Christian Science makes clear the issues underlying the world's unrest; and the more clearly the Christian Scientist comprehends these issues, the greater will be his contribution to the peace of mankind. This Science shows that the conflict is between the belief that matter is the basis of life and mind and the revealed and demonstrable truth that God, the only Mind, is the source of man and of the spiritual universe. Mary Baker Eddy writes in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 268), "Belief in a material basis, from which may be deduced all rationality, is slowly yielding to the idea of a metaphysical basis, looking away from matter to Mind as the cause of every effect."

One's standpoint on this issue determines his theories of government and worship, his prospects of life, and his salvation from every limitation. Starting from matter as the cause of every effect, material rationality would discard God and have matter evolve mortals—advancing them from apehood to mortal manhood through processes of material law and self-determination. Such an evolution, not being subject to the control of Love, divine Principle, could culminate in nothing but godless effects of envy, immorality, destructive power, war, self-annihilation—all companions of matter.

But Christian Science, starting from God as the only source of effect, proves in practical ways that love, constructive good, brotherhood, harmony, and eternal life are the effects of Spirit and the facts of real being. Christian Science maintains that Mind, not matter, is the source of health; and it proves what it declares by healing countless cases and types of disease. It maintains that Spirit, not matter, is the fount of man's supply, and it proves this declaration by bringing freedom from poverty to those who treasure good as real substance and stop believing in the reality of matter.

Recognizing Soul, not matter, as the source of true sensation, Science proves its premise by quenching sinful demands for material sensations. It liberates men from the ruthless grasp of materialism and lifts them into the consciousness of God's realm, where life is rich in joy and eternally secure. The idealism of divine Science is practical because it results in an improved humanity. But its ultimate objective is to awaken the race from the deep sleep of sensual mortal existence to real life in God.

While the materialist believes that matter exists independently of the mind perceiving it, the Christian Scientist knows that matter is nothing more than sense perception, a false mode of thought. Mrs. Eddy says in Science and Health (p. 484): "The physical universe expresses the conscious and unconscious thoughts of mortals. Physical force and mortal mind are one." But Christian Science does not stop with this analysis. It goes on to declare that mortal mind and its conceptions are myths, delusions, and that the divine Mind and its concepts are the only reality; hence the correction of all poverty and discord rests upon a change of thought from a material basis to that of the allness of Spirit.

The Christian Scientist knows that man and the universe develop according to the action of divine law and that this law is the will of Love. He brings himself under the control of divine law by acting in obedience to Love, lending his thoughts to the unfoldment of Love's design, that the highest good may be accomplished. By demonstrating what he knows to be true he helps to undermine the false theory that everything starts from matter and develops according to material law, having no relation to the one central intelligence, divine Mind, or God.

The life of Christ Jesus, our Way-shower, was motivated by his willingness and desire to obey the will of God. He said (John 5:30), "I seek not mine own will, but the will of the Father which hath sent me;" and therein lay his success in setting aside material laws which are at variance with the Father's will. His conception of the universe was the kingdom of heaven, the effect of the action of divine law. He actually beheld man as God's image, and he did this by exercising spiritual sense in contradiction of the physical senses and their perceptions. He based his mighty conclusions of God's fatherhood and man's perfect sonship upon truths which he spiritually perceived, and it was to them he referred when he said (John 8:32), "Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free."

Mrs. Eddy says (Science and Health p. 273): "There is no material truth. The physical senses can take no cognizance of God and spiritual Truth." And in the following paragraph she says: "Divine Science reverses the false testimony of the material senses, and thus tears away the foundations of error. Hence the enmity between Science and the senses, and the impossibility of attaining perfect understanding till the errors of sense are eliminated." This brings one to the conclusion that what appears as a world struggle is fundamentally the conflict between Science and the senses. Science declaring that all begins with Mind, and the physical senses declaring that all begins with matter will contend until the suppositional struggle is won by Truth's destroying error.

No power can withstand the self-assertion of Truth. Sooner could the dawn be checked than the resistless advance of Spirit in its self-revelation, its self-explanation to so-called human consciousness. There is cause for joy and gratitude that material hypotheses are on their way out, that the belief of life and intelligence in matter is being exposed by God's Science for the delusion it is, and that mankind is learning that all reality starts from God, divine Mind, and is inseparable from Him.

Helen Wood Bauman