IN the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," Mary Baker Eddy writes (p. 207), "We must learn that evil is the awful deception and unreality of existence." Christian Scientists are learning to see through the "awful deception" of evil, disease, poverty, and inharmony to the glorious reality of God and His expression, man.

From the inspired words of the Bible, spiritually illuminated by the writings of Mrs. Eddy, we learn that God is entirely good, including no element of evil; that He is All, leaving no place outside His divine allness in which evil can exist; and that He is all-knowing Mind, leaving no mind which can be deceived by evil. Science reveals that whatever is not good is actually unknowable, because it is not known by the one Mind, God.

This All-God, good, manifests Himself through His own idea, man, who knows his own spiritual origin and condition. One understanding his spiritual selfhood cannot be deceived by the mistaken concept of man as mortal. The misconception of man as material, as existing in addition to the spiritual image or expression of the one God, would deceive one into believing that the mortal must be changed into the immortal before health and harmony can be experienced.

This deception of evil needs to be replaced with the truth of man's spiritual being.

Throughout human history, the endeavor of evil has been to deceive. In the Bible we learn that Eve was deceived by the serpent of evil; Cain was found endeavoring to cloak his guilt for his brother's murder by deception; Herod attempted to deceive the Wisemen into betraying the birthplace of Christ Jesus. Today the carnal mind would still try to deceive us into believing that there are two powers, good and evil, pitting their strength against each other and manifesting themselves variably by intermittent health and disease, wealth and poverty, harmony and discord.

By revealing the true facts that neither God nor man can be deceived, Christian Science places in our hands the weapon whereby we can disarm evil's deceitfulness. Divine facts, when known, held to, and applied, heal disease and discord by proving their falsity.

Error is both deceptive and imitative. It is never true. The term "mortal mind," or "carnal mind," Christian Science defines as a supposititious mind assuming to exist in addition to the only Mind, God. If, then, mortal mind claims that a condition is bad, this mind is deceptive; for divine Mind knows and expresses only its infinite goodness. On the other hand, if mortal mind says an erroneous condition is good, this mind is merely imitative, for there is one good only, God.

It is well to remember that both health and prosperity are founded upon a clear understanding that the only health, or wholeness, and the only true and permanent riches are from God, who infinitely expresses them through His idea, man. A sense of health based solely on bodily conditions or a sense of wealth based merely on material possessions is deceptive and liable to disappear at any time, since neither has an enduring spiritual foundation.

The deception of matter as health or prosperity can be corrected by a proper sense of God as the one source, and in this way true health and riches are demonstrated.

That these spiritual facts, properly applied, can heal what appear to be physical diseases was beautifully illustrated in the following experience. A Christian Science practitioner received a telephone call from a Christian Scientist who told him that her daughter-in-law had become very ill. Because of the symptoms which indicated that it might be a so-called communicable disease, the Scientist had felt it right to call in a doctor, who expressed his opinion that the disease was polio. No medical treatment was given, either then or later, but the doctor had said that he would have to notify the Medical Officer of Health.

The practitioner listened quietly and then told the Scientist to rejoice that in the whole of God's kingdom there had never been a case of polio, for in that kingdom nothing has ever entered that "worketh abomination, or maketh a lie" (Rev. 21:27). He reminded her that polio cannot possibly have the power it claims to have, since all power belongs to God, and that it cannot act through either fear or ignorance since God is ever-present Love and the all-knowing Mind.

He also reassured her that man, by reason of his divine citizenship, is immune from all attacks of evil of any sort. Therefore the patient was already immunized, not by the injection of serum into the human body, but by the inspiration of Spirit in human consciousness.

Christian Science treatment was given. The next day, when the Medical Officer of Health made an official visit, the patient was greatly improved. The following day she was able to get up and by evening was completely healed.

Man does not live by reason of the activity of physical functions. His one function is to reflect God. Man does not live because the heart beats; he lives as the reflection of omniactive Life, God. The activity of any human organ merely counterfeits the activity of God. Disease is based on the belief, or fear, that a material organ may stop or rebel against doing what in reality it has never done, namely support the life of man. The belief of action as involuntary, variable, or coming to a stop is deceptive and is not in accord with the Science of being, in which the eternal activity of God can be proved to be supreme in the so-called human experience as it always is in spiritual being.

Regardless of what human sense may suggest or believe, man has only one Mind to know with, only one Life to live, only one divine substance to embody. These are facts of divine Science, and Science and Health instructs us that "the facts of divine Science should be admitted,—although the evidence as to these facts is not supported by evil, by matter, or by material sense,—because the evidence that God and man coexist is fully sustained by spiritual sense. Man is, and forever has been, God's reflection" (p. 471).

Spiritual sense is that sense by which one knows and understands God and His expression, man. He who through spiritual sense knows man as God's image is not deceived by physicality. He who spiritually knows that God is his health is not deceived by the evidence of disease. He who spiritually knows that God is his Life is not deceived by the appearance of death. He who spiritually knows God as All is not deceived by error of any kind.