Article March 20, 1948 Issue

THE WORK OF SPIRITUAL REHABILITATION

HARRIETTE MELDRIM LAKE

After stealing the birthright which belonged lawfully to his brother Esau, Jacob suffered from guilt and fear of retaliation. His mental struggle, objectified as a wrestling match with error, resulted in his demonstration over the material senses through the understanding of the power of Spirit. This understanding healed his false concept of selfhood, whereupon his name, or nature, was changed. Later, when he saw his brother, he was able to say (Gen. 33:10), "I have seen thy face, as though I had seen the face of God, and thou wast pleased with me." Healing always accompanies the turning of one's thought from a material to a spiritual basis. When we see the face of our brother as though we "had seen the face of God," we unsee the lie that man is a sinning mortal and see instead the truth that man in God's image and likeness is spiritual and perfect.

Jesus practiced divine, spiritual knowing constantly, and his clear vision resulted in healing for all those who sought help from him. In her textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," Mary Baker Eddy explains Jesus' method. "Jesus beheld in Science the perfect man," she says (pp. 476, 477), "who appeared to him where sinning mortal man appears to mortals. In this perfect man the Saviour saw God's own likeness, and this correct view of man healed the sick."

As Mrs. Eddy indicates, Jesus did not accept the testimony of the senses as real. He did not identify with man the false beliefs with which sense testimony was claiming to engulf others. Instead, he realized the spiritual truth about man. And what is this truth? Simply the fact that God makes man in His own image and likeness; that therefore man is perfect because God is perfect. It is obvious that perfection and imperfection cannot exist at the same place any more than light and darkness or truth and error can coexist. Since the truth about man is that he is spiritual and perfect, man cannot be sick, sinful, or discordant.

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