"Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God" (Matt. 5:8). These words of Jesus, spoken in his Sermon on the Mount, are today being proved true by thousands all over the world.

Blessed indeed are those willing to purify the heart through the study and practice of Christian Science, thus following the teachings of our great Master. One unacquainted with the blessedness which is the reward of this study and practice might well ask: "How does one set about attaining purity of heart? How is one to see God?"

In every Christian Science Reading Room are to be found copies of the Bible and complete sets of the works of Mary Baker Eddy. Here there are also Concordances to these books. With these aids, all are privileged to search the Scriptures and learn individually how to prove the sacred truth contained in the Master's words, "Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God." In "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" Mrs. Eddy gives this definition of the word "heart" (p. 587): "Mortal feelings, motives, affections, joys, and sorrows." Does not this definition imply by inversion the true meaning of the Master's words and clearly indicate where the purification must take place?

Systematic study and practice of Christian Science purify the heart—the "mortal feelings, motives, affections, joys, and sorrows"—for through this study and practice the student soon begins to learn how to "put off the old man with his deeds" (Col. 3:9), the false concept of man. It is thus that one relinquishes the belief that he is a sinful mortal and accepts the truth of being as taught in the Bible and in Science and Health. He sees that man is the spiritual image and likeness of God, the reflection of true consciousness, the expression of Principle, devoid of all error.

The false belief that life is contained in matter and is therefore subject to its conditions would hide the pure truth of being. Life is God, Mind, and man in the image of his Maker coexists with and reflects infinite Mind; man, created by God, is incorporeal, spiritual, pure. To "see God" is spiritually to discern and experience only good, for God is omnipresent good.

The daily study and application of Christian Science, cleansing and purifying thought, lift the individual student out of the impure belief of a material consciousness, until he sees that in reality true consciousness does not contain a single material element.

The earnest student early discovers that Christian Science displaces negative, erroneous beliefs in his thinking with positive, healing currents of Truth which operate to eradicate all manner of inharmony and disease from his experience.

One suffering from heart trouble can profitably meditate on the substance of the words "pure in heart," together with our Leader's definition of heart. The fear of heart trouble must subside when spiritual understanding abolishes the belief of life as dependent on a material organization or on organic matter. Christian Science teaches that matter is a myth—no thing. Matter is only the expression of erroneous thinking; and the belief in the existence of matter as a reality disappears in proportion as thought is corrected by truth.

When teaching his disciples, Jesus was not referring to organic matter when he said (Mark 7:21, 23): "Out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, ... all these evil things come from within, and defile the man." Was not Jesus pointing a lesson by uncovering to his disciples the danger of allowing the erroneous human thought to remain uncorrected by truth, unpurified by spiritual understanding?

Mrs. Eddy says (Science and Health, p. 233), "The counter fact relative to any disease is required to cure it." This illumined statement of truth points the way to the healing of all manner of ills. It gives Christian Scientists a rule by which to attain the scientific demonstration of divine Principle. Through joyous obedience to the rules set down in Christian Science, through learning to become a Christian Scientist truly worthy of the name, we gain the needed purity of heart; for Christian Science deeply renovates the human character, purging, purifying all personal sense, all the "mortal feelings."

Our Leader states (Miscellaneous Writings, p. 15): "The great Nazarene Prophet said, 'Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.' Nothing aside from the spiritualization—yea, the highest Christianization—of thought and desire, can give the true perception of God and divine Science, that results in health, happiness, and holiness." Are not "the pure in heart," then, those who consciously strive for purification, for "spiritualization," for "the highest Christianization—of thought and desire"?

The thorough worker in Christian Science will move mountains of impurity, of sickness and sin, from human experience by recognizing their native nothingness. All are privileged through Science to join the ever-increasing ranks of "the pure in heart." Every student has the right to reach for and attain to the high altitude of pure thinking. He can joyously pray, in the words of one of our hymns (Christian Science Hymnal, No. 118),