An attorney-at-law engaged to represent a client in court draws on his accumulated knowledge of jurisprudence. He also turns to legal textbooks for scientific guidance. These include directions as to the procedure which he should follow to present his case to the best advantage.

Christian Science practitioners are likewise engaged to invoke the spiritual law applicable to what is termed a case, so that the one in bondage to false, material beliefs may regain his freedom. And similarly the practitioner immediately draws upon his accumulated understanding of the truth that makes men free and at the same time refers to the textbook of Christian Science, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," and other writings by Mary Baker Eddy, for counterfacts and precedent.

The practitioner never loses sight of the counsel and example which Christ Jesus left for his followers. And the Christian Scientist is continuously grateful for the revelation which enabled Mrs. Eddy to explain scientifically and practically the healings which he effected by virtue of his complete understanding of the law of God, the law of Life, Truth, and Love.

This passage by Mrs. Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, is of great significance to practitioners: "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." ^{Science and Health, pp. 476, 477;}

To a new student of Christian Science the thought may arise, If the Saviour saw God's own likeness, what was the form of that likeness? For instance, when he healed the man with the withered hand, did he envisage that hand "whole, like as the other," ^{Matt. 12:13;} prior to the actual evidence of healing? By the same token, when one who seems physically afflicted appeals to a Christian Scientist for healing, does the practitioner mentally see that person completely free from the ailment and as a human being presenting a normal, healthy appearance?

Mrs. Eddy gives us a clue to the answer in the textbook through her reference to the raising of Lazarus. Here we read, "Had Jesus believed that Lazarus had lived or died in his body, the Master would have stood on the same plane of belief as those who buried the body, and he could not have resuscitated it." ^{Science and Health, p. 75;} In the Bible account we are told that "Jesus wept" and that the Jews, seeing this, said, "Behold how he loved him!" ^{John 11:35, 36;} It would seem more in keeping with the Master's realization that Lazarus had not died, that he wept not for Lazarus, but for those who had listened to his words of truth and witnessed his mighty works yet still failed to understand their meaning or the eternality of Life.

Not only those who witnessed the raising of Lazarus but mankind generally still believe that individual man is a mortal who lives, suffers, and dies in a physical body. Yet Jesus healed the sick and raised the dead without recourse to physical or material means, proving the fallacy of such belief. There were occasions, to be sure, when Jesus discerned the spiritual quality of faith in the thought of the one seeking help which prompted his loving encouragement, "Thy faith hath made thee whole," ^{Matt. 9:22;} implying that perfection and health are the result of spiritualized consciousness.

Jesus mentally perceived man as God's own likeness, as a consciousness reflecting nothing but the attributes and qualities of the creator—Life, Truth, and Love. It was this correct view of man which enabled the Master to demonstrate health and freedom for those afflicted, attributing this effect to the operation of the law of God which he invoked in their behalf. Jesus proved that man's life is synonymous with his consciousness, not with the physical body, and Mrs. Eddy tells us that "consciousness constructs a better body when faith in matter has been conquered." ^{Science and Health, p. 425.}

It is a truism to say that we know nothing of ourselves or of others except what we think. So, what are we going to think about ourselves and others—of what shall we be conscious? We have the ability, through the gift of reason, to think righteously, or rightly, about the perfection of man as an idea or child of God; or we may think in terms of matter, with its beliefs of pain and pleasure, sickness and health. The physical body is not involved in this thinking process. The process is entirely mental. When thought is confined to that which is physical, it is as material as the body itself, albeit functioning mentally, and the belief in matter has not been conquered.

Conversely, we may scientifically expect that a growing awareness of true existence in consciousness will be coincident with a lessening of the belief of living in a matter body. The body as matter will not then obtrude itself into this spiritualized consciousness but will function unobtrusively and in a manner accepted humanly as normal.

The perfect man is not an evanescent being of a remote future. The Apostle John reminds us that we are the sons of God now, at this moment. To demonstrate this truth in terms of healing necessitates eradicating from our own consciousness all qualities which are ungodlike, scientifically seeing ourselves and those whom we would help as the perfect man—as individual spiritual consciousness, forever cognizant of its own true individuality—and thus leaving the construction of a "better body" to follow in natural sequence.