Christian Science is the absolute truth about God and His spiritual creation, and because it is absolute it makes no concessions to matter. To the one struggling with illness it says, "You are not really ill, for man is ever perfect, abiding not in a disease-ridden material body but in the realm of Spirit, and expressing the health, vigor, and wholeness bestowed upon him by his heavenly Father." To the sinner it says: "Declare your freedom in the name of Almighty God. Realize that you are constantly bearing witness to right desire, satisfaction, completeness, and purity, for God sees you only thus, without any taint of materiality." To the weary and disheartened it says: "Look up! Every moment of the day God is loving and caring for you, and you can never stray from His beneficent presence."

The world's thought, alias mortal mind with its long history of darkness, chaos, and disillusionment, would have us believe that any refutation of the testimony of the material senses to sin, sickness, and discouragement with all their attendant ills is fantastic and without reason. But the same senses testify that the earth is flat, that the sky and water meet at the horizon, and that the earth is stationary and the sun in motion. Do we accept this testimony as true? Certainly not, for we accept without reservation the findings of physical science relative to these matters. Let us be just as definite in rejecting material sense testimony relative to health, happiness, and harmony, and in accepting the testimony of spiritual sense about man and his perfection as taught in Christian Science.

In the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," Mary Baker Eddy says (p. 120): "Science reverses the false testimony of the physical senses, and by this reversal mortals arrive at the fundamental facts of being. Then the question inevitably arises: Is a man sick if the material senses indicate that he is in good health? No! for matter can make no conditions for man. And is he well if the senses say he is sick? Yes, he is well in Science in which health is normal and disease is abnormal. Health is not a condition of matter, but of Mind; nor can the material senses bear reliable testimony on the subject of health." These words are provable; they express the law of divine Principle that man, as God's likeness, is untouched by any material condition.

Is this not the law which Jesus applied when he raised from the dead Jairus' daughter? To the people weeping and mourning, fully convinced by the mortal testimony that the child was dead, he said (Mark 5:39), "Why make ye this ado, and weep? the damsel is not dead, but sleepeth." Jesus would not accede to the evidence of matter which claimed that the girl's life was dependent on organism, structure, or the functions which now had apparently ceased to act. Instead, seeing man as created, governed, and conditioned by God, always expressing the irresistible activity and continuity of Life, he took her by the hand, saying, "Damsel, I say unto thee, arise, and "straightway the damsel arose, and walked." What of the doubt, the darkness, the mental resistance to Truth, which had "laughed him to scorn"? How it must have faded away into nothingness, as it must always do before the irradiance of Truth!

An understanding of the healing law of Principle gives one the ability to reverse sense testimony just as surely today as in Jesus' time. While the writer was removing a zippered snow suit from her baby daughter one winter day, the zipper inadvertently became caught in the child's throat, and efforts to release it resulted in an ugly-looking wound. Mortal mind argued that the condition was alarming, but it was immediately realized that here was an opportunity to prove that "matter can make no conditions for man," and that the mortal senses cannot "bear reliable testimony on the subject of health."

Accordingly, the distressing picture was emphatically reversed with the clear realization that God's child can never be touched by accident, can never suffer pain or infection, can never be disfigured in any way. God was seeing, as always, His perfect reflection, unharmed and unblemished; therefore, what the senses were presenting was without reality or foundation and certainly need not be accepted as true. The healing effects of these declarations of truth were immediately apparent. Within a very few minutes complete harmony was restored, and with the exception of a slight red mark on the skin, which quickly disappeared, the throat was perfectly normal.

Often error comes to us in more subtle, less obvious forms, perhaps alleging that our neighbor is unkind, hateful, dishonest, or that a friend is inconsiderate, overbearing, disloyal. It then tempts us to indulge in self-righteous condemnation, or to turn away with self-justified hurt feelings. We would not condemn or feel hurt if the error manifested were some physical disability; so why should we do so if it is a manifestation of unlovely character, which is no more the individual than is sickness or disease.

Under such circumstances we must be firm in refuting false sense testimony, and see, instead of one who is the butt of error's attack, man as he is seen of his Father-Mother God, continuously expressing love, generosity, kindness, humility, and other Godlike qualities. As we resist suggestions to the contrary, and maintain that the material senses cannot bear reliable testimony regarding man, we shall establish within our own consciousness an abiding sense of that love which is the reflection of divine Love, and which ever maintains its poise, serenity, and joy. Those around us will necessarily respond in like manner, illustrating the truth of our beloved Leader's statement (No and Yes, p. 7), "By the love of God we can cancel error in our own hearts, and blot it out of others."

Mrs. Eddy gives us a goal toward which to work when she says (Science and Health, p. 249), "Let us accept Science, relinquish all theories based on sense-testimony, give up imperfect models and illusive ideals; and so let us have one God, one Mind, and that one perfect, producing His own models of excellence."