Addresses and Other Writings on Christia - Doris Dufour Henty2

Addresses and

Other Writings

on Christian Science

Doris Dufour Henty

Excerpts Included:

Foreword

By Flora Nelson Ogden (Sister)

God’s Will

(Short Chapter from the Book)

Published by Mulberry Press

www.MulberryPress.com

Copyright 1990 by Mulberry Press

Enlarged edition copyright 1993 by Mulberry Press

Seventh Printing: 2007

eBook Version: 2012

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or

by any means without permission from the publishers.

www.mulberrypress.com

Foreword

It must have been about the year 1910 that Christian Science was first introduced to our

family; I know Mother was disappointed that she had just missed seeing Mrs. Eddy. Certainly no

family could have been more in need of the truth. Our home was a “hospital ship.” We had never

known what it was to see Mother well. She had no strength; her days were spent lying on a couch

and no medicines had helped. My brother Ronald had consumption—it was hereditary—and it

was thought a miracle that he had reached the age of fourteen, even though he had not been able

to attend school. My father suffered from a liver complaint and periodic attacks of migraine. And

my sister Doris—Doll, as we called her—was a shocking sight. She had had multiple operations

on her face and head for carious bones. Her face was constantly bandaged, and a nurse was in

attendance to do this. One side of her face was paralysed; her mouth was at an angle and one eye

was shut. The surgeons said they could do no more for her as the facial nerve was severed, but

they offered the scant comfort that, before long, she would know no more as the disease would

reach her brain.

One day a friend came to see my father at the mill which he ran. To the question “How

are you?” my father replied as usual, “Just fair.” On hearing this, the friend asked if he could tell

my father about “his faith,” which had changed his life. My father agreed with some reluctance,

as he held office in the Wesleyan church, and he learned that his friend’s faith was Christian

Science. The friend lent my father a copy of Mrs. Eddy’s book Science and Health with Key to

the Scriptures, setting a time limit of two weeks for its return. However, when my father got

home with it, Mother said, “We don’t want any of those newfangled ideas,” and the book was

put on the piano, where it remained unopened until it was returned a fortnight later. I can see it

there to this day!

A little later my father visited Manchester; and, feeling he had perhaps been a little

discourteous about the book, he went to a Christian Science Reading Room and purchased a

copy of Science and Health. One day shortly after that, Mother was feeling particularly weak.

She had been reading the Bible and then turned to Science and Health, and her eyes fell on the

words (page 135), “There is to-day danger of repeating the offence of the Jews by limiting the

Holy One of Israel and asking: ‘Can God furnish a table in the wilderness?’ What cannot God

do?” She jumped up, went into the kitchen, and started to give orders. My father returned home

for lunch, saw Mother was up and about, and asked what had happened. Mother answered, using

a Yorkshire expression, “I’ve been reading the book: I feel made over again.” Father said, “Do

be careful.” But Mother replied, “I know what I am doing. I’m all right.”

Shortly after that, Mother went into the schoolroom and said to Ronald and Doll,

“There’s no need to be ill any more. I have found a book that tells us that Life is spelt with a

capital L, and what we thought was life was just a mistake. I wish I had known about this

before.” Ronald began to improve at once and soon attended school. He had a long and active

life before he passed on at the age of ninety years. My mother said to Doll, “Now we have heard

of Christian Science, we shall not take you to Manchester [where the specialist was) any more.”

Nor were there any more bandages.

My parents began to attend church services some miles away. One day, my father had a

severe attack of migraine and retired to bed. My mother read Science and Health for a short time

and then went to him and said, “Get up: you are healed!” He was. Doris also began to improve,

even though there was at that time no practitioner locally. She soon started to attend school,

which was a great step, and one day, not long after, she suddenly said to her schoolmistress, “I

can feel my face!” Feeling had indeed come to her face for the first time. Father took Doll to the

specialist in Manchester, who looked at her and said, “The age of miracles is not over. The nerve

has joined.”

It was about this time that, as Doll recalled, two things happened. She made contact with

James Neal in Boston. He had been in Mrs. Eddy’s last Class and was the one whom Mrs. Eddy

had referred to as the “perfect practitioner.” She asked him what time he worked for her each day

so that she could be working too! Then, one day, she read in a local paper that a cousin had won

a beauty competition. Rather sadly she said, “I could never do that,” but then she added, “But I

have the beauty of holiness.” She went to her schoolroom and all morning she thought about the

beauty of holiness. At lunchtime, when she came down, Mother exclaimed, “Doll, have you seen

your face?” Doris replied, “God cannot see a mortal face: He can only see the beauty of

holiness.” By the evening, her whole face had moved round to a normal angle.

Doris could not have enough Science, and soon she decided to go to Boston, where she

was determined to meet those who had known our Leader. She met with James Neal and

expressed her desire to practice. He said that she should just wait as there was evidently

something to do with her mouth that still needed healing. “In that case,” said Doll, “you heal

me!” He gave her one treatment and she was healed. During her visit to Boston, as well as in

subsequent visits, she spent long times with members of Mrs. Eddy’s household, and in

particular with Laura Sargent and Daisette McKenzie, learning many things that our Leader had

told them. When she returned to England, she started her practice, and for over sixty years I

never knew her without a full practice. Services were started in our home and Mother began to

worry that Doll was doing too much!

The numbers attending services increased. For a time they were held in the local Sobriety

Hall, but this was inappropriate and a search was made for a site on which to build a church in

the local Yorkshire town of Todmorden. A businessman heard of the search. He was a

flamboyant character, and when he was seen to attend a local Christian Science lecture—given

by Bliss Knapp—it was something of a seven-day wonder! However, his daughter had been

healed of hip disease by Doris and was able to walk again, and one day Doris took a telephone

call from him in which he expressed his gratitude for all she had done for him and his family. He

then said, “I hear you are looking for a building for your church. If you can make something out

of my residence in town, you can have it. I’m giving it to you!” This became the local church,

and it would be true to say that its membership was drawn in large part from those whom Doris

had healed. One of those early members writes of this time: “Our son was returning from an

international car rally and his car went over a precipice. Doris was contacted and her statement

was, ‘This accident has no more touched Oliver than the crucifixion touched the Christ.’ In spite

of several severe injuries, within six weeks he was driving again, completely healed.” Another

healing of those early days is recorded in A Century of Christian Science Healing, on pages

84-86.

It was not long after this that Doris moved to London, and her work from then on is

known to many. So, too, are her Association addresses, which have been of such help to those

who have had them. I was very happy to learn that some of her friends had decided to collect

these papers from many sources so that the pure Science they express might be preserved in book

form and circulated to those who knew her. I went with her to many of these Association

meetings and know many of those whose lives have been touched by her work. She was a great

giver. She was so sure of what her real substance was that she never ceased giving. Everyone

was precious to her. Nothing was allowed to get in the way of her Science, even though she

managed her home efficiently and with a constant sense of abundance. Few have succeeded in

dropping the human concept and its demands more than she did, but she once said: “It was so

easy for me: there was nothing worth keeping!” She was, as I have always said, an amazing

child.

To those who originated the idea of this book and cherished it until it took form, as well

as for the work and time (so happily given) that it has involved, I wish to express my gratitude.

Flora Nelson Ogden

West Sussex, England

January 1989

Compilers’ Preface

In response to the desire of many people throughout the world who remember Doris

Henty as a friend, a practitioner, and a speaker at Association meetings, this collection of her

addresses and other writings has been prepared. At a time when natural science has achieved

many apparently wonderful things—and this will continue to happen—the need to retain the pure

sense of Christian Science is greater than ever. This is a major reason for this book. To those

people, both known and unknown to us, who have shared treasured papers, and who have wanted

their clear statement of Science to be made available to a wider public, we are grateful. We are

most grateful for the help that has been given by Mrs. Henty’s sister and brother, Flora Nelson

Ogden and Ronald Nelson.

Readers may notice that some Biblical accounts and other examples of healing which

were particularly meaningful to Mrs. Henty appear in more than one of her papers. Certain words

are spelled in two different ways—the British and the American. Doris Henty used the British

form, while Mary Baker Eddy used the American. Unless otherwise identified, the works quoted

are by Mary Baker Eddy (see Miscellany, page 130). The title of her work Science and Health

with Key to the Scriptures has been shortened to Science and Health, and The First Church of

Christ Scientist and Miscellany has been shortened to Miscellany. All quotations from the Bible

are taken from the King James Version, which is used in Christian Science church services.

The Compilers

December 1989

Entirely Separate

We meet today to enjoy a further unfoldment, from the kingdom within, of the divine

reality which constitutes our very being. We will enjoy together the true concept of Life, the only

concept. This one and only concept is divine Mind’s view of its own Life. This concept reveals

the breathtaking beauty, majesty and flawless harmony which you are. It reveals the unalterable

perfection of Mind’s glorious nature to be your only nature. We will ponder the natural wonder

of the changeless actuality of the Ego, God and you. We shall find from our Leader’s works that

this glorious ever-unfolding of real Being appears as an altogether better sense of our daily

existence.

The marginal heading on page 576 of Science and Health is “Revelation’s pure zenith.”

From this pure zenith, the divine Mind’s viewpoint, Life is seen in its correct light. Spiritual

perfection is acknowledged to be man’s subjective state—man’s present and only condition. The

important point is that wholeness and harmony are not our goal; they are our present and

permanent state. As Christian Scientists, we have long forsaken the old theological sense of man

as mortal. We have forsaken the cruel theory that man has a mind and life separate from God,

separate from eternal good. We have outgrown the ignorant belief that we have to achieve

whatever degree of good we manage to experience. In place of this misconception we have

accepted divine Mind’s view of Life as our being—the view so natural to Jesus and Mrs. Eddy.

They discerned the perpetual harmony of divine Life to be our inevitable experience. This

perfect Life is not a state requiring our efforts to produce it. As just stated, it is the

God-manifested actuality of our existence.

From the viewpoint of divine Mind, the wonders of divine Life, peace, joy and wholeness

are experienced as our only condition. The divine concept of life includes no problem with which

to contend—no mortal, so-called life to be improved.

Now let us see what happens if one is unaware of the great privilege of renouncing the

mortal concept of Life. I quote Luke (11:24-26): “When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man,

he walketh through dry places, seeking rest; and finding none, he saith, I will return unto my

house whence I came out. And when he cometh, he findeth it swept and garnished. Then goeth

he, and taketh-to him seven other spirits more wicked than himself; and they enter in, and dwell

there: and the last state of that man is worse than the first.” This poor man had not the faintest

idea of the blessing he was missing by clinging to the mortal concept. Far from disowning the

misconception, he actually garnished it. He cherished it and attempted to get rid of only the

uncomfortable patches. So this man’s experience continued beset with added troubles. “. . . the

last state of that man is worse than the first.” There is certainly no peace to be found on the

mortal basis of belief. Our Leader knew this. She said, “. . . we must leave the mortal basis of

belief and unite with the one Mind” (Science and Health, p. 424).

Instead of toiling with the mortal sense of life, we rejoice that such a concept is a total

misconception of the one and only Life. There are not two lives. If we cling to a mortal

misconception of existence, we keep all the trouble it includes. And alas—“the last state of that

man is worse than the first.” But the Life divine is our Life—entirely separate.

Referring to this mortal concept of life our Leader says toleave it; abandon it; forsake it

and turn from it; reject it; disown and discard it; renounce it. Why is our Leader so emphatic in

the complete dismissal of the mortal concept? The answer is, because she knew its nature. She

tells us of the poverty of mortal existence, its weariness and wickedness. She speaks of the

mortal misconception as a myth, an enigma, a bald imposition and a ghastly farce. Further, she

says, “Mortal existence is a dream of pain and pleasure in matter, a dream of sin, sickness, and

death” (Science and Health, p. 188).

The blessings resulting from our complete separateness from such an afflictive

misconception are abundant. The mortal concept is a pack of false evidence. It is a “liar from the

beginning.” Not one word of its record is true. In fact, the mortal concept is mere illusion, but

happily we have no connection with it.

By understanding our complete separateness from the “belief and dream of material

living” we enjoy wonderful consequences. I quote, “. . . whosoever layeth his earthly all [his

misconception of life] on the altar of divine Science, drinketh of Christ’s cup” (Science and

Health, p. 55). We have the great advantage of laying down all the mistaken sense of life.

Indeed, what bliss it is simply to disown a material sense of existence with its multiform errors

and sorrows, and to enjoy the one real Life—the Life of divine fulfillment in all its aspects.

Entirely separate from the mortal myth, called life, is divine Life’s abundance, wholeness, joy,

all experienced as our present, permanent, flawless and happy state, so universal and so effortless

that not even the slightest suggestion of discord can be our experience. The “earthly all” is the

mistaken personal concept of self, complete with the ill effects with which this mortal concept is

laden. Happily, we are free to disown this illusion of life in its entirety. Otherwise, we would be

in the same position as the man with seven more devils, whose “last state [was] worse than the

first.”

In the following reference from Miscellaneous Writings (p. 185), the emphasis falls again

on the renunciation “of all that constitutes a so-called material man . . .” In order to be a total

blessing, the renunciation of the misconception must be complete. I quote: “Self-renunciation of

all that constitutes a so-called material man . . . is Science that opens the very flood-gates of

heaven; whence good flows into every avenue of being…” Notice: “. . . the very flood-gates of

heaven; whence good flows into every avenue of being”! What a stupendous reward we reap for

the renunciation of a mere illusion!

The reason for attributing such great importance to the renunciation of the mortal concept

is given in our Leader’s statement: “There is no other way under heaven whereby we can be

saved, and man be clothed with might, majesty, and immortality” (Miscellaneous Writings, p.

185). No other way under heaven! This is surely adequate reason for acknowledging, “I was

never in the mortal concept, and the mortal concept is never in me.”

It is readily understandable that the human mind could give no correct assessment of

divine Life. The opposed-to-God mind could never give the true facts; so our Leader tells us,

“…Mind is its own interpreter” (Science and Health, p. 577). And a most important statement is

on page 258 of Miscellaneous Writings: “God’s interpretation of Himself furnishes man with the

only suitable or true idea of Him . . .” The divine Mind’s flawless concept of Itself! Please, may I

say again, not the human mind’s concept of God, but God’s concept of Himself furnishes us with

the truth of our being. Divine Mind’s interpretation of Itself tells us exactly what we are.

In my early days Mr. William P. McKenzie, who gave years of loyal service to our

Leader, told me that he asked her how he could accomplish the best healing. She referred him to

Psalm 85:8, “I will hear what God the Lord will speak: for he will speak peace unto his people,

and to his saints: but let them not turn again to folly.” Let them not turn again to the mortal

concept. He will speak.

Divine Mind speaks the truth about Itself as follows (and I quote from our books): “. . .

the voice of Truth utters the divine verities of being” (Miscellaneous Writings, p. 81). “I am All.

A knowledge of aught beside Myself is impossible” (Unity of Good, p. 18). “From me

proceedeth all Mind, all consciousness, all individuality, all being” (Unity of Good, p. 24). “I am

infinite good . . . Dwelling in light, I can see only the brightness of My own glory” (Unity of

Good, p. 18). “I am Spirit. . . . The beauty of holiness, the perfection of being, imperishable

glory,— all are Mine, for I am God. . . . I include and impart all bliss, for I am Love. I give life,

without beginning and without end, for I am Life. I am supreme and give all, for I am Mind. I am

the substance of all, because I am that I am” (Science and Health, pp. 252-253).

This is an infinitesimal fraction of God’s concept of Himself. The divine I is God; AM is

man. I AM is the Ego, the one and only Cause constituting its own effect. Hence our Leader’s

statements, “Mind is its own great cause and effect” (Miscellaneous Writings, p. 173), and “Life

demonstrates Life” (Science and Health, p. 306). (Here “Life” is capitalized both times.)

