Man is made in the image and likeness of God. As we gain a clearer understanding of God and see that man really reflects all that is in and of the one glorious God, we are alert to attribute to man only what we attribute to God.

Early in my interest in Christian Science, I received a physical healing from the study of Science and Health by Mary Baker Eddy. I was beginning to prove that whatever I perceived of God could be claimed for man—for me—as God's reflection.

When first I glimpsed something of God as the perfect Mind, the Mind which is Spirit, Love, Soul, I rejoiced in the fact that in my real being I was that perfect man who reflects the qualities of perfect Mind. As I realized that Mind is Love, I found that it was my nature to express gentleness, affection, and other attributes of Love. As I thought of Mind as substance, Life, the Soul of all, it dawned upon me that everything is really mental; that man reflects Life, Soul, in perfect spiritual sight, perfect hearing, in vitality, strength, and energy. Everything that goes to make up well-being is an attribute of God.

While using an ax one day to do some work, I considered what Isaiah had written of God: "He giveth power to the faint; and to them that have no might he increaseth strength. .... They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint."¹ I thought of what waiting "upon the Lord" might mean—to realize that God is the Ego, the great I am, the only doer, and that God is ever made manifest through man; that vigor, vitality, ability, strength, energy, are really qualities of omnipotent Life made manifest.

Before this realization came, the ax had seemed heavy and the work arduous. But now the ax seemed light, and I worked with joy and freedom. I finished the work, and was not at all tired, for I had glimpsed that energy is divine, an attribute of Mind, Spirit.

In this statement from Science and Health, we see what divine attributes are: "Knowing that Soul and its attributes were forever manifested through man, the Master healed the sick, gave sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf, feet to the lame, thus bringing to light the scientific action of the divine Mind on human minds and bodies and giving a better understanding of Soul and salvation."²

As we think of Christ Jesus healing the sick through realizing that Soul and its attributes are manifested through man, we see that health is a divine attribute. Demonstrating that man is healthy is similar to demonstrating that he is loving. As we realize the nature of God as Love and of man as Love's reflection, we prove that gentleness, selflessness, kindness, and other attributes of Love are made manifest through man. These and other divine attributes are not personal, limited, and they are independent of matter. Similarly, all the characteristics that go to make up true health are attributes of Life. Thus, as we realize that God is Love, and is made manifest through man, we are aroused to express the attributes of Love, and so we may expect to realize that Life is perfect, complete, ever made manifest through man to be expressed in health, in a perfect sense of well-being.

Sight, hearing, strength—all true faculties and abilities—are divinely mental. Realizing this lifts our thought above mortal beliefs about man, above the belief that man lives in a frail, finite, sentient body.

We can think of the divine facts of being and man as comparable to the facts of mathematics and numbers. As we continually have the fact that 2x2=4, and can use it without exhausting it, so we continually have true sight, hearing, strength; they are divine facts, unchanging, always correct. We can use them without exhausting them, for they are divinely mental; they are attributes of Spirit, Life, involving no mortal beliefs.

We gain much understanding of divine attributes by studying these words of Mrs. Eddy's in Science and Health: "To grasp the reality and order of being in its Science, you must begin by reckoning God as the divine Principle of all that really is. Spirit, Life, Truth, Love, combine as one,—and are the Scriptural names for God. All substance, intelligence, wisdom, being, immortality, cause, and effect belong to God. These are His attributes, the eternal manifestations of the infinite divine Principle, Love."³