When I was a student in the Netherlands, none of my fellow students, as far as I can remember, were interested in religion. We never discussed it, but I think the general feeling was that we'd outgrown the church and its unrealistic beliefs. Wasn't the Bible full of contradictions, and didn't the churches fight each other while proclaiming God to be Love?

Apparently this attitude is still widespread. In an issue of the Holland Herald^{See Vol. 8, No. 7, p. 9;} I read, "The latest Dutch census has shown the number of people declaring no religion has increased from 18.3 percent of the population in 1960 to 22.5 percent."

First, I'd like to tell what changed my attitude toward religion. A serious spinal condition, which had been pronounced incurable, proved to be a blessing in disguise. A friend of mine suggested I try Christian Science. I did, and I was permanently healed. Imagine—I, who had brushed aside Jesus' healings as irrational, impossible—I myself was healed by spiritual means alone!

The blessing of this healing was that, during it, I dropped my prejudice and became willing to listen and learn. Having been given a copy of Science and Health, written by Mrs. Eddy, I began to read it. My first discovery was that the term "God" doesn't represent a magical or mysterious concept but stands for good, absolute good itself. More than anything else, I soon realized, my ignorance of the meaning of the word "God" had caused me to turn away from religion.

Reading on, I found in the Glossary Mrs. Eddy's definition of God. part of which contains the seven synonyms for God: "Principle; Mind; Soul; Spirit; Life; Truth; Love."^{Science and Health, p. 587;} Appealing to my modern way of thinking, these synonyms became beacons of enlightenment for me and tools to work with. Each one, presenting to my thought a special aspect of Deity, became a starting point for research and discovery. Together they provided the substance for my growing understanding of God as the All-in-all.

I became deeply interested. It was fascinating to think of the real, perfect, spiritual man made in Spirit's image and likeness—actually, me and everyone else—as the direct expression of God and consequently the recipient of the divine Mind's treasure of spiritual knowledge. As long as I'd fancied myself too intelligent to believe in God, I now saw, I had in so doing denied the very source of my intelligence. The fact is, intellectuals need to understand the infinite nature of Mind and its manifestation to bring their intellect to full bloom.

The study of Christian Science soon began to widen my horizon and to lead me beyond the limited quarters of material knowledge. New opportunities presented themselves, and I was abundantly blessed with a home, friends, interesting activities.

Science and Health states: "Christian Science differs from material science, but not on that account is it less scientific. On the contrary, Christian Science is pre-eminently scientific, being based on Truth, the Principle of all science."^{ibid., pp. 123-124;} It is not a humanly evolved system of rules and methods, with human limitations and shortcomings, but the one Science based on the absolute reality of spiritual being, whose laws are flawless and immutable.

Now, the beauty of it is that this pure Science, divine and absolute, is not cold and standoffish. In its application to human experience it is kind and loving because it erases mistaken beliefs in the existence and power of matter, evil, and limitation and the disastrous consequences of these illusions.

Jesus used his knowledge of all-powerful Spirit to heal the sick, sinning, and sorrowful. His admonition in the Sermon on the Mount "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect"^{Matt. 5:48;} is scientific. It brought healing in Christ Jesus' time, and it is the basis for healing in our day through the application of Christian Science, in which the immutable and the merciful join hands.

But what about the contradictions that had kept me away from the Bible? In the opening chapters of Genesis lies the key to reconciling these contradictions. In the first chapter we find the record of the flawless, divine creation; its climax is the creation of man made in the image and likeness of God, who is proclaimed throughout the Bible to be Spirit. The second narrative, allegorically attempting to account for the origin of evil, views creation through an illusory mist going up from the earth and describes man as made out of dust. Mrs. Eddy writes: "The Science of the first record proves the falsity of the second. If one is true, the other is false, for they are antagonistic."^{Science and Health, p. 522.} "The Science of the first"! and I, a college student, had hardly heard of the spiritual, perfect creation.

The distinction Mrs. Eddy makes in Science and Health and her other writings between the real, God-created spiritual man and the mortal, supposedly created out of dust, clarifies the seeming contradictions of the Bible. In the light of Christian Science, we see a thread of consistency running through the Bible, representing the ripening concept of God and His eternally harmonious reflection, man.

So, after my early rejection of religion as narrow, illogical, and old-fashioned, I have learned to love it through the study of Christian Science. I found it to be the opposite of what I thought it was. Inspired religion, as embodied in Christian Science, doesn't hinder the human intellect. On the contrary, recognizing the divine Mind as our own opens the gate to a neverending flow of ideas. As we welcome these ideas, we more than keep up with our times.