This statement, “Mind is its own great cause and effect,” is our authority for

acknowledging that perfect Life is all there is to man. I am is the subjective acknowledgment of

divine Mind, experiencing its own perfect nature and condition—the nature and condition which

you are. You are divine Life’s self-experience, the accuracy of Truth, the immutability of Love.

Another aspect of great help to us is that the divine Mind is all that feels. I quote: “Thou

shalt not admit that error is something . . . to feel or be felt” (Unity of Good, p. 22). “Mind, not

matter . . . feels” (Science and Health, p. 485). There are not two kinds of feeling, mortal and

divine, comfortable and painful, happy and depressed. Just think of the freedom and comfort due

to the fact that the divine Mind alone is capable of feeling! The divine Mind, your Mind, is

ceaselessly feeling, experiencing, its own unalterable perfection, totally separate from any

mortal concept.

In the very place and at the very moment where the misconception might suggest, “I feel

weary, I feel pain, I feel age creeping on,” all that is really going on is the one and only I,

ceaselessly, naturally and effortlessly feeling the bliss of the one and only Life. This divine I,

Cause and effect, knows Itself in terms of harmony, wholeness and beauty—knowing only (and I

quote)

“. . . His own all-presence, all-knowledge, all-power” (Unity of Good, p. 27). The Allness of

Truth permits nothing but Itself. It permits nothing, and bears witness to nothing, but its own

infinite nature, which is your nature.

I quote Science and Health (p. 411): “If Spirit or the power of divine Love bear witness

to the truth, this is the ultimatum, the scientific way, and the healing is instantaneous.” To bear

witness to the truth is to tell the truth. May I repeat: the divine I, aware of its own perfection and

immutable glory, declares Itself in all its fulness, directness, power, exactness, as: “What joy I

am and feel! What peace, strength, vigour I am and feel! I, in all my universality and wholeness,

am All.” Such is Spirit’s concept and record of Itself, and all that Spirit says of Itself is yourself.

Spirit’s record of its own perfection is what you are.

There is no point of contact in the whole of being between you and the mistaken sense of

life. There is infinite distance between you and error. In fact, Truth and error have never met.

Our Leader says, “The temporal and unreal never touch the eternal and real. The mutable and

imperfect never touch the immutable and perfect” (Science and Health, p. 300).

We never permit the assessment of the human mind. It is always incorrect. Even Jesus,

speaking from the standpoint of the human self, said, “If I bear witness of myself, my witness is

not true” (John 5:31). But speaking from the standpoint of the Christ, Truth, bearing witness to

Itself, he said, “Though I bear record of myself, yet my record is true” (John 8:14). Truth’s

record of itself is always true, and nothing apart from this can ever be your experience.

Still bearing in thought the man who identified himself as a mortal and in consequence

“whose last state [was] worse than the first,” let us now read a different experience related in the

chapter “Fruitage” in Science and Health. The testifier says in part (p. 667), “It was in April,

1904, that I first heard the ‘still, small voice’ of the Christ.” Previously, the testifier says (pp.

668-669):

Sorrow after sorrow followed each other in rapid succession; for ten long years there was

no rest . . . until finally . . . my health, gave way, and with that went my last hope. But the last

hour of the night had come, the dawn of day was at hand; a dear friend left Science and Health

upon my piano one day, saying that I would gain much good by reading it.

. . . When I began to read the book, life was a burden, but before I had finished reading it

the first time, I was doing all my housework and doing it easily.

For a long time I was always looking back to see if the error had gone, until one day

when I realized that to catch a glimpse of what spiritual sense means I must put corporeal sense

behind me . . . I opened Science and Health and these words were before me, “If God were

understood, instead of being merely believed, this understanding would establish health” (p.

203). . . . I closed the book and with head bowed in prayer I waited with longing intensity for

some answer. . . . suddenly, like a wonderful burst of sunlight after a storm, came clearly this

thought, “Be still, and know that I am God.” I held my breath—deep into my hungering thought

sank the infinite meaning of that “I.” All self-conceit, egotism, selfishness, everything that

constitutes the mortal “I,” sank abashed out of sight. I trod, as it were, on holy ground. . .

From that hour I have had an intelligent consciousness of the ever-presence of an infinite

God who is only good.

Everything that constituted “the mortal ‘I,’ sank abashed out of sight”—and so it does

today. From the glorious presence of the Ego, every condition which is not of God disappears.

You see, the mortal concept renounced itself. It sank abashed.

Just one final illustration of the practical power of the Ego—the Mind knowing only “. . .

His own all-presence, all knowledge, all-power”—totally free from any misconception. The

allness of Truth, permitting nothing but Itself, is total preclusion of erring sense, and is evidenced

in everyday life as your health, your security, your complete harmony and abundance.

I now quote from Revelation 20:11: “And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on

it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them.”

He that sat on this metaphorical great white throne is the Ego, the one I am—the practical power

from whom all misconception flees away. The mistaken concept of heaven and earth flees away.

I quote our Leader (Miscellaneous Writings, p. 251): “Sin, sickness, and disease flee before the

evangel of Truth . . .” Erring human sense flees from its own convictions. I quote again: “So sin

and sorrow, disease and death . . . flee as phantoms of error before truth and love” (Science and

Health, p. 215). “. . . dark images of mortal thought . . . flee before the light of Truth” (Science

and Health, p. 418). “. . . the dream has no place in the Science of being” (Retrospection and

Introspection, p. 21).

The restless, tempest-tossed existence of the human mind has no place in your

Soul-awareness. No misapprehension of existence can intrude itself upon God’s concept of

Himself, which is yourself. No beliefs of heredity, fear, contagion, no medical laws (so-called)

can trespass upon the glory of your being. You are entirely separate from the belief and dream of

material living. You are the purity of Spirit, the integrity of Truth, the infinite tenderness of

Love, the immutability of Principle, the activity of Life, the strength and intelligence of Mind,

the beauty and radiance of Soul.

This is the light which outshines the myth of misconception and melts away the

shadows. All sense of insecurity is forever outshone by the deep divine awareness of peace and

safety, harmony and wholeness, which is God’s concept of Himself and reveals conclusively that

the self-same Life which is God is the life which is you.

Finally, from whose face do all false concepts flee away? They flee from the face of the

great I am, perfect God and perfect man. Evil never did and never will enter the consciousness of

Truth. “. . . evil has in reality neither place nor power in the human or the divine economy”

(Science and Health, p. 327).

Christ-Acknowledgment

versus Human Effort

The third paper of our last Association Meeting dealt with the futility of attempting to

improve material belief or material conditions by “thought tending spiritually upward” (Science

and Health, p. 545), and showed the practical value of working from the standpoint of Truth

itself—that is, of working out from God and not up to God. The paper was based on references

which made it clear that as long as we believe ourselves to be persons applying spiritual

understanding to problems we find ourselves involved in toil, laborious effort, struggle and

process.

The disciples had toiled all night in vain. They were working on a material basis—the

barren, fruitless basis where persons believe themselves beset by adverse material conditions

and difficulties which they must endeavour to surmount. We do not need to struggle so hard, but

simply to acknowledge (that is, understand) the presence of perfection now.

As we work from the standpoint of Truth, starting out from the spiritual basis, perfection

is recognised to be already present, whilst all process of improving, attaining and achieving is

dispensed with. This fact is elucidated by the Master’s invitation and promise in Matthew

(11:28-30):

Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my

yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto

your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.

Today we shall continue this all-important subject. We shall discuss the contrast between

the two different methods of approach: (1) the mistaken approach, that is, a person using Truth in

order to reach a desired goal; and (2) the correct approach, which is the Christ-acknowledgment

of one Mind demonstrating its own glorious, changeless, perfect, buoyant, effortless Being,

spontaneously and directly.

The mistaken method leaves man on the basis of human endeavour—the basis of

personal effort—where human beings, with their varying degrees of understanding, are faithfully

and conscientiously using Truth in their effort to bring about better material conditions. This

approach suggests immediately the absence of perfection—the absence of omnipresence. It

suggests the necessity of achieving and arriving.

Moses’ journey towards the promised land furnished a clear example of faithful effort to

achieve. Although Moses’ qualities were so outstandingly fine and his motives so noble, yet he

made the mistake of believing that the promised land was a state outside of himself, to be

reached by progressive steps. Consider the lengthy process, the trials so unselfishly yet

needlessly endured. Compare Moses’ laborious effort to reach the kingdom with the Master’s

acknowledgment in Luke (17:20-2 1):

The kingdom of God cometh not with observation: Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo

there! for behold, the kingdom of God is within you.

This impersonal, scientific approach of Jesus showed that perfection is not a promised

land to be entered, but one’s present condition: perfect, changeless, complete and free. Perfection

cannot start out from the finite, imperfect concept of Being. It starts out from perfection itself, as

our Leader states on page 290 of Science and Health: “Perfection is gained only by perfection.”

In contradistinction to working upwards and outwards from the material standpoint, we

have the Revelator, who had reached the most advanced state of discipleship. He started out

correctly from Truth itself. He saw the new heaven and the new earth—the beauty, perfection,

abundance, wholeness, the joy, glory and harmony referred to in the Bible as the holy city—not

as some remote state to be attained, but as his own experience, his own being. This is the whole

point. Man does not have to achieve perfection; he is all that the holy city implies—one holy

consciousness of all-inclusive perfection here and now.

Let us review the experience of Paul. Up to a certain stage in his experience, Paul, like

Moses, believed that he was starting out from a supposed standpoint outside of Truth in the effort

to reach Truth. Convinced of the necessity of unremitting effort, Paul considered no sacrifice too

great. Instead of starting out as the Christ-idea itself, he mistakenly believed that he had to win

Christ. He wrote to the Philippians (3:8, 11-14):

Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of

Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but

dung, that I may win Christ . . . If by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead.

Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect: but I follow after, if that I may

apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus. Brethren, I count not myself to

have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching

forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling

of God in Christ Jesus.

“I press toward the mark . . .” Paul believed that he must work up to perfection, whereas

man is and has been at the standpoint of perfection itself. Perfection, health, joy and peace—all

that means heaven—is already man’s present and permanent state, even his unassailable being.

Still pursuing perfection, Paul wrote to the Hebrews (Hebrews 12:1): “Let us run with

patience the race that is set before us.” The need of patience would suggest slow progress toward

reality. What a contrast between the words of Paul and our Leader’s statement (Retrospection

and Introspection, p. 93):

The best spiritual type of Christly method for uplifting human thought and imparting

divine Truth, is stationary power, stillness, and strength; and when this spiritual ideal is made our

own, it becomes the model for human action.

Had Paul but known at this stage of his experience, as he certainly did know later, that

perfection is man’s primal and eternal state, all effort to attain and all process of attainment

‘would have been spared him. Let us obviate all such process and all such effort. Let us affirm

and reaffirm that all one could ever wish for and attain is already included within one’s spiritual,

glorious, divine, infinite, flawless being.

To revert to Paul: while believing himself to be a person contending with adversity,

fighting the good Christian fight of good versus evil, Paul made his consciousness the arena of

conflict. Having placed himself on this material basis, it cannot be wondered at that so many

untoward conditions beset his path. To quote Paul’s own words (II Corinthians 4: 8-9):

We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair;

Persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed . . .

In II Corinthians (6:4, 5), Paul speaks of approving himself as the minister of God, “in

much patience, in afflictions, in necessities, in distresses, in stripes, in imprisonments, in tumults,

in labours, in watchings, in fastings.” And again in II Corinthians (11:24-27) he writes:

Of the Jews five times received I forty stripes save one. Thrice was I beaten with rods,

once was I stoned, thrice I suffered shipwreck, a night and a day I have been in the deep; In

journeyings often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils by mine own countrymen, in

perils by the heathen, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea; in perils

among false brethren; In weariness and painfulness, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in

fastings often, in cold and nakedness.

What a life! All of these calamities Paul experienced because of his mistaken starting

point and standpoint. Acts (23:11) shows that Paul believed he had to bear witness to Spirit

instead of letting Spirit bear witness to itself. He believed that he, as a person, must demonstrate

good instead of knowing his entire experience to be Spirit’s demonstration of harmony, peace,

safety, security, abundance, all of which Paul had hitherto excluded from his experience by

believing himself to be on that basis where harmony is to be achieved. But inspiration changed

Paul’s viewpoint: his “strivings to attain,” his “labouring night and day,” his “reaching forth,” his

“efforts to apprehend,” his “pressing toward the mark” all ceased. His new metaphysical

standpoint revealed his oneness with Love, his inseparability from the perfection of being. He

finally saw the needlessness of tribulation and distress and wrote in Romans (8:35, 37-39):

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or

persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? . . . Nay, in all these things we are more

than conquerors through him that loved us. For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor

angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, Nor height, nor

depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ

Jesus our Lord.

More than conquerors! Up to that time Paul had been one of the most valiant conquerors

the world had ever known or could ever know. He had used all the Christ-knowledge he had to

combat, to contend, to conquer. But now he changed his approach, now he started out from the

standpoint of reality itself. He knew the perfection, the wholeness, the beauty of being in which

there is nothing to combat, nothing to conquer. More than conqueror, indeed, he was now! He at

last discerned the indivisible oneness of divine Love expressing itself in all fulness and

continuity.

As long as we believe ourselves to be persons working to bear witness—persons

demonstrating Truth—instead of knowing ourselves as divine Mind’s demonstration of its own

perfection, we have not abandoned the human concept. Yet to follow Christ means to know no

man after the human concept. It is to know man from the standpoint of Truth itself, or, in other

words, it is the Christ-consciousness knowing itself, knowing its own wholeness, perfection,

freedom, vigour, strength, beauty, might, abundance.

As an illustration of this point, let us consider some of the statements made by the human

Jesus and those made by the Christ. We shall note the wide contrast between the two. Jesus said,

for example (John 5:30), “I can of mine own self do nothing,” whilst the Christ acknowledged

(Matthew 28:18), “All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth.” Jesus asked his disciples

(Matthew 26:40): “What, could ye not watch with me one hour?” The Christ (Jesus’ true

selfhood), the glorious awareness of the unbroken, unbreakable bliss of his being, certainly never

uttered that query. Jesus said, “The son of man has not where to lay his head,” whilst the very

opposite was voiced by the Christ, as recorded in John (17:24), “Father, I will that they also . . .

may behold my glory, which thou hast given me: for thou lovedst me before the foundation of

the world.” Again, Jesus said, “My soul is exceeding sorrowful” (Matthew 26:38), as against the

Christ-acknowledgment, “These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you,

and that your joy might be full” (John 15:11).

What a contrast between Jesus, who was the highest human concept of the divine idea,

and the Christ itself. The human concept of Jesus and ourselves as the son of man must be

dropped. It must be emphasised that all that was ever divinely true about Jesus, or about any one

of us, is the Christ. Knowing this we need never again identify ourselves as human persons, but

as the Christ itself. We must no longer think of ourselves as persons using the Truth in order to

conquer false beliefs. We must start out on the spiritual basis where Truth is bearing witness to

itself, as in: “I am Truth’s manifestation of its own perfection.” “I am here and now the Christ

consciousness” (not a person trying to attain it). “I am the son of the living God.”

Authority for this subjective approach is found in Christ’s own words, “I am the way, the

truth, and the life.” “. . . the Father is in me, and I in him.” “I am the true vine . . .” “I am the

light of the world . . .” “I am from above . . .” “I am the bread which came down from heaven.”

“I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.” “I am with

you alway, even unto the end of the world” (the end of the human concept). “I and my Father are

one.” “Before Abraham was, I am.”

