It has ever been the hope of mankind to escape from the beliefs of the flesh and their attendant evils and disappointments. Mortal man, believing or hoping that the present material existence will have an end, and longing for a surcease from his trials and disappointments, looks forward to the time when he will enter upon what he is pleased to call eternal life, forgetting that whatever is eternal is without beginning and without end. He does not stop to consider that from the very nature of eternality, if we are to have eternal life at any time we must have it all the time, even at the present moment. Existence to be eternal at any particular time must be eternal at all times. There is no period at which we can begin such a state; it always has been. This being the case, one is just as near eternal life at the present time as he ever will be. It is ignorance which hides this fact from him, and the great task of mankind is to acquire the truth which will dispel this ignorance.

The Adam or fallen man came into existence, according to the allegory in Genesis, as the result of eating "the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil," for the sentence was, "In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." It is therefore this knowledge of good and evil, this belief of life and intelligence in matter, which constitutes the state of death in which the Adam-man still dwells. This state must have had its inception at the moment of disobedience, for does not the warning say "in the day" that they should eat (not at some time thereafter) was the punishment to follow the act, so that this state of belief in death was coincident with the act of acquiring the knowledge of good and evil, and is recognized as mortal or material existence,—a state which is dead to the consciousness of Life as the only reality. It is the working out from this mortal sense of existence which constitutes the resurrection.

That which makes life eternal is the spiritual fact that God is man's Life. As God is the only permanent Being there is, it follows that everything which is eternal must be included in Him. "All is infinite Mind and its infinite manifestation, for God is All-in-all," declares the "scientific statement of being" as given on page 468 of the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mrs. Eddy. The Master said, "This is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent." If the knowledge of God, who is Spirit, is life eternal, then the belief that we can know matter, the opposite of Spirit or God, must be the opposite of eternal life. The more thoroughly our thought is fixed on matter and the more thoroughly we believe in the reality and power of matter. in that proportion are we separating ourselves from God, from life eternal.

When do we know God, or when do we really know anything? It is perfectly evident that the truth is the only thing which is knowable, and truth is demonstrable. We know God only in so far as we have proved His power to heal and to save us. The attainment of a full knowledge of God is one of progression, as is all knowledge; therefore the attainment of eternal life is not something that can be accomplished merely by exchanging one state of existence for another,—by passing from one sphere of action to another sphere of action through the experience called death. The modus operandi is a mental one.

The transition called death is simply an event in this mortal material sense of life, and does not necessarily mark either the beginning or the end of any period of existence. As with any other event, however, there may be a measure of growth as the result of the experience which will lift thought to a higher plane of consciousness; but as far as human consciousness is concerned, it will flow along its material channel until all materiality disappears through spiritualization of thought. Then will death, or the material sense of things, be overcome, and we shall find ourselves in that state of consciousness called the kingdom of heaven, from which in reality we are never absent.

If human effort is to be devoted to the attainment of eternal life, which is the fulfillment of the command, "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect," then every experience which increases our knowledge of God is bringing us just that much nearer our goal, and every experience which deducts from or obscures our knowledge of God is preventing our approach to the goal, if not leading us away from it. The working out of our physical problems in Christian Science takes us farther than would at first appear. It includes much more than the healing of physical conditions. Every case of sin or sickness which is overcome through our knowledge of God, is to that extent acquainting us with eternal life, for the working out of the problem has produced in us a larger realization or knowledge of God. To the same extent has death been overcome, for consciousness has, in a degree, lost some of its materiality.

If this is true concerning the healing of sickness through a knowledge of God as taught in Christian Science, what must be the result of the so-called cures that are made through material means? Does not any seeming benefit from the physician's dose only serve to increase, at least for a time, our faith in the efficacy of matter to heal? Can we not reasonably say that such a result would increase our faith in something apart from God, and to that extent take us farther away from Him? Would it not fix more firmly in consciousness the belief in the power of death by shutting out from us the knowledge which is life eternal?

We are told that the time will come when all shall know God. Every departure from the straight path means that we must retrace our steps, and we read on page 407 of Science and Health that "every hour of delay makes the struggle more severe," for thought becomes more firmly fixed in the belief of the reality and power of matter. Much of our so-called knowledge is merely belief. Just as the world at one period said it knew that the earth was flat, or that the sun rose in the east and moved across the heavens to sink to rest in the west, with just as much authority does it say today that it "knows" the sick are healed by material means. It will learn that this so-called knowledge concerning healing is but an erroneous belief, and will also learn that its beliefs are taking it backward instead of forward, and so will hasten to change its methods.

Christ Jesus said, "I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly." He also said that he came to fulfill the law, to satisfy the demands for man's redemption, so that this saying of his must have had its incentive in a desire of mortal man for something he did not have. As the supply is equal to the demand, the way for the demonstration of this saying must have been provided. The way of salvation is the true method of working out our problems.

When a problem of sickness comes to the truth to be healed, we mentally survey it from every point, and then through Science and reason we become convinced of the spiritual fact concerning it. With this conviction as our armor, we take our stand to resist mentally all that is suggested by the physical senses, which claim that there is a sick man to heal. Then, "undisturbed amid the jarring testimony of the material senses" (Science and Health, p. 306), and having our "loins girt about with truth," also "taking the shield of faith," we fearlessly maintain our position until we see the evidence of the physical senses melt away, because spiritual sense has prevailed.