When Christ Jesus said (John 8:32), "Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free," he was indicating not only that there is a truth to know, but that there is an assurance of freedom from error by one's knowing that truth. He did not say that the healer will make us free, but that the truth will do so.

The truth, as Christian Science reveals it, includes such facts as these: that God is All; that He is absolute good; that He is supreme; and that man is spiritual, the likeness of God, inseparable from and governed by Him.

It is easier for one to declare these truths and to feel certain of their verity than it is to be confident that they will free him or his patient from any plaguing inharmony. But Mary Baker Eddy, who healed with great success, says in her Message to The Mother Church for 1901 (p. 2), "Absolute certainty in the practice of divine metaphysics constitutes its utility, since it has a divine and demonstrable Principle and rule—if some fall short of Truth, others will attain it, and these are they who will adhere to it."

The truth is always certain in its effects; it is only one's undeveloped consciousness of reality that makes one feel uncertain of the success of his metaphysical practice. This uncertainty is a weakness, which needs to be overcome. We undoubtedly experience what we believe, and if we entertain unbelief in the power of the truth to destroy error, we cannot expect our experience to rise higher than our unbelief.

The Master could practice divine metaphysics with absolute certainty because he understood so perfectly that omnipotent Truth and not the human personality accomplished the healing. He said (John 14:10), "The Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works." And he gave us several parables of persistence which show the necessity of steadfast adherence to Truth. When we follow Jesus' teachings, we are ready to cling faithfully to the truth and to refrain from admitting the least possibility of failure. If we forget that it is the truth which makes free, we drop into a personal sense of healing, and then uncertainty obstructs our efforts. We must take stock of the situation and recover our assurance that the power to heal is divine Love's, and Love can never fail.

Persistence is a vital element in the practicing of divine metaphysics with absolute certainty, and failure to persist is often the reason for lack of success. The healing we are seeking may be just around the corner, an inch ahead, in our very next declaration of the truth. So we dare not let down and wonder if the healing will ever come. When Mrs. Eddy, then Mrs. Patterson, was injured in a fall on the ice in 1866, her physician believed that her injury would be fatal. But Mrs. Eddy did not yield to such a negative belief.

A witness to Mrs. Eddy's assurance, a child at the time, wrote of the occasion many years later: "I can still see her as she lay on the couch. When we were leaving, I had gone into the hall when Mrs. Patterson said, 'When you come down the next time, I will be sitting up in the next room. I am going to walk in.' " (Historical Sketches by Clifford P. Smith, p. 58.)

Here is related a characteristic confidence in God which later grew to magnificent certainty in the practice of Christian Science. Our Leader's unfailing assurance of Truth's power, over a period of many years, is a comforting example of what certainty in the practice of Truth can accomplish. Her faith in divine power at the most critical moment of her experience opened the door of revelation, through which all mankind are destined eventually to enter the realm of Spirit.

We need to examine our state of mind when we are dealing with error in order to find out whether we are adhering to Truth with complete conviction that it will free us. The trick of animal magnetism, or suppositional evil mind, is to throw us off guard and distract us at the very moment when we are nearest to success. Mrs. Eddy gives us this warning in "Miscellaneous Writings" (pp. 280, 281): "The doors of animal magnetism open wide for the entrance of error, sometimes just at the moment when you are ready to enter on the fruition of your labors, and with laudable ambition are about to chant hymns of victory for triumphs." But persistence in the adherence to Truth prevents such a disaster from entering one's experience.

Truth, God, is always at hand, always filling all space. We are in the midst of divine omnipotence at all times, and omnipotence is sure of its own might. Our need is to become a transparency for reality, to let Truth shine through us and destroy the shadows of uncertainty in our thought. We have the full and final revelation of Christian Science, and we know what we are trusting—not personal power, but the ability of Truth to assert its light over the darkness of mortal belief.

Our practice of divine metaphysics increases in certainty when we see the unreality of the uncertainty which claims to use us and adhere steadfastly to the truth that makes free.

Helen Wood Bauman