All these statements of Truth are Christ’s utterances, whilst the statements made by the

human Jesus were the utterances of the human concept. In metaphysics we have dropped the

human concept, and therefore we start out as the Christ-idea itself, I am. Whatever is true to

divine reality constitutes the truth of each one of us here and now, without a single reservation.

All that is good already exists in the perfection of being—in the perfection of all-inclusive good.

Instead of having to bring good about, we have only to joyously acknowledge its everpresence.

Let us never again regard ourselves as human persons using Truth to solve problems, as

this would leave us on the basis where man is a human person reaching out for God—on the

basis where Paul encountered all his tribulations. Acknowledge instead: “I am the divine

manifestation here and now of Mind’s glory, of Mind’s wholeness, beauty, buoyancy, gladness,

continuity, freshness, vigour, energy, power.”

Metaphysicians are not using Christian Science to solve problems but are living it

joyously, and thereby harmony in its fulness is perceived. Scholastic theology starts out with a

human person trying to improve himself. Always insist that man is the Christ-consciousness.

Man’s spiritual completeness is far beyond anything we could ever hope to attain by our own

efforts. Believing that, we have only to know what we are from the standpoint of Truth and to

realise that whatever good may appear to be absent is actually everpresent and is included in our

own being, which is Mind’s full manifestation. Know: “I am the idea of Truth itself. I am the

constancy of Truth itself. I am divine Mind’s self-consciousness, or Mind’s consciousness of

itself.”

Man is the truth of being, the divine son, not a person trying to prove the Truth; not a

person trying to show forth divine qualities! Truth is its own proof. Truth is its own evidence. So

let us live existence as Mind has manifested it— existence as it really and divinely is. Live the

beautiful, the infinite, the fetterless, unrestricted, misconceptionless being, and let your true

selfhood acknowledge, “I am infinite understanding here and now. I am divine reality itself!”

Christian Science treatment is not a human endeavour to bring the Christ, Truth, into

operation. Divine Mind’s acknowledgment of itself, which bespeaks man’s true and permanent

status, is the recognition of man’s immutable wholeness. The wholeness was an established fact

prior to the acknowledgment. The acknowledgment does not have to bring harmony into

being—the harmony is our being! The divine omnipresence of spiritual perfection is the spiritual

fact regarding the need for accomplishment. If we think that we have to be liberated from an

erroneous sense, we have not placed ourselves on the scientific basis of Christ’s

acknowledgment. That which is divinely true always did constitute our being. So, instead of

having to bring about good, we have only to joyously acknowledge its everpresence.

Similarly, do not think of yourself as a person gaining more knowledge, but live from the

standpoint that man is the divine idea itself and every statement of perfection in our books is a

confirmation of what we already are. Every statement of Truth is part of our infinite being. It is

our own embodiment. Our unfoldment is a fuller appearing of our own divine withinness. Our

function is not to bring the things of God down to earth, but to acknowledge that whatever is

beautiful, lovely, real and right is already part of our true being. This results in improved human

conditions without any effort on our part to improve the human situation. Instead of reaching out

for good, acknowledge that all good is found within your own being. Let us acknowledge that

man is “the compound idea of God, including all right ideas” (Science and Health, p. 475), and

therefore includes joy, peace, harmony, understanding, health and happiness. Whatever humanly

appears to be desirable is included within the divine idea without limit. We are gaining all

through Christ, not leaving all for Christ. The only thing we ever leave is the human

misconception, and this means the relinquishment and abandonment of all that dims our

constant experience of greater joy and beauty, fuller health and harmony. Finite sense can have

no concept of the fulness of infinity. From the standpoint of Truth, man already includes every

good quality, because he is the operation of divine Principle, not a person seeming to live in

accordance with the divine.

Acknowledge (without human effort): “I am infinite understanding here and now, without

any process of attainment. I am satisfied here and now. I am wholeness here and now. I am

fulness of Life, its perfect action, strength, vigour. I am the fulness of Soul, its beauty and

loveliness. I am the substance of Spirit in all its flawless, fadeless continuity. Within my true

selfhood is every spiritual element. All beautiful things are included within my real being.”

Divine inclusion is the law of exclusion to every false concept.

Man is the fulness of Love in operation. He is neither a loving person nor a person

working at being loving. Only by starting out from Spirit, from Truth itself, can we be aware of

what we really are, and dispense with all process of achieving God’s understanding of Himself,

which constitutes man. Man is divine Mind’s knowing. We let divine Mind declare itself in all its

perfection and fulness, without any sense that we are persons declaring divine Mind’s

all-powerful action, which goes on without any effort on our part. Divine Mind’s activity is the

continuity and immortality of the beauty, the wholeness and the perfection of being, which is our

being. Incidentally, to know that there is only one activity is just as important for business as for

health, because nothing but Spirit functioning is happening everywhere. We are not influenced

either by depression or by success.

The acknowledgment of divine Mind as our Mind frees us from limitation, restriction,

and from all imperfection of any name or nature, as it means we are the Christ-idea here and

now. We are not reaching out for it The Christ-idea is our present being, and we can actively rest

in the uninterrupted awareness of what we really are. Our ability is the Christ, not human

endeavour. Completeness is our present state, not a state to be achieved. Whenever material

suggestion suggests itself, we must never approach the suggestion with a sense that we are going

to destroy error. That is the prerogative of Truth alone. The consistent and scientific approach is

to start out from divine Mind. You then know yourself to be infinite in being, infinite in quality,

and you enjoy without effort, without restriction or labour, the beauty and the bounty of being.

Divine Mind is the one presence, the one condition, the one consciousness. In man’s oneness

there is no duality anywhere. Love is the one power operating. Starting out from divine reality,

you know yourself to be the infinite understanding of divine Mind. In the measure that we know

we are not persons holding to a right idea but the right idea itself, we shall have a more

expansive existence, more beauty, more joy, more peace, more health, more harmony and more

security. The more we approach any situation in the realisation that we are here and now divine

idea, inseparable from Love, the more we shall live that life which is the spontaneity of Love,

inseparable from Love. The perfection of our life is not an accomplishment; it is the

acknowledgment of the immeasurable perfection and harmony which we already are. Thus we

find human experience beautiful, effortless, versatile. We acknowledge ourselves to be “even the

calm, clear, radiant reflection of Christ’s glory” (Miscellany, p. 150). We do not engage in a

laborious effort to subdue the waves of mortal mind, but we live on a higher basis—the spiritual

basis, the only true basis, where the revelation of divine Science forever unfolds itself— where

the word of God is self-voiced, self-heard, self-understood without process.

In the words of our Leader’s poem “Christ My Refuge”:

And o’er earth’s troubled, angry sea

I see Christ walk,

And come to me, and tenderly,

Divinely talk.

Hear the truth of your own divine being uttering itself, voicing the glory, the wholeness,

the peace, the immutability, eternality, the bliss, the abundance which you are, not because of

your endeavour or attainment, but by the grace of God. As Jesus said (John 14:10):

. . . the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works.

The Christ Way

Jesus was the Way-shower. He showed us that the only way to live is in one’s true

identification as the Son of the living God, whose name is Christ. He recognised that the Christ is

all there is to man, and he performed his mighty works in this Christ-capacity. Jesus’ statement,

“I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly” (John 10:10),

could only be made in the recognition of his Christ-identification.

The basis of Christ Jesus’ abundance is the understanding that all substance is Spirit and

is everpresent in all its inexhaustible fulness. He taught that man is God’s beloved idea,

experiencing the abundance of divine Life. True riches are incidental to your Christ-selfhood.

They are not to be found in the human sense of existence. Had Jesus believed that abundance

came from matter, or person, he could never have fed the multitude. Jesus knew divine

completeness to be an everpresent fact, and he identified himself with this completeness: hence

the loaves and fishes, the tribute money. In such infinite self-awareness there could be no lack.

Know yourself to be identified with illimitable, spiritual abundance. You are the full

manifestation of God, blessed with the substance of the never-ending benediction: “Son, thou art

ever with me, and all that I have is thine” (Luke 15:3 1). There is not anything to infinity that

will ever cease. All unfolds more and more in beauty and grandeur as your own being. Your

Christ-withinness shines forth as infinite joy, bounty, beauty, completeness, as the fulness of

harmony to which there is no alternative or limit.

Referring to the Christ, our Leader has written (Poems, p. 75):

Strongest deliverer, friend of the friendless,

Life of all being divine:

The forever completeness of the Christ is indeed the “strongest deliverer” from the belief

that life could be unfulfilled, fragmentary, incomplete. All that is the manifestation of Truth is

your subjective experience, and is forever free from measure or limits.

Your Christ-dominion is the “strongest deliverer” from the belief that life is at the mercy

of circumstance or chance. It delivers from the “cruel creed” that one must submit to the

uncertainty and the hazards of the mortal way of living. You have no affinity with such

unenlightenment. The mortal way is ignorance. It is ignorant of the glory and bliss, the grandeur

and majesty, the freedom and certainty so natural, so inevitable, to your Christ-awareness.

“He that hath the Son hath life” (I John 5:12). He who identifies himself as the Son, or

Christ, has the Life which is God, the very fulness of self-existent harmony. He that hath the Son

as his only identification includes within his being the beautiful, permanent idea about

everything which appears as human existence.

There is a story in the Bible about a woman who was bowed together and could in no

wise lift up herself. This woman could not get away from regarding herself as a mortal, and so

was unable to acknowledge and experience the glories of divine sonship. We read (Luke

13:12-13):

And when Jesus saw her, he called her to him, and said unto her, Woman, thou art loosed

from thine infirmity. And he laid his hands on her: and immediately she was made straight, and

glorified God.

Jesus released her from the infirm, insecure, erroneous sense of life. She thus enjoyed her

true status as the Christ-idea. The way to heal as Christ Jesus healed is to know oneself as divine

Mind knows one,—that is, from the standpoint of the divine “I.”

Because Jesus identified himself with the divine, he stilled the waves of mortal mind,

annulled material law and restored the human body to normal usage. In the recognition that all

there is to one is the Christ, that which appears as a patient will know himself scientifically and

think no longer of himself in terms of sickness, suffering or lack.

Error would still attempt to postpone our recognition of our true status as the Christ. Old

theology still insists that man is a struggling mortal. Such a concept is, in our Leader’s words

(Science and Health, pp. 542-543):

The sinful misconception of Life as something less than God . . .

The Christ-Life is nothing less than God’s Life. It is God’s full manifestation of Himself.

Your tangible Christ-withinness was never in a mortal personality. To regard yourself as a

person is to think of yourself as limited, restricted and fearful. In the recognition of your

Christ-selfhood, you are free from the bondage of living as a person.

The following references are from our Leader’s works:

Pondering on the finite personality of Jesus, the son of man, is not the channel through

which we reach the Christ, or Son of God, the true idea of man’s divine Principle.

(Miscellaneous Writings, p. 309)

Even the teachings of Jesus would be misused by substituting personality for the Christ . .

.


. . . a better understanding of God as divine Principle, Love, rather than personality of the

man Jesus, is required.

(Science and Health, p. 473)

. . . divine Life, Truth, and Love, and not a human personality, was the healer of the sick

and a rock, a firm foundation in the realm of harmony.


Material personality is not realism; it is not the reflection or likeness of Spirit, the perfect

God.


Man is the likeness of Spirit, but a material personality is not this likeness.


Personality is not the individuality of man.


According to Christian Science, material personality is an error in premise, and must

result in erroneous conclusions.


Physical personality is finite; but God is infinite.

(Retrospection and Introspection, p. 73)

This material sinful personality, which we misname man, is what St. Paul terms “the old

man and his deeds,” to be “put off.”

(No and Yes, p. 27)

Again I repeat, person is not in the question of Christian Science. Principle, instead of

person, is next to our hearts, on our lips, and in our lives.


. . . worshipping person instead of Principle, anchored its faith in troubled waters.

(Miscellany, p. 152)

A saving faith comes not of a person, but of Truth’s presence and power.


God is Love; and Love is Principle, not person.

(No and Yes, p. 19)

Thinking of person implies that one is not thinking of Principle.

(Miscellany, pp. 233-234)

Remember, it is personality, and the sense of personality in God or in man, that limits

man.


. . . contemplating personality impedes spiritual growth.


My own corporeal personality afflicteth me not wittingly; for I desire never to think of it,

and it cannot think of me.


I earnestly advise all Christian Scientists to remove from their observation or study the

personal sense of any one .

(Miscellaneous Writings, pp. 308-309)

Keep personality out of sight.


Whoever entertains a personal sense of existence cannot see or feel the nothingness of

evil. Your Christ-selfhood, never stooping to a mortal sense of existence, precludes all personal

sense.

The realm of the Christ is the realm of radiant being. It is not the realm of person, either

knowing the truth or not knowing the truth. You are not a person seeking to do right. You are

spiritual rightness—the rightness itself. Never think of yourself as a person defending the right,

but as divine Mind’s full manifestation of all that is right. This Christ-rightness is of itself the

power which appears to us as an impregnable defence.

To live the Christ way is to acknowledge your true identification as the

Christ-consciousness itself. This consciousness includes no mortal sense of yourself, no mortal

sense of anything, or of any one, and is thus the “strongest deliverer” from all the discord

originating in the mortal, mistaken approach to existence. The Christ way is to see all from the

standpoint of God,—never from the human standpoint. Jesus refers to those who approach

existence in the way he taught in these words (John 10:28):

. . . they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand.

The Christ is forever secure, forever intact. Indestructibility is your original and

permanent state. Science and Health states (p. 316):

Christ presents the indestructible man, whom Spirit creates, constitutes, and governs.

You are this man, constituted of the immaculate consciousness of Spirit. To your

Christ-experience—your only experience—there is no possibility of suffering or pain. Any

suggestion of pain is entirely outside your Christ-selfhood, and has nothing to do with the Son of

God.

The living freedom of the Christ, the beauty and sublimity of your being, knows no

deviation, no mutability. Our Leader has written (Science and Health, p. 249):

Life is, like Christ, “the same yesterday, and to-day, and forever.”

Thus your experience is forever the same. It is complete, harmonious well-being. It is

problemless Being, forever happy, buoyant, joyous and free.

In the light of pure Being, man is Mind’s holy concept. Holiness is not striving to be; it is

being all that means wholeness without option and without alternative.

The Christ way is the way of divine immediacy, free from the mortal way of process, of

hoping and waiting. It is the glorious now of all good. It is the God-filled now, with no thought

or fear of a rainy day ahead. The Christ experiences forever its own crowning glory,—the

lastingness of all the goodness which is God. It is spiritual oneness experiencing its own blissful,

forever completeness, and completeness experiencing its own full satisfaction of oneness.

Knowing yourself to be this divine completeness results in the joy of finding all essentials in

your Christ-withinness, needing nothing from outside. The nobility of the Christ is spiritually

independent. Its all-inclusiveness results in the restful assurance of the inevitable continuity of

the sum-total of good as the naturalness of your being.

If you believe that persons and outside conditions are contributory to your peace, your

joy and abundance, then you are liable to find yourself in bondage to persons and outside

conditions. Only when joy, peace, love, abundance are conceived of divinely as your inner

Christ do they determine the abiding peace, security, joy and prosperity of your daily

experience.

Our Leader said in one of her classes, “If you do not permit the outward to become the

inward, the inward will take care of the outward.” By not permitting outward conditions and

circumstances to be your consciousness, the Christliness which you already are and feel will

determine the harmony of that which appears as human environment.

The so-called evidence of mortal mind never becomes any part of your Christ-awareness.

Jesus discountenanced—walked over—all such evidence. Our Leader says (Poems, p. 12;

Message for 1902, p. 19; Unity of Good, p. 11):

And o’er earth’s troubled, angry sea

I see Christ walk,

Christ walketh over the wave . . .

