When Paul told his captors at Jerusalem that he was free-born, he was declaring his freedom as a Roman citizen and his title to certain rights and privileges which others at Jerusalem did not enjoy. It is reasonable to suppose that Paul had also gained some sense of his spiritual freedom. He had been healed of temporary blindness, had healed the cripple at Lystra, had himself recovered after being stoned, had escaped several times from his would-be destroyers, and certainly had had notable changes in his character. Out of his own experience he was able to write to the Romans (8:2), "The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death." Jesus had said before him (John 8:32), "Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." Paul had probably glimpsed the great fact that the son of God is freeborn and is therefore free from all belief in evil—in fear, sin, disease, and death.

Mary Baker Eddy has interpreted Paul's declaration that he was free-born in its highest and most profitable sense. She writes in the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 227): "God made man free. Paul said, 'I was free born.' All men should be free." She also declares in "Miscellaneous Writings" (p. 183), "Man is free born: he is neither the slave of sense, nor a silly ambler to the so-called pleasures and pains of self-conscious matter."

Mrs. Eddy discovered and gave to the world in Christian Science the rules and laws of true freedom as they were set forth and understood by Christ Jesus. She has shown mankind that its afflictions and bondage can be traced to ignorance of God, and that it can be loosed from all its enslavement by an understanding of Deity and of man's relationship to Him as His idea or reflection. Mrs. Eddy discovered that God is the only Mind, that He is all good, and that He is everywhere present and all powerful. From this premise she reasoned that His creation must logically be as perfect and harmonious as He Himself is.

That which would hold one in bondage may be a hidden fear or sinful thought. However, fundamentally, it is the belief that there is something besides God that claims power to enslave, frustrate, and defeat. Whenever the suggestion comes that one is bound or held fast by some unknown force or mental chain, it is well to include in one's declarations of the truth that as the child of God he was never born into the flesh, but is indeed freeborn of Spirit, maintained free by the law of Love. The real man is not born of matter, of human desires, carnal inclinations, mortal parentage, or biological rules or laws. The flesh and its beliefs have nothing to do with man's appearing or consequent unfoldment.

A Christian Science treatment is, in a sense, a liberating process by which the practitioner releases or sets free the patient's thought from all sense of captivity, thus relieving the body from the mental clamps that have seemingly held it. Declaring and knowing the truth of God, man, and body, denying all error and affirming the spiritual facts of existence, take off such mental clamps as fear, sinful thinking, resentment, lust, and the like. Admittedly, at times, the process may appear to be slow. Often mental clamps let go only one by one. But patient, persistent effort will always win in the long run. Victory and freedom are the sure reward.

As one applies the truth that man is freeborn and has never been in bondage to experience, past or present, he sees that he may choose for himself between good and evil. As men learn to hold to man's spiritual status as the freeborn son of God, they will gain complete freedom from all limitations, be they physical, educational, economic, social, political, or religious. In this manner seekers for Truth of every race or creed will gradually demonstrate, and so establish, spiritual equality on earth as it is in heaven.

The day of liberation for all must come, but it cannot be forced by human means. It must always be based on the use of spiritual truths. The power that sets free is always the will of God acting through the Christ in human consciousness.

For those who have glimpsed their true freedom and desire to progress, Mrs. Eddy has left a vivid example of her own humility and great leadership in this challenging statement (No and Yes, p. 46): "The author's ancestors were among the first settlers of New Hampshire. They reared there the Puritan standard of undefiled religion. As dutiful descendants of Puritans, let us lift their standard higher, rejoicing, as Paul did, that we are free born. Man has a noble destiny; and the full-orbed significance of this destiny has dawned on the sick-bound and sin-enslaved. For the unfolding of this upward tendency to health, greatness, and goodness, I shall continue to labor and wait."