WE learn in Christian Science that the sign of healing proves our understanding of Christian Science. This sign is possible in this age, as a result of Mrs. Eddy's great discovery of the spiritual laws underlying Jesus' mighty works. Mrs. Eddy used these laws and taught others to use them. Then she elucidated them in the Christian Science textbook, and gave it to the world, so that today all who will may learn to apply the lost art of Christian healing.

As the first gleam of spiritual, scientific light arouses thought, one can at that moment begin to prepare himself to obey Jesus' command, "Heal the sick." It is highly important and essential that the student should give this sign of healing, for not only does it restore health and vigor to others, but at the same time it is a proof to himself that to some extent he understands the Principle of Christian Science; and back of this sign lies the fundamental cause for all real joy.

At one time Jesus sent out seventy disciples. They returned, we read, with joy, saying, "Lord, even the devils are subject unto us through thy name." How natural it would seem that they should rejoice in such grand results! But Jesus lifted their thought from the outward result to the basic cause for joy. "Rejoice not," he said, "that the spirits are subject unto you; but rather rejoice, because your names are written in heaven." The healing was the proof, but the great goal or purpose of scientific healing was and is to demonstrate the truth that man is not material and mortal, but spiritual and immortal. In other words, Jesus was telling his disciples to rejoice in the spiritual facts of Truth rather than to center their joy on some improved phase of the Adam-dream.

Christian Science reveals that all real causation is in and of God, therefore altogether good and satisfying. The student who becomes really aware of this grand spiritual fact continually rises above the various phases of the Adam-dream. His great endeavor is to know man spiritually, to comprehend his nature as the son of God.

As thought dwells more continuously and naturally with the truth about God and man, spiritual joy increases, human experiences seem less important, and the Adam-dream appears lighter — less ponderous. This proves to the student that the mists of mortal thinking are growing thinner. The result of metaphysical work is not better mist, it is less mist; and this lessening will continue until, eventually, the student proves scientifically that there is no mist, no Adam-dream.

In her work "Retrospection and Introspection" Mrs. Eddy has written (p. 21): "It is well to know, dear reader, that our material, mortal history is but the record of dreams, not of man's real existence, and the dream has no place in the Science of being. It is 'as a tale that is told,' and 'as the shadow when it declineth.'" The mighty truths revealed in Mrs. Eddy's works awaken the dreamer. These truths arrest and disturb, and will finally destroy all mortal beliefs, whether chronic or acute. And every student now has the opportunity to prove the nothingness of each phase of the Adam-dream which presents itself for his acceptance.

There is nothing in the dream itself which can free mortals from its mesmerism, for the remedy is not in the dream; it could never be found in unreality. The remedy is God-given understanding, revealing Spirit as the only reality, and that man's name is written in heaven; in other words, that his nature is spiritual, therefore perfect and complete. As the understanding deepens, the student's desires and outlook change, and spiritual experiences in place of merely better dreams become his objective. The ascending thought enables him to look out from spiritual altitudes and catch new and grand views of spiritual formation. He is eagerly exploring a realm before unknown. Mrs. Eddy has called it "the land of Christian Science, where fetters fall and the rights of man are fully known and acknowledged" (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, pp. 226, 227). It is the all-satisfying kingdom of heaven of which Jesus spoke so frequently, the entirely spiritual realm which is sought and found individually, unknown to personal sense, but tangible and satisfying to spiritual sense.

Our textbooks, the Bible and Science and Health and Mrs. Eddy's other writings, naturally become our constant companions, and they are friends which never fail. Joy expands as the Christian Scientist gains clearer views of spiritual causation, and he daily seeks more time to be alone with God — a requirement to which our Leader so earnestly calls the attention of her followers.

John did not have "the first heaven and the first earth" and "a new heaven and a new earth" at the same moment. The unreal appeared real until he voluntarily let it go; then it vanished into its native nothingness, and "a new heaven and a new earth" flooded his consciousness. When mortals are willing to awaken out of any phase of the Adam-dream, at that point the spiritual fact, which has always been present, though unseen to clouded human thought, begins to appear in all its beauty and grandeur. There is never a vacuum in the order of scientific advancement, for to the awakening consciousness spiritual causation brings forth its own glorious phenomena.

The "signs following," of healing, assuredly appear when a student, working alone or with a practitioner, rejoices because his name is written in heaven, because he is seeing that the nature of man is entirely spiritual. In the article already quoted from (Retrospection and Introspection, p. 21) Mrs. Eddy writes, "The heavenly intent of earth's shadows is to chasten the affections, to rebuke human consciousness and turn it gladly from a material, false sense of life and happiness, to spiritual joy and true estimate of being."