Jesus taught us to walk over, not into or with, the currents of matter, or mortal mind.

The Christ maintains itself as itself, immaculate. It maintains itself as the “one altogether

lovely,” never partaking of an element of earth. The ability to do this is not gained by human

endeavour. It is natural to the stability of your Christ-nature. Jesus had no ability or power which

does not belong to us here and now. Our capacity is the limitless capacity of the Christ and not

the capacity of a human mind enlightened by the Christ. The Christ-consciousness itself is all

there is to man, and can never be limited by a so-called human mind. The Christ-idea is never

handicapped by personal limitations. That which seems impossible of accomplishment to the

human mind presents no challenge to your Christ-capacity. You are the spontaneous spirituality,

the bliss, the joy, the reality of Being in which all human self is lost “in divine light, melted into

the radiance of His likeness” (Miscellany, p. 194).

The Christ is the fulness of divine knowledge. This recognition results in your knowing

all that you need to know in the most intelligent, quick and effortless way.

Immediately your Christ-identity is acknowledged, mortal belief with its suffering sense

is non-existent. The fact that the Mind which is God is your own Mind as the Christ, causes the

illusion of discord to vanish as a dream. Nothing human ever entered the Christ, which is the

“strongest deliverer” from every erroneous belief originating in material birth. You are the

divinely royal man, bearing the name—the nature—of your heavenly Father-Mother. Your

divine sonship precludes every mortal characteristic, tendency or trait. It renders null and void all

beliefs of heredity, age, contagion, imperfection. The Christ way of Life absolves one from the

restriction, pain, disappointments and strain of material living. The Christ, which is the very fibre

of your being, is peace, happiness and abundance. It is the active, living presence of all that is

divine and is thus the positive, dynamic power, forbidding all pain, all hurt, all suffering.

The Christliness of your being has never been exposed to, or been taken in by, the

impression of a mist—a mistaken world. Your joyful sense of divine living is dissociated

completely from all “earth-born taint.” It is your natural, continuous existence, really alive,

buoyant, fetterless, free. It is the magnificence and grandeur of the divine Son of God. The

Revelator said (3:11):

. . . hold that fast which thou hast, that no man take thy crown.

We must remain at the serene altitude of our Being and refuse to go down, even one

degree, to a material sense of existence.

The old theology which is utterly blind to your divine reality and royalty has no place in

the Science of Being. Error would tempt us to believe that the fulness of the Christ is too much to

claim and would suggest, as of old, “If thou be the son of God.” Confront such a suggestion with

the unassailable fact of your divine sonship: “I AM.” Error has no power to hinder your

recognition of the fulness of divine glory which you are. Man is never for a moment less than the

glorious son of God, and is therefore the full and permanent experience of God’s joy, God’s

peace, God’s grace, God’s bounty. Science and Health (p. 332) states:

The Christ is incorporeal, spiritual,—yea, the divine image and likeness . . .

The Christ way of Life is the way of clarity, effulgence, beauty and loveliness, radiance

and bliss unalterable.

In the whole of infinity, there is everything to love and nothing to fear. What joyous

release to know that we do not have to be afraid any more—do not have to accept identification

with a frightened human mind! Fear has no place in your Christ-consciousness—Love’s full

manifestation. Jesus exemplified also the uncondemnatory nature of the Christ, as in his healing

of the Magdalen (John 8:11): “Neither do I condemn thee.” The Christ-consciousness feels its

own tenderness, gentleness, love, which is the very substance of your being. It is your inmost

nature. You are the innate goodness of God. You are the love of divine Love, from which all

sense of division has been forever precluded. All divided sense, all dissension, is lost in the

Christliness of your being.

Jesus has shown forth the Christ in a most wonderful way and in wonderful measure. He

had restored sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf, voice to the dumb and feet to the lame. He

had healed multitudes and raised the dead. Yet he said (John 14:12):

. . . and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father.

What did Jesus mean by “greater works”? He meant that we must so love the wonderful

Christ-love, Christ-joy, Christ-wholeness that by our very Christ-spirit we prevent discord from

arising, even as the presence of light prevents darkness. There is a modern proverb, “Prevention

is better than cure.”

What reason did Jesus give for our ability to do the “greater works”? He gave this reason:

“Because I go unto my Father.” We must let the “I” go to the Father and stay there, that we may

live divine reality more and more infinitely. The one and only I belongs—may I say—with the

Father. It never belongs with anything mortal. It never belongs to pain, to fear, to turmoil,

loneliness or doubt. In order to do the “greater works”—the great work of preventing all

suffering—we must watch that the us always where it belongs. The I that is with the Father is

forever freedom, forever joy, forever abundance, forever peace, forever wholeness and bliss.

Once you can acknowledge and feel, “The I of my being is with the Father,” you have identified

yourself with all that He is, and you are immune to the suggestion of discord allied to a mortal

sense of existence. You thus experience a really secure, full, joyous, harmonious sense of Life.

You experience the sum-total of good which nothing can restrict. No suppositional evil can

withstand this correct identification of letting the I be always with the Father. It causes the

Christ, Truth, with all its calm, with all its glorious fulness, ever to appear as your own being.

This true sense of I knows itself and experiences itself in terms of beauty, tenderness, majesty,

perfection, excellence, and this fulness is the law of prevention to whatever is unlike good.

Let us enjoy the infinite sense of Life,—the divine, the beautiful, the permanent, the

joyful, the healthful, the real. Let us BE this, and by our very being we shall in fuller and fuller

measure heal the sick, restore the lost, redeem the sinner, raise the dead. Even more, by our very

being, we shall prevent these discords from arising.

Referring to divine Life, our Leader writes in Pulpit and Press (p. 4):

Reflect this Life, and with it cometh the full power of being.

May we so live, may we so let the I be forever with the Father, that “greater works” shall

we do, with “the full power of being.”

You were never anything but that which you are as I am. Everything that is beautiful,

permanent and good is incidental to I am. This happy state of divine fulfillment is not the lot of

the mortal. It is exclusive to the Christ,—to your own Christ-being.

Your Christ-selfhood is the “city set on a hill” that can never be hidden by the old

theological concept of it. The fulness of spiritual knowledge is your divine capacity. In this

spiritual knowledge one understands himself naturally to be “the Son of the living God”

(Matthew 16:16), enjoying uninterruptedly the reality and royalty of his being. The Christ way is

the abundant way, the peaceful, restful way; it is the way of buoyancy and happiness.

The majesty of the Christ overcomes the cross of personal, material sense. Miscellaneous

Writings states (pp. 63 and 103):

Jesus as the son of man was human: Christ as the Son of God was divine.

Jesus’ personality in the flesh, so far as material sense could discern it, was like that of

other men; but Science exchanges this human concept of Jesus for the divine ideal, his spiritual

individuality that reflected the Immanuel, or “God with us.”

The Christ way is the way of the crown and not of the cross. It is the way of liberty and

glory,—even God’s own self-awareness evident as all-harmonious being.

The Christ way is the freedom to live at the highest pinnacle of that which you really are.

It is the freedom to acknowledge that Love’s living is your being, and that you were never in a

material, personal sense of existence. The Christ is the meekness, the might and the glory of

Truth enthroned. It is your eternal peace, your deep, still calm, your gladness of Being.

Paul declared, “Christ . . . is our life” (Colossians 3:4). This living Christ is your whole

being. This is your power, your character, your grandeur, your majesty. It is impulsion of holiest

worth. The Christ is your conscious awareness—your very consciousness. Where could the

Christ be, but everpresent here, as your very being, your practical everyday knowing, your

natural inspiration? By this is meant, not an inspired human mind, not human exaltation, but total

inspiration itself,—total “aboveness” which never partakes of an element of the “beneathness” of

mortal living.

The Christ is not a power exterior to your everyday being. It is not something from

outside. It is eternal, incorporeal— your sacred, spiritually scientific withinness. In our Leader’s

words, it is that “true and conscious being” which “never left heaven for earth” (No and Yes, p.

36).

Let us be the very consciousness, the very feeling, the very living of the sacred Christ, so

that the Christ-power is felt wherever we are. This is the spiritual foundation of Christ’. healing.

This is the attitude and altitude of Being which heals the sick and calms the troubled world.

You are the divine Son. In the recognition of your own glory as the Christ, “the Son of

the living God,” let the Christ acknowledge the truth about itself with power and nobility.

Indeed, in the words of Isaiah (62:3),

Thou shalt . . . be a crown of glory in the hand of the Lord, and a royal diadem in the

hand of thy God.

The Glorious Life of God and Man

We meet today to enjoy our Leader’s assurance that the self-same Life that is God is the

Life that is man. This Life is a state of divine reality, revealing its own characteristics of health,

joy, freedom, peace and affluence, all of which are your present and permanent state. All the

glories of the one and only Life constitute your being. There is no alternative to your perfection.

Not one material belief is related to you. Mind’s experience of its complete well-being, even

God’s ideal of freedom and spiritual bliss, is all there is to you. The happy, changeless Life

which is God is your only experience. The same quality and condition of divine Life is the

quality and condition of your Life.

It was from the standpoint of the Christ, divine Life itself, that these three utterances were

made: “Before Abraham was, I am” (John 8:58); “I and my Father are one” (John 10:30); “… he

that hath seen me hath seen the Father” (John 14:9).

What did the Christ imply when he said, “Before Abraham was, I am”? He implied the

existence of one Life, the Life of God and man. “I” is God, “am” is man, the full manifestation.

May I repeat: “I am” is the Life of God and you.

“Before Abraham was” reveals the fact that the divine Life, God and you, has existed

forever, and has no point of contact with any of the absurd beliefs of the Adam-sense of

existence. There is infinite distance between truth and error. The I of your being has no

connection whatsoever with a single quality which is not of God. The I of your being has never

for one moment experienced any relationship with the mortal misconception, with its trials and

struggles, sorrows and tensions. These have nothing to do with you and you have nothing to do

with them.

“I and my Father are one.” These six words speak volumes. They tell us of the

impossibility of any mortal sense of existence. The divided sense of existence is merely a

misconception of the truth, and in no way whatever does any misconception refer to you. The

indivisibility of the Infinite is the guarantee that there is one quality of Life only.

Referring to this point, I quote our Leader (Science and Health, p. 361): “ ‘I and my

Father are one,’—that is, one in quality . . .” This “one in quality” is a powerful spiritual fact in

healing. Because God and you are one in quality, you can have no sense of life subject to any

material belief—no concept of life that can become in any degree discordant. There is no sense

of pain, fear, worry or anxiety in the Life of God and you. There is no age, no loneliness. The

holy state of all-inclusive good—even the glories of the kingdom of heaven itself—is your

subjective state, your present and permanent condition. These divine qualities are not “outside”

of the one Life. You do not have to struggle and strive to attain them.

They constitute you. Moreover, these divine qualities are unopposed. The very nature of

your Life is perpetual health, joy and strength, all so natural and effortless. It is God’s concept,

maintained and perpetuated by divine Mind itself.

I would like to read an excerpt given to me in the very early days by Mr. James Neal, the

beloved student and friend of our Leader. I have given this before, but I find it so valuable that I

cannot resist sharing with you our Leader’s own interpretation of “Christmas Morn” in healing a

patient:

Thou gentle beam of living Love,

And deathless Life!

Truth infinite is you, as God sees you,

As you see yourself.

Still I quote our Leader:

I have taken this hymn and raised a patient who was at the point of passing on in hospital.

I held her as a “gentle beam.” Of what? “Living Love”—as far above all the strife, all the

striving, as far above the conditions that brought her there. “Or cruel creed”— the doctor’s

verdict. So far above all cruel edicts, creeds of mortal belief. “Or earth-born taint”—so far above

any taint of inheritance. “Fill us,” fill her, today, right now, “with all Thou art.” With what? With

“living Love, and deathless Life, Truth infinite.” Thou all of her. Thou all of me. Fill us, be Thou

our all of Life always.

“Thou all of her. Thou all of me.”

“Truth infinite is you . . .” What a powerful spiritual fact! Our Leader certainly saw that

the Father’s flawless condition alone was the experience of that girl. So it is today. God’s own

Life, Truth infinite, is all there is to any one of us. Why should we hesitate to acknowledge that

God is all there is to us? I love to say: “God, divine Life, is all there is to me.” This Life is being

our mind, our action, our entire functioning, our substance, our very condition. This is all there is

to you and all there is to any one of your patients. “Thou all of her. Thou all of me. . . be Thou

our all of Life always”!

Of course, the girl was healed.

So, dear friends, in the understanding that the Father’s Life, the Father’s Mind, the

Father’s substance, the Father’s action is all that constitutes you, acknowledge often, “Thou all

of me.”

All the calamities of mortal existence stem from the belief that man has a different life

from God. All the fabrications of so-called mortal mind exist only in the life which claims to be a

separate entity. Our Leader says (Science and Health, p. 539):

“Error begins by reckoning life as separate from Spirit . . .” The fact that we have no

separate Life from God determines our true identity, and in consequence we avoid the

fragmentary, incomplete sense of existence.

Security

Another aspect of our Mind and Life is one hundred per cent security. A few years ago, a

friend of my family, a Christian Scientist, decided one morning to climb a neighboring mountain

in Switzerland. He carried a packed lunch and a rucksack containing his camera. Having reached

a considerable height, our friend sat on a rock to have lunch. The view fascinated him and he

decided to take a photograph. So he left his lunch and walked to the place where his camera lay

and proceeded to take a picture. Suddenly there was a terrific roar. The place where our friend

had been seated and which he had just vacated had crashed down into the ravine. As he

explained, the area simply disappeared, leaving a huge chasm. He, of course, was intact. Security

is the law of God and is perpetuated by divine Principle.

Within this Life of God and man, nothing but good is ever to be found—nothing but good

ever happens. Your Life is, in our Leader’s words, “holiness, harmony, immortality” (Science

and Health, p. 492). It is “infinity, freedom, harmony, and boundless bliss” (Science and Health,

p. 481). What a state—”boundless bliss”! This term could be applied only to that which is

absolutely perfect and safe. Nothing could ever be insecure in the Life which is boundless bliss,

and this is you. Bliss is your natural state. Our Leader even speaks of “Life supernal” (Science

and Health, p. 319). This is you. You are Life supernal. Yours is the Life in which bliss knows

no bounds.

Shall we read just a few of the thirty-seven references which our Leader gives on bliss?

She speaks of:

. . . the grandeur and bliss of a spiritual sense . . .


. . . the spiritual outpouring of bliss and glory . . .


. . . His presence, power, and peace meet all human needs and reflect all bliss.


. . . bliss is eternal . . .


. . . the bliss of spiritual being . . .


. . . the actual bliss of man’s existence . . .

(Pulpit and Press, p. vii)

Heaven is harmony,—infinite, boundless bliss.


. . .the bliss of seeing the risen Christ . . .


In contrast to this state of unfolding bliss, which you are, our book speaks of “the ghastly

farce of material existence” (Science and Health, p. 272). This ghastly farce has nothing to do

with you. To material sense, with its turmoil, tempest, incompleteness, sickness, you are

permanently unrelated. You have no material history. You have no mortal record. You will

remember that even the children of Israel are referred to as “weary wanderers” (Science and

Health, p. 570), “walking wearily through the great desert of human hopes,” “through the dark

ebbing and flowing tides of human fear” (Science and Health, p. 566). There is no bliss in being

a weary wanderer.

The children of Israel had not yet understood the all-inclusiveness and everpresence of all

good. This is why their journey was perilous. So indeed would be our passage, were we to regard

ourselves as mortals, striving to reach a distant goal. Unity of Good (p. 64) gives us the

comforting assurance that we cannot “escape from identification with what dwelleth in the

eternal Mind.” You cannot escape from the Life which is perpetual bliss. Why is there no escape

from what dwelleth in the eternal Mind? Simply because God is your only Life and Mind. You

have no option but to be the experience of God’s glorious Life. You are it!

