On page 301 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" its author, Mary Baker Eddy, says, "Few persons comprehend what Christian Science means by the word reflection;" and she devotes the following four or five pages to clarifying the meaning of that word as it is used in Science. Later on in the same book, on pages 515 and 516, she again takes up the subject, further clarifying it. There she tells us that in the mirror of divine Science we find the true reflection of Mind, which is man. In an exact knowledge of God we learn to know man in His image and likeness. "So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them."

We are accustomed to think of reflection as requiring a reflector, an element apart from the original on which the reflection is to be cast, and without which there would be no reflection. This may cause a sense of something between the original and its reflection, a medium which may cause a deflection, inexact portraiture, or distortion. When divine Science is accepted as our mirror, how truly mental both origin and reflection become, and how exactly the reflection must match the original in nature, substance, and activity! Having the true mirror of Science in which to gaze, we no longer seek to find man through the mirror of the physical or material senses, which can throw back only false, inexact, and distorted views of the creator and His creation, Mind and its idea, man, including the universe.

Christ Jesus presented to the world the perfection of reflection in his words and works. This was best expressed in his well-known declaration, "The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do: for what things soever he doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise." There is no sense of corporeality here; no belief that man of himself could create, do, or be something apart from the Father. On page 104 of "Miscellaneous Writings" Mrs. Eddy says, "In obedience to the divine nature, man's individuality reflects the divine law and order of being." God's law and order are omnipotent, never set aside so that man and the universe could in the minutest degree reflect anything unlike the perfection of the divine nature.

God is Life eternal, and is reflected in life, never deflected into its opposite, death; so man, the image of God, never experiences what is called death. Divine Love is reflected in its own quality of love, changeless and impartial, intelligent, universal. It is never distorted by mesmerism into unwisdom, sentimentality, partiality, lust, or changeableness. Because man is the reflection of Love he has never experienced and never can experience disappointment, disease, sickness, or pain. God, whose reflection he is, would first have had to suffer these things. Spirit, the substance of man, cannot be sick. The strength of man is the reflected strength of Spirit, never deflected by the falsifying mirror of the material senses into weakness, inability, brutality, or tyranny.

God's law being a law of abundance, man, the expression of that law, has never experienced and never can experience poverty or limitation. It is only through the deflecting mirror of the physical senses that there seem to be shadowed forth such falsities. Because man is the reflection of divine intelligence he never lacks ability, wisdom, or direction, and never experiences frustration or failure.

Truth is reflected in its own immutability, never distorted by human opinion, false material hypothesis, or personal interest. Man, reflecting this truth, is free indeed, never experiencing slavery to evil, to dishonesty or corruption. The peace of man and the universe must reflect in its divine nature the peace of Spirit, and remain untouched in its tranquillity, no matter how shattered may be the picture shown in the mirror of the senses.

No good can be claimed as a personal possession. The attempt thus to claim it limits its power and distorts its likeness, and as a result we have the unreliable and untrue illusions of the senses rather than the clear, factual beauty and power of Mind and its ideas. St. Paul said in his first letter to the Corinthians: "For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known." This expresses clearly our growth into an understanding of what "Christian Science means by the word reflection."

There is but one true mirror, and the reflection in this mirror is immutably true to the original. As one realizes this truth of reflection he no longer finds himself in the mist of the human mind, trying to obtain good by thinking about it, but he has the purified consciousness which is a reflection of the divine Mind, infinite good, God. He does not "hold a good thought" about himself or others, hoping thereby to bring to pass some material benefit. He knows the spiritual truth, and substantially reflects the desired good as ever present and ever possessed by man. He finds that his good is never behind him in the past, nor before him in the future, but is just as present as his own consciousness. Man has never been outside the heaven of his divine origin. His life is the reflection of the infinite goodness of Life divine. On page 4 of "Pulpit and Press" our Leader admonishes us, "Reflect this Life, and with it cometh the full power of being."

Margaret Morrison