The very name "God" inspires reverence in the thoughts of most people, because to Him are properly ascribed all wisdom and all power. However, mankind often mistakes what constitutes the divine nature. Christ Jesus understood the divine nature, and his wonderful works proved the correctness of his understanding. He said (John 4:24), "God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth." Deity is Spirit, and we worship God aright only as we understand Him. Jesus' interpretation of God as Spirit and All made no allowance for any reality that is not spiritual and Godlike.

Jesus understood that the flesh and all things material are without reality, and he proved that all so-called material knowledge, laws, and forces are impotent before the power of Spirit. His followers were able to emulate his wonderful works as long as they held steadfastly to the spiritual truths he taught, and worshiped Spirit. But when apathy and the desire for a less exacting way of worship allowed ritual and creed to replace spiritual activity, then the truth of being was lost sight of and the wondrous proofs of God's power ceased to appear. When the crucifixion of Jesus occupied the thought of his professed followers more than did the vision of the Christ which he demonstrated to be man's true nature, matter blotted out Spirit in their concept of man's being, and spiritual understanding, with its glorious effects of the healing of sin, disease, and death, was lost to mankind.

In her search for that healing truth which our Master said would make us free (John 8:32) Mary Baker Eddy discovered the spiritual methods which Jesus and the early Christians used. Through "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" she gave this healing discovery to mankind, with the result that those who study her textbook and practice its instructions are able to heal themselves and others just as did the early followers of the Master. Like him, Mrs. Eddy recognized that God is infinite Spirit, divine Mind, and that matter, being the very opposite of Spirit, Mind, has no more substance than a false belief. She sets forth her conclusions about the nothingness of matter thus (ibid., p. 468): "There is no life, truth, intelligence, nor substance in matter. All is infinite Mind and its infinite manifestation, for God is All-in-all. Spirit is immortal Truth; matter is mortal error. Spirit is the real and eternal: matter is the unreal and temporal. Spirit is God, and man is His image and likeness. Therefore man is not material; he is spiritual."

Christ Jesus indicated the allness of Spirit and the nothingness of matter when he said (John 6:63), "It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing." Disregarding the so-called laws of hygiene and dietetics, he counseled (Matt. 6:25), "Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on."Yet mortals continue to spend much time looking after the material body in the belief that it is man. They treat it as a fickle god that must be appeased with lavish oblations lest through it evil befall them; they believe it to be self-acting, a lawmaker capable of inflicting discomfort and death upon those who ignorantly or willfully ignore its mandates.

To believe that life is dependent upon the body for harmony and continuity is ignorant idolatry, sacrilege against the omnipotence of Life, Spirit, and this belief holds us within the darkness of sin, suffering, and death. Mrs. Eddy writes of this idolatry of the carnal mind (Science and Health, p. 214): "We bow down to matter, and entertain finite thoughts of God like the pagan idolater. Mortals are inclined to fear and to obey what they consider a material body more than they do a spiritual God." Mankind today, no less than in the time of Moses and of Jesus, must cast down its idols of clay if it would attain and retain the blessing of health.

One who had suffered from an internal ailment over a long period of time had sought and employed medical help and then, when this method failed, turned to Christian Science. Several different practitioners of this Science gave him treatments, and while each treatment brought relief, still after a short time the trouble returned. Finally he asked a practitioner why he had not received his complete healing.

The practitioner requested that he study carefully and try to gain the full import of the first two commandments, as given in Deuteronomy 5:7—9 (to colon). He asked the patient if his body and ease in matter had not become an idol in thought, and if he was not seeking peace and happiness in the flesh instead of in Spirit, God. He pointed out to him that it would be as ridiculous for us to fear and bow down to nonintelligent clay, or matter in the form of a human body, as it would be for us to worship the soil under our feet.

The Master's interpretation of the First Commandment was called to the patient's attention (Matt. 22:37—38): "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment." He was asked whether he was being obedient to this demand, or nurturing his belief of life in a material body with its fluctuations of pain and pleasure and giving more respect and thought to this lying concept of identity than to the infinite and eternal Life which is God. He was also asked if he thought he could acknowledge another man than the one who is known to infinite Mind, and still give full allegiance of heart, soul, and mind to God, Truth.

The patient admitted that, God being infinite, man must be the likeness or reflection of the divine substance which the Master said is Spirit. A realization of the truth of this admission freed him from the dread of the ailment and the fear that it could ever return to torment him again. The healing was complete, and as its recipient looked back on the period of his suffering, he could see that he had made an idol of his material beliefs and fears, bowing before them and accepting them as something more than God.

Consulting the human body to learn one's prospects of life and happiness is like searching for light in darkness, for man, the image and likeness of the all enlightening divine Spirit, is never found in the darkness of ignorant matter. He is dependent upon nothing except Spirit, God, for his complete, harmonious being and can never be separated from that which he reflects.

God knows man as the image of His own perfection. Accepting this true concept of man. we can echo Jacob's words when he first saw his brother Esau in his true light (Gen. 33:10), "I have seen thy face, as though I had seen the face of God." Let us accept this man of God's creating as our only true being, and forsake our idols of clay for the incorporeal, spiritual individuality that God fashions in His own likeness.