Authority for this vital statement is given in the following references:

. . . God alone is man’s life.


Divine Principle is the Life of man.


. . . Spirit is discerned to be the Life of all . . .


He sustains my individuality. Nay, more—He is my individuality and my Life.

(Unity of Good, p. 48)

So then, it is plain that God is our only Life. In no circumstance is there a sick life, a sad

life, an insecure or a struggling life. As we have said, this is merely a misconception of the real,

and is totally unrelated to you.

May we emphasise here the authority given by our Leader to acknowledge that the divine

Mind is your only Mind:

. . . man has no Mind but God.


The life of man is Mind.


. . . the Soul, or Mind, of the spiritual man is God . . .


All consciousness is Mind . . .


Because of this correct identification, you are the experience of the very depth of peace,

the height of joy, the fulness of affluence and the unbroken continuity of spiritual bliss. You are

the experience of divine Mind’s ideal Life—sublimity itself.

Feeling

Now let us see what our Leader says about feeling. Continuous harmony in all its aspects

is the natural feeling of our Life. Divine Mind never could feel anything contrary to peace,

serenity and complete well-being, all of which you are! In support of this statement, I quote

Science and Health (pp. 166, 485) and Unity of Good (p. 25):

“Mind is all that feels . . .” “Science declares that Mind, not matter . . . feels . . .” “Mind

is not, cannot be, in matter. It . . . feels as Mind . . .”

Feeling is solely the function of divine Mind. Your Mind feels all that is its own nature,

even the fulness of health, strength and blessedness. The perfect harmony which divine Mind

feels is your own subjective state, with a total absence of fear or anxiety. Discords are never

within the presence of your Life. In fact, the one infinite Life, so consistently feeling its own

perfection, is God’s law, announcing: “I am All.”

Treatment

Just a few words about treatment.

An important statement is found on page 411 of Science and Health: “If Spirit or the

power of divine Love bear witness to the truth, this is the ultimatum, the scientific way, and the

healing is instantaneous.” To bear witness to the truth is to tell the truth. A Christian Science

treatment is Truth telling the truth about itself, about the one Life, and that which Truth

acknowledges in regard to itself is yourself. For instance:

I am Truth rejoicing in my own withinness of restfulness, clarity, liberty.

I am Mind, enjoying my wisdom, majesty and harmonious action, my intelligence.

I am Soul revelling in my own beauty, joy, bliss.

I am Principle aware of my own undeviating nature, lawfulness, integrity.

I am Spirit, the natural awareness of graciousness and substance.

I am Life, forever experiencing my own vigour, activity, vitality, buoyancy.

I am Love, the fulness of gentleness, tenderness, warmth—forever aglow.

All these qualities are what you are. God is cause, you are effect. There is no alternative

to this happy state. Whatever is not included in divine Life’s ideal living has nothing to do with

God or you. All the glory of the sum-total of divine Being is your natural condition, forever

uninterrupted, forever intact. Our Being is the spiritual enjoyment of “I am All”—the unfolding

and enjoyment of all that is the sevenfold nature of the one Ego—divinely beautiful, totally

complete. Acknowledge this divinely spiritual consciousness, in which is no impediment to

eternal bliss, to be the only condition you ever were, from which every vestige of discord has

been forever precluded. Think of the freedom of your independence from every material

circumstance! It is the freedom to enjoy infinite provision, limitless affection, even the nature of

the Ego, Life’s unfolding of its blissful withinness.

Health

Now we will take a look at health.

An important factor is the inorganic nature of Life. I quote:

Life is, always has been, and ever will be independent of matter. . .


Organization and time have nothing to do with Life.


Health is not a condition of matter, but of Mind . . .


Life is inorganic . . .


The blood, heart, lungs, brain, etc., have nothing to do with Life, God.


The indestructible faculties of Spirit exist without the conditions of matter and also

without the false beliefs of a so-called material existence.


Organic life is an error of statement . . .


At this point I would like to share with you another experience of Mr. James Neal’s

which he related to me. One of the best workers in the movement became very ill with

hemorrhage and was at the point of passing on. In addition to Mr. Neal, each of the Directors

had given treatment to this good worker, with apparently no result. One day the patient called

Mr. Neal to help again. He asked himself: “What more can I say?” Then came the answer: “I can

enjoy Truth’s announcement of its infinite perfection.” As he sat by the bedside, the lady

motioned to Mr. Neal to come closer. He then could hear her faintest whisper as she said:

“Whatever is true about blood is present in infinite measure, and I include it.” “One moment,”

said Mr. Neal to me, “the lady was like a little crushed moth on her pillow, and a moment later

she was aglow with healthy pink cheeks. The healing was complete.”

What did this lady do? She exchanged an object of sense for an idea of Soul. She

exchanged the mortal concept of blood for what is true about it, which is Life. In the same way

we can acknowledge that only whatever is true about heart or any other object of sense can be

our experience. Since matter is no part of our Life, what does constitute our real body? Our

textbook tells us that man is “the compound idea of God, including all right ideas” (Science and

Health, p. 475). We note: “all right ideas.” Not one is omitted. These ideas that constitute your

embodiment are intelligence instead of brain, spiritual discernment instead of eyes, spiritual

perception instead of ears. These ideas are that which is true about the human concept and are

termed by our Leader “verities priceless” (Miscellaneous Writings, p. 61). She speaks also of

“the eternal verities of Spirit” Miscellaneous Writings, p. 55), and tells us that “Science, divine

Science, presents the grand and eternal verities of God and man . . .” (No and Yes, p. 27).

We will acknowledge that each idea constituting the compound idea is a grand and

eternal verity, and let us be fully aware that all these ideas, combined, constitute you. They are

your only substance—priceless treasures of divine Mind, sustained, cherished, cared for,

perpetuated by Mind in their original perfection. These ideas appear humanly as your perfect

hearing, your sight, your intelligence, strength, your all-harmonious action. The perfection of

each idea is beyond impairment. Let us not lose sight of the fact that our dear Leader stood alone

in the face of the whole world with courage to voice her revelation that there is one Life only,

and that this glorious state is the Life of man.

May I draw your attention to two statements from Science and Health (pp. 372, 285)

showing the oneness of divine Mind and His idea and the oneness of Principle and idea:

. . . all is divine Mind, or God and His idea . . .

. . . the Supreme Being, or divine Principle, and idea.

That little word “or” is the important one. This is plainly stated—divine Mind or God and

His idea, God and you. The supreme Being or divine Principle and idea, Principle and you.

Much is heard today of the word “frustration.” As you know, frustra means “in vain.” In

the understanding that God is manifesting His wonderful Life, all sense of futility or frustration

is lost in happy, divine fulfillment and complete satisfaction. In the whole of Being there is no

power to delay or prevent any aspect of good from being your experience. All that divine Mind

causes happens and cannot be hidden or reversed.

Age

Let us now enjoy the spiritual freedom which our Life includes. Take, for instance, the

belief of age with its self-imposed characteristics of inability, resignation, limitation. Such an

attitude is permanently at variance with the unbroken continuity of scientific Being. The

metaphysician will never bow his head to the bondage inflicted by the mythical beliefs attributed

to accumulated years. Age is merely a state of suppositional acceptance of a life unlike God.

Such a misconception, needless to say, in no way refers to us. Age is a preposterous belief which

never had the slightest place in the timeless Life of God and man.

We are divine Mind’s evidence of perpetual loveliness, freshness, continuity—all evident

as the fulness of vigour, energy, strength and vivacity. I quote Miscellaneous Writings (p. 101):

“The scientific sense of being which establishes harmony, enters into no compromise with

finiteness and feebleness.”

Our Leader speaks also of “the charms of being, shining resplendent and eternal”

(Science and Health, p. 247), and of course these charms of Being are what you are. Job said

(11:17): “And thine age shall be clearer than the noonday; thou shalt shine forth, thou shalt be as

the morning.” We acknowledge no measurement of the mythical threescore years and ten.

Our glorious Life is the glory to which Jesus referred when he said: “Glorify thou me

with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was” (John 17:5).

What complete renunciation of the mortal sense of life, and acknowledgment of his true Being!

“Glorify thou me with thine own self”—not a self like thine, but thine own self, the one

Self. Man is the very selfhood of God, the changeless glory of immortality, untouched by time.

This glory appears as your continuous, limitless capacities. This selfhood is wisdom, beauty and

holiness, untinged by time. The ignorant assessment of man as mortal is lost in the brightness of

divine Life’s permanent evidence of its bliss and its grandeur. Age is not a condition, but a

totally false sense of existence, which is neither God nor man but merely an audacious

fabrication of mortal beliefs. Our Life retains its every divine quality and condition in flawless

evidence. Strength, vigour, energy, sagacity are divine Mind, always in full evidence. In brief,

age is outshone by the brightness of His glory. You are free!

Lack

Now we will deal with the claim of lack. This mistaken concept is outshone by the

overflowing fulness, great plenty, and profusion of the one Life. This abundant being is totally

independent of material belief, and is even independent of world conditions. The Mind of God

and you could conceive of no less than inexhaustible plenty at all times. So it is that the

permanent enjoyment of affluence is our effortless experience in unbroken continuity. This

understanding banishes all sense of obscuration that would attempt to hide this infinite

outpouring of good.

Now another point: the laborious effort of attaining. Laborious toil is no part of our

being. Deuteronomy (6:10, 11) makes this plain: “And it shall be, when the Lord thy God shall

have brought thee into the land which he sware unto thy fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to

Jacob, to give thee great and goodly cities, which thou buildest not, And houses full of all good

things, which thou filledst not, and wells digged, which thou diggedst not, vineyards and olive

trees, which thou plantedst not. . . “Identical with this is Jesus’ confirmation: “… it is your

Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom” (Luke 12:32). It is divine Mind’s good pleasure

to perpetuate the consciousness of total good. This is your consciousness and your experience.

You are the evidence of this abundant state, without toil. We have all the lovely references in

Isaiah (35:1-2, 7; 58:11)—”the desert shall rejoice, and . . . blossom abundantly . . .” No more

“parched ground,” no “thirsty land”—”and thou shalt be like a watered garden, and like a spring

of water . . .” The recognition of this perfect state is mighty in power, revealing the infinite

evidence of good in practical form. Everything that exists within the divine Mind is our actual

being and comes forth always in the form which most blesses human experience. In support of

this fact, I quote Joel and Deuteronomy: “And the floors shall be full of wheat, and the fats shall

overflow with wine and oil. . . . And ye shall eat in plenty, and be satisfied” (Joel 2:24, 26). “For

the Lord thy God bringeth thee into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and

depths that spring out of valleys and hills; A land of wheat, and barley, and vines, and fig trees,

and pomegranates; a land of oil olive, and honey; A land wherein thou shalt eat bread without

scarceness, thou shalt not lack any thing in it” (Deuteronomy 8:7-9). Nothing could be more

humanly practical than wheat, fats, oil, barley, vines, fig trees and honey.

Your teacher enjoyed a story related by Mrs. Laura Sargent. Our Leader asked Mrs.

Sargent, “Laura, if a carriage stopped at your door and some unknown person stepped out and

handed you a gift of one hundred thousand dollars, would you be surprised?” “I certainly should

be surprised, Mother,” was Mrs. Sargent’s reply. Our Leader said, “Then what a poor sense of

your God you have!”

Understanding, as our Leader did, that Life is a state of bounty, it is not to be wondered

that she wrote in Pulpit and Press (p. 9): “Christians rejoice in secret, they have a bounty hidden

from the world.” This is the bounty which can neither diminish nor end. It is, as previously

stated, independent of person, independent of any material circumstance. This bounty of divine

Mind is based on the firm foundation of Principle. Mortal mind changes may seem to come and

go, but this abundance of divine Life can be neither shaken nor shattered. So let us not live as a

fraction of the one Life, a diminutive sense of good, but let us acknowledge our own

Christ-nature of divine all-inclusiveness and infinite self-containment. We have done with the

cramping, limiting incongruities of mortal sense. Mind’s full manifestation of total good is our

status. We are at home in this real, divine richness—so let us acknowledge nothing less than the

fulness, the completeness and substance which divine Mind is perpetually manifesting as our

being. This wonderful state is not our distant goal. It is our present condition, our subjective

state.

Authority for the acknowledgment of divine completeness is found in John (1:16) and

Colossians (1:19; 2:9; 2:10):

And of his fulness have all we received . . .

For it pleased the Father that in him [in the son] should all fulness dwell . . .

For in him [in the son] dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead . . .

And ye are complete in him . . .

I now quote our Leader: “Man is God’s reflection, needing no cultivation, but ever

beautiful and complete” (Science and Health, p. 527).

Jesus acknowledged, “All things that the Father hath are mine” (John 16:15). This means,

of course, that the sum-total of good is ours in unfailing continuity. The parched sense of mortal

existence has no place in your awareness, which is illustrated by our Leader’s statement: “. . .

God giving all and man having all that God gives” (Miscellany, p. 5).

We have seen that our correct identification as Mind’s full manifestation reveals our

all-inclusiveness without a single omission. This all-inclusiveness is your present and permanent

state. Divine Mind manifests it. You are it. Any sense of half measure is repudiated by our

Leader: “Science reveals Life as a complete sphere” (Retrospection and Introspection, p. 60). In

the recognition of this fact, material conditions give place to the divine, lack gives place to the

unobscured abundance which characterises your being. Our Leader’s usage of terms such as

“flood-gates,” “flood-tides,” “the teeming universe,” and “the spiritual outpouring of bliss and

glory” illustrates the nature of our being, in which any restrictive sense is unknown. In the divine

Life, which is your Life, the mortal misconception is nowhere to be found. “Allness is the

measure of the infinite…” (Science and Health, p. 336).

Faculties

All mortal mind beliefs are utterly powerless, incapable of producing the slightest effect.

In this spiritual freedom, the counterfeit beliefs dissolve into their nothingness, and the evidence

of divine Life alone remains. Just one more word about faculties. The permanent perfection of all

faculties is your divinely established state. I quote: “Mind alone possesses all faculties,

perception, and comprehension” (Science and Health, p. 488). Mind itself is all the seeing,

hearing, knowing, feeling, action there is. Our Leader tells us that immortality has a glory of its

own. So your immortality is a state of total exemption from every mortal belief. In our Leader’s

words, you are “the everlasting grandeur and immortality of development, power, and prestige”


To summarize, the Life of God and you is grandeur and magnificence, living itself in its

own divine way, free from all fear or mortal restrictions, entirely free from false beliefs and

hypotheses. Thus it is that you have no alternative but to be the experience of all the joy,

wholeness, harmony, interest and vital purpose of divine Life. May I repeat, the whole of heaven

is your God-established awareness and feeling. Our Leader’s references show us that the Allness

of divine Life inevitably precludes all sense of inharmony. Her wonderful writings tell us that we

can have no mistaken concept of Life. Divine Mind’s concept of Life is the only one there is of

you in the whole of Being. There are no “weary wanderers, athirst in the desert . . .” There is no

“searcher for a viewless home.” We are emphasising the fact that man has no existence but the

divine, the Life which is endless Love. Our Leader says that “Love alone is Life,” and nothing

can alienate us from this sweet sense and presence of Life and Love.

What Love is expressed in the fact that your Life is the glory of God’s manifesting, even

the glory of the Lord revealed!

And now the benediction (from Isaiah 62:3):

Thou shalt also be a crown of glory in the hand of the Lord, and a royal diadem in the

hand of thy God.

The Veil Is Lifted

I quote Isaiah (25:7):

And he will destroy in this mountain the face of the covering cast over all people, and the

vail that is spread over all nations.

