What shall we honor in our daily living? Shall it be the ever-changing, unreliable, and false testimony of the physical senses? Or shall it be divine Mind, the one unchanging and changeless Principle? This is a decision that is continually being forced upon us, and upon that decision depends the nature of our experience, whether it shall be the reality and satisfaction of divine Mind or the unreal pains and pleasures, the enigmatical experiences of the so-called human mind.

On page 118 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" Mary Baker Eddy says, "In all mortal forms of thought, dust is dignified as the natural status of men and things, and modes of material motion are honored with the name of laws." Shall we honor dust and its formations with the name of man, and so-called material forces with the name of law? That "form of thought" called a physical body is never the medium through which God expresses man, nor is it the medium through which man understands God. Mind could never express itself in anything less than its own nature, its own vital, intelligent, beauty-forming ideas, The ideas of Mind are the substance of man, and it is through those ideas that God is under-stood and made known. Man is not found in the transiency of mortal beliefs and their formations, but in the eternality of spiritual ideas which honor and are honored by Mind. Man is never asleep in the Adam-dream, or dust creation, but is ever in keen awareness of his true being.

The fact must perpetually be recognized that there is but one Mind and this one Mind alone is to be honored, to be identified, and to be given power and presence. Identification is error's greatest flatterer, so let us be sure that we are not flattering anyone by attributing to him a mind of his own apart from God. Let no one flatter himself that he has a mind of his own with which to judge and condemn another; through which he can either suffer or enjoy. Do not distinguish another by according to him a mind that can be conceited, deceitful, dictatorial, jealous, dishonest, unjust, ungenerous, immoral, or afflictive; a mind through which he can experience or cause others to experience either good or evil; a mind that can either bless or curse.

It cannot be repeated too often: there is but one Mind; Mind altogether good, which is expressing all, governing all, conditioning all that really exists. As we thus find all in God we find good in all, and honoring Mind we honor man, who is the ever-present expression of Mind and worthy of all honor.

As we refuse to honor dust as "the natural status of men," we shall refuse to honor the "modes of material motion" with the name of law. We shall refuse to honor the blind, relentless, and lawless seeming forces of matter with power. We shall honor Mind as the only law, lawgiver, and law-enforcer. Mind is intelligence and omnipotence. Mind is Love, and its beneficent laws in their harmonious, immutable action are uninterruptedly governing man and the universe. Spiritual understanding of this truth alone can annihilate the beliefs of time and space, dimensional limitations, and dispel the mythical power of the carnal mind and its phenomena. Each one may claim for himself this spiritual law of identity and find in Mind the immediate substance and full blessedness of his true being.

On page 483 of Science and Health Mrs. Eddy, speaking of the opposition Christian Science has received from "ordinary scientific schools," says, "But if any system honors God, it ought to receive aid, not opposition, from all thinking persons." She adds, "And Christian Science does honor God as no other theory honors Him, and it does this in the way of His appointing, by doing many wonderful works through the divine name and nature." This, then, is the test of honoring God—doing the works that attest to His nature of Love and intelligence, that witness to His ever-presence and power. It was in this way that Christ Jesus honored and glorified the Father.

When, as reported in the eighth chapter of John, he was declaring the truth about God and the eternality of Life, and the Jews accused him of having a devil, he replied, "I have not a devil; but I honour my Father." Later, when the Jews again accused him of making himself greater than Abraham and inquired, "Whom makest thou thyself?" Jesus answered, "If I honour myself, my honour is nothing: it is my Father that honoureth me." Here is voiced the perfect at-one-ment of God and man: Mind honoring and being honored in its own divine ideas. Here is the Christ, Truth, which takes away the ignorance, the diseases, and the sins of the world.

On page 143 of Science and Health we read: "If Mind was first chronologically, is first potentially, and must be first eternally, then give to Mind the glory, honor, dominion, and power everlastingly due its holy name." In proportion as Christian Scientists thus individually honor Mind, proving its power to dispel the simulated forces and mythical claims of matter, or mortal mind, will the new heaven and new earth prophesied in Revelation appear, that city foursquare—into which nothing can enter that "defileth,... or maketh a lie." "And the gates of it shall not be shut at all by day: for there shall be no night there."

Margaret Morrison