Article March 15, 1947 Issue

The Perfect Alibi

MARY PRIDE MC LAREN

In the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," its author, Mary Baker Eddy, gives, in what has come to be known as the trial scene (pp. 430—442), a keen and penetrating expose of mortal mind's machinations, and shows the way for individual release from their suggested penalty through the admission of true testimony. Herein she indicates how even the procedure and terminology of human law, rightly interpreted, provide for the defense of mankind against its one enemy, supposititious evil.

In legal hearings an alibi signifies an important plea for the defendant; it is, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, "the plea of having been elsewhere at the time when any alleged act took place." In what way may establishing an alibi help us in the practice of Christian Science? It is the plea to be put forward each time a lying claim that man is composed of matter, "of the earth, earthy," or dwells in and dies out of matter, is presented for our acceptance. And what is our alibi to the open or whispered accusations of mortal mind? The fact that man is a compound idea or embodiment of the incorporeal ideas of the divine Mind and dwells forever in this eternal Mind, not in matter.

The first chapter of Genesis provides the correct account of the conception of man, and upon this account one must base his plea that when the alleged act of living in matter or dwelling in matter was supposed to have taken place he was elsewhere, dwelling in the bosom of the Father, Spirit, in whom there is no matter. Our Father is Life; therefore His children are not tainted with any element of death or destruction. Matter and materiality must cease their false claim that they condition, surround, or destroy man.

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