What is the fabric of the veil that is spread over all nations? It is the mortal concept of

life, woven of falsities such as age, heredity, loneliness, physical illness, organic life. The veil is

the total misconception of existence: the belief of a life and mind separate from God. This mortal

concept, this veil that is spread over all nations, includes all the corporeal falsities that claim to

be, and that would attempt to hide the harmony of our being.

I quote from Miscellaneous Writings (p. 309), “Corporeal falsities include all obstacles to

health, holiness, and heaven.” So, confronting these obstacles to health and harmony with the

Truth, we will get them well out of the way and enjoy His unveiled sweet mercies.

May I quote again from Miscellaneous Writings (p. 51):

“When from the lips of Truth one mighty breath

Shall, like a whirlwind, scatter in its breeze

The whole dark pile of human mockeries;

Then shall the reign of Mind commence on earth,

And starting fresh, as from a second birth,

Man in the sunshine of the world’s new spring,

Shall walk transparent like some holy thing.”

Truth will indeed scatter these human mockeries, these suppositional impediments to our

freedom. So let us confront them one by one with the truth of Being, and we shall see them

disappear just as the fog does.

Age

One of these impediments to our well-being is the belief of advancing years, which we

call age. This erroneous concept of Life would hide our agility, our strength and vigour.

What will lift this aspect of the veil called age—this obstacle to our permanent

perfection? The spiritual fact will lift it. The spiritual fact will reveal our perpetual freedom. Our

Leader writes in Science and Health (p. 247): “Immortality, exempt from age or decay, has a

glory of its own . . .” and she tells us that we exemplify “the charms of being, shining

resplendent and eternal over age and decay.” She makes it clear in Miscellaneous Writings (p.

101) that this scientific sense of being “enters into no compromise with finiteness and

feebleness.” This glorious state, exempt from age—totally exempt—is your being.

Your faculties and capabilities are not touched by time. You are the man who never slows

his pace and whose energies are never depleted. Yours is the agility and flexibility which knows

no rigidity. You are at the noontide of being, in which any trace of weakness or weariness is

unknown.

The eternality of your being holds no relationship to the ignorance of the proverbial

threescore years and ten. You are ageless Life, God’s ideal. Your sight, your hearing, your action

cannot be impaired. You are free from restriction of any nature. Your memory and your

wholeness remain divinely intact as the permanent actuality of your being.

God, in endless continuity, is being your actual condition. Divine Life itself is your only

Life. It is timeless, beautiful Being, into which no sense of age can enter. This Life is the

never-retrograding state of spiritual independence, dignity and dominion.

The ignorant assessment of man as mortal is lost in the glory of his present immortality,

lost in the fact that “each succeeding year unfolds wisdom, beauty, and holiness” (Science and

Health, p. 246).

On the basis of the oneness of God and man you have no option but to be the Life which

shows no sign of wear, no tarnish. In our Leader’s words, you are “the everlasting grandeur and

immortality of development, power, and prestige” (Science and Health, p. 244).

Ageing is a fallacy. It is a belief of involuntary action. But this belief is rendered null and

void by the spiritual fact: “The divine Mind includes all action and volition, and man in Science

is governed by this Mind” (Science and Health, p. 187). There is no involuntary action. I repeat,

“The divine Mind includes all action and volition . . .”

Yours is the Mind which perpetuates supernal freshness, vigour and spontaneity. You are

fully sustained strength, undiminishable briskness, acuteness, and alertness. Your Life is the

same buoyancy and vivacity now as it always has been, so full and unhampered, so free from

restraint.

The marginal heading on page 280 of Science and Health reads: “The things of God are

beautiful.” They remain beautiful, untouched by time. Job said (11:17), “And thine age shall be

clearer than the noonday; thou shalt shine forth, thou shalt be as the morning.”

The following quotation appears on page 10 of the Christian Science Series, vol. I, May

1, 1889. When Mrs. Eddy was asked, “Is it possible to change the aged form to one of youth,

beauty, and immortality, without the change called death?” she replied:

In proportion as the law of Truth is understood and accepted, it obtains in the personality

as well as character. The deformities and infirmities said to be the inevitable result of age, under

the opposite mental impressions, disappear. You change the physical manifestations in

proportion to your changed thoughts of the effect of accumulative years; expecting an increase of

usefulness and vigor from advanced years with as much faith as you look for decrepitude and

ugliness, a favorable result would be sure to follow. The added wisdom of age and experience is

strength, not weakness, and we should understand this, expect it, and know that it is so, then it

would appear.

“. . . anon the veil is lifted, and the scene shifts into light” (Science and Health, p. 513).

Our ageless being is seen in the light of divine Science. This is the first human mockery

scattered.

Heredity

Now we will sweep away the veil of heredity, remembering that the entire human

concept is but a “gossamer web of mortal illusion” (Science and Health, p. 403). This

impediment, heredity, is quickly dealt with by our Leader. She says, “Divine Science rolls back

the clouds of error with the light of Truth, and lifts the curtain on man as never born and as never

dying, but as coexistent with his creator” (Science and Health, p. 557). Divine Science lifts the

curtain. Jesus said, “And call no man your father upon the earth: for one is your Father, which is

in heaven” (Matthew 23:9). Calling no man your father upon earth, you have no connecting link

with mortal ancestry. You have no material history; no human record. With the Christ you can

acknowledge: “I came forth from the Father” (John 16:28); “Before Abraham was, I am” (John

8:58); “I and my Father are one” (John 10:30). Our Leader tells us that God is man’s only real

relative on earth and in heaven.

In your relationship with God is found your true and only selfhood. In this indissoluble

oneness is found the glory which you had with God before the world was. “Mind, God, is the

source and condition of all existence” (Science and Health, p. 181). God is all there is to you.

You have no alternative but to be precisely what God is expressing. This confirms that you have

not one element, not one characteristic, which is not of God.

In this understanding, not even the gossamer web of heredity could remain. It is rolled

back by the glorious fact that divine Life shines forth and man is the shine. The man who “has

not a single quality underived from Deity” (Science and Health, p. 475) is the man you are.

Utterly expunging the myth of heredity, our Leader writes (Poems, p. 29):

Dear Christ, forever here and near,

No cradle song,

No natal hour and mother’s tear,

To thee belong

In these few and mighty words, the entire human concept is expunged. It can no longer

hide the glory of our being. “A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid” (Matthew 5:14). This is

what you are, and no veil can cover that! So the veil of heredity is lifted and your being is seen in

its true light.

Loneliness

Loneliness is another pattern of the veil—a very drab pattern—lacking in colour and

seeking completeness on the human basis, where completeness is not to be found.

What will lift this grey veil, this feeling of futility and void? As always our book gives

the answer. Divine Science will lift this sense of loneliness. The divine Mind alone feels; so

feeling is the function of divine Mind alone. This Mind, our Mind, feels all that is its own nature.

This nature is joy, everpresent harmony, interest and appreciation. Man can never feel “left out.”

He is the happy experience of all the qualities of Father, Mother, husband and friend. He is the

continuous and full experience of love, gentleness, friendship and affection. In this divine

awareness any erroneous feeling, such as futility or void, is an impossibility.

In this realisation, the veil of loneliness is lifted. The scene shifts into the light of divine

completeness, which is joy itself. This feeling of joy that is deep and lasting contentment is what

you are—and all this, our Leader says, not because of material conditions but without them.

Physical Illness

Another inclusion within the veil covering the face of all people is that of physical illness,

and in particular the belief of growths. Again divine Science lifts the veil. Growth is the mandate

of Mind—Mind with the capital M. This is the guarantee that no erroneous sense of growth could

exist. Our Leader tells us also that God “is all the Life and Mind there is or can be” (Unity of

Good, p.3). A false growth has not a speck of life. God has it all. “Within Himself is every

embodiment of Life and Mind” (Unity of Good, p. 3). God certainly does not embody a falsity of

any name or nature. Whatever is not within God does not exist.

Again, still dealing with this claim of growth, I quote our Leader: “Spirit and its

formations are the only realities of being” (Science and Health, p. 264). Every formation of

Spirit is formed of Spirit by Spirit. This is the substance of your being. What immaculate

substance you are,—always in perfect order, and “no matter to cope with” (Miscellaneous

Writings, p. 183). Seen in the light of divine Science the only growth is the “growth in grace”


Organic Life

Organic life is another of the human mockeries. So let us enjoy a few more of the

spiritual facts which reduce organic life to shreds—and less than shreds.

I quote the third marginal heading on page 489 of Science and Health: “Organic

construction valueless.” And again from Science and Health (pp. 489 and 213):

. . . matter has no sensation, and no organic construction can give it hearing and sight nor

make it the medium of Mind.

Immortal and spiritual facts exist apart from this mortal and material conception.

Organic construction has no place in the Life of man, for the simple reason that the Life

of man is God. This non-structural sense of Life is your perpetual health and freedom. Without

organs there is nothing to get out of order—nothing to become diseased. So the veil of organic

life is lifted: all that would claim to hide our health, our security and peace—the entire mortal

concept—is gone.

The scene shifts into the light of divine Mind’s beholding, where Spirit is the only

substance, and complete and permanent harmony is revealed as our very being.

Separation from God

Now we will deal with the greatest audacity of all—the attempt of the veil to hide the

oneness of God and man. Were this possible, the separation would produce the greatest harm of

all. It would deprive man of his oneness with all good. Happily, the utter powerlessness of the

mortal concept leaves the oneness of Love and its idea not only intact but plainly to be

recognised, with blessings boundless. I quote from Science and Health, p. 575: “. . . this

revelation [the oneness of God and man] will destroy forever the physical plagues imposed by

material sense.” Think of it, physical plagues are destroyed forever! You cannot be sick. Your

inseparability from God means the utter end of all suffering.

In addition to this is another glorious consequence of oneness. I quote from Science and

Health, p. 577: “. . . there is no impediment to eternal bliss,—to the perfectibility of God’s

creation.” There is no impediment to eternal bliss for the simple reason that the sackcloth of

separation from God is lifted from our eyes, and we behold God’s concept of Life, which is

unutterable perfection, as our own happy, permanent state.

In Retrospection and Introspection (p. 23) our dear Leader relates her own experience,

and most touching it is. She speaks of the saddest times of all. Many were the dark days she had

known, but at the time to which she refers, conditions were more unbearable than ever before. I

quote:

Previously the cloud of mortal mind seemed to have a silver lining; but now it was not

even fringed with light. Matter was no longer spanned with its rainbow of promise. The world

was dark. The oncoming hours were indicated by no floral dial. The senses could not prophesy

sunrise or starlight.

Thus it was when the moment arrived of the heart’s bridal to more spiritual existence.

When the door opened, I was waiting and watching . . . He whom my affections had diligently

sought was as the One “altogether lovely,” . . . Soulless famine had fled. . . Being was beautiful,

its substance, cause, and currents were God and His idea. I had touched the hem of Christian

Science.

Even the touch of the hem rolled away the veil! The scene shifted into the light of divine

Science, of which our Leader wrote (Retrospection and Introspection, p. 27): “The divine hand

led me into a new world of light and Life, a fresh universe—old to God but new to His ‘little

one.’ “A fresh universe—all things were become new!

In this light, this new light, never do joy and health seem remote. Joy and health are the

everpresent, tangible reality of our being, our every-minute condition. A point of importance is

that divine light, divine Science, not only discloses the true sense of Life but reveals it as our

only possible existence. To this true sense of Life, God’s concept, there is no alternative. Infinite

oneness has no opposite.

The mortal concept of life which has claimed to hide our unalterable blessedness is

banished. Soulless famine has fled. The “vail is done away in Christ” (II Corinthians

3:14)—done away in the recognition that the Christ is all there is to you, your only identity. Now

that it is done away, let us see in more detail what the false views of life were claiming to hide.

They claimed to hide our kingdom within, our eternal harmony. But with what success? None

whatever! The mortal concept never even touched us. Truth and error never mingle. I quote from

Science and Health, p. 300: “The temporal and unreal never touch the eternal and real. The

mutable and imperfect never touch the immutable and perfect.” There is infinite distance

between Truth and error.

The suppositional veil has no attachment whatsoever. It is very loose and rolls back quite

easily. It is a mere myth of corporeal sense. I quote: “Corporeal sense, or error, may seem to hide

Truth, health, harmony, and Science, as the mist obscures the sun or the mountain; but Science,

the sunshine of Truth, will melt away the shadow and reveal the celestial peaks” (Science and

Health, p. 299). Our Leader assures us further that nothing can hide from us the harmony of all

things. Nothing—nothing in all the world—can obscure God and His manifestation.

We have now discussed the powerlessness of the human concept. Our Leader’s

statements have shown the human concept to be non-existent. The scene shifts into light. The

celestial peaks are revealed. Our heaven is unveiled—it is revealed intact. Heaven itself is

revealed to be our everyday experience. This means that the one perfect Life, our own Life, is

exact in every function, operating with divine precision, always in immaculate condition, with no

fear of obscuration.

Christian Science has declared to us, without exception, that divine Life in its eternal

glory is our Life here and now. This flawless Life is the natural, inescapable condition of our

being. Our Leader says that man cannot “escape from identification with what dwelleth in the

eternal Mind” (Unity of Good, p. 64). I quote: “Man in the likeness of God as revealed in Science

cannot help being immortal” (Science and Health, p. 81). We simply have no option. We cannot

help being precisely what God is manifesting. We cannot help being everlasting completeness,

and this completeness is experienced as our permanent satisfaction. The perfection which we are

is not a far-off vision of divine reality, but— please, may I emphasise—it is our very nature, our

essence and our feeling.

The Revelator portrayed this perfect state of Life as New Jerusalem. In Science and

Health (p. 592), our Leader interprets New Jerusalem as “Divine Science; the spiritual facts and

harmony of the universe; the kingdom of heaven, or reign of harmony.”

I quote Revelation 3:12: “. . . I will write upon him the name of my God, and the name of

the city of my God, which is new Jerusalem, which cometh down out of heaven from my God:

and I will write upon him my new name.”

The new name is not an identification one can accept so long as one thinks of oneself in

personal terms. We are privileged to renounce every vestige of personal sense with all its

limitations, and acknowledge that the new name, the new nature, is all that constitutes us. We

cannot apply the new name to the old concept. We cannot “put new wine into old bottles” or “a

piece of new cloth unto an old garment” (Matthew 9:17, 16). Start out as the glorious

Christ-idea. Start out as your new name. You will find this name in print on page 167 of

Miscellaneous Writings. Referring to the Christ idea, our Leader asks, “What is his name?” And

she answers, “Christ Science.”

May I illustrate this point by Paul’s experience. As you know, first his name was Saul,

the name which means unrestrained. After his conversion he took the name Paul, which means

constrained. Despite his wonderful characteristics Paul, at this point, still identified himself as an

improved human being, still on the human basis, and consequently he was beset by problems and

hardships one after the other. Our Leader tenderly tells us that we must leave the mortal basis,

the personal sense of life. We must start out on the spiritual basis, as the holy city which is our

very being, and which comes forth “out of heaven from God, Having the glory of God”

(Revelation 21:10, 11). On this basis, the beauty, wholeness and glory of our immortal everyday

Life shine forth. Again I quote: “‘And starting fresh, as from a second birth’” (Miscellaneous

Writings, p. 51). We start out, as it were, with our new name as our only name. This is our true

status, our true nature, a state of imperishable perfection.

I quote our Leader, “. . . let Science declare the immortal status of man” (Unity of Good,

p. 39). Science declares man to be the Christ-idea—the only begotten of the Father. There is no

other son. The glories of this sonship are your full experience now, fully evident, unobscured.

