SPEAKER: At this time of year we often think about the lives of great men, men such as Lincoln and Washington. These were certainly men of accomplishment, yet they were from very different backgrounds.

Such great figures can remind us all that everyone has greater abilities and capacities than we can imagine, and the understanding that man is spiritual, made in the image and likeness of God brings to light these hidden possibilities and can lift anyone to greater usefulness, health, and happiness. This is illustrated in the experiences presented each week on these programs. Today, for instance, you'll hear of the changes that occurred in the life of a man from Chicago, Illinois, Spruel M. Brown. Please tell us how these changes came about. Mr. Brown.

MR. BROWN: Well, that takes me back to the time that I was working for the railroad. I worked as a dining car waiter. One morning when the train came into the station, the superintendent of Dining Car Department came aboard to tell me to go to the hospital where my wife was under treatment for cancer at the time. When I arrived, they said my wife couldn't live over thirty days.

After having a brief visit with my wife I stalled home, very sad and depressed. But as I walked along I remembered that the steward of our dining car was a Christian Scientist, and he had often recommended Christian Science to me. In fact, one of the heads of an internationally known medical clinic who often rode our train had encouraged me to try Christian Science. So I decided to call my friend, the steward. He said. "Now you stay at home, and I'll have another waiter go out in your place: and I will have a Christian Science practitioner come to your home so that you may get the truth about it."

So that afternoon a practitioner came and talked with me. I didn't really understand all that she said but I did get some feeling of encouragement and confidence in God's power. So we decided to bring my wife home since there was nothing more they could do for her.

The next morning that lovely practitioner came back and talked with my wife. She talked to her of God and explained that God knew nothing of disease, but is divine Spirit and sends only good, and that as we begin to understand God in this way we also understand His healing law. She came each day regularly and continued to treat my wife through prayer. In the course of about five months my wife was able to take over all of her household duties. About a year later she gave birth to a second daughter, and another daughter five years after that; this shows the completeness of her healing.

At the same time I found my own life changing. To encourage my wife in her study of Christian Science, I began to study also; and I purchased a copy of the Bible and "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker Eddy.

I found that I knew little or nothing about God; it seemed that God was just a mystery. But my study of the Christian Science textbook [Science and Health] helped me to gain a clearer view of God— a God that I could understand. It was wonderful to think of divine Love and infinite Mind as being all-knowing, all-seeing, and all-acting. I gained a different view of man, as made in God's image and likeness. I learned that a material body isn't the real man, that man is spiritual and not material, and that God's man is exempt from pain, sin, sickness, inharmony, discord, poverty, and death.

As I pursued my study, the smoking habit left me and I lost the desire for intoxicating drinks. A violent temper was overcome and the tendency to criticize and condemn others. I was promoted in my work and put in charge of the dining car and parlor car.

And I had another outstanding proof of God's power. My mother had passed on from tuberculosis when I was a small boy and I too had trouble with my lungs. The condition did not keep me from working, but every six months I was examined under the rules of the railroad. I had tried frequently to take out insurance policies: however, each time I was rejected on account of my lungs.

But after several years' study of Christian Science I found that my fear had disappeared, and I had taken on weight. So I applied to the same insurance company. Their physician put me through the most rigid physical examination I'd ever undergone. When he finished he said, "I don't think I've ever tested any person with more perfect lungs." So the policy was issued.

One of the first things that my study of Christian Science cleared up was a sense of race prejudice. In my childhood my father taught us that there was one creator, one creation, one kind of man, one race —the human race. But after leaving home and going to work, I began to build up a sense of racial feeling. But Christian Science taught me that there is just one true man—spiritual man, made in God's likeness—and God is the Father-Mother of all. With this understanding I've been able to love all mankind. For all of these healings, the blessings, the peace, and the assurance that Christian Science has brought into my life, my gratitude is unbounded.

SPEAKER: Thank you very much for telling us those experiences. Mr. Brown. What you said about the different view you gained of man was especially encouraging.

Friends, we often read and hear about the average person. Perhaps we think of ourselves as being just average. But let's think a moment. Do we want to identify ourselves with just an average amount of happiness and success in life or with an average measure of usefulness and worthwhile activity? Unless we raise our sights and gain a different view of man this is about all we can expect.

Christian Science showed our guest that man is spiritual, made in God's likeness, and not material. And as Mr. Brown began to understand this great truth, he found his life changing: his character improved: he was promoted, and he was healed physically as well. All this came as he began to know God and the man of God's creating that man described in the Bible in the first chapter of Genesis where we read, "God said. Let us make man in our image, after our likeness."

Now in order to really understand what man is, we must have a knowledge of God as Spirit, divine Love, the one Mind. Then we begin to grasp the nature of man in God's likeness—loving, intelligent, pure, harmonious, in other words, spiritual and immortal rather than material and mortal.

When we accept and understand the grand fact that man is God's likeness, we can improve and enlarge our human capacities and fields of usefulness. We can rise above the average to the understanding of the real man the man endowed with God-given ability and resourcefulness.

Christ Jesus' successful healing ministry was clue to his perception of man's true being as spiritual and perfect. As Mrs. Eddy writes in Science and Health (pp. 476. 477): "Jesus beheld in Science the perfect man who appeared to him where sinning mortal man appears to mortals. In this perfect man the Saviour saw God's own likeness, and this correct view of man healed the sick. Thus Jesus taught that the kingdom of God is intact, universal, and that man is pure and holy."

The musical selection on the program teas Hymn No. 324 from the Christian Science Hymnal, verses 1 and 3 only (Take my life, and let it be).