When someone looks at the Milky Way through a telescope, he sees countless pinpricks of light as hundreds of thousands of stars come into focus. The telescope may point to a portion of sky where the naked eye sees only pale nebulosity. The lens, however, gathers the faint light coming from immense distances and brings it to a focal point—where the human eye can see the concentrated light as individual stars.

The vastness, splendor, and variety of the physical heavens give only a hint of the magnitude and glory of divine Mind's spiritual realm. We can bring this divine glory into our experience if we understand the spiritual laws of Christian Science. These laws, somewhat like the lens in a telescope, bring into focus the real, spiritual universe and give us an enlarged sense of God's power. As Mrs. Eddy states, "The lens of Science magnifies the divine power to human sight; and we then see the allness of Spirit, therefore the nothingness of matter." ^{Message to The Mother Church for 1901, p. 12.}

When we can recognize that something is real or genuine, we are less likely to be fooled by its opposite or counterfeit. For example, the better we know what a real coin looks and feels like, the more likely we are to detect a fake coin. The lens of Science enables us to recognize the real universe, which is actually ever present but unseen by material senses. Science focuses on God's allness, His loveliness, His wisdom. This lens shows God's infinite reflection, man, to be the star of His creation, radiating perfection and scintillating with beauty and harmony. When we steadfastly hold this true view of man in consciousness, we are able to deny effectively the unreal picture—for example, a mortal who feels unwanted, sick, lacking, or afraid—and bring out a higher manhood and womanhood.

We can control our thinking. Our thinking influences our bodies, our experience, our usefulness. If our thought is focusing on the spiritual view of ourselves and others, we cannot also be retaining the material view. One view is always at the expense of the other. As the spiritual concept dominates thought, our experience and our usefulness will manifest greater goodness and harmony.

In Science, all of Love's ideas revolve in order, their orbits fixed in Principle. In this spiritual universe, the only real one, no mortal man exists, nor is there any matter. The material, so-called man is our misconception of the real man. We choose, by the thoughts we accept or reject, which concept we exhibit—a mortal who sins, suffers, and dies, or the ideal man, who is harmonious and sustained by God. Looking through the lens of Science, we change our concept to a more spiritual basis, and this brings out more of the Godlike man.

Christ Jesus saw the spiritual universe controlled by God. To him it was the only universe. This spiritual perception gave him dominion and power over the material counterfeit. In the midst of a storm that threatened to sink the ship he was on, "he arose, and rebuked the winds and the sea; and there was a great calm." ^{Matt. 8:26.} Likewise, by perceiving the real man, he healed a wide range of diseases.

The Bible Lessons ^{In the Christian Science Quarterly.} train us to focus with the lens of Science. They teach us how to discern the real and deny the unreal. One day, when studying the Bible Lesson, I glimpsed something of the control divine Mind holds over the universe. I saw that Principle, Mind, never gives up its power to matter or to chance. Principle rules through perfect laws of order. Later in the day, a wave of apprehension came over me suddenly. I claimed immediately that the law of God's ever-present harmony was active now, outlawing evil not only in my own experience but in that of my family as well.

A few minutes later, while riding my bike, I encountered a motorcycle speeding over the brow of a hill. Collision appeared inevitable. At the last moment, when our wheels were inches apart, the motorcycle suddenly flipped away, leaving both riders safe. Later I learned that at the same time in another city, our daughter's car was crushed in the middle of a three-car accident with a bus. Not only was she protected, but the fifty other people involved were unhurt. The law of Spirit superseded any so-called law of material belief, and maintained harmony.

The lens of Science reveals infinite light, the total good of God. In the focus of that light, the darkness of false belief and false law must inevitably disappear, banished by the effulgence of Love.