The great Metaphysician, Christ Jesus, said (Matt. 23:9), "Call no man your father upon the earth: for one is your Father, which is in heaven." Steadfastly he maintained his unity with this Father in heaven. He refused to be identified with a background of mortality.

Throughout her writings Mary Baker Eddy, always the faithful follower of Christ Jesus, makes clear that man is eternally the reflection of God, the perfect offspring of the perfect Parent —Life, Truth, Love. She shows indisputably that all beliefs in a material creation are illusions. In her own practice of Christian Science she substantiated her statements that sin, disease, and death are unreal, destroying their claims by revealing the reality of health and life.

Human life follows a pattern of human belief. Sometimes this design outlines a happy life; sometimes an unhappy one. Many believe their lives have been made unhappy because of circumstances over which they have had no control, such as an inherited disease or evil tendency. These individuals are the victims of false beliefs about themselves and unwittingly follow a plan of the so-called carnal mind's outlining.

The course of Mrs. Eddy's life completely changed through the divine revelation to her of God's pattern of perfection for all His creation. She found sin, sickness, and death to be illusions, from which mankind needs to be awakened. She found a material sense of life to be a counterfeit of the divine. On the basis of perfect God and perfect man she established the religion of Christian Science. The Bible and Christ Jesus' teachings and practice were her authority.

Those who accept the carnal mind's outline are ignorant that freedom is their rightful heritage; that in their true identity and individuality they are the sons and daughters of God, made in His image and likeness. We read in the Bible that God declared (Gen. 1: 26), "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness." Many parents who formerly accepted as natural undesirable traits and characteristics in their children which they believed inherited have learned in Christian Science how to reject such erroneous beliefs. A study of the Bible and Mrs. Eddy's writings has shown them that God is the only Father and Mother of man, the only cause and creator; that His child, the perfect idea of Mind, has no mortal origin, no ancestral handicap, no damning inheritance of a mental, moral, or physical inadequacy.

People often say, "He looks exactly like his mother," or, "Oh, well, you know her father was like that." In "Miscellaneous Writings" Mrs. Eddy answers certain questions any human mother might ask, referring in her answers to the spiritual idea in Christian Science. She says (p. 167):

"Is he deformed?

"He is wholly symmetrical; the one altogether lovely.

"Is the babe a son, or daughter?

"Both son and daughter: even the compound idea of all that resembles God."

These quotations came to the writer's thought many years ago when her daughter was an infant. Seeing the child for the first time, friends sometimes exclaimed, "She looks like her father." At first the remark seemed quite natural and harmless. But when the writer examined it in the light of Christian Science, she recognized the forerunner of other observations along the line of family resemblances and inheritances that might not be so pleasing to her. She said to herself: Well, if you accept as true this particular belief of inheritance, which pleases you, you will also have to accept those which do not. What are you going to do about it? You must decide now.

She realized that she could not afford to accept any outlines of mortal mind's making, whether favorable or unfavorable. She resolved to be vigorous in her efforts to dematerialize her thinking about the child. She began by humbly praying: "Father, I know that the angel thoughts I need are available. Help me to see the divine idea, not as mine but as Thine, perfect, as Thy image and likeness."

At that time her daughter appeared to be losing control of the muscles of one eye. Relatives expressed great fear because a similar condition had resulted in a permanent eye deformity for another member of the family. The mother knew that this condition could be healed through Christian Science. She resisted the temptation to watch for a change in matter, aware that the malady was not basically physical, but a mortal mind pattern externalized. Going about her household tasks, daily she continued the dematerialization of her thinking. Vehemently she declared: "The selfhood of God's child is the exact likeness of our Father-Mother God. God's likeness is 'wholly symmetrical,' 'altogether lovely,' 'even the compound idea of all that resembles God.'" Persistently she held to the angel messages from Mind.

Frequently she turned to page 248 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," where Mrs. Eddy cautions against accepting mortal mind's model, which the world continually holds before us, and describes the consequences of accepting the false models in these words: "The result is that you are liable to follow those lower patterns, limit your life-work, and adopt into your experience the angular outline and deformity of matter models." Continuing, she indicates how these false mental pictures may be exchanged for Mind's perfect pattern. "To remedy this," she says, "we must first turn our gaze in the right direction, and then walk that way. We must form perfect models in thought and look at them continually, or we shall never carve them out in grand and noble lives."

For eighteen months the writer clung to the absolute facts of being. Great was the joy of all concerned at the end of that time to note a complete healing. Mortal mind's pattern had been proved a fallacy.

Those who are willing to climb the heights of Mind obtain a clear view of man as possessing a glorious heritage, imaging forth the divine pattern; as loved and beloved of his Father-Mother God. He will recognize the truth of Mrs. Eddy's words in "Retrospection and Introspection" (p. 22), "The real man is not of the dust, nor is he ever created through the flesh; for his father and mother are the one Spirit, and his brethren are all the children of one parent, the eternal good."