More and more it is being recognized that health is a state of mind. More and more the medical and scientific world is approaching agreement with the observation concerning men that as one "thinketh in his heart, so is he" (Prov. 23:7). As one thinks, to the extent that he conceives himself to be healthy or ill, he will be found manifesting either health or ill-health. Health, to the average mortal, is a reasonable amount of ease and comfort of body. Mortals, generally, see no need to consult a physician so long as the body evidences no disorder. They declare themselves to be healthy, and to themselves and all observers they manifest a harmonious physical status.

Christian Science teaches that it is important for each individual to abandon his personal concepts of physical health and to replace them with a clear understanding of true health, spiritual well-being. For in Christian Science we learn that there is a mesmerism of health just as there is a mesmerism of sickness, and mankind is under the necessity of overcoming both. In the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," Mary Baker Eddy writes as follows (p. 297): "It is as necessary for a health-illusion, as for an illusion of sickness, to be instructed out of itself into the understanding of what constitutes health; for a change in either a health-belief or a belief in sickness affects the physical condition."

Christian Science makes it clear that whatever the material senses—sight, hearing, taste, touch, or smell—convey is sheer illusion, and such illusion, of course, does not erase itself. Rather does such testimony of the physical senses emphasize its own claim to legitimacy and thus enhance the possibility and probability of disease. The consciousness of matter's supposed presence cannot be expected to dissolve itself. Indeed, Mrs. Eddy says (ibid., p. 120), "Any conclusion pro or con, deduced from supposed sensation in matter or from matter's supposed consciousness of health or disease, instead of reversing the testimony of the physical senses, confirms that testimony as legitimate and so leads to disease."

Two men coming into a clubhouse after several rounds of golf declared themselves to be tired to the point of exhaustion. A third golfer, overhearing their remarks, boasted: "You fellows should keep in trim. Look at me! I take regular exercise every day, my diet is regulated by my physician, my sleeping rooms are air-conditioned, and I follow religiously all the health rules developed by the best athletic minds. You boys need to become more health-minded." A few years later this man was to learn that so-called physical health is not true health. One by one his house of hygienic cards tumbled, and he found air, exercise, or diet unable to sustain him in harmonious being. Through Christian Science, to which a friend directed his attention, he learned the origin and nature of true health and began to demonstrate it.

Christ Jesus gave the recipe for genuine health when at Jacobs well in Sychar he said to the Samaritan woman, "Whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life" (John 4:14). The student of Christian Science eventually comes to see that his duty is to drink of this water and to show others how to obtain it. In proportion as he discovers and utilizes this true source of health he will abandon the material theories and practices whereby he had before believed his health to be maintained. The human sense of well-being will be replaced by the surety that man's true health is a spiritual apprehension of his at-one-ment with God, the perfect whole.

The word health derives from the same origin as the word whole. So we see that the wholeness of God, embracing as it does the wholeness of man, is indeed man's health. When the individual has a clear understanding of his coexistence in and with God, he sees his health already established, maintained, and perpetuated. This understanding is, as the Master promised, "a well of water springing up into everlasting life."

Scores of men and women in every land now recognize the foregoing as the spiritual process whereby they themselves acquired true health. Others are employing this method of spiritual regeneration today and are gaining the understanding which will enable them to help others tomorrow. Thus gradually, but surely, the former concepts of health as dependent upon material remedies are being superseded by the true concept of man as already at one with all-inclusive good. Medicines and nostrums are seen to have had but the temporary, uncertain, mesmeric potency credited to them in human belief. Their use brings inevitable disappointment.

When one knows himself to be scientifically healthy, he knows that he must forever remain healthy. He will have no fear of being overtaken by ill-health, for he knows that a lack of health cannot enter his experience so long as he is conscious of himself as whole and complete in Science. One who comprehends and draws upon the source of true health may gladly sing with the Psalmist (Ps. 42:11), "Hope thou in God: for I shall yet praise him, who is the health of my countenance, and my God."

In Christian Science one learns to regard himself as a spiritual idea in the divine Mind. He knows that as such he expresses the wholeness and perfection of Mind, and no illusion can tempt him to descend from that altitude of spiritual poise. He refuses any longer to walk in the mire of falsities which would constantly interpose themselves in the pathway of mortals. Instead, he proceeds calmly along the straight road of progress in the truth. He gains an understanding of Christian Science, not as a mammoth dispensary, but as a religion of Love and Truth, which, when adhered to, will provide him with all good, including health and peace. Mrs. Eddy declares (The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, p. 147): "Let the Bible and the Christian Science textbook preach the gospel which heals the sick and enlightens the people's sense of Christian Science. This ministry, reaching the physical, moral, and spiritual needs of humanity, will, in the name of Almighty God, speak the truth that to-day, as in olden time, is found able to heal both sin and disease."

Let us search and try our ways, and turn again to the Lord. Let us lift up our heart with our hands unto God in the heavens.—Lamentations 3:40, 41.