Joy comes into one's thought as one learns through Christian Science that man and the universe are not composed of formations of matter but of spiritual ideas. As one accepts the fact that Spirit, God, is substance, he sees the mortal beliefs of change, discord, and limitation as fables. He is then alert to deny these false beliefs whenever they come to his attention. He sees that the true sense of substance must be held steadfastly in thought in order that one may demonstrate the unchanging, harmonious nature of man.

True substance is forever beautiful, perfect, blissful. There is no substance that can break, decay, or be injured, for substance is eternal Spirit. There is no substance that can be sick, for substance is all-harmonious Life. There is no substance that can be impaired or grow old, for substance is unchanging, ever-active, incorporeal, immutable Soul.

Through the understanding of substance as ever blissful, students of Christian Science have overcome beliefs of discomfort and pain; through the realization that man is the reflection of Spirit, immutable substance, they have been protected in accidents and have overcome fear of accidents; through the understanding of the eternal nature of substance as God, divine Life, they have overcome beliefs of sickness and have gained a sense of health as the eternal fact.

One's body is only the manifestation of thought; so discordant conditions in the body will change to more concordant ones when thought is filled with truth, just as a frown disappears from one's face when his thought is changed from unpleasant to pleasant thinking. If the body is inharmonious, one's need is to turn away from matter and evil to the true nature of man as the reflection of the loving, beautiful, blissful, all-perfect Mind, God.

The spiritual consciousness of good, of harmony, heals and reconstructs the human body. Mary Baker Eddy says of this fact in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 425): "Consciousness constructs a better body when faith in matter has been conquered. Correct material belief by spiritual understanding, and Spirit will form you anew."

A student of Christian Science who was in pain because of a decayed tooth asked a Christian Science practitioner for help. He talked to her of the unchanging nature of substance and of spiritual man, her real selfhood, the reflection of joyous, eternal Mind, the substance of the infinite, spiritual universe. He told her that since man is made up of eternal ideas, everything about man is forever intact.

He asked her to study references from Mrs. Eddy's writings which explain the true nature of substance and of man, the reflection of perfect Life, God. As they worked together, the pain ceased, and soon she forgot about the tooth. Sometime later, as she was brushing her teeth, she noticed the tooth and saw that it was sound, intact, whole.

Nothing about spiritual man can change. He is forever intact, for he is truly substantial. Limitation and change take place in the experience of mortal man, who believes he is composed of frail, perishable matter. This Adam-dream that life, substance, and intelligence are material is dispelled by Christ, the spiritual idea of God. Through constant turning to the spiritual idea of being, we rise above mortal mind's concept of man and "walk in newness of life" (Rom. 6:4).

Eternal newness—unchanging sight and hearing, glorious vigor and vitality, unlimited strength, perfect intelligence and ability, perpetual freshness and fairness— belongs to the truly substantial man. This real man knows no morning or evening of life, but is ever in the eternal noon of being.

Mrs. Eddy writes of man's unchanging perfection (Unity of Good, pp. 42, 43), "Truth, defiant of error or matter, is Science, dispelling a false sense and leading man into the true sense of selfhood and Godhood; wherein the mortal does not develop the immortal, nor the material the spiritual, but wherein true manhood and womanhood go forth in the radiance of eternal being and its perfections, unchanged and unchangeable."

Christ Jesus, through his understanding of the unchanging, blissful, harmonious nature of substance, healed sickness and restored the deformed and maimed to the sense of activity and wholeness. He destroyed the belief of blindness and deafness through his understanding of the real senses as being not material but spiritual, as being true consciousness. To the man with the withered hand he said (Matt. 12: 13), "Stretch forth thine hand," and we read that "it was restored whole, like as the other." Jesus saw not material formations, but spiritual man including only perfect ideas.

Substance is not something inert, although this is the sense the word "substance" brings to some. They think of matter as substance and have never thought of substance as applying to Spirit, Mind, Life. Since substance is Life, we can think of activity in connection with substance.

One thought of activity in connection with substance that has come to some is that of the seeming activity of decay and deterioration. But Life is substance; so instead of there being an activity which is causing decay or deterioration, the only activity going on is the activity of Life, forever maintaining everything in a perfect spiritual state.

Christ Jesus, who understood that which is truly substantial, said to those who hated the truth (John 2:19), "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up." Of the materialists who misunderstood this statement, Mrs. Eddy writes (Science and Health, p. 314): "To such materialists, the real man seemed a spectre, unseen and unfamiliar, and the body, which they laid in a sepulchre, seemed to be substance. This materialism lost sight of the true Jesus; but the faithful Mary saw him, and he presented to her, more than ever before, the true idea of Life and substance."