRE

Since Christian Science is recognized by its adherents as above all human sciences, it is not too daring to think of it as being first of all the Science of man. In a widely read book published within recent years the author, a well-known modern scientist, discusses the subject "Man, the Unknown." What the scientific world confesses it does not yet comprehend, Christian Science, discovered by Mary Baker Eddy more than seventy years ago, reveals by lifting the veil which hides this "unknown" and making known to mortals the true nature of man, the real man of God's creating.

This Science has for its primary purpose the spiritualization of the human consciousness, the moral and physical regeneration of mankind, the improvement of the individual's health, character, and habits. This goal is attained progressively as we gain an exact knowledge, a correct concept, of the true man. We must, as the Scriptures say, "put off the old man" and "put on the new man" (Col. 3:9, 10). Of first importance every day to the Christian Scientist is the realization of true manhood. Whatever may be our way of life or our activity, we are almost constantly in contact with our fellow man. It is to him that our thoughts and words go out. He is often in the foreground of our thought. This emphasizes the importance of gaining a correct sense of what man is.

When the student has covered a certain distance along the road of scientific understanding and gained a clear vision of spiritual reality, he becomes aware that there exist primarily in the vast realm of thought only two things: God and man, or in other words, divine Spirit and its expression, man's true selfhood. Everything else is illusive and relative. Though it seems easy to conceive of God as Spirit and His nature as wholly spiritual, it seems much more difficult to realize that man is spiritual, because the spiritual concept of man is continually contradicted by the testimony of the five physical senses, which assert that man is a material being having material life, intelligence, and sensation. To combat effectively this hypnotic testimony of the senses, we must come to see clearly, under all circumstances, our real individuality, our true selfhood, perfect and immortal.

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