One finds happiness, health, and security to the degree that he sees man as he really exists in God, divine consciousness, spiritual and perfect. Jesus discerned his true selfhood as one with God and hence flawless and complete. He saw spiritual health where mortal belief pictured disease, life where erroneous consciousness saw death, abundance where lack seemed real to false, human thinking, and pure being instead of a sinful mortal. It was this correct perception of real, immortal existence that enabled our Master to heal the sick and the sinning.

The Psalmist perceived the scientific rule of healing and thus voiced it (Ps. 37:37): "Mark the perfect man, and behold the upright: for the end of that man is peace." The word "end" as used here refers to result, not cessation. Christian Science teaches that the result of beholding perfect, upright, spiritual man is harmony, not discord; peace, not turmoil; health, not disease; life, not death.

In the contemplation of existence, or being, one must see man as he is in Spirit, spiritual. This perfect child of God is not burdened with a fleshly form. The absence of materiality does not detract from individuality. Rather does it reveal man as he really exists in the realm of God. In the true, celestial form, there is no phase of belief, no matter or mortality to which inharmony, sin, disease, or death can adhere. False beliefs, entirely fictional and outside the haven of real being, cannot attach themselves to spiritual man. The more this point of Christian Science is understood, the less one is susceptible to mortal errors.

After Jesus' resurrection, Mary, thinking he was dead, sought to locate his material body. In her moment of grief, she encountered the risen Saviour, but did not recognize him. "Whom seekest thou?" inquired Jesus with loving solicitude (John 20:15). Mary, he realized, was looking for a structural form; whereas she should have been seeking the Christ, the eternal spiritual manifestation of God. It was then revealed to her that here was the Lord, presenting another proof of eternal Life and an improved concept of identity.

We are all daily confronted with the same question, '"Whom seekest thou?" How shall the genuine Christian Scientist reply? Mary Baker Eddy answers the question on page 264 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures": "Mortals must look beyond fading, finite forms, if they would gain the true sense of things. Where shall the gaze rest but in the unsearchable realm of Mind?"

What is the nature of man, who dwells in the "realm of Mind"? Is he real? Yes, in fact he is the only man. He is real because he is spiritual and eternal. His existence never began, and it will never end. Is man alive? Indeed he is. He is alive forevermore. The fact that the real man is devoid of materiality does not nullify his existence.

To mortal consciousness, the fact of spiritual being is stranger than the fiction of physical existence. The facts of true being have been generally ignored. Nevertheless these spiritual facts are the only real truths. The fictional belief is that life is terminable; whereas life is in God, Mind, and never ceases. Man in Science is perpetually active, alive, conscious, wise, loving, useful, and substantial. These facts may be questioned or doubted by human belief, but they remain eternally true to spiritual understanding.

Perfection never appears in materiality. It is found only in spiritual man, whom God formed and made. The recognition that we are in reality constituted by God, Spirit, operates in human thought to eradicate the belief that we are flesh, blood, and bones. As false beliefs are silenced, we become acquainted with ourselves, with our true, spiritual substance, identity, and being. Mrs. Eddy declares in "Miscellaneous Writings" (p. 97), "To my sense, we have not seen all of man; he is more than personal sense can cognize, who is the image and likeness of the infinite."

We do not wait for a future day in which to evidence perpetual spiritual being. To the degree that we turn away from matter and mortal mind to Spirit, we are living that spiritual being today. The fiction of belief in a counterfeit man does not alter the fact of our true spiritual entity. The more we acknowledge and understand our real being to be in God, the less will the fable of material existence trouble us.

Mrs. Eddy beautifully points out (ibid., p. 330), "The alders bend over the streams to shake out their tresses in the water-mirrors; let mortals bow before the creator, and, looking through Love's transparency, behold man in God's own image and likeness, arranging in the beauty of holiness each budding thought."

We mark the perfect man as we look into the mirror of Love and see ourselves as inhabitants of the realm of Mind, as incorporeal, spiritual ideas of God. Let us then bow before our creator, God, and arrange each unfolding thought so that it harmonizes with God's presentation of perfect man. Our daily happiness, health, and security are measured by the manner in which we pattern the real, the good, and the true. So let us take note of perfect man and live in agreement with that spiritual exhibition of God's perfect being.

John J. Selover