Christ Jesus placed seeing and hearing on a spiritual basis when he said to his disciples (Matt. 13:16, 17): "Blessed are your eyes, for they see: and your ears, for they hear. For verily I say unto you. That many prophets and righteous men have desired to see those things which ye see, and have not seen them; and to hear those things which ye hear, and have not heard them." The Master had roused the spiritual faculties of those he taught by knowing that man is God's perfect likeness and that he receives his powers from his immutable, divine Father.

Even humanly speaking, seeing and hearing call for mental energy. They derive their power to function and receive perceptions from mind rather than from matter. Mortal mind, not matter, sees and hears materially, and mortal mind is self-destructive; it wears out, and its faculties wear out with it. Mankind's refuge from the self-destructiveness of the carnal mind is to reject that mind as an impostor and to demonstrate the one Mind as the only Mind. Divine Mind is eternally self-existent and self-perpetuating, and its faculties, which man embodies, are sustained in a state of perfection forever.

Poor sight and hearing often involve conditions other than those of failing energies; but it is well to consider the truth of undiminished spiritual energy under any circumstance. Christian Science renews the energies which constitute human sight and hearing by providing clear glimpses of spiritual man, God's perfect likeness, who embodies the faculties of Mind in all their vigor and perpetual strength. Mary Baker Eddy says in "Miscellaneous Writings" (p. 330), "With each returning year, higher joys, holier aims, a purer peace and diviner energy, should freshen the fragrance of being."

Those with visual and aural troubles often entertain a sense of fatigue in regard to seeing and hearing. They attest to diminishing vigor—find themselves unable to exert the strength needed for seeing and hearing clearly. But Science shows that even human strength is not localized, but is a mental state. God imparts strength and vitality to thought; and the receptive human consciousness, feeling the influence of divine Mind's presence, is quickened and revived.

Paul understood the need of this revival of energy as a step out of the entire mortal sense of life. And he said (Rom. 8:11), "If the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you." To take full advantage of the quickening which Paul promises, one should realize that God is man's only source and that it is through the real man that Mind's faculties are manifested; hence the strength and indestructibility of man's spiritual senses. Real sight and hearing are spiritual abilities, which are included in each individual's identity. These faculties encompass all reality, perceive all truth, hear God speaking, discern His kingdom, express His will.

The only way to demonstrate the truth of man's faculties is to exercise those faculties. Mrs. Eddy says in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 487): "There is more Christianity in seeing and hearing spiritually than materially. There is more Science in the perpetual exercise of the Mind-faculties than in their loss. Lost they cannot be, while Mind remains. The apprehension of this gave sight to the blind and hearing to the deaf centuries ago, and it will repeat the wonder." When one realizes that Mind is forever exercising its faculties, which are individualized in man, he finds his human sense of sight and hearing spontaneously manifesting the power to remain vigorous and clear. Mind alone gives true sight and hearing their force and permanence, and our understanding of this fact demonstrates the perfect standard of perception in human experience.

In Science we learn that God is speaking always, but the din of human will and selfish demanding often prevents one from hearing His voice. The same errors prevent one from seeing what exists in divine reality. When spiritual energy quiets the mortal self, an improvement in sight and hearing is noticed. The moral blindness which makes individuals habitually entertain untrue concepts of others, which leads them to make no effort to perceive man as he exists in Truth or to listen to the voice of the Christ, is often externalized in poor sight and hearing. But the honest effort to exercise the Mind-faculties and to hear and see what God prepares for us has the effect of healing impaired faculties.

The Master was exercising the Mind-faculties, exerting spiritual energies, when he restored sight and hearing to many. The Christly touch stimulated and renewed lost vitality, and human thought responded to the divine. Through Science we can express Christliness, which demonstrates divine vigor. In "Miscellaneous Writings" Mrs. Eddy asks how healing is done in Christian Science, and she replies in part (pp. 96, 97), "It is Christ come to destroy the power of the flesh; it is Truth over error; that understood, gives man ability to rise above the evidence of the senses, take hold of the eternal energies of Truth, and destroy mortal discord with immortal harmony,— the grand verities of being."

Helen Wood Bauman