David's successful encounter with the Philistine giant, Goliath of Gath, has served throughout the years to illustrate the superiority of spiritual power over physical strength. To readers of the Scriptures in all ages it has revealed the efficacy, indeed the necessity, of overcoming the fear of evil through faith in God. For the youthful shepherd boy to face the menacing Philistine, of massive frame and heavily armored, with only a staff, a few small stones, and a sling, demanded great spiritual courage and a proved faith in God's power.

These David had; for had he not overcome the strength of the lion and rendered harmless the savagery of the bear in defending the helpless lambs of his fold? He had no fear of evil, in whatever menacing guise, because he knew that God was ever near to succor and save all who sought His aid. The record concludes (I Sam. 17:50), "So David prevailed over the Philistine with a sling and with a stone, and smote the Philistine, and slew him; but there was no sword in the hand of David."

Centuries later another faced the taunts and threats of the gross materialism and sensuality of his time when he met the challenge of sin, disease, and death and overcame them through the power of God. The example of this great man, Christ Jesus, was followed by Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, who revealed to the world the true nature of God and man. In her work "Miscellaneous Writings" she says of Jesus (pp. 162, 163): "Of the lineage of David, like him he went forth, simple as the shepherd boy, to disarm the Goliath. Panoplied in the strength of an exalted hope, faith, and understanding, he sought to conquer the three-in-one of error: the world, the flesh, and the devil."

Today Christian Science is teaching mankind how to overthrow the Goliath of false, material beliefs, which obscure the fact of the omnipotence and omnipresence of God, good. Despite the gigantic proportions and menacing appearance which matter and evil have assumed in the minds of mortals, they are completely repudiated through Mrs. Eddy's revelation of the spiritual nature of being. On page 268 of the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," she writes: "Belief in a material basis, from which may be deduced all rationality, is slowly yielding to the idea of a metaphysical basis, looking away from matter to Mind as the cause of every effect. Materialistic hypotheses challenge metaphysics to meet in final combat. In this revolutionary period, like the shepherd-boy with his sling, woman goes forth to battle with Goliath."

This brief statement epitomizes the premise and the promise of Christian Science, which proclaims the allness of God, Spirit. It teaches that God is divine Mind, Life, Truth, and Love, and that man is His reflection, facts which preclude the existence of a mind or power through which evil or discord can be perpetrated. Science further declares that mortal existence in all its varied forms is the illusive effect of a deep-rooted belief in the reality of matter and is as unreal as a sleeping dream. Mankind's necessity is to awaken from this illusive, material existence and to attain spirituality, which cognizes neither matter nor evil. This awakening is not achieved by material means, but through gaining a spiritual understanding of God and man and exemplifying the Christ in daily life in the overcoming of all error. This task calls for understanding, courage, wisdom, intelligence, compassion, perseverance; it does not excuse the selfishness of apathy and indifference, the cowardice of fear, or the thoughtlessness, self-righteousness, or self-assertiveness of egotism. It compels unselfed obedience to God, divine Mind.

"Matter," says the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, "is neither a thing nor a person, but merely the objective supposition of Spirit's opposite" (ibid., p. 287). It is on the basis of the unreality of matter that problems are met and mastered in Christian Science. Instead of fighting, fearing, or resenting inharmonious material conditions, one recognizes discord, disease, and death as insubstantial, false beliefs, to be supplanted with the understanding that man in the divine Science of being is forever harmonious, spiritual, and perfect. He is the reflection of God, Life, Truth, and Love, forever governed and protected by divine Principle. When this understanding is gained, fear-ballooned Goliath illusions, and disease and discord, give way to health and harmony.

Was it David's physique or the weight of the stone which caused Goliath's undoing? Was it not, rather, David's unflinching courage and intelligence and his reliance on God which enabled him so skillfully to wield his sling and aim his stone that his enemy was eliminated with one telling blow? It was not material means which enabled Jesus to heal the sick, regenerate sinners, and raise the dead. It was his understanding of the power and presence of God and of man's innate spiritual perfection which achieved these wonderful results. It is not with a sword, but with spiritual understanding, that evil is annihilated and God revealed to human understanding. It is not by means of war and bloodshed that true peace will be established in the earth. It is not with the sword of matter in any form that evil and material beliefs will be expunged from human consciousness. But through the understanding and practice of Christian Science the Goliaths of materialistic hypotheses will be overcome and the perfection and allness of God and of man in His likeness will be revealed.