"Mortal mind and body are one." So writes Mary Baker Eddy in the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 177). Despite an unbelieving, prejudiced world our Leader with patient, unselfed, steadfast courage and love demonstrated with scientific accuracy the truth of this statement; and Christian Scientists, in the degree they understand her revelation, are demonstrating this spiritual verity.

Today the medical profession quite generally admits the close relationship between the human mind and body; that is, it sees the effect that thinking has on the body. Grief, discouragement, self-pity, anger, hatred, or fear, it agrees, weakens the human body, causing congestion or friction, whereas joyful, unselfed thinking relieves tension. Such sayings as "pale with anger," "paralyzed with fear," "sick with worry," are familiar to most of us. In Proverbs (17:22) we are told, "A merry heart doeth good like a medicine: but a broken spirit drieth the bones." And we are also told that as one "thinketh in his heart, so is he" (Prov. 23:7).

On page 210 of "The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany" Mrs. Eddy writes, "Beloved Christian Scientists, keep your minds so filled with Truth and Love, that sin, disease, and death cannot enter them." Farther on in the same paragraph she continues: "Good thoughts are an impervious armor; clad therewith you are completely shielded from the attacks of error of every sort. And not only yourselves are safe, but all whom your thoughts rest upon are thereby benefited." A woman whose only son was serving overseas in the air corps of his country discovered how important these truths are.

Worry and fear for her son's safety had so filled her heart that she had literally been "worried sick." And even worse than her illness, so she told a friend, was the thought that she had allowed her anxiety to creep into her letters to the boy, causing him to become unhappy. The friend, a Christian Scientist, also had a son in the air corps overseas. She told the other mother of her abiding faith in God's presence and power. "Wherever those boys are," she lovingly assured her, "there God, good, is. Could they possibly be in a safer place?" she asked. Then she quoted the wise proverb about a merry heart. The mother's whole attitude changed. Her letters changed. Her health began at once to correspond to her improved thinking. And a little later she declared joyously, "The whole world seems different."

A very simple case of emotional disturbance, one may say. It makes no difference what its name or nature, or how insurmountable a problem may seem to be, Christian Science reiterates Jesus' statement that nothing is impossible with God (Luke 18:27).

Is disease real? No. Jesus destroyed all manner of disease among the people, and so does Christian Science. If disease were real, this could not be done, for nothing that is real can ever be destroyed. Christian Science teaches that disease is the effect of the false belief in more than one God or power, in a cause or creator other than the one God, who is altogether good. Man is God's image and likeness, His reflection, the perfect, indestructible expression of this one perfect cause. Therefore he can never be separated from his perfect cause. Nothing, the Apostle Paul assures us (Rom. 8:38, 39), can separate man from God—neither height nor depth, nor things present nor things to come.

Mortal mind claims that man, God's handiwork, is not perfect. Is this true? No, but if we accept the belief that man is perfect at one time but imperfect at another, or that God inadequately maintains His creation, we are believing that God at certain times is less than perfect and omnipotent. God not only creates man perfect, but eternally maintains him in perfection.

Mortal mind also claims that man's life is intermittent and changeable. God changes not; therefore Life changes not, for Life is God. The Bible tells us that God is without variableness or shadow of turning. Life, or God, is eternal, ageless, diseaseless, everlasting, and infinitely good. This Life is man's Life, from which he can no more be separated than a sunbeam can be separated from the sun.

Disease then is a false belief, without foundation, cause, power, or reality. And because it is a belief, it can be destroyed now. Our need is to stand guard over our thinking, so that nothing unlike God, or good, enters consciousness. In Science and Health Mrs. Eddy counsels (p. 392): "Stand porter at the door of thought. Admitting only such conclusions as you wish realized in bodily, results, you will control yourself harmoniously."

Many centuries ago Marcus Aurelius, Roman emperor and philosopher, wrote, "The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts." Benjamin Franklin said practically the same thing: "The foundation of all virtue and happiness is thinking rightly." And a modern wise man has added that one's thoughts are his closest companions. Let us, then, choose our companions carefully. Let us identify ourselves with good, and with good only, making right thinking our continuous and most important daily work.

Our true identity or selfhood is not material, but spiritual. There is but one Mind, and man in reality has no intelligence, no life, no mind apart from that Mind which is God. The understanding and utilization of this great truth corrects false, fearful thinking and its inharmonious effects and reveals man in all the beauty and perfection of his being, the expression of the living God. The Bible reads (Prov. 12:28), "In the way of righteousness is life."