Omnipresence includes the ceaseless presence and ever-availability of the divine laws that maintain the perfection of all that God has created. These laws are discerned and understood through faithful study of the textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker Eddy. The teaching in this textbook enables one to prove how thoroughly practical Christian Science is and how applicable to every human condition and need.

A passage in this textbook which reveals the basis upon which this practicality rests reads (pp. 470, 471), "The relations of God and man, divine Principle and idea, are indestructible in Science; and Science knows no lapse from nor return to harmony, but holds the divine order or spiritual law, in which God and all that He creates are perfect and eternal, to have remained unchanged in its eternal history." No lapse from harmony! What profound assurance! And eminently provable and practical, as the following experience shows. The writer was a teacher of crafts. In one class was a big boy who had outgrown his clothes; his jacket was too small, and he always kept it buttoned. This interfered with the movement of his arms and generally impeded his work. No amount of persuasion, suggestion, or pressure to remove the coat made any difference.

At last the time came when the teacher lovingly let it be understood that the boy need expect no more help with his work until he was prepared to take off his coat and to do what was right. Still he remained obdurate. Then the teacher, sensing a crisis, handled the problem according to the teaching of Christian Science. Alone at his desk, he saw the error to be insubordination, a belief in more than one Mind; the one Mind cannot know insubordination, or be insubordinate to itself. A sentence from the textbook next came to thought (p. 271): "Neither emasculation, illusion, nor insubordination exists in divine Science." The teacher held to the truth of being, which reveals the allness and oneness of the divine Mind: Mind embraces all its ideas and governs them harmoniously; these ideas, being harmoniously related to and governed by divine Mind, must be harmoniously related to each other; obedience is therefore natural to all these ideas. At this moment in his realization of Truth the teacher saw the boy several yards away leave his bench, go to the cloak room outside, and immediately return without his coat. He then collected his work and brought it in the ordinary way to the teacher to be examined.

Science had succeeded where other ways had failed. In a few moments healing had occurred naturally. The still small voice of Truth destroyed the disturbing belief. Had the problem been dealt with in the usual way, it would have been a combination of wind, earthquake, and fire: wind, whose noise drowns all reason; earthquake, which upsets one's poise; and fire, which consumes patience and peace of mind. The healing was complete, for never again, as long as the boy attended these classes, did he arrive in the classroom wearing his coat.

Only those in Christian Science who have seen the glory of God revealed so graciously can comprehend and appreciate the gratitude experienced by the teacher. Mrs. Eddy writes in "Unity of Good" (p. 24), "All consciousness is Mind; and Mind is God,—an infinite, and not a finite consciousness." When one accepts as fact the ceaseless presence of God, or divine consciousness, one finds his affairs governed by God's laws.

A sudden realization of the ceaseless presence of God will banish pain. This realization includes the recognition of man's inseparability from the divine consciousness of the truth of being. The evidence that man is God's image and likeness is within consciousness. The opposing error, in the form of belief or illusion, comes from without and cannot stand up to scrutiny. It has no intelligence to maintain itself. Until Christian Science blesses the seeker for Truth, the ceaseless presence of Mind is often undemonstrated and the conception of a faraway God holds the ground. No wonder one may feel lonely, despairing, and helpless. But when the Christ, Truth, appears for the first time through Christian Science, the love-list dawn of any day is incomparable with the dawn of the Christlight as it illumines the individual thought.

The Psalmist had a clear perception of omnipresence when he sang (Ps. 139:7), "Whither shall I flee from thy presence?" His song was a song of adoration, recognizing God's presence as infinite divine Love, brooding over all His creation. For how many years have men prayed the prayer "Our Father" with the lips while believing that God was manlike and far away. Yet Paul preached that God is not far from any one of us. His nearness to us is revealed in Christian Science. Here is the heart's longing satisfied—in the revelation of God as Mind, the ever-present Father-Mother to be communed with at any time, anywhere. Glimpses of God as Mind have been gained through the centuries. For example, God's Word is recorded thus in Isaiah (45:11): "Ask me of things to come concerning my sons, and concerning the work of my hands command ye me."

Inspiration comes from God and will fill the earth with the knowledge of the glory of God "as the waters cover the sea." This knowledge of what God really is, is revealed through Christian Science. And true knowledge is the universal panacea; it is the ally of virtue and the harbinger of freedom. Poor humanity is reaching out longingly for this freedom. Ben Jonson in his poem "To Celia" says,

and Christian Science, rich in precious truth, is supplying it. As yet the human mind is under a mixed government in which many so-called powers are jostling one another; but Christian Science, the law of the Christ, brings order out of chaos, throws down false gods, and reveals the reality of spiritual existence.

Healing of sickness in Christian Science cannot be effected without the clear understanding and firm conviction of God's omnipresence. In divine Science there is no gap of time or space. How could we make the Most High our habitation if omnipresence was not everywhere self-existent? The spiritual fact of omnipresence precludes the possibility of the presence of evil in any form. In the healing of the boy it was the understanding declaration of the truth that there is no insubordination present in divine Science which demonstrated at that moment omnipresent Mind's supremacy. Mind's law is present and absolute; it is the law of annihilation to the belief that there is more than one God, one Mind; it demonstrates Life, Truth, and Love as omnipresent and eternal.