Every thread of the veil is done away. Your immaculate Christ-selfhood, which descends (I

quote again from Revelation 21:10, 11) “out of heaven from God, Having the glory of God: and

her light was like unto a stone most precious . . . clear as crystal,” is what you are. This is the

identification of the Christ-idea, your only selfhood. Accepting our true identification, how

unhesitatingly we can acknowledge with the Christ,”. . . the prince of this world cometh, and

hath nothing in me” (John 14:30). The prince of this world talks only to its own misconception of

man. It does not even know the existence of the Son of God, the Son you are.

Summary

As Christ Science we are divine consciousness itself, with no option but to be the Life

aglow with love. It is cause for rejoicing that the lifting of the veil reveals the self-same Life and

Mind of God to be the Life and Mind of man. This is why your Life is so closely acquainted with

its own complete blessedness and so accustomed to its perpetual health, strength and unimpaired

action.

Indeed, the glory of the Lord is revealed in full evidence as your wholeness—the very

essence of health, in which sickness is forever unknown. The light of divine Science reveals us to

be the full evidence of divine substance which operates unspent; the inexhaustible satisfaction of

divine completeness; the happy experience of the kingdom of heaven within; the enjoyment of

all the wonders of God’s manifesting.

The mortal concept of life is the prince of this world. It would claim to obscure our

completeness and peace, our health and security; but from your consciousness of heaven within,

all misconception is forever precluded. Therefore, nothing in the wide world can hide the

harmony of your home, your business affairs, your relationships or your health. The kingdom of

heaven is your happy and satisfying experience. Your abiding sense of contentment and

fulfillment leaves no place or opportunity for longing, wishing or wanting. This divine

all-inclusiveness of your being forbids any sense of restriction, frustration or limitation.

You are complete freedom, enjoying your immutability and your total preclusion from

the entire human concept. The allness of Truth permits, as our being, only that which is Truth’s

own nature.

We have understood from our Leader’s works that not one belief of lack, age, heredity,

organic life, or medical theories can trespass upon our God-established, pristine perfection.

Divine Life’s concept is forever intact, perpetuating all that is within Itself; and this, without

one tinge of misconception, is your state at this and every moment.

We identify the mortal concept as the veil—the “gossamer web of mortal

illusion”—without mentality, without cause or consequence, without power to obscure one

single element of our harmony. We acknowledge that none of the varying clouds of mortal belief

can hide the harmony of all things; and consequently we are (according to II Samuel 23:4) “as

the light of the morning, when the sun riseth, even a morning without clouds . . .”

Feeling this unveiled brightness within, all so natural and inevitable—feeling and

enjoying this wonderful sense of Life as all that is or ever can be—we rejoice indeed that the veil

is lifted, and the scene shifts into light and stays there!

The Irresistible Healing Power of the Word of God

The greatest love that God could ever manifest is evidenced as His own undivided

allness—the allness and onlyness of that radiant Life divine, that infinite all of good which is all

there is to your very being, that boundlessness of blessedness which is your experience. This

measurelessness of glorious Being utters itself in its own Word, “I am All.”

The Word of God, “I am All,” has wholeness in its wings; it has blessings in its wings.

We read in John 1:1:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

The Word of God is essentially practical. Its efficacy is infallible. It is the living, loving

Word, “. . . quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword” (Hebrews 4:12).

This Word of God is the greatest benefactor to mankind. It includes the whole of

blessedness within its tenderness and power. It is Truth’s expression of its own allness, the

infinite perfection of all Being—perfect God and perfect man. The Word of God is the One and

Only announcing, “I am All”: I, the sum-total of the universe—I, flawless Life, Love itself—am

here, now and always. I am all that exists. This divine I is all there is to you; it is all there is to

those whom you love; it is all there is to anyone; it is all there is to any situation.

The Word of God is not mere sound. It is concrete substance itself. It is the infinite,

living, loving presence and substance of joy, peace, harmony, bliss, immutable perfection and

freedom—the absolute truth of Being, evident here and now as your all-harmonious being,

evident as your happiness, your all. The Psalmist wrote: “He sent his word, and healed them”

(Psalms 107:20). Page 11 of the Message for 1901 states: “The Word of God is a powerful

preacher, and it is not too spiritual to be practical . . .”

The spiritual is the only practical. The practicality of the Word is evidenced throughout

the entire life of Jesus. With the Word of God he healed the sick of the palsy and the withered

hand; he healed the infirm woman and banished dropsy. He restored the ear of Maichus, which

Peter had smitten; he healed the deaf and the dumb; he healed the daughter of the Syrophenician

woman, and the man at the pool of Bethesda who had been sick for thirty-eight years. He

cleansed the lepers, healed the centurion’s servant, and the nobleman’s son who was at the point

of death. With the Word of God, Jesus gave sight to the blind; he raised Lazarus from the dead;

he raised Jairus’ daughter from the dead, and the son of the widow of Nain; he rebuked the winds

and calmed the waves.

We are told in Matthew (8:16):

. . . they brought unto him many that were possessed with devils: and he cast out the

spirits with his word, and healed all that were sick . . .

It is related in Luke (4:32):

And they were astonished at his doctrine: for his word was with power.

What is the power of the Word which healed the sick, the sorrowing, the blind, the deaf

and the lame? What is the power of the Word which raised the dead? It is the absolute allness of

God—the everpresence of the sum-total of divine good. Science and Health states (p. 503):

Divine Science, the Word of God, saith to the darkness upon the face of error, “God is

All-in-all,” and the light of ever-present Love illumines the universe.

What is this “darkness upon the face of error”? Is it fear, anxiety? Is it a sense of lack,

frustration, loss or pain? Is it tired toil or unrewarded effort? To all of this, to all else that is

unlike good, and to all that seems to be the absence of good, the living, loving Word of God

saith, “I am All-in-all.” In the presence of such allness not one suggestion of error can be found.

What a mighty power is His Word!

Think of the magnitude of such allness—this allness of Love! It is Love so entire, so

pure, that it knows nothing (and thus permits the existence of nothing) beyond the loveliness of

its own infinite Being. It is this allness of God, in which you are included—this divine

omnipresence—which is of itself the mighty and practical power that heals the sick, removes all

pain, dissolves all trials, all hardships. Jesus proved this power to be irresistible, irrepressible,

dynamic and unlaboured. He proved the Word of God, “I am All,” to be a law of instant

dismissal to every phase of suffering—to all that would hurt and harm, to all that would stifle

and cramp.

Divine Love beholds all that exists as safely, tenderly included within its own Being. This

living, tender presence of Love’s allness is here, now—at this moment—a mighty power, instant

and immeasurable. It is the law of immunity to any sense of evil, want and woe. By its very

Allness the unutterable, unalterable perfection of Being outshines any possible suggestion of

discord. Examined in the light of the allness of good, evil is nowhere to be seen—nowhere to be

known—nowhere to be heard—nowhere to be felt. The Allness of good reveals that there is none

beside itself. No and Yes (p. 30) states:

God’s law is in three words, “I am All;” and this perfect law is ever present to rebuke any

claim of another law.

The authority of the allness of good is inviolable, incontrovertible. Let us then confront

every dark image of mortal thought, whether evident as pain, disease, discord, lack, sorrow or

loss, with the fact of God’s allness—the flawlessness of all Being—your Being. This allness of

good— this infinite Love—is indeed “quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged

sword” (Hebrews 4:12).

What happens to error when the Word of God is spoken? In our Leader’s words, “in the

place of darkness all is light” (Science and Health, p. 72). We read in our books:

The true Logos is demonstrably Christian Science, the natural law of harmony which

overcomes discord


Truth beams with such efficacy as to dissolve error.


This false sense of substance must yield to His eternal presence, and so dissolve.


Divine Science rolls back the clouds of error with the light of Truth


What is this light of Truth which rolls back the clouds of error? It is divine Mind’s

recognition of its own allness and perfection, the perfection which is evident here and now as

your own being. The following references are from Miscellaneous Writings and Unity of Good:

Divine Science demonstrates Mind as dispelling a false sense . . .


. . . God saith, I am ever-conscious Life, and thus I conquer death . . .


. . . I am infinite good; therefore I know not evil.


I am the infinite All. . . . My Mind is divine good, and cannot drift into evil.


The unbroken continuity of the Allness of good, evident as your very being, constitutes

itself a law of impossibility to the presence of discord—a law of preclusion to all evil

suggestions and all misconceptions. It is a power infinite and irresistible— the power of Love

itself, “sharper” indeed “than any two-edged sword.” The Word is quick and sharp to safeguard

your harmony; it is powerful in the safekeeping of your health, your security, your peace and

your bliss. It is “quick and powerful” to perpetuate your flawless perfection.

The Word of God, “I am All,” makes plain the fact that the glorious harmony of your

being cannot be obscured, and that here and now yours is the full experience of the kingdom of

God within. Your identity is established as divine Mind’s full manifestation.

The Word explains its own glorious immutability—your immutability—and announces

the vigour, joy, bliss, health and gladness of divine Life to be your natural status. Because, as our

Leader says in Science and Health (p. 181), “. . . Mind, God, is the source and condition of all

existence . . .” your condition is wonderful indeed. You are a state of inviolable wholeness, from

everlasting to everlasting.

Page 11 of Unity of Good says:

Jesus stooped not to human consciousness, nor to the evidence of the senses.

This fact is illustrated in St. Luke’s Gospel (10: 17, 18, 20):

And the seventy returned again with joy, saying, Lord, even the devils are subject unto us

through thy name. And he said unto them . . . in this rejoice not, that the spirits are subject unto

you . . .

The disciples, not having risen to the full understanding of the truth of being, were

forfeiting their sense of the allness of good by taking cognisance of the destruction of evil. They

said, “. . . even the devils are subject unto us. . .” Hence Jesus’ gentle rebuke, “. . . rejoice not,

that the spirits are subject unto you . . .” This lesson was to teach the disciples never to permit

affinity with any erroneous condition. They were to learn that real consciousness—“I am

All”—is too pure to admit the knowledge of evil in any degree—even its subjection. Real

consciousness does not descend from its spiritual altitude to take cognisance of matter in any

form. It is written in Science and Health (p. 191) and Unity of Good (pp. 23-24):

Mind has no affinity with matter, and therefore Truth is able to cast out the ills of the

flesh.

. . . a purely good and spiritual consciousness has no sense whereby to cognize evil.

Jesus followed his admonition, “. . . rejoice not, that the spirits are subject unto you . . .”

by defining a perfect Christian Science treatment: “. . . rejoice, because your names are written in

heaven” (Luke 10:20). Rejoice in the eternal continuity of your divine perfection, your true

spiritual nature, your wholeness and harmony. Acknowledge the immutability, the beauty, glory,

the loveliness, the permanence and bliss of the one and only Being—your Being. Incidental to

this acknowledgment of the allness of good, any belief in the existence of discord dissolves

without effort.

The son of God never identifies himself with improvement, with states and stages of

recovery. Perfection in its fulness is his only and forever status. The Word of God, “I am All,”

never announces healing, restoration, or adjustment. The Word of God declares perpetual

wholeness, infinite self-completeness and all-inclusiveness. It declares the immutable glory,

radiance, bliss and bounty of all Being, and this is all there is to your being. You are the

perpetual wholeness which the Word declares. You are the infinite self-completeness and

all-inclusiveness which the Word of God announces.

Let us emphasise that the irresistible healing power of the Word of God is Truth’s

positive acknowledgment of its own infinite everpresence, as the All and the Only of existence.

The following references are from our books (Unity of Good, p. 7; Retrospection and

Introspection, p. 56):

An incontestable point in divine Science is, that because God is All, a realization of this

fact dispels even the sense or consciousness of sin . . .

Divine Science disclaims sin, sickness, and death, on the basis of the omnipotence and

omnipresence of God, or divine good.

Now I quote from No and Yes (pp. 24, 25):

In the Science of good, evil loses all place, person, and power.

As there is none beside Him, and He is all good, there can be no evil. Simply uttering this

great thought is not enough! We must live it, until God becomes the All and Only of our being.

Let us live in the acknowledgment of spiritual, infinite well-being, where all sense of

having to be healed is lost in the radiance of living Love, your perfect Life.

The effort to heal material conditions is superseded by joyously remaining all that the

Word of God implies—by living as the fulness of real Life which so naturally maintains its joy,

maintains and enjoys its vigour, harmony and bliss. Because there is but one Life, and this is

your Life, you have no alternative but to be the enjoyment of the permanent perfection and glory

of pure Being. Live in the constant recognition and enjoyment of the permanent perfection and

glory of pure Being. This spiritual state, which is all there is to you, and which is too pure for the

slightest awareness of evil, is the power which causes every phase of discord, sin, suffering, or

lack to be indeed “subject unto you”—subject unto you in the most natural and effortless way.

Even then, rejoice only because “your names are written in heaven.” Rejoice in the sublimity of

your eternal nature. Let us quote again our Leader’s important statement, “Divine Science, the

Word of God, saith to the darkness upon the face of error, ‘God is All-in-all’ ” (Science and

Health, p. 503). Note also the direct result of this declaration (p. 503): “. . . the light of

ever-present Love illumines the universe.”

Could there be any power more practical, more immediate? Yet what simplicity—the

Word of God saith, “I am All-in-all”! Incidental to this Allness is your everlasting harmony, your

health, your peace, your home, your companionship, your normal action, and your bliss. The

allness of good is spontaneously continuing itself, and this spontaneous continuity of perfect Life

is all there is to you. The Allness and oneness of good is the living, loving power which no

discord can withstand.

One may enquire, “If the power of the Word of God is so practical and so infinite, why

does our dear Leader make reference to healing by argument?” This question is answered in

Science and Health, pp. 454-455:

Remember that the letter and mental argument are only human auxiliaries to aid in

bringing thought into accord with the spirit of Truth and Love, which heals the sick and the

sinner.

And on page 411 is a most interesting reference:

My first discovery in the student’s practice was this: If the student silently called the

disease by name, when he argued against it, as a general rule the body would respond more

quickly,—just as a person replies more readily when his name is spoken; but this was because

the student was not perfectly attuned to divine Science, and needed the arguments of truth for

reminders.

It is to be noted that this paragraph relates not to our Leader’s practice, but to that of the

student. She says, “My first discovery in the student’s practice . . .” As a point of interest, the

student here referred to is Dr. Asa Eddy. With great surprise, our Leader related this observation

of Dr. Eddy to Mrs. Laura Sargent.

A paragraph worthy of note appears in the little book An Historical Sketch of the

Beginnings of Christian Science in Lancashire and the North of England, by B. Tatham

Woodhead (Manchester: John Taylor, The Queen’s Press, 1934). On page 13 we learn that Lady

Victoria Murray, with other members of her family, had four interviews with Mrs. Eddy at

different times, and she has left a most interesting and helpful account of these visits. Lady

Victoria writes on page 15:

Nothing could exceed the kindness and sympathy shown to us at this time, especially to

my mother who was suffering severely from the sense of loss. Mrs. Eddy “moved with

compassion” tenderly assuaged my mother’s grief, lifting her to a higher recognition of Life,

then, turning to me she asked if I had any questions. “Yes” I replied, “I would like to know how

you heal the sick.” Leaning back in her chair she smilingly said: “I will tell you. I heal the same

way today as I did when I commenced. My original way was instantaneous. The students did not

understand any more than an English scholar could understand a foreign language without

learning it. They therefore put it into their language. The argument used in healing is simply

tuning-up. If your violin is in tune, it is unnecessary to tune it up. Keep your violin in tune.” This

last sentence was repeated quite imperatively and much emphasised. “There is no disease,” she

continued . . . “ ‘God is All, and God is Infinite’ precludes all else. Keep your violin in tune.”

