To those uninstructed in Christian Science the healing of physical disease by spiritual power may seem to be a matter of mystery and miracle, the supernatural act of an inscrutable God. But an understanding of Christian Science shows this healing to be the logical, natural, and effectual working of divine Principle, the Principle, or Spirit, which Christ Jesus recognized as God. and to which he attributed all-presence and power.

To understand spiritual healing as the natural operation of law, existence must be recognized as spiritually mental, and the struggle that seems to be going on to establish health must be seen to be in the materially mental realm of false concepts and their pseudo laws. The human mind seeks to establish and maintain these laws wholly apart from God's spiritual law of perfection. All sickness and disease, inharmony and discord, all that seems to need healing, stems from the false belief of a creation and selfhood existing as material substance apart from Spirit, God, the true source of existence. All evil is in the nature of supposition and seems to exist in the mythical realm of what is called matter, the realm of human belief.

On page 495 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" Mary Baker Eddy gives a simple and lucid explanation of spiritually mental healing. She says: "Then classify sickness and error as our Master did, when he spoke of the sick, 'whom Satan hath bound,' and find a sovereign antidote for error in the life-giving power of Truth acting on human belief, a power which opens the prison doors to such as are bound, and sets the captive free physically and morally."

The so-called human mind assigns to its suppositional organic body the impossible task of performing the functions of Mind. It idolatrously demands that its body give sight to man. hearing to man, strength, intelligence, life itself to man. Under this impossible demand of mortal mind the body—in the realm of supposition—seems to succumb to weariness, disease, impaired faculties, and disintegration. The impossibility of this suppositional activity is made plain on page 478 of Science and Health, where we read. "Matter cannot perform the functions of Mind." Even as Christ Jesus declared, "It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing."

For example, in the Adamic dream of life in matter the human mind, so called, demands that its man see through material organs, optic nerves, muscles, and so on. It declares that sight may be impaired, dimmed, or destroyed, and its man may become the victim of this self-imposed belief. But the great eternal fact is that in the realm of reality, of true creation, sight is a spiritual faculty expressed by man through the reflection of Spirit, his divine source.

This sight is eternal. It has always existed in perfection and always will so exist, undimmed, unimpaired, uninterrupted by the human belief of material organism. The power of this life-giving Truth acting on human belief is a law of healing and is the natural law of Principle. It is the light of divine Mind dispelling the miasma of physical sense.

In the light of spiritual understanding it is seen that material sight, however clear and distinct, cannot help one to perceive and understand God, Spirit. Material hearing, however keen and sound, cannot help one to hear and understand the Word of Truth. Neither can the seeming impairment of these faculties hinder one from growing spiritually, from seeing the Christ, Truth, and hearing the Word of God.

Only Mind can enable one to see and know the loveliness, the strength, and the power of Mind. Only Spirit can enable one to see the purity and immortality of Spirit, Life. Depending upon Mind rather than upon suppositional optical organs, one sees with the strength, fearlessness, and beauty of Mind. Nothing can interfere with or destroy the spiritual senses of man. This is indeed the truth whose life-giving power acts on human belief and sets free the captives of sense.

What is true of sight is true of hearing and of every faculty and function of man. Man exists in perfect safety as the expression of eternal, indestructible Mind or Soul. This spiritual fact is a law to the material lie, a freedom bestowing law which no suppositional power can oppose or reverse. This is true individually as well as universally, and this blessed light of Love is ever present in individual consciousness to show to each his heritage of eternal good, his indestructible faculties, his immortal life. Jesus had a perfect understanding of this life-giving power of Truth and so could say, "Destroy this temple [body], and in three days I will raise it up."

The sovereign antidote then for every error is to look away from the suppositional realm of the senses to ever-present, life-giving Truth, to the spiritual fact of which the dream would suggest reversal. The ever-present law of Love's abundance, infinite goodness is the life-giving Truth which awakens from the dream of poverty and lack, of loneliness and lovelessness, of any claim of evil to existence.

Again on pages 260 and 261 of Science and Health we find a clear statement of this life-giving Truth. We read: "If we look to the body for pleasure, we find pain; for Life, we find death; for Truth, we find error; for Spirit, we find its opposite, matter. Now reverse this action. Look away from the body into Truth and Love, the Principle of all happiness, harmony, and immortality. Hold thought stead fastly to the enduring, the good, and the true, and you will bring these into your experience proportionably to their occupancy of your thoughts."

Margaret Morrison