Article March 14, 1953 Issue

DON'T LET THE PICTURE FOOL YOU

[Of Special Interest to Young People]

EDITH FELD

A Student of Christian Science was working earnestly one day to heal an inflamed, swollen, and painful condition in her foot. She pondered the truth that man is the image and likeness of God, as the Bible states in the first chapter of Genesis. Then she asked herself why she should seem to be manifesting these un-Godlike qualities. The answer came as she realized that since her true selfhood was spiritual she was not in reality manifesting them, but that error was simply trying to present a picture to her to this effect. She reasoned that if someone were commissioned to paint a portrait of her and he painted her arm twice its normal size or her foot a bright red, she would not accept it as a true likeness. She certainly would not continue to look at it.

This reasoning made her see that she should not accept a picture of herself as a mortal with a distorted foot, which certainly did not represent her true selfhood as God's incorporeal image and likeness. Continuing her work, she gained a clearer view of her real selfhood, and within a very short time the erroneous picture disappeared and she was healed.

The real and only creation is described in the first chapter of Genesis. In "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" Mary Baker Eddy gives a clear explanation of this chapter (pp. 501–557). On page 521 she makes this statement: "The Science and truth of the divine creation have been presented in the verses already considered, and now the opposite error, a material view of creation, is to be set forth." Regarding the latter, she writes (p. 523), "Although presenting the exact opposite of Truth, the lie claims to be truth." Obscured by the mist that went up from the earth, as described in the second chapter of Genesis, error claims to paint its false pictures of God, man, and the universe. If it is able to find a client for its picture of God, it is easier to present its erroneous pictures of man and of the universe.

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