"The evidence of the physical senses often reverses the real Science of being, and so creates a reign of discord,—assigning seeming power to sin, sickness, and death; but the great facts of Life, rightly understood, defeat this triad of errors, contradict their false witnesses, and reveal the kingdom of heaven,—the actual reign of harmony on earth." Thus Mary Baker Eddy in the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 122), reveals to us the untrue nature of the evidence of the five physical senses. These five physical or material senses—hearing, seeing, smelling, tasting, and touching—are cognizant only of matter. They testify regarding themselves. They would constantly make us believe, and accept as true, their evidence of a material universe and material man. But Christian Science reveals the great facts that God, Spirit, is All, and that there is no matter; therefore matter, which material sense appears to cognize, and upon which its testimony is based, is unreal, nonexistent.

The great spiritual facts of being cannot be reversed. The false testimony of physical sense claims to have done so, but it is merely a seeming reversal which must be denied in order to arrive at the true facts. How is this done? By accepting and affirming the true evidence of spiritual sense and rejecting and denying the false evidence of unreal, material sense.

Spiritual sense testifies that God is good, infinite good, and the creator only of good. God is All, the only power and presence. He is Spirit, and Spirit is the only cause and the only substance. Man is the image and likeness of God, Spirit. He is God's reflection or expression, His manifestation, inseparable from Him. Man is spiritual, perfect, immortal; coexistent, coeternal, and copresent with God, Life, Soul, Principle. These are just a few of the facts from the testimony of spiritual sense—the true evidence.

Some years ago, while on holiday, I started off one sunny morning on a road that winds among the hills. The road gradually rises higher and higher to the brow of a hill whence a glorious view can be obtained. But after I had walked several miles, the sky gradually became darker and darker, and by the time I had reached the top of the hill everything was enveloped in thick mist. Almost at once heavy rain began to fall. I took shelter and, while waiting for the rain to pass over, wondered if there might be a lesson in this experience.

It came to me that a stranger to the district, someone unfamiliar with the geography of the place, would be completely deceived by the evidence of the mist. But I, with some knowledge of the countryside, was not deceived. I knew that the beautiful scenery lay beneath me. I then pondered on the first and second chapters of Genesis. The record of the spiritual creation states (Gen. 1:31), "And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good." But the second chapter (verse 6) records that "there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground."

What is a mist? One dictionary states it is "anything which obscures, blurs, or intercepts vision, physical or mental." Here we have the seeming cause of all the problems of mankind. The mist of error, mortal mind or physical sense, seems to obscure the vision of the "very good" creation of God.

When, after some time, the rain stopped and I came out from my shelter I saw that the mist had completely disappeared. There were the blue sky and the sunshine, and far beneath me, in all their beauty, lay the lochs and bens of the Trossachs, untouched and unaltered by the mist.

Many of us in our human lives seem to be surrounded by a mist of error—of sin or sickness or perhaps some other form of inharmony. But are we going to accept as true the evidence of the mist? Surely not!

A Christian Scientist met with an accident in which her arm was hurt. There had been no warning, and the pain was so severe that everything became dark around her and she began to lose consciousness. In this state it seemed almost as if she could not think or do anything to help herself. Then, just as clearly as if someone had spoken, came the words, "Declare that you are not hurt and understand the reason why."

These words were in the Lesson-Sermon for that week, and that morning she had studied the paragraph on page 397 of Science and Health in which they appear. The complete sentence is as follows: "Declare that you are not hurt and understand the reason why, and you will find the ensuing good effects to be in exact proportion to your disbelief in physics, and your fidelity to divine metaphysics, confidence in God as All, which the Scriptures declare Him to be."

What was "the reason why" she was unhurt? It was the fact that her true identity is God's spiritual child, dwelling under God's law in the kingdom of heaven, where no accidents occur. Grasping this truth in a measure, she could declare, "It never happened!" and, "I am not hurt!" The darkness and faintness disappeared, and she found that she could use her arm, from which the pain had all gone. She will always remember how grateful she was for the healing, because, as First Reader in a Christian Science church, she required the use of her arm at the desk. She had been healed by declaring the truth according to spiritual sense and by denying the false evidence of the physical senses—the false evidence of the mist.

To reject and dispel this false evidence, or mist, we must use our knowledge of Christian Science: the knowledge that there is but one creator, God, Spirit, and that He creates all; the knowledge that there is only one creation, the spiritual, wherein is no error, sin, sickness, or inharmony of any kind. Man created in the image and likeness of God is forever perfect, untouched and unaltered by the mist.