The examples of life we see depicted in nature—where even under very adverse conditions the manifestations of life survive —may afford us a glimpse of the irresistible nature of the Life which is God. A tree growing out of a rock crevice, a flower surviving in a barren waste, or the first signs of new life pushing upward in the spring give evidence of the grand Principle which nature emulates. Mary Baker Eddy says: "Midst the falling leaves of old-time faiths, above the frozen crust of creed and dogma, the divine Mind-force, filling all space and having all power, upheaves the earth. In sacred solitude divine Science evolved nature as thought, and thought as things. This supreme potential Principle reigns in the realm of the real, and is 'God with us,' the I am." ^{Miscellaneous Writings, p. 331;}

As one comes to understand that Life ls God, Spirit, and that man is the expression of Life, the idea of Soul, he can grasp the persistence of individuality and realize that not one of God's ideas is ever destroyed. Christ Jesus demonstrated this truth in his resurrection and ascension. The same truth applies to each one of God's ideas.

While humanity largely depends upon the evidence of the material senses to cognize individuality, we are learning in Christian Science to look beyond matter to the spiritual qualities that make up the real man in the likeness of God. The substance of man's identity is not in matter or in material forms. Jesus must have been referring to this fact when he said, "Yet a little while, and the world seeth me no more; but ye see me: because I live, ye shall live also." ^{John 14:19:} As we recognize the eternal Christ as the true identity of Jesus, we shall come to know the individuality of man as indestructible and be able to demonstrate this fact progressively in our experience.

The presence of the Christ, the true idea of God, enables one to resist disease and to destroy it. It enables one to offset the dangers of human experience, to cancel sin through reformation, and to prove that man's substance is indestructible. And it will comfort those that mourn, for they will come to know that nothing has happened to man.

On Memorial Day, when we commemorate those who have given their human sense of existence for their country and for their ideals, it is comforting to know that not one single idea can be missing from the Science of being. Divine Principle is the Life and substance of all its ideas, and God enfolds them in His law.

Parents who have lost a son may be engulfed by the terrible waste of war. With all the love and effort involved in the rearing of children, to have them gone in a moment of fury is hard to bear. But Mrs. Eddy challenges the sense of loss. She says: "Love's labors are not lost. The five personal senses, that grasp neither the meaning nor the magnitude of self-abnegation, may lose sight thereof; but Science voices unselfish love, unfolds infinite good, leads on irresistible forces, and will finally show the fruits of Love." ^{Mis., p. 100;}

Every step in the recognition of the spiritual nature of man is a step in resurrection out of the belief of grief and loss. Through spiritual sense one begins to understand the persistence of individuality and the perfection of man as God's likeness. Those who have suffered loss may be encouraged to conquer this false sense through a better understanding of man's eternal nature. And those who do not have this problem may fortify their experience through present efforts to find the true identity of man as he exists in Spirit.

By putting off the old man, the material sense of man, and spiritualizing one's consciousness with the facts of divine Science, each of us may feel the certainty of the Life which is God. When we realize that the one Ego is Spirit, God, then we understand that Life is not temporal but eternal. It is ever expressing itself, and man is that expression. When Jesus was challenged as to his authority for doing the works that he did, he said, "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up." ^{John 2:19;} And in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" Mrs. Eddy has interpreted his words, "It is as if he had said: The I—the Life, substance, and intelligence of the universe—is not in matter to be destroyed." ^{Science and Health, p. 27;}

Divine Science is the Comforter, for it brings this demonstrable knowledge of man's present perfection. If we are not as yet at the point of resurrecting those that have passed on, we still are taking steps in this direction and finding that the proofs we can effect give evidence of the persistence of individuality. Every healing and regeneration brought about in Christian Science serves to indicate that man in God's likeness is eternal. These are the present indications of the Science of being, which when fully understood will nullify the claims of death and destruction. The Christ as the true selfhood of every individual is saying to us now, "I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world." ^{Matt. 28:20.}

William Milford Correll