Article January 14, 1967 Issue

Correct Identification

GENE I. W. STRINGER

If a student of Christian Science wishes to progress in his understanding, it is essential that he watch his thoughts and see that he is never mesmerized by the belief that man is a mortal, subject to chance and change. All the false thinking regarding man and his origin has never made man mortal. Mrs. Eddy tells us: "The facts of divine Science should be admitted,—although the evidence as to these facts is not supported by evil, by matter, or by material sense,—because the evidence that God and man coexist is fully sustained by spiritual sense. Man is, and forever has been, God's reflection."^{Science and Health, p. 471;}

Man, made in the image and likeness of God, is not and never has been a mortal. Man is a spiritual idea, immortal, wholly perfect, and always harmonious, governed by changeless Principle, God; therefore man is never subject to sin, sickness, or death.

It is only when we are wrongly identifying ourselves as mortals that we become mesmerized and believe that discord or sickness is true. Mrs. Eddy says, "Immortal man is the eternal idea of Truth, that cannot lapse into a mortal belief or error concerning himself and his origin: he cannot get out of the focal distance of infinity."^{Miscellaneous Writings, p. 79;} She adds in the same paragraph: "If the great cause is perfect, its effect is perfect also; and cause and effect in Science are immutable and immortal. A mortal who is sinning, sick, and dying, is not immortal man; and never was, and never can be, God's image and likeness, the true ideal of immortal man's divine Principle."