This is an era when many are challenging the value of spiritual concepts. Their preoccupation with material objects, events, and goals is making it difficult for them to accept the practicality, the actual tangibility, of spiritual reality. Also, the unproven assertions of scholastic theology have caused a revulsion from religion in general, from what the educated mind calls mere speculation or superstition.

Is there, then, a scientific method of perceiving the tangibility of man's spiritual identity? Is there a sure and certain way to see beyond what the material senses call reality and prove the actuality of God's omnipresence and His perfectly governed universe of spiritual ideas?

Christian Science affirms there is. It is proving this assertion today, and has been proving it for over a century through thousands of cases of spiritual healing. Any open-minded individual can study and utilize its teachings and thus convince himself that the spiritual tangibility demonstrated by Christ Jesus and other Biblical characters is here and operative in the twentieth century. Mrs. Eddy assures us: "The individuality of man is no less tangible because it is spiritual and because his life is not at the mercy of matter. The understanding of his spiritual individuality makes man more real, more formidable in truth, and enables him to conquer sin, disease, and death." ^{Science and Health, p. 317;}

To apprehend the tangibility of spiritual substance, one must little by little uncover and unfold the real nature of man. This is accomplished as one studies Christian Science and learns to recognize spiritual man's inherent unity with God as the reflection, or image, of divine Spirit, and then strives to express the implications of this relationship in the details of daily life.

Experience teaches the student that it is no easy task to school himself to look beyond the mortally mental mirage called material existence and behold the things of Spirit. It takes much dedication and persistence, and the resultant spiritual perception comes slowly and by degrees. Mortal mind would try to convince him that it is a futile exercise, but practical demonstration proves otherwise. He learns that anyone who earnestly sticks to the truth of being and patiently and happily lives with spiritual ideas will find good entering into every department of his life. Mrs. Eddy writes, "These ideas are perfectly real and tangible to spiritual consciousness, and they have this advantage over the objects and thoughts of material sense,—they are good and eternal."  ^{p. 269;}

The gradual process of self-purification uplifts the human mind, magnifies its intuitive capacities, and thus makes it increasingly conscious of divine Love's power and presence and man's perfect, spiritual existence. Intellectualism plays little part in this enlightening process. Rather is it the qualities of childlikeness, teachableness, humility, purity, and love that reveal the actual oneness and allness of divine Being.

As the student becomes aware of a transcendent spirituaiity, he begins to see that if Spirit is real and all-inclusive, then matter must be an illusion, a counterfeit of Truth. This gives him courage to mentally oppose its inharmonious aspects, such as disease, lack, and sin. He denounces them as intangible beliefs and with joy and conviction affirms the harmony of Love's ever-presence and the real man's existence in and of this Love. The student understands what Mrs. Eddy means when she writes, "Eradicate the image of disease from the perturbed thought before it has taken tangible shape in conscious thought, alias the body, and you prevent the development of disease." ^{p. 400;}

A young Christian Scientist had occasion to test the practicality of his religion when attending a corn roast with a group of friends. The corn had been boiled on a large open fire, and the caldron was lifted from the fire and placed beside a wooden bench. A few moments later, without looking where he was going, this young man stepped over the bench and into the caldron of scalding water.

The pain was intense, but he managed to hobble away by himself and apply his understanding of Christian Science as best he could. Gradually the tangibility of his real spiritual identity dawned in his thought. The pain began to ease. He persistently recognized that no accident had ever occurred in the all-inclusive oneness of God, divine Mind. He glimpsed the fact that spiritual substance could not be scalded, and that all real action and sensation were in Mind and therefore harmonious right at that moment.

Within a few minutes the pain stopped, and he rejoined his friends. When he returned home that evening, there was no sign of a scald on foot or leg. The tangibility of spiritual being understood had silenced the illusive beliefs of mortal thought.

Finally, let us take note of the example of Christ Jesus and his faithful follower, Paul the Apostle. These mighty spiritual warriors resolutely set themselves the task of leaving the illusion of material sense for the substantive reality of Spirit. Their demonstrations of spiritual power prove the practicality of their way of life. Let us, then, strive to reach that point in Mind where we can say with Paul, "We know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, and house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens." ^{II Cor. 5:1.}

Alan A. Aylwin