Article June 21, 1947 Issue

"Perfection is normal"

HELEN C. HERRING

"According to Christian Science, perfection is normal,—not miraculous." This challenging statement is made by Mary Baker Eddy on page 104 of "Miscellaneous Writings." She adds, "Clothed, and in its right Mind, man's individuality is sinless, deathless, harmonious, eternal."

This is the fact regarding the real man, God's spiritual image and likeness, the true selfhood of you and of me. Despite the testimony of mortal sense regarding the material counterfeit, man is harmonious and joyous, unburdened and free. He feels neither superior nor inferior to his neighbor; nor does he hate or fear him, for man is ever one with God, governed by love and understanding. Perfection, forever untouched by evil, is man's normal condition.

This is the man whom Christ Jesus, our Way-shower, saw when the mortal senses testified to a miserable, sickly sinner. His understanding of the real man was so clear that it helped those who came to him for healing to lay off some of their false beliefs and thus to express in greater degree man's spiritual selfhood. Mrs. Eddy says of the Master (ibid., p. 200), "Jesus regarded good as the normal state of man, and evil as the abnormal; holiness, life, and health as the better representatives of God than sin, disease, and death."

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