In human life there is a constant change of scene. Momentarily we are meeting others or turning the corner to some new experience. Even if there seems no outward change, our thoughts are constantly embracing a changing picture, sometimes glad and sometimes sad. Our daily experience is individual, determined by what we embrace in thought. Outward conditions are but the result of our thinking. This is proved when two individuals, working side by side under the same conditions and at the same type of work, find opposite experiences, one satisfaction and the other discontent.

Our happiness or unhappiness is determined by our mental concept of every moment. We label our experiences good or bad according to our belief. And what of those with whom we come in contact? We must watch that our view of them is a better one at each new meeting and that we do not cling to old, outmoded pictures of them. If we stamp those we know with a label of undesirable qualities and hold to these imperfect concepts, we allow ourselves no opportunity for improvement in our thinking about them and consequently in our relationships with them. Thus we may lose the joy of beholding their real individuality.

Christian Science is indeed the liberator from wrong beliefs habitually entertained. It has come into the world as a steadying power and brings clarity of purpose and directness of vision. It teaches that man is the son of God, eternally good, the forever perfect image and likeness of the perfect Father. We learn in Christian Science that man is divinely mental, not material. Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, says in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 475): "Man is idea, the image, of Love; he is not physique. He is the compound idea of God, including all right ideas."

What a wonderful thing it is to know that everyone we meet is, in his true being, the perfect idea of God, emanating from divine Mind, the very expression of the Mind which is infinite good. This may seem to be a contradiction of the material senses, and so it is. Christian Science tells us that the testimony of the material senses is not true; that man is forever the perfect idea of perfect Mind, upright, pure, and free. So, when these senses say that one person coming toward us is a cripple, another is dishonest, another unkind, unloving, and unlovely, which evidence shall we accept, that of Truth or of error? How careful we must be in our decisions, for as we label our associate, so will he seem to us. We may be sometimes tempted to classify those we know, to put a stamp upon them according to human opinion. How much better it is to learn what God knows concerning man as taught in Christian Science. God, who is Love, knows His creation as perfect, spiritual, lovable, altogether lovely, and complete. It is only what God knows of man that is true. The perfect Mind is incapable of recognizing imperfection. What God knows is the truth of being, wherein all of His ideas know each other as they are in reality.

We may choose to know the truth and good, or to believe in error, which is always evil. We must decide for ourselves. It is well to ask how much we love our fellow man. If we really love him, we will not bear false witness against him, but will surely endeavor to know only what is true concerning him. To know him as God's own perfect child is real love, and our brother is safe in our keeping when our thought of him is in line with divine Principle.

If a friend seems to bring about an evil circumstance, shall we label him as unkind and so come to dislike him? Shall we not look immediately to Mind for the man God made and find our true concept of him as the idea which is included in Mind? We see only what we believe, and to know the truth is to live truly and to love righteously. The temptation to judge others is turned into loving support of them when we see them spiritually expressed, and they respond to this healing influence.

The world seems fond of placing a false label upon the human being. It judges by mortal standards, which, even at their best, are not real standards of perfection, because based on matter. Human beings are often miserable because they do not measure up to human standards. One is classified as alert, another dull. One is of a happy nature, another sad. One is loving, another unkind. One is too large, another too small. Human opinions have no permanent basis. What God knows of man, alone, is true, and God's standard is perfection in Spirit, untouched by the vacillating waves of material thinking. Man, as God knows him, is not material; he is spiritual. He never departs from God's standard of perfection. There is only one label which we can really accept as true, that of God's perfect man, complete, joyous, satisfied, beautiful, loving, and free.

At one time the writer learned the need of care when describing another person. She had engaged a student of Christian Science for work in her office, which involved a great deal of detail. Presently, however, the new worker was behind schedule. A sense of strain developed in the writer's thought, as the new worker continued to express slowness in her work.

One day while praying earnestly to be honest about the problem, the writer realized that we are never really honest with others unless we see them as God sees them. This she determined to do.

Soon a frank discussion took place between the writer and her new worker, both recognizing that they should work out the problem according to divine Principle. Finally the new worker said: "It has been hard to work for you, because you have labeled me as slow at my work. I have never been considered slow by other employers but have always had the reputation of working with good speed."

The writer saw at once that her negative thinking had acted as a weight upon the thought of the other worker, and suddenly she felt able to entrust the problem to Principle. When she told the girl she would leave the work entirely in her hands, both felt the freedom that comes from the uncovering of error and the decision to let Mind direct the outcome.

The work of the new girl now proceeded at accelerated speed under her new sense of freedom, and in three days the detail work of the office was up to date. In a few days this worker was offered a position with another company paying almost twice the salary she had been receiving. She was needed at once and could be released because a new applicant had already been added to the staff.

Manifold blessings to ourselves and others come from clinging to God's standard of perfect man. This is the standard of the master Christian, Christ Jesus, who said of the woman labeled a sinner by those who would have stoned her, and whose conscience would not let them do so, "Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more." The healings that Jesus brought about were the result of his correct perception of those in need of healing. Mrs. Eddy explains the success of our Way-shower in the following passage from Science and Health (pp. 476, 477): "Jesus beheld in Science the perfect man, who appeared to him where sinning mortal man appears to mortals. In this perfect man the Saviour saw God's own likeness, and this correct view of man healed the sick."

We must strive to maintain the "correct view" of those about us and thus lift from them the weight of wrong thinking. We cannot help or heal our brother if we cling to false pictures which are really no part of him. How much better to bestow upon him his rich title of a son of God and enjoy what we know of his true selfhood, rather than burden our thinking with that which is untrue. Every time we replace the false with the correct view of man we lessen the sum total of erroneous thinking in the world and help to heal the ills of the world.

And what of our thought of nations and races? Do we stamp them with characteristics outlined by mortal mind and set a pattern for their actions and natures? We must leave an open door to the healing of error that beset them, for if we stubbornly cling to erroneous pictures inscribed in our thought, we leave no opportunity for change in our concept of them. There are no lost nations, no oppressed races, in God's creation. Man, governed eternally by God, is never subject to oppression and the machinations of mortal scheming. Racial characteristics are but outlines of human beliefs. The man that God made has only Godlike character and so expresses the divine nature. To help bring the kingdom of heaven to earth is the duty and privilege of every one of us. This can be done as we help to break the chains that are forged by mortal mind by lifting from our thinking every weight of false belief about man and nations.

Let us have but one label for man, that of perfect man, the son of God. Let us strive to allow no taint of sickness, sin, poverty, dullness, or unhappiness to darken our picture of the man whom God made and loves. Then we shall be true to God and man and to ourselves.

Happy is he that hath the God of Jacob for his help, whose hope is in the Lord his God. ... The Lord looseth the prisoners: the Lord openeth the eyes of the blind: the Lord raiseth them that are bowed down: the Lork loveth the righteous: the Lord preserveth the strangers; he relieveth the fatherless and widow.—Psalms 146:5, 7–9.