THOUGHT is as infinite as Mind itself, and its characteristics are boundless. From its pure source, the divine intelligence, or God, it emanates as the likeness of infinity, for it is variety itself. Another way of expressing this likeness of infinity is of course to call it the image and likeness of Spirit, so that it is spiritual man. It follows that to man belongs a nature and characteristics so varied that it requires eternity to unfold them.

The significance of thought and its predominance in real life plainly permeates the Bible, where many of its qualities are delineated in figurative language that is of the utmost incisiveness in its appeal to the discernment of him who studies it. To grasp the metaphysical meaning of the figures used by the writers enhances spiritual understanding. Mary Baker Eddy in her chapter on Genesis in ''Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures'' has shown the deep scientific import of that chapter. Quoting the verses telling of the fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven, and of the great whales and again of the winged fowl she writes on page 511, ''The fowls, which fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven, correspond to aspirations soaring beyond and above corporeality to the understanding of the incorporeal and divine Principle, Love;'' and on page 514 she says, ''In the figurative transmission from the divine thought to the human, diligence, promptness, and perseverance are likened to 'the cattle upon a thousand hills.'"

Turning to unlimited, immeasurable consciousness or Mind for deliverance from mortal falsities, the individual may by pure understanding ascend above material sense. These falsities may be in the form of sin or sickness or of the vaster warring attempt of suppositional evil to engulf the world and its spiritual advancement in chaos. This ascending may be only as the feeble nestling flies, barely able to remain above the earth, or it may be as the great eagle, rising with mighty power out of sight of the earth and beyond the clouds themselves, thus symbolizing thought so ascendant that it may be designated as having the ''wings of a great eagle.'' So it is that when John the Revelator writes of the woman, or spiritual idea, protected forever from the would-be assaults of evil, he says, ''And to the woman fly into the wilderness, into her place, where she is nourished for a time, and times, and half a time, from the face of the serpent.''

And it is by means of this same ascending thought, this deep metaphysical understanding which the phrase, the ''wings of a great eagle'' so trenchantly typifies, that a person will be able to surmount assertive mortality and conquer all illusion. It is the metaphysical system that is Christian Science that has established the means in this world whereby all may ''fly above the earth'' of material uselessness and mortal mists, and come to know the release that springs from spiritual wisdom. The result of spiritual wisdom is always progress upward, for the spiritual and the material cannot dwell together. The wings of scientific knowledge enable us to mount supreme over sin and disease and all the evidence of the untrue, deadened sense called material living. Mrs. Eddy writes in ''Miscellaneous Writings'' (p. 86), ''What mortals hear, see, feel, taste, smell, constitutes their present earth and heaven: but we must grow out of even this pleasing thraldom, and find wings to reach the glory of supersensible Life; then we shall soar above, as the bird in the clear ether of the blue temporal sky.''

The little child who lisps that God is good is rising above the earth of material beliefs which assert there is a power that can harm. He has caught sight, even though slightly, of the pure truth of good, the pure ascendant thought which is the bird of Mind's creating. The understanding with which the child utters this truth measures the spiritual height to which it will attain, a height not measured or limited by the years of its life. Likewise, any individual giving up the least bit of faith in material things is ascending by so much into the realm of spiritual reality. Multitudes are going higher in their yearning for comforting Mind. Immortal Spirit or Soul is, in its very essence, all-pervading, and consequently that which is the expression of Soul or God is all-permeating. This expression is the activity of Mind, or Mind's boundless idea which is ministering to the world unceasingly and increasingly. It is wholly metaphysical and so is coming to men unannounced by material trumpets, although its manifesting brings continually higher experience among mortals. It is human thought that is being brought to nought, for the understanding of the divine thought that is the expression of Mind demands that humanity shall continually emerge out of the fogs, the mistaken views of God and man. Thus in the fullness of time there shall appear what is actually now alone present, the image of God, Mind's one reflection, wholly immortal.

The tares and the wheat seem to grow together, but the tares of materiality are burned while the wheat of spirituality remains forever as the rich harvest, the unfoldment of Mind. So does the Bible metaphor typify both good and evil thoughts, for in dealing with the two cities in Revelation, the city of pure gold, with streets of pure gold, clear as crystal, and the great city which is Babylon, he writes that ''Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and is become the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird.'' Evil thought claims to fly about even as do the angels, the pure emanations of Mind, but unclean and hateful birds are eternally caged in nothingness, since pure thought is infinite and active in the only Mind there is.

The eagle associates not with the vulture, but routs it, and, mentally as well as physically, ''birds of a feather flock together.'' But the utter extinction of all falsely claiming thought is as certain as that one Mind exists, and it is in Revelation again that we read the history of that extinction:

''There was war in heaven: Michael and his angel fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels, and prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven. And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world; he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.''

Men must learn to characterize their own thoughts and strive for those qualities which the Bible in its metaphorical language has shown to be good. Thought possessing such qualities is spiritual power by which the demonstration of Christian Science is achieved. This demonstration wipes out all evil. And these words of Mrs. Eddy's we may read in ''Miscellaneous Writings'' (p. 356): ''The seed of Christian Science, which when sown was 'the least of all seeds,' has sprung up, borne fruit, and the birds of the air, the uplifted desires of the human heart, have lodged in its branches. Now let my faithful students carry the fruit of this tree into the rock-ribbed nests of the raven's callow brood.''