In all civilized countries wherever men dwell together, systems of administration of justice have gradually evolved for resolving disputes and settling problems arising in human affairs. Courts of law are established whose function it is to receive and consider evidence presented to them, and on that evidence to determine what is the truth of the matters upon which they are asked to adjudicate in order that justice may be done. So, in the final analysis, it can be said that legal procedure springs from an innate desire in mankind for the truth.

It is significant that Mary Baker Eddy chooses the allegory of a court case with which to illustrate the manner in which Mind-healing is accomplished in Christian Science, for a Christian Science treatment is concerned pre-eminently with the truth. Refuting the material evidence as to the patient's condition with the eternal facts of God's spiritual and perfect creation, it proclaims and establishes the truth in the patient's consciousness. The healing of disease by means of this metaphysical process proves the falsity of the physical evidence, for nothing that is true can be destroyed.

This court case allegory forms the conclusion to the chapter entitled "Christian Science Practice" in the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures." Here Mrs. Eddy portrays a man on trial for having committed liver-complaint. The case is tried in the Court of Error, presided over by Judge Medicine, who, accepting unquestioningly all the evidence tendered by the five physical senses, finds the prisoner guilty and sentences him to death. This verdict is reversed by the Supreme Court of Spirit, where material sense testimony, confronted with "the evidence of things not seen" (Hebr. 11:1), is found to be false and is silenced forever. In consequence, the prisoner is liberated from bondage and walks forth healthy, happy, and strong.

The student will be well rewarded by a careful study of this trial. Amongst other things, he will note that the prisoner is undefended in the trial court, the Court of Error. But from the moment that the prisoner engages Christian Science as his counsel, the proceedings are withdrawn from the jurisdiction of the Court of Error, or the realm of material consciousness, and are transferred to the Supreme Court of Spirit, the spiritual consciousness of man's eternal, perfect, harmonious being. It is there that the truth is spiritually discerned and established in human consciousness, with the consequent destruction of false testimony.

This procedure of receiving evidence and of separating the false from the true can be continuously followed in every phase of human experience. Each one of us is, in a sense, a judge and has a court over which he presides. That court is his individual consciousness, to which evidence is being presented all the time, some of it spiritual and therefore true, and some of it material and therefore untrue. How is he going to deal wisely and unerringly with this conflict of evidence and sift the false from the true, that he may know the truth which will make free? In short, how is he going to comply with the Master's injunction (John 7:24), "Judge not according to the appearance, but judge righteous judgment"?

Christian Scientists have been provided by their Leader with the sure answer to this question in Article VIII, Section 4, of the Manual of The Mother Church, which reads, "It shall be the duty of every member of this Church to pray each day: 'Thy kingdom come;' let the reign of divine Truth, Life, and Love be established in me, and rule out of me all sin; and may Thy Word enrich the affections of all mankind, and govern them!"Let us see how this simple prayer may be used to enable us to "judge righteous judgment."

"'Thy kingdom come.'" What a glorious prayer with which to start each day! And since through Christian Science we know that God is ever present, we can with joy, gratitude, and confidence recognize the presence here and everywhere of His perfect spiritual creation. If God's creation were capable of losing its original perfection and completeness, it would not be "very good." But no imperfection has ever overtaken it. It is eternal and intact, and the infinite creative Mind is still declaring, "Behold, it is very good."

"Let the reign of divine Truth, Life, and Love be established in me, and rule out of me all sin." Is not this prayer the aspiration that all that constitutes God's kingdom, or the kingdom of heaven, be established in us—that God's perfect spiritual creation forever continue to unfold in our individual consciousness? Surely this is a prayer for the establishment within us of "the evidence of things not seen," the actual facts of Science, with the consequent subordination and ultimate elimination from human thought of false material sense testimony, the fables of mortal belief.

Mrs. Eddy writes (Science and Health, p. 490): "The scientifically Christian explanations of the nature and origin of man destroy all material sense with immortal testimony. This immortal testimony ushers in the spiritual sense of being, which can be obtained in no other way." As the "immortal testimony" of spiritual perfection, of immortality, immeasurable good, health, harmony, intelligence, joy, beauty, liberty, dominion, and spiritual affluence—what God eternally knows —is established within us, evil's insistent argument to the contrary is silenced and ruled out. Our prayer ascends to the recognition that the divine consciousness is enthroned and is in fact ours, for we are its reflection.

Through our faithful use of the "Daily Prayer" we can, even in our present state of existence, glimpse something of St. John's vision of "the holy city, new Jerusalem," which he saw "coming down from God out of heaven," eternal harmony, and concerning which he heard the proclamation from heaven, "Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men." Into this sacred consciousness no serpentine argument of material evidence can intrude, for John was shown that nothing enters the city foursquare "that defileth, ... worketh abomination, or maketh a lie" (Rev. 21: 27). This spiritually illumined consciousness, which constitutes man's real being, is forever radiant in the glory of spiritual reflection. In the attainment of this consciousness of the kingdom of heaven within us is protection from every phase and supposed activity of evil. Here is immunity, too, from deception by false corporeal sense testimony and its claims upon our thinking.

"And may Thy Word enrich the affections of all mankind, and govern them!" How right it is that, having seen what constitutes the kingdom of heaven within us, we should declare, for the universality of this kingdom even as the Master did when he told his disciples, "The kingdom of heaven is at hand" (Matt. 10:7). Thus we conclude our prayer by asking that "the evidence of things not seen"—of God's allness, of the presence here and everywhere of His perfect creation —be made known to all mankind in ever-increasing measure, blessing and spiritualizing their affections and governing all their motives and actions.

Under the marginal heading "The great conflict " our beloved Leader writes (Science and Health, p. 288), "The suppositional warfare between truth and error is only the mental conflict between the evidence of the spiritual senses and the testimony of the material senses, and this warfare between the Spirit and flesh will settle all questions through faith in and the understanding of divine Love." What a privilege and what a solemn responsibility it is to be engaged in the warfare between truth and error which our Leader says will settle all questions. Think of it—all questions! The settling of these questions by the individual's waging and winning of the warfare between Spirit and flesh will alone bring in the millennium, the reign of divine Truth, Life, and Love on earth.