No one need suffer from physical or emotional hurt. There is Christian authority for refusing to be hurt.

Christ Jesus said, "Nothing shall by any means hurt you." ^{Luke 10:19.} And he proved this by healing people who apparently had been disabled by accident, afflicted by sickness, scarred by sin.

It is as unnecessary, then, for Christians to accept hurt as it would be wrong for them intentionally to inflict hurt. But how can one refuse to be hurt if he has already been wounded or if he has been unjustly treated, maligned, abused, or rejected?

Science and Health by Mrs. Eddy is filled with healing answers. One answer generally applicable to accidents, but useful in a broader sense, too, advises, "Declare that you are not hurt and understand the reason why, and you will find the ensuing good effects to be in exact proportion to your disbelief in physics, and your fidelity to divine metaphysics, confidence in God as All, which the Scriptures declare Him to be." ^{Science and Health, p. 397.}

The reason we can't be hurt is that there actually is no source from which hurt can come. Understanding this reason must involve understanding genuine cause and effect, God and man. The Scriptures teach that God is All, that there is nothing beside Him, that He is pure Love and all good, and that man is spiritual, created in His likeness. These truths leave no room for a harmful cause or an injurious or injured effect. When understood they bring about complete and permanent healing of the whole concept of injury—physical or mental, past, present, or threatened.

If the physical senses claim that someone has said or done something hurtful and that our ears have heard it, our eyes have seen it, our body has felt it, and our brain has recorded it, we can still refuse to let voluntary or seemingly involuntary recall keep on hurting us. The spiritual fact is that we are not hurt, and we can refuse to accept the false reports of the physical senses, nerves, and brain. They are not part of the identity of Godlike man, our true identity; they are illusive, unreliable.

God, the only Mind, is the only valid source of hearing, seeing, feeling, intelligence, substance, action, being. Because divine Mind, Love, is the sole source and substance of man, its own expression, man never can be less than perfect. We are not the mortal that the physical senses depict in their dream of injury. We are man, God's perfect expression, even though we may appear to manifest this only by progressive degrees.

Nature provides an interesting example of one method of dealing with hurtful intrusions. When some mollusks such as oysters take in an object that is hurtful to them, like a particle of sand, the object is covered with repeated coatings of a protective substance. Finally, the hurtful object becomes a lovely pearl!

But instead of just covering over hurts as time slowly passes, the spiritual substance that comes to light through prayer immediately and thoroughly replaces the sticks and stones of accidental disturbance and deliberately intended hurt with blessings of spiritual worth. Our true substance, reflecting God's ever-presence, is loving and understanding.

Man has never been touched by accident or indignity. Man, the expression of God, dwells in the presence of God, where nothing hurtful ever enters. Flooding away hurtful suggestions with forgiving, healing substance of prayer does much more than render them powerless to hurt us. When met with love and understanding, even experiences that would justify a reaction of resentment and retaliation can be transformed into spiritual lessons that grow into enduring treasures. Through just such lessons we purchase the greatest pearl of all—the pearl of which Jesus spoke.

He compared the kingdom of heaven to a merchant who was looking for quality pearls, "Who, when he had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had, and bought it." ^{Matt. 13:46.} Nearly nineteen hundred years after this parable was spoken, the priceless pearl was discovered for all mankind. It was as though through the centuries Christ, the healing and saving idea that Jesus fully exemplified, had cleansed the whole claim of sin and hurt with the divine substance of love and understanding— so as to fully, finally expose the utter nothingness of evil, through revealing the allness of good.

Through her refusal to accept sorrow, suffering, and hurt as final, Mrs. Eddy was impelled to search until she found and made available to mankind this infinite pearl of Christ's nurturing and revelation. She wrote of her discovery, Christian Science: "... yea, it is the pearl priceless whereof our Master said, if a man findeth, he goeth and selleth all that he hath and buyeth it. Buyeth it! Note the scope of that saying, even that Christianity is not merely a gift, as St. Paul avers, but is bought with a price, a great price; and what man knoweth as did our Master its value, and the price that he paid for it?" ^{Miscellaneous Writings, pp. 252-253.}

As Jesus' foremost modern follower, Mrs. Eddy is our Leader. Individuals earn the healing treasure of Christian Science in proportion as they follow her in Christian Science practice. As old scars and fresh wounds are comforted with the spiritual substance of Christian Science treatment, they are healed. But each healing doesn't really form a separate pearl. As each error is seen as error and replaced with the healing verity of Christian Science, something of the sum total of Truth is demonstrated, as something of the mortal dream of error is reduced. And each demonstration of Christian Science opens to our view more undisturbed harmony for all—the beauty, peace, and joy of heaven.

CAROLYN B. SWAN