The presentation of error that seems to meet us on every hand is wholly the result of false material thinking. Sometimes the whole world appears quite out of tune, and one wonders what has happened to the perfection and harmony depicted in the first chapter of Genesis when "God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good." In this account of God's creation, the universe, including man, is in harmonious unity with Him, and no mention is made of any opposing power or presence.

Christian Science teaches that nothing untoward has ever happened to God's spiritual universe of perfection and harmony and thereby rouses mankind to accept this true view of creation. As the student of this Science progresses, he finds increasing evidence of this true, spiritual creation and of man's inseparability from God, the divine creator. There can be no termination of harmony and perfection, for Spirit can never be less than Spirit; from this it follows that the real man can never be less than spiritual, since he is created in God's image and likeness.

Mortal mind, which is the direct opposite of divine Mind, is an outlaw, unwilling to be governed and controlled by God's divine law. Unconvinced of man's unity with God or good, mortals prefer to move in an orbit of their own, and thus it is they encounter the unreal world of sin and disease, which are but the objectification of mortal thinking. This kind of thinking must be put off if one is to realize man's oneness with God as His reflection.

Alluding to his spiritual and eternal unity with God, Christ Jesus said, "I and my Father are one" (John 10:30). In proof of that statement Jesus fed the five thousand, quelled the storm, healed the sick and sinful, and raised the dead. Disclaiming any personal glory and recognizing that it was the nature of God which he manifested that accomplished the works, he said, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do: for what things soever he doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise" (John 5:19).

The inseparability of God and man is basic to the teachings of Christian Science. In Science and Health, Mrs. Eddy writes (p. 361): "As a drop of water is one with the ocean, a ray of light one with the sun, even so God and man, Father and son, are one in being. The Scripture reads: 'For in Him we live, and move, and have our being.'" In what safer place could any of us possibly be than in the Father?

The writer recalls with great gratitude the safety her son experienced during World War II. She held to the thought that neither he nor any of his group could ever get outside of God's allness, for in their real being they were one with Him. There were periods when he and the other men were bombed out of their beds five and six times a night. Not only was her son unharmed, but not one of his group was lost.

When one disregards the primeval truth that God and man are one and believes himself to be an imperfect mortal, subject to chance and change, disassociated from his creator and, in turn, from his brother man, he at once falls under the so-called laws of mortality, which ultimate in physical and mental inharmony. Steadfastly acknowledging man's selfhood to be ever inseparable from God, one finds a new world of health and happiness. This new vision enables him to exceed his usual abilities and to go about his work with assurance and confidence, for he is no longer weighed down with fear.

Spiritual unity is the answer to all problems, both universal and individual. One nation's interests and freedom can no longer be separated from those of the rest of the world. Former President Eisenhower said in an address before the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, "Freedom's greatest requirement is unity."

The apprehension of our oneness with God as His ideas betokens our oneness with each other individually and collectively. The following words bring us comfort in trying times (Science and Health, p. 42): "The belief that man has existence or mind separate from God is a dying error." When discord appears in our human affairs, we find our solution by turning our thought swiftly to the one divine Mind, which is God. Learning to conform to God's laws reveals oneness as an eternal theme of harmony. Wrong motives and cross-purposes bring dissension; only pure motives can unite the world, resolve differences, and bring peace.

Spiritual oneness is the theme the angels sang at the birth of Jesus; this oneness of God and man and of man with man is today the hymn of salvation for all mankind. In her Message to The Mother Church for 1902, Mrs. Eddy gives us these inspiring words (p. 9): "The unity of God and man is not the dream of a heated brain; it is the spirit of the healing Christ, that dwelt forever in the bosom of the Father, and should abide forever in man."

The following words of a hymn are helpful to us in proving man's oneness, or unity, with God (Christian Science Hymnal, No. 157):