"Truth brings the elements of liberty. On its banner is the Soul-inspired motto, 'Slavery is abolished.' The power of God brings deliverance to the captive. No power can withstand divine Love." These ringing words are to be found on page 224 of the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker Eddy. Farther on in the same paragraph she writes (p. 225): "Whatever enslaves man is opposed to the divine government. Truth makes man free."

The realization that enslavement "is opposed to the divine government" creates in us a spirit of rebellion against every appearance or mode of captivity which presents itself in human experience. Recognizing that any form of bondage is a contradiction of divine law or true being, we can set about freeing ourselves and others from the seeming mesmerism of the material senses, no matter what its form or how long the slavery seems to have existed. The understanding and acknowledgment of freedom as man's divine birthright, the present and forever fact of his being as the child of Spirit, God, are potent to liberate from every phase of captivity.

So important did our Leader consider the subject of liberty that she devotes several pages to it in Science and Health in the chapter entitled "Footsteps of Truth." In these pages may be found the statements quoted above. There also one finds a call to the world's citizens to rise and claim their God-bestowed freedom as the heirs of all good and to refuse any longer to be the victims of corporeal sense.

It is only from the slavery of his own thinking that the sufferer needs to be saved and never from an actual condition of slavery, since no such condition really exists in Science. Since God is the only creator or source of being and since unassailable freedom is what He ordains for His beloved offspring, every phase of restriction is but an illusion of material sense, an illusion over which divine Mind gives one dominion.

Paul recognized the importance of remaining steadfast in the acknowledgment and demonstration of our birthright of spiritual freedom when he exhorted the Galatians (5:1), "Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage."

One day I stood watching a bee flying frenziedly up and down on the lower portion of a window, the top half of which was wide open. The bee had only to fly a little higher in order to regain its freedom, but failing to do so, it continued its incessant motion on the lower pane, believing itself to be trapped. How often mortals behave in a similar way. They bemoan their apparent bondage to some false belief of sickness, sin, or poverty and believe there is no way of escape, when they have only to rise higher mentally, to draw closer to Spirit, God, in order to be liberated.

What divine Love bequeaths to us, we possess eternally; and freedom is most certainly one of divinity's most precious gifts. Believing that we are bound cannot make us so, any more than believing five plus five equals eleven makes this mathematical error true. In Revelation we read (3:8), "Behold, I have set before thee an open door, and no man can shut it." It is only the supposititious carnal mind which suggests closed doors and entangling circumstances beyond our control. The Christ forever speaks to us of unlimited opportunities for progressive and fruitful living.

Mrs. Eddy declares in Science and Health (p. 223), "Sooner or later we shall learn that the fetters of man's finite capacity are forged by the illusion that he lives in body instead of in Soul, in matter instead of in Spirit." This statement shows that it is a false, material sense of existence which would keep us from manifesting our native freedom and dominion and that a realization of the wholly spiritual, incorporeal nature of our being is the only lasting and sure means of liberation.

Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, who were cast into the fiery furnace because of their refusal to worship the golden image which King Nebuchadnezzar had set up and who came out unharmed, must surely have realized life in Soul instead of in body, in Spirit instead of the flesh. Although before being thrown into the midst of the furnace these three men were securely bound, the account relates that the king saw "four men loose, walking in the midst of the fire" (Dan. 3:25). It is recorded that the king exclaimed, "The form of the fourth is like the Son of God."

Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego must have been conscious of their spiritual freedom and their God-given supremacy right where they were. They did not have to wait until their emergence from the furnace before their fetters were severed. The cords were dissolved even in the midst of the fire.

The best and most inspiring example of the breaking of material fetters is that of our Master's resurrection from the grave. His every healing demonstrated man's inalienable freedom from the enslaving beliefs of the corporeal senses, and his own resurrection was the consummation of all that he had lived and taught.

When the devout Mary approached the tomb in which the Way-shower had been laid, she evinced concern at finding it empty. She still believed to some extent in a corporeal Saviour rather than in the impersonal, saving Christ, Truth. But her troubled sense quickly vanished and was transformed into ineffable joy when she heard her name spoken by Jesus. At that moment, in deepest humility she must have glimpsed the supremacy of the Christ, to which the human Jesus bore such perfect testimony. The master Christian demonstrated that Spirit, not matter, is the substance of man's being and that Spirit can never be restricted or confined.

Man has no existence apart from God, and the freedom which characterizes Soul, or Spirit, is repeated and perpetuated in Soul's representative, man. The refusal to accept sense testimony is essential to the solution of any problem, whether of sin, sickness, poverty, or any other form of distress. Gratefully the scientific thinker knows that man exists wholly apart from error's dreams and has never been involved in any of them. Man is ever awake to the glory of his being as the son of the Most High and expresses the highest qualities of God. If we know this fact, we can never be entangled in any complexity of the carnal mind's making.

The understanding of the falsity of material sense testimony can liberate us from every fiery trial, and we can be at peace in the heaven of Love's creating.