On prints from a stereotype plate, ink spots or blotches sometimes appear. These are caused by high, or uneven, places on the surface of the metal plate. When the plate is placed under the blade of an electric router, the uneven spots are routed, or cut, out of the metal. A perfect print is then assured.

Christian Science teaches that in striving to realize and prove the perfection of man in God's image we are faced with the need to remove from consciousness some discord that may be manifesting itself in our experience in various ways. In Christian Science we have what we need for removing error.

The understanding of Truth and Love, which our Master, Christ Jesus, used with unerring results in his healing ministry, effaces what gives rise to evidences of sin, disease, and death. His followers have the ability to obey his command to gain and use this understanding. Where do we begin? In our own consciousness.

Are we disturbed by untoward conditions in our own lives, in those of our dear ones, or in the world? Do we allow hard impurities of fear, resentment, materiality to build up in consciousness? Then we need to gain more spiritual understanding and put it to work.

God never created impurity of any kind, and we need not believe in evil and so accept it into our lives. God did not make a lacking, sick, and sinning mortal, who is only a counterfeit of the real, spiritual man made in God's image and likeness. Christian Science has brought to light the unreality of the material and the actuality of the immortal and spiritual. It shows that the Adam man is a fiction, a myth. Then why fear or want to hold on to impurities of thought, since God, good, is All-in-all? The real, spiritual man is God's reflection, and we can prove it just as Jesus did.

"Jesus beheld in Science the perfect man, who appeared to him where sinning mortal man appears to mortals," writes Mrs. Eddy. She continues, "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;} By study, prayer, and demonstration we too can obtain this correct view of man made in God's likeness. We can remove from consciousness false pictures, pictures of the unreal, imperfect, and material.

A small sore appearing on the writer's leg at first caused no concern. But when it failed to heal normally and the surrounding area became inflamed, she was aroused to deny the material belief that infection belonged to her true being. She knew that matter, having no true substance or activity, cannot be contaminated, poisoned, or painful, and she realized that mortal mind's false beliefs, or impurities, cannot be manifested on the body when they are denied reality and power. God never made an imperfect man.

A dictionary definition that linked the word "infect" with the thought of corruption led the writer to search her consciousness for any suggestions of mortal mind that might be claiming to corrupt the purity, harmony, and perfection with which God, good, endows His children. And some unwanted and unlovely impurities were found to have built up in her thinking.

There were sensitiveness, often a form of self-pity; irritability, akin to anger; destructive criticism, a type of self-righteousness; resentment, allied to hate—one of the worst corrupters one can entertain; discouragement and fear, indicating lack of trust in God, who cares for each one of His children with infinite love and kindness.

Over a period of months the writer endeavored to grow in spiritual understanding and to rout out self-pity with self-forgetfulness, irritation with patience and love, criticism with forbearance, and discouragement with gratitude and trust in God.

As her thinking was being purified, the infected spot drained, and gradually the leg was completely healed. She was grateful for the physical healing and the spiritual growth accompanying it; and she especially rejoiced in the deeper sense of God's nearness and love expressed in this Bible verse: "The Lord is my portion, saith' my soul; therefore will I hope in him." ^{Lam. 3:24;} She resolved to be more watchful to keep errors from accumulating in thought. Mrs. Eddy counsels, "Beloved Christian Scientists, keep your minds so filled with Truth and Love, that sin, disease, and death cannot enter them." ^{The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, p. 210;}

When we correctly apply the understanding of Christian Science, we find that our growth Spiritward resolves our problems into nothingness and equips us with the spiritual insight that enables us to control our own minds and bodies and help others everywhere to find the truth that purifies and restores harmony.

"When all fleshly belief is annihilated, and every spot and blemish on the disk of consciousness is removed," says Mrs. Eddy, "then, and not till then, will immortal Truth be found true, and scientific teaching, preaching, and practice be essentially one." ^{Retrospection and Introspection, p. 94.}