We occasionally hear how a masterpiece has been discovered under another painting. Perhaps someone has picked up a "find" at an auction or in an attic. Is there a hidden image under the grime and film? Usually, if a double picture is suspected, restoring it is left to the skilled hands of an expert.

In Christian Science, from the standpoint of perfect God and perfect man, we work with pictures (mental ones), always striving to conform them to the original—God's likeness. Indeed, restoration work is a must if we would go forward Spiritward. The pictures we work to correct are what each of us holds in thought and finds translated into daily experience: images of ourselves, our families, friends, associates; our homes, churches, activities, careers, government, and so on. A gallery of pictures!

Most likely many of them need at least a good scrubbing, if not radical scraping or restoring. If this sounds like work, it is. Rewarding work. Because the final result can be wonderful! Once our mental pictures are burnished and something of the divine likeness uncovered, our personal relationships and activities take on new glow and vitality.

Christ Jesus, the master Christian, understood that spiritual restoration can be instantaneous. His spiritual understanding penetrated the encrusted beliefs of fear, disease, despair, death, to reveal the untouched original picture and bring it forth in an individual's experience. This original is the true man created by a loving Parent, our Father-Mother God, in His divine image. The original is what appeared to Jesus, not a leper, a cripple, an epileptic, a blind man, a lifeless child, a prostitute, a dead friend, a maniac, or a hemorrhaging woman. These illusions of misery Jesus recognized as merely accumulated coats of tenacious false theory which, like a superimposed painting, would obscure the immortal delineation or real man.

The Master's thought was pure, uncluttered by human doctrines. He dislodged apparent encrustations of error so effectively that healing was almost always immediate. He remained unimpressed by the testimony of the physical picture. He could set this aside and behold the pure spiritual creation, whole, harmonious, eternal.

Recognizing this capability of the Master, Mrs. Eddy writes in the textbook of Christian Science: "Jesus beheld in Science the perfect man, who appeared to him where sinning mortal man appears to mortals. In this perfect man the Saviour saw God's own likeness, and this correct view of man healed the sick." ^{Science and Health, pp. 476-477;}

Jesus, by his exemplary teaching and healing works, was the Way-shower. But his healing methods were lost sight of for many centuries. Approximately one hundred years ago Mrs. Eddy discovered the Science of Christ, Truth, and put it to practical use. She healed in this age, following the same mode of healing Jesus so perfectly illustrated in his. Through her explicit writings any sincere student may gain a clearer understanding of the Bible teachings and learn to behold "in Science the perfect man." This beholding includes finding the correct image or aspect of any situation or "picture" held up to us as we go about our daily living.

If the picture seems to say, "I am sick, and there's nothing you can do about it because it is hereditary," we need to unsee the false belief of heredity. Declaring God to be the only parent, who creates nothing unlike Himself, and knowing this, we remove the surface accumulation of medical theories and uncover a clearer view of perfect being. This is healing!

If the picture is a threatening jumble of inharmony, want, or despair, we can dispose of that layer of untruth. We can rejoice in the true picture of the harmonious universe: man moving in loving accord with all God's creation, free, joyous, because God made him so and keeps him so.

Is the picture one of loneliness, insecurity, emptiness? Again that coat of falsity needs to be removed. "God setteth the solitary in families" ^{Ps. 68:6;} could be the title of the revealed underpainting—God's children, all of us, filled with His unfailing love, never beyond His encircling arm, secure in His care—one vast brotherhood.

In another instance, the argument might arise that if the real man is eternal and indestructible and not in this temporary housing called body anyway, why bother with it? Why not leave the picture unrestored? This subtle but pernicious suggestion must be seen as just another obscuring caricature splashed on the real image. Mrs. Eddy handles this one, too: "Neither the Old nor the New Testament furnishes reasons or examples for the destruction of the human body, but for its restoration to life and health as the scientific proof of 'God with us.'" ^{The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, p. 218;}

When still a new student of Christian Science, I was confronted with a challenge at my place of business. A frequent customer was so unpleasant that everyone dreaded waiting on her. One day this woman was seen to be approaching in time for all employees to quickly disappear on various "errands." I, too, was tempted to run. But that morning before work I had read about the real, spiritual man in the Bible Lesson. ^{in the Christian Science Quarterly.} Pondering the deeper meanings, I had glimpsed this man as the eternal, Godlike selfhood of each of us, perfect in Christ.

As the woman stomped into the store, glaring about her, I stood my ground. Confronting her squarely, I silently told myself: "I can behold only the Christ." The woman stopped, apparently surprised, then broke into a radiant smile. She spoke pleasantly, later thanking me for my help in making the purchase. An easy, friendly relationship persisted whenever she returned to the store.

It makes no difference what the fallacious picture seems to be. The names of human ills and problems are as legion today as in Jesus' time. In his day they were called devils (see Luke 8:30). But Science teaches that there is but one devil or evil—the opposite of All or God, namely, nothing.

A symbol used to designate "nothing" is a zero. We could cover a surface with a trillion zeros. But the sum total of them all would still be nothing. In like manner we can call our ailments by multitudinous names, but they all boil down to variations on the old theme of one evil, nothing, or zero—false scribblings which, if accepted as true, would deface or obscure the true picture.

The original likeness of God's creating is always present within our consciousness if we will first wipe away whatever seems to be defacing it. When we clear away the debris of human misconceptions, scrape off the false painting, we behold "in Science the perfect man." And healing must always result, because we have restored the original masterpiece.