It requires moral courage and a firm reliance on infinite Mind to prove the truths of Christian Science as revealed to our beloved Leader, Mary Baker Eddy, and set forth in the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures." One may ask why this is the case. The answer might be, Because the accepted isms and ologies of the world with which we were working, but which brought no relief to our various problems, are contradicted by Christian Science.

This Science soon becomes a beacon light, revealing God, who heals and comforts. Science thus satisfies our longings for a practical religion. This beacon light of Truth points the way to greater freedom and to more dominion. The awakened understanding of God as the great Physician, the unfailing help, and of man as God's expression results in better health, improved morals, and a realization of the nothingness of limitation. An increased knowledge of God's ever-presence also prevents many difficulties from appearing that might otherwise try to assert themselves in our lives.

Paul's words (Eph. 6:10), "Be strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might," encourage us to strive even more earnestly to resist the belief in the presence of evil and to rise into a fuller realization that God, good, alone is real and has power. Impersonal error may attempt to force its way into consciousness, but refusal to accept its false claims enables one to rise superior to it and to manifest the harmony which belongs to man created in God's image and made to reflect His glory. The truths of God and man held firmly in thought bring an abiding consciousness of eternal Life, and this means, eventually, final victory over the flesh.

The reward of proving the allness of God and man's eternal unity with Him is health, happiness, harmony, abundance, and an abiding sense of peace, such as is promised to the faithful. On the healing wings of divine Love we find home, true companionship, satisfying friendships, and all that makes for harmonious living.

Christ Jesus, our Way-shower, never yielded to the temptations of evil. At all times he was ready with a rebuke which disclosed evil's nothingness. His knowledge of man as a child of God was manifested in his marvelous healing works and in his overcoming of death. We are told of his disciples that "he gave them power against unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal all manner of sickness and all manner of disease" (Matt. 10:1). We today are proving that we are the sons and daughters of God when we resist all that is unlike Him and bring health and peace to those hungry and thirsty seekers who are longing to find a pathway which leads to harmony.

Those who have grown "strong in the Lord" have learned to "put on the whole armour of God" in order to resist all "the wiles of the devil" (Eph. 6:11). This spiritual resistance enables one to overthrow the arguments of disease and discord, in fact, to overcome all that would blind one to the spiritual fact of the perfection of God and of man in His likeness.

Christ Jesus never lost sight of his spiritual selfhood as the Son of God, as an idea of infinite Mind, therefore immutably fixed in God. It was because of his clear realization of this fact that his body never saw corruption. When tempted on every hand and pursued by would-be destroyers, what did the Master do? He withdrew from them. When tempted of evil we should not accept it as a reality, but should destroy it. We, as Jesus did, must enter into a state of exalted thought to pray, seeing ourselves and others as God's ideas, rising above all material thinking and realizing the truth expressed in a line of Mrs. Eddy's interpretation of the Lord's Prayer (Science and Health, p. 17):

All who have accepted the revelation of Christian Science know that it sets forth the perfect Principle of harmony, which, when understood, enables one to prove the fact of perfect God and perfect man. When we are firmly grounded in this fact it is possible for us to be strong in the truth whenever the belief of evil would tempt us to believe in a power apart from God. Paul says (Rom. 12:21), "Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good." We are called upon constantly to obey these words. We must ever be firm in our realization that evil is a falsity, although claiming to be something; it is an illusion, utterly powerless to reach and overcome us.

There is nothing in the teachings of Christian Science which justifies us in entertaining thoughts of fear, failure, doubt, or defeat. We cannot accept any of the false suggestions of sense testimony, but we must refute and deny them, attributing full power to God, infinite Love, as the healer, the Redeemer from all that would oppose the power and presence of Love. As we prove ourselves to be God's children we receive every blessing that comes from the boundless, limitless source of all good.

The understanding of Truth, as set forth in the Scriptures and in our Leader's writings, grounds us in the fact that Truth cannot fail, that its results are positive and certain. Abiding in a consciousness of God's allness, refusing at all times to see or accept error as a reality, we gain a clearer realization of man's dominion over all belief of disease, discord, limitation, age, and depression, and we see revealed the spiritual fact of his freedom, wholeness, and perfection in Mind.

How refreshing is the presence of a strong, alert Christian Scientist, one who refuses to accept the evidence of the senses, one who is "strong in the Lord." This thinker is declaring understandingly that Mind is supreme, that the suggestions of error in its various forms cannot exist in consciousness, for the ever-present power of Truth and Love destroys everything that is unlike God. The understanding of Truth imparts spiritual power, even the power possessed by Jesus when he said to the storm, "Peace, be still," and there followed "a great calm" (Mark 4:39). He expressed unwavering faith in the all-power of God.

This same faith will enable us, as Christian Scientists, to remove mountains of error, casting them "into the sea," in other words, proving their nothingness. In the words of our Leader (Science and Health, p. 391): "Instead of blind and calm submission to the incipient or advanced stages of disease, rise in rebellion against them. Banish the belief that you can possibly entertain a single intruding pain which cannot be ruled out by the might of Mind, and in this way you can prevent the development of pain in the body."

What bondage it is to feel that matter is overcoming us! What joy we experience in knowing that we can bring matter under the control of Mind! The reward for sincere labor is great; it is well worth more than any effort we can possibly put forth to gain it. The communion with our Father-Mother God is so sweet, so uplifting, so satisfying, that we can truly say that the kingdom of God is here.