Everyone must realize that thought animates him. The body moves through mental action, and to produce health, that action must be harmonious, spontaneous, and constant. Inertia has no place in action, and when inertia appears in any organ or function of the body, it is evident that thought rather than flesh needs attention.

Christian Science shows us how to conquer mental inertia. In the first place, this Science reveals God as divine Mind and divine Mind as omniaction. It also reveals man as Mind's idea, as an individual, conscious emanation of Mind, perpetually animated by its source. For inertia to take place in Mind's forever active idea is an impossibility. So the student of Christian Science reasons that he needs to give up his belief in a mortal, or carnal, mind, the mind of the flesh, and look to divine Mind as the only Mind of man. To restore normal activity to the body, he must live the Christ, the true idea of sonship with God; his character must be pure, kindly, loving, under every circumstance.

Fear congests the body. Greed does the same thing. A deadened conscience blights a normal state of health. Sin throws everything out of kilter because it upsets the moral order that is normal and essential to well-being. Christ Jesus restored health by dispelling in definite measure the mortal sense that claims to have a place in the human mind, so called. He knew the connection between thought and its effects. He said, "Either make the tree good, and his fruit good; or else make the tree corrupt, and his fruit corrupt: for the tree is known by his fruit." ^{Matt. 12:33;}

Even to neglect faith in God and to keep thought mesmerically riveted on personal and selfish interests is to make oneself liable to the paralyzing influence of the carnal mind.

Giving up belief in a mortal self, which Christian Science makes a necessity, brings out in one the Mind-bestowed power to conquer inertias, moral, mental, and physical. In Pulpit and Press Mary Baker Eddy says of Jesus, "It was our Master's self-immolation, his life-giving love, healing both mind and body, that raised the deadened conscience, paralyzed by inactive faith, to a quickened sense of mortal's necessities,—and God's power and purpose to supply them." ^{Pul., p. 10;}

Divine Mind's animating energies are ever present to turn to when an organ, a function, a faculty, or a muscle becomes inactive. It is important to understand this, for it is a mark of true worship to reflect health as characteristic of Mind's likeness, which is the real self. We worship our Maker by demonstrating our unity with Him as the reflection of His vitality.

The very word "reflection" implies continuous action. It describes God's man as emanating from Mind in a state of unchanging perfection. The action of God's reflection is not subject to interruption or cessation. Mrs. Eddy says in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, "Mind is the source of all movement, and there is no inertia to retard or check its perpetual and harmonious action." ^{Science and Health, p. 283;}

Jesus proved this potent truth when he healed the man with the withered hand. The record reads: "He saith unto the man, Stretch forth thine hand. And he stretched it out: and his hand was restored whole as the other." ^{Mark 3:5.} The Master spoke with the authority of one who knew the omniaction of Deity and the constant obedience of man to his Maker.

It is interesting to note that Jesus accomplished this restoration of action regardless of the hostile resistance of onlookers. Today, materialistic onlookers may contribute the paralyzing influence of their unbelief to the problem of a patient. But this influence becomes ineffective when it is understood to be unreal, impersonal, and powerless in the light of God's allness.

It is refreshing and health-reviving to realize that divine Mind alone is the animating Principle of the individual, spiritual consciousness that is man. Mind animates the true sense of sight and hearing. It animates the true idea of body, which is distinct, spiritual identity. It animates moral and spiritual character, which distinguishes individualities.

When these truths are accepted and held to faithfully in the face of blindness, deafness, weakness, torpid action, paralysis, and other inertias that sometimes plague the human body, the truths prevail, and the illusions of mortal belief give up their misrepresentations.

The animating power of Mind extends to the whole human sense of self, physically, morally, and spiritually considered. Omniaction is omnipresence, and there is no room for inertia in the one omnipresent Mind. It is in Mind that man as idea lives and moves and has being.

Helen Wood Bauman