In "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" Mary Baker Eddy writes (p. 58), "Home is the dearest spot on earth, and it should be the centre, though not the boundary, of the affections."

Everywhere today the question of home is an acute one. People are forced to leave one locality or country to live in another, only to find that the shortage of houses is world-wide. Yet Jesus, our Way-shower, said (John 14:2), "In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you." One definition of "mansion" is "an abiding-place." Since man is the reflection of God, and a reflection must be where the original is, man has an abiding place now in the Father's house, in the consciousness of Love. Therefore, home cannot be localized. There never has been a break in the realm of divine Love. Thus man has never left his home to wander in far countries in search of a better place; he has always been in the Father's house.

Sometimes those who have spent years in traveling, or who have done a lot of moving about, decide that they are going to settle down. There is only one true and satisfying way to settle down or become established and that is to become established in the knowledge of our true relationship with the Father, in whom "we live, and move, and have our being" (Acts 17:28). The one who occupies a house is usually referred to as an "occupier." A dictionary defines "occupier" as "one who takes ... possession." We, like the prodigal son, may have wandered into a far country, but that is only in the illusive material realm. In reality man dwells forever in the divine Mind, or Spirit. Christian Science enables us now to take possession of, or occupy, our spiritual home, or consciousness of our at-one-ment with the Father, our mansion in His house, our place in the realm of divine Love, and to feel safe and secure from all the lies of the carnal mind.

There are many beautiful passages in the Bible about the house of the Lord and many promises of God's care for His children. One such promise is in II Samuel and reads (7:10), "I will appoint a place for my people Israel, and will plant them, that they may dwell in a place of their own, and move no more." What an assurance of God's care, this provision of a place of its own for each one of His ideas! As each number has its own place and its own particular function, so man, the spiritual idea, has his place in Mind, his own individuality, and his own work.

The writer became interested in Christian Science when in answer to prayer she was led to a Christian Science Reading Room at a time when her human home and supply had been lost through a bad business deal. This home had been established after many years of roaming. It had always been her longing to possess just a small place of her own, so that the loss of it all was a severe blow. Mrs. Eddy writes on page 265 of Science and Health, "The loss of earthly hopes and pleasures brightens the ascending path of many a heart." Though she never wanted for a place to live in, not even for one night during the war years in London, it was not until she gave up looking for a material home and outlining what sort of place it should be and realized that her home was in Mind, the consciousness of Love, that her place in the Father's house was humanly manifested in a happy home and joyous work in the Father's vineyard.

This realization of what true home is, resulted also in the completion of a physical healing. Since the age of fourteen she had suffered from a goiter, and up to the time she began to study Christian Science she had tried every kind of known remedy and treatment, but the condition was getting gradually worse, making it difficult for her to breathe. The physical suffering ceased immediately when she began the study of Christian Science, but the outward appearance still remained the same. It was not until she clearly saw that man's ever-present place is in Mind, unlocalized, forever established, and that in reality she lacked nothing, indeed that there never had been a moment when she had been absent from her Father's house, that the last trace of goiter disappeared. The human experiences which had seemed so real and afflictive were seen as a dream, part of the Adam-dream, and she could sing the words of a hymn rejoicingly (Hymnal, No. 245),