One evening as a student of Christian Science sat in his study, he began to observe shadows thrown sharply on the wall by objects on the mantelpiece. Why, he thought, here is a strange thing: I can see something which is made of nothing. A shadow, he realized, has no substance. This led him to the conclusion that the mere fact that one can see a thing, or perceive it in any way through the material senses, does not prove it to be substantial. Then there came to his thought Mary Baker Eddy's statement in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 418), "Tumors, ulcers, tubercles, inflammation, pain, deformed joints, are waking dream-shadows, dark images of mortal thought, which flee before the light of Truth."

A friend experienced a healing through Christian Science which illustrates these words. She had suffered from internal growths and misplaced organs for many years, the last three of them spent in bed. Finally the two physicians attending her gave her a week to live.

At this point someone sent her a copy of Science and Health. In spite of her weak condition, she asked her mother to read the textbook to her. After an hour or two her mother noticed that she was lying quietly, apparently in less pain, and so the mother continued to read on and off throughout the night. The next day the patient was free from pain. The reading was continued during the day, and that night she was able to read herself. Then it was that the spiritual sense of what she was reading dawned upon her. She knew that she was healed. She had gained an awareness of the fundamental truth of being—the present spiritual perfection of God and man—and a corresponding sense of the unreality of her troubles. The growths vanished. They had been made to "flee before the light of Truth." Shortly afterwards the misplaced organs resumed their proper place and function.

This healing, which took place many years ago and has been permanent, illustrates the fact that just in proportion as the human consciousness is enlightened by spiritual truth bodily conditions improve. This is natural, since the human body and its ills are but the objectification of human thought.

Mental shadows, like sin and unhappiness, always disappear when the light of Christian Science is sufficiently brought to bear upon them. Like all error, sin is always nothing but an illusion of material sense. Suppose, for the sake of illustration, that a boy has a bad temper, and suppose that by earnest striving he gets rid of it. Where has it gone? Obviously it has not gone anywhere. It has become nothing. Now something cannot become nothing. The fact that the bad temper was proved to be nothing shows that it was fundamentally nothing all the time, and that when the boy got rid of it he demonstrated its nothingness. A similar argument may be used to illustrate the nothingness of disease.

Countless earnest men and women, with no knowledge of Christian Science, have endeavored to overcome sin in themselves by human effort, and have often failed. This "human effort" method is liable to failure because it is not spiritually scientific. It does not take into account the basic sinful belief that man is a mortal, the supposed product of the physical senses. The specific sin which the individual is striving to overcome is merely an offshoot of this basic error, this lie about man. Here Christian Science comes to the rescue, declaring that man is not a mortal sinner, because he is not a mortal at all, and that neither mortality nor any form of sin attached to it has a moment's reality, since God, Spirit, infinite perfect Mind, is All, and man is His pure, unfallen image.

How well Jesus must have known this when, speaking from the standpoint of Truth, he said of the man born blind (John 9:3), "Neither hath this man sinned, nor hisparents." And in accord with this Mrs. Eddy writes in Science and Health (p. 548): "In this Science, we discover man in the image and likeness of God. We see that man has never lost his spiritual estate and his eternal harmony."

The claims of lack and fear are "waking dream-shadows." Lack is a false belief, an illusion of material sense, since the omnipresence of God, the infinite perfect One, precludes the possibility of lack, and man is God's expression, reflecting the divine substance of Spirit. The Christian Scientist understands that spiritual ideas of Truth and Love are substance, and that in proportion as he expresses these his human experience is harmonized. Did not the father in Jesus' parable of the prodigal son say (Luke 15:31), "Son, thou art ever with me, and all that I have is thine"?

Fear, the archenemy of the human race, is likewise an illusion of material sense. "There is no fear in love," wrote the beloved apostle (I John 4:18). God is never less than All, and the omnipresence of Love precludes the presence of fear. So, let the fearful one take heart. Let him rise through living faith in Love's omnipresence and assert his spiritual dominion over this impostor, fear, and if he persists, it will vanish into its nothingness.

All claims of discord presuppose the actuality of materialism. Although mortal mind urges the claim that there is something besides God, the great fact remains that God, Spirit, is All. If one loves this priceless truth, he will live with it, for, as Jesus said (Matt. 6:21), "Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also." In proportion as this great truth of Spirit's allness is assimilated, the dark shadows of materialism are dispelled. How beautifully our beloved Leader expresses this in Science and Health (p. 503): "Divine Science, the Word of God, saith to the darkness upon the face of error, 'God is All-in-all,' and the light of ever-present Love illumines the universe."