The need for better and unfailing sight is met in Christian Science with the light and might of God, divine Truth and Love. The Apostle John discerned that "God is light, and in him is no darkness at all" (I John 1:5). Christian Science reveals that man, the image and likeness of God, Spirit, reflects divine Light. Hence man's power to see perfectly cannot really be lost or impaired.

Physical science considers light a form of material, radiant energy which, acting on the eye, gives it the sensation of sight. But such light is only a symbol of the irradiance of Spirit, or cloudless Truth.

Divine Mind, God, radiates the light which its ideas embody. Thus man, by reflection, possesses Mind's perfect vision of creation. Through prayerful study of Christian Science, we gain glimpses of these glorious facts, and we have better sight because we perceive and express more of Mind's intelligence and power.

The vitalizing energy of the light of Spirit is vastly greater than that of the sun, greater than all the billions of suns believed to be shining in a physical universe. Spiritual light is not here today and gone tonight or tomorrow. The radiant glow and tender warmth of divine Love do not wax and wane. Love does not cause darkness or evil. In the unbroken motion of its beneficent laws, Love neither blights nor blinds.

It is Soul, Spirit, that gives man the power to perceive reality, or spiritual things. It is immortal Mind, not matter, that radiates the intelligence and life which constitute man's health, ability, and vision. And because divine Mind knows no evil, it is impossible for man to experience imperfection, limitation, disease, or any of the variables of mortal existence.

Christian Science shows that sight and the other senses of man are spiritual, not material. Unlike the physical senses, which perceive only matter and are believed to be subject to injury, impairment, or loss, the spiritual senses of sight and hearing discern and reflect perfection and harmony and are eternal.

In "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," Mary Baker Eddy declares of these real senses (p. 215), "Nothing can hide from them the harmony of all things and the might and permanence of Truth." And a little farther on she adds: "Spiritual vision is not subordinate to geometric altitudes. Whatever is governed by God is never for an instant deprived of the light and might of intelligence and Life."

The permanency of spiritual light and sight has been proved to me in a degree in my own experience. For several years prior to my healing in Christian Science of a supposedly incurable physical condition, I found it necessary to confine my reading to the headlines of a newspaper. My eyes, like my body generally, seemed to lack the strength to function normally. But when I took up the study of this Science, I found that I could read Science and Health for hours at a time without distress or fatigue. Its presentation of the logic of Truth was inspiring and sustaining.

One day, as I sat up in bed reading this book, I was so uplifted by the facts of perfect God and perfect man that my room suddenly seemed filled with a very bright light. This light was not from any material source, but evidenced spiritual understanding, or the truth which Christ Jesus said would make men free.

Soon after this experience my health was completely restored, and in all the years since, I have enjoyed good sight. My vision has stood the test of strenuous use, such as proofreading on a daily newspaper and work with advertising copy and layout, in addition to much use of my eyes daily in studying Christian Science.

Long after my healing, I wondered why I had become receptive and responsive to the light of Truth at that particular time. Science and Health had been presented to me several years before I began its study. I asked myself, "What change took place in my thinking to make me willing to read it?" The answer was, "A greater sense of humility and unselfed love."

In the large hospital ward where I was seeking a cure, the man who occupied the bed next to mine had, for a long time and without any reason, singled me out as a target for criticism and ridicule. With hurt feelings and injured pride I resented the ordeal to which he continually subjected me.

Then one day suddenly, as if a new light of love had dawned on my consciousness, I felt sorry for him. My resentment and irritation disappeared. His remarks, always heard by several other people, no longer disturbed me in the least. He must have felt my compassion, for his attacks on me soon ceased. It was after this that I became interested in Christian Science.

Man, as Truth's idea, always discerns all that is real. Because Mind knows and sees all, man has complete and perfect vision in the consciousness which God bestows upon him. Divine Love never loses sight of man; hence man, Love's expression, never loses sight. We learn in Christian Science that seemingly dimmed or clouded vision is failure to see man—our brother and ourself—in the light of Truth as God's own reflection.