And our Leader states in Science and Health (p. 454):

Teach your students the omnipotence of Truth, which illustrates the impotence of error.

The Christian Scientist starts with, and never deviates from, the Allness of divine

perfection, which of itself proves the powerlessness of evil suggestion. Nehemiah did this

(6:1-4):

Now it came to pass, when Sanballat, and Tobiah, and Geshem the Arabian, and the rest

of our enemies, heard that I had builded the wall . . . That Sanballat and Geshem sent unto me,

saying, Come, let us meet together in some one of the villages in the plain of Ono. But they

thought to do me mischief. And I sent messengers unto them, saying, I am doing a great work, so

that I cannot come down: why should the work cease, whilst I leave it, and come down to you?

Yet they sent unto me four times after this sort; and I answered them after the same manner.

The wall of Jerusalem is symbolic of heaven. Science and Health (p. 589) gives the

metaphysical meaning of Jerusalem: “Home, heaven.” Had Nehemiah left this standpoint of

heaven—had he come down to the level of evil, to argue with these evil suggestions—his

consciousness would have descended into the supposed realm of error. He would have entered

the realm where evil claims to exist and to operate. Every time we admit affinity with

resentment, lack, sickness, incompleteness, drabness, we are, in belief, entering the supposed

domain of these suggestions. But Science and Health says (p. 336):

Good never enters into evil, the unlimited into the limited, the eternal into the temporal,

nor the immortal into mortality.

Never cross the threshold of error’s supposed kingdom. Remain “pinnacled in Life”

(Pulpit and Press, pp. 2-3) at the divine altitude, the sacred summit of perfection.

If one identifies himself as a person confronted with human conditions and problems, he

places himself within the problem, a standpoint from which there is no solution.

The son of God is never engaged in a conflict with evil, with sickness or with lack, but is

undeviatingly the fulness of reality—the fulness of blessedness. Starting from the only true

standpoint, living as the son of God, living as the truth of Being itself, having the Mind of Christ,

free from any trace of error, being all that you divinely are—inseparably one with the divine

I—constitutes the power “sharper than any two-edged sword,” which precludes all belief in, or

activity of, evil.

Does not our textbook (p. 92) say, “Uncover error, and it turns the lie upon you”? On

page 542 we are advised: “Let Truth uncover and destroy error in God’s own way . . .” “God’s

own way” is a safe way, in which the human mind is never involved. “God’s own way”

maintains His Allness—maintains the undeviating perfection, the beauty and harmony, of the

sum-total of existence. Incidental to the consciousness of God’s Allness, harmony in all its

aspects, in all its fulness, is your experience.

If evil suggestion whispers, “I am sick; I cannot hear; I cannot see; I am lonely,” let us

not meet error’s arguments with more arguments, but as our Leader did, with the powerful Word

of God. Like Nehemiah, let us not come down, but maintain our divine position. As divine

Mind’s infinite self-awareness, we stay high aloft at the only altitude of the son of God. Man is

forever at the very zenith of divine Being, where he can rest in the quiet and sacred sense of his

unassailable security, not arguing with “error’s awful din, blackness, and chaos,” but remaining

above it. I quote from our Leader’s works:

. . . above the evidence of the corporeal senses . . .


. . . above the sod, above earth and its environments . . .


. . . above all material and physical sense . . .


. . . above the smoke of conflict . . .

(Miscellaneous Writings, p. xii)

. . . above the seeming mists of sense . . .


. . . infinitely above a bodily form of existence . . .


. . . above sin or frailty.


. . . above the mortal illusion of any life, substance, and intelligence as existent in matter.


The Word of God, “I am All,” declares and manifests as your experience the lasting

perfection which the one and only I continuously feels. The allness of God is the Allness of

feeling. It means that you can feel only joy and gladness. You can feel only the peace of Mind.

The divine allness means that you are the continuous feeling of serene well-being, the feeling of

strength, energy, buoyancy, the feeling of secure contentment. It means that you have no feeling

of pain, no feeling of sadness or sorrow. You have no insecure feeling of fear or of doubt. Plainly

our book states (p. 166): “Mind is all that feels . . .”

The Word of God and its evidence—wholeness, happiness, freedom, peace, rest,

strength, vision—are indivisibly one. Hence the power and practicality of the Word. Wherever

Truth utters itself, and this is everywhere, right here is the very substance of Truth’s utterance;

right here is the wholeness itself, the peace, the harmony, the fulness of bliss, all evident in their

permanence as your conscious experience, and you are the natural enjoyment of it all.

The Word of God not only announces the nature, condition and substance of itself and its

phenomena, but is the nature, condition and substance. Science and Health (p. 253) states, “I am

the substance of all, because I am that I am.” Thus the Word of God is not only an irresistible,

never-failing, loving, healing presence, but is the infallible law which prevents all discord.

Incidental to “I am All” is health, strength, bounty, freedom, the kingdom of heaven itself, in all

its glorious continuity, present in its indivisible fulness here and now as your own experience.

“And the Word was made flesh” (John 1:14). The following references are from Science

and Health (p. 350) and Unity of Good (p. 39):

“The Word was made flesh.” Divine Truth must be known by its effects on the body as

well as on the mind.

When “the Word” is “made flesh” among mortals, the Truth of Life is rendered practical

on the body.

Whatever the claim of sickness, whatever the nature of any discordant sense claiming to

be your consciousness, it will yield, as our dear Leader says, to this practical Word of God. Her

words are these (Miscellaneous Writings, p. 182):

When the Word is made flesh,—that is, rendered practical,—this eternal Truth will be

understood; and sickness, sin, and death will yield to it, even as they did more than eighteen

centuries ago.

We do not have to fight sickness, sin and death. They will yield. All suggestions of

discord are absent from the presence of the infinite I am. To this Allness of reality, which is all

there is to your consciousness, “the body corresponds with the normal conditions of health and

harmony” (Science and Health, p. 412). The human conforms to the divine.

The “Truth of Life is rendered practical on the body.” The Word, “I am wholeness,” and

its evidence of wholeness are one. The Word and its evidence of health, harmony, right activity

and strength are inseparably one. There is no gap between the Word’s announcement, “I am All,”

and the full evidence of this glorious divine Allness, the full evidence of perfection which you

are.

You can restfully, joyfully acknowledge from the standpoint of the one and only I: “The

peace which I am and forever have been forbids any suggestion of anxiety, worry, conflict.”

“The radiance and joy which I am and always have been permits no sadness, no grief, no

depression or sorrow.” “The wholeness which I am and always have been permits no sadness, no

grief, no depression or sorrow.” “The wholeness which I am precludes any sense of sickness and

of suffering.” “The abundance which I am prohibits any sense of lack.” “The divine

completeness which I am prevents all monotony, frustration, unfulfillment.” “The Love which I

am permits no sense of fear.”

Immortal evidence, the Word itself, the one I am, forever declares the unbroken

continuity of its own Allness, unassailable, unopposable—the only-ness of all Being; and this

divinely happy, buoyant state of good, divine good—entirely good—is your own being. You are

the fulness of divine self-awareness and divine self-experience in all its infinite variety,

spontaneity, freedom, bliss and inexhaustible completeness.

The divine Allness could never include within itself one element contrary to its own

nature. In this understanding, unhappy dream pictures vanish and what we term human

conditions conform in perfect harmony to the divine. The Word of God in all its naturalness and

love utters itself, declares the glory of the allness of oneness, with wonderful results. The human

situation resolves itself, settles itself in accordance with the divine; and in place of darkness, all

is light. In place of discord, all is harmony. We read in Science and Health (p. 275):

The starting-point of divine Science is that God, Spirit, is All-in-all, and that there is no

other might nor Mind.

The starting-point for abundance is in the recognition that man is Life’s full expression of

its all-inclusiveness here and now. The starting-point for health is in the acknowledgment that

man is here and now the glorious wholeness of Mind’s manifesting. The starting-point for happy

employment is in the recognition that man is the direct action and experience of divine Mind.

Never start out with the material condition in the attempt to spiritualize or improve it. Start out

with the Truth, the Allness—start out with the actual fact of your being. You live as freedom,

you live as joy, you live as buoyancy itself. You rest in the acknowledgment of being the integral

fulness of divine evidence. In this acknowledgment everything unlike the nature of God

dissolves.

“I am,” the Word of God, assures your forever completeness, assures your joy, your

wholeness, your perpetuity. I am declares the divine nature to be your nature. It declares all good

to be your good. It declares all health, all peace, all joy to be your health, your peace, your joy.

In this divine Allness of good, where is grief or sorrow? It is lost in “I am joy, happiness,

resilience, buoyancy, here, now and forever.”

Where then is lack? It is swallowed up in “I am illimitable, boundless abundance, by my

very nature.”

Where are to be found sickness and suffering? They are nowhere to be found. They are

swallowed up in “I am perpetual wholeness.”

Where is bondage to be felt? It is lost forever in the glorious freedom of I am.

Broken friendships are happily united in the oneness of Being. Discord is swallowed up

in “I am spiritual harmony.” Mortality is swallowed up in “I am immortality.”

Such is the wonderful, powerful, practical Word of God, “I am All,” which, by

maintaining its Allness, renders the presence of discord an utter impossibility. Such is the Word,

“quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword”—the Word which guarantees total

satisfaction in all its aspects.

The practical nature of the Word is beautifully portrayed by Isaiah (55:10, 11):

For as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but

watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and

bread to the eater: So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto

me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I

sent it.

The Word that goeth forth, the Word that shall not return void, the Word that shall

accomplish the divine pleasure, the Word that shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it—is

infinite in its power, infinite in its Love, infinite in its blessedness. The Word of God, which

naught could ever silence, utters its full diapason: “I am All.”

The Lord’s Prayer

I quote from Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy (p. 16):

Our Master taught his disciples one brief prayer, which we name after him the Lord’s

Prayer. Our Master said, “After this manner therefore pray ye,” and then he gave that prayer

which covers all human needs.

A prayer, indeed, of few words, yet sufficient of itself to cover every human need,

sufficient to meet every demand of every hour! Such prayer is indeed mighty in power!

The Lord’s Prayer is a statement of the perfection of Being. It reveals the spiritual nature

of God and man—the tender relationship of God and man; it teaches us of the almighty power

of God and the utter impotence of evil; it assures us of man’s immunity from sin, disease and

death; it enables us to rest in the omnipresence of all good, of Love itself, and convinces us that

the kingdom of God is our only realm.

When this prayer is fully understood, we shall indeed enjoy our true status as the son of

the living God. Again, I quote from our textbook (p. 16):

Only as we rise above all material sensuousness and sin, can we reach the heaven-born

aspiration and spiritual consciousness, which is indicated in the Lord’s Prayer and which

instantaneously heals the sick.

What is the keynote of this mighty prayer which instantaneously heals the sick? It is

“heaven-born aspiration and spiritual consciousness.” It is spiritual sense. So today we will

study, line upon line, the prayer of which our Leader writes (Christian Healing, pp. 15-16):

The Lord’s Prayer, understood in its spiritual sense, and given its spiritual version, can

never be repeated too often for the benefit of all who, having ears, hear and understand.

Our Father which art in heaven,

Our Father-Mother God, all-harmonious,

Jesus said (Matthew 23:9),

And call no man your father upon the earth: for one is your Father which is in heaven.

In the acknowledgment that God is the only Father and Mother of man you are identified

as the son of the living God, free here and now from the restricting sense of mortal existence,

free forever from every imposition that the false belief of heredity would claim to inflict. I quote

from Science and Health (pp. 228 and 412-4 13):

Heredity is a prolific subject for mortal belief to pin theories upon; but if we learn that

nothing is real but the right, we shall have no dangerous inheritances, and fleshly ills will

disappear.

The Scientist knows that there can be no hereditary disease, since matter is not intelligent

and cannot transmit good or evil intelligence to man . . .

In the understanding that man is the offspring of Spirit, you inherit the Christ-nature of

peace, joy, health and harmony and are exempt from all discord. The fact that God alone is the

source of your being constitutes itself a law of complete obliteration to all beliefs of the past,

together with their penalties. It wipes out the so-called mortal record and expunges any belief of

your material history.

Calling no man your father upon the earth, you find yourself dissociated entirely from the

mortal, mistaken sense of existence, having no connecting link with its material ancestry, no link

with its material experience, fears, anxieties, limitations and problems. There is no point of

contact between your birthless, ageless, timeless selfhood and the limiting sense calling itself

birth, time and age. There is no relationship between your Life, which is the expression of the

Father-Mother God, all-harmonious, and the misconception of the Adam-dream.

In the undeviating relationship of Father-Mother and son is found your true record—the

spiritual record of your everlasting perfection. This spiritual record declares that God has been

forever your only Life, your only Mind, your only substance, your only condition. It confirms

that you have never had one trait or one characteristic underived from God; that your every

action is divine. Your true record is that of completeness, of your wholeness, your intactness; it

is the record of health, harmony and freedom, all evident as your very being from everlasting to

everlasting. I quote from Science and Health (p. 31):

Jesus acknowledged no ties of the flesh. . . . He recognized Spirit, God, as the only

creator, and therefore as the Father of all.

Understanding that God is the Father of all, man finds himself free from all sense of

handicap, restriction or limitation. His uninterrupted enjoyment of true spiritual Life includes

infinite capacities and limitless capabilities. Man’s ability is not measured according to human

parentage, but is the infinite ability of the one Father-Mother. Your ability therefore knows no

measure.

Recognising Spirit as the only creator leaves no possibility of your inclusion of one

erroneous element. Because God is the only creator, there can be no formation but that of Spirit.

Divine Science reveals that Spirit and its formations are the only realities of being. Spirit’s

formations are beautiful, perfect, permanent. This fact operates as the law of instant annulment to

any sense of malformation or erroneous formation. It would, of course, operate as the law of

immediate dismissal to any false sense of growth, and to everything, in fact, which does not

emanate from the one Father-Mother.

The motherhood of God means great blessedness, as is indicated in Science and Health

(p. 332):

Father-Mother is the name for Deity, which indicates His tender relationship to His

spiritual creation.

This divine motherhood, your only Mother, is infinite gentleness, love, sweetness,

constancy, tenderness. As the expression of this Mother, this divine nature is your own being,

and thus you experience this affectionate, beatific tenderness always. Quite independently of the

human sense of motherhood, you feel the tenderness of divine motherhood always. I quote our

Leader (Unity of Good, p. 48):

To me God is All. He is best understood as Supreme Being, as infinite and conscious

Life, as the affectionate Father and Mother of all He creates . . .

And again (Miscellaneous Writings, p. 186):

We learn in the Scriptures, as in divine Science, that God made all; that He is the

universal Father and Mother of man; that God is divine Love . . .

In ascribing all fatherhood and motherhood to God, our prayer ascribes to man all the

glorious qualities of divine manhood and womanhood. This is indeed the prayer of

acknow1edgment of sacred perfection—the acknowledgment that man is the compound idea of

the divine Father-Mother. This compound idea includes all right ideas. Man is the full

expression of the one and only Parent,—the manhood and womanhood of God. This fact is stated

in our textbook (p. 516):

Man and woman as coexistent and eternal with God forever reflect, in glorified quality,

the infinite Father-Mother God.

Thus our prayer, “Our Father which art in heaven, Our Father-Mother God,

all-harmonious,” ascribes to you the fatherhood qualities of life, strength, wisdom, spiritual

understanding, vitality, vigour. It ascribes to you also the motherhood qualities of divine

tenderness, love, beauty, sweetness, spiritual bliss. The child, or reflection, of “Our

Father-Mother God, all-harmonious,” is divine completeness in all its aspects. This is the man

you are.

The Lord’s Prayer is indeed a prayer of benediction, indicating that the all-harmonious

nature of our Father-Mother is the very nature of man. It is the