Christ Jesus taught mankind to observe the power of thought and to watch the silent workings of the mind. His Sermon on the Mount considers inward thought and warns against outward pretense. Genuine purity, not perfunctory obedience to God's law leads one to the demonstration of spiritual, perfect man—God's likeness. Prayer and fasting are not to be public exhibitions of piety, but the awakening of conscience, which brings heart and mind into unity with God. The Master knew that one's experience reflects one's thoughts. He said (Luke 17:21), "Behold, the kingdom of God is within you." God's sovereignty extends to the inmost recesses of human consciousness; in all mental action His reign must be proved, His supremacy demonstrated.

Christian Science declares that disease is mental, that environment is a subjective state of consciousness, and that consequently the individual is responsible for himself. One can demonstrate God's control of thought at every point. After declaring that mortal mind and body combine as one, Mary Baker Eddy says in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 409). "The belief, that the unconscious substratum of mortal mind, termed the body, suffers and reports disease independently of this so-called conscious mind, is the error which prevents mortals from knowing how to govern their bodies."

When we become established in the understanding that God is the only Mind and that man's thoughts are fully controlled by divine Mind, we bring the body under subjection to Spirit. Recently my finger came in contact with something very hot, and instantly a large and painful blister appeared. I remembered at once our Leader's statement (ibid., p. 161): "You say, 'I have burned my finger.' This is an exact statement, more exact than you suppose; for mortal mind, and not matter, burns it." I saw that the angry burn on my finger was not the effect of the heat but of my resentful mental response to the heat; that the body has no ability to change or act without thought.

I began to declare that I would not and could not burn myself. I refused to burn myself. I rejected the belief that heat has power of itself to produce injury. I realized that my true and only self is God's likeness, not physical but spiritual, and is incapable of producing or experiencing pain or destruction. Within a few minutes every vestige of the blister had disappeared. The finger resumed its normal condition, and an excellent lesson was learned: one can follow this same procedure by refusing to disorganize himself, congest himself, disease himself, limit himself, impoverish himself, deceive himself, destroy himself.

Mrs. Eddy says in "Miscellaneous Writings" (p. 247), "It is much easier for people to believe that the body affects mind, than that the body is an expression of mind, and reflects harmony or discord according to thought." And our Leader shows us how to correct false thought in the sentences following: "Everything that God created, He pronounced good. He never made sickness. Hence that is only an evil belief of mortal mind, which must be met, in every instance, with a denial by Truth."

When Christ Jesus said to the man with a withered hand (Matt. 12:13), "Stretch forth thine hand," the man obeyed, and he was healed. The Master was demonstrating the authority of divine Mind over the innermost action of the material thought, which had supposititiously produced the disease. Jesus did not deal with effect but with counterfeit cause—the mind of a mortal. He met the trouble on the basis of God-governed mental action. When the Master brought the Christ, the true idea of sonship, to bear upon many victims of ignorance, fear, and sin, he changed the false belief of cause to the fact of spiritual causation.

The great truth that God is the only Mind, hence the only cause, has come to the rescue of humanity through Science. Many who love the human race and who long to relieve it of sin, disease, and poverty are arriving at the conclusion that thought produces much sickness and many of the plights of mankind. Through analysis of the human mind and correction of it, these compassionate individuals are attempting to overcome material inharmonies. But as long as they believe in many minds rather than in the one infinite Mind, God, which man reflects, they will not obtain truly satisfying and lasting results.

The knowledge that disease and other discords are mental should lead one to the demonstration of the one Mind, which is in full control of the universe of Spirit. The understanding declaration that divine Mind is All puts to flight the beliefs which constitute mortal conditions as no other mental means can. The power of true thought is then humanly expressed in health and life.

Christ Jesus taught us to pray (Matt. 6:10), "Thy kingdom come"; and our prayer is answered in the measure that we prove God's control of every thought of our hearts. Step by step we shall demonstrate the divine sovereignty until unreal, mortal consciousness disappears and man's perpetual obedience to the reign of Mind is brought to light. The power of God-governed thought will then be evidenced in spiritual manhood, and Jesus' command (Matt. 5:48), "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect," will be fully obeyed.

Helen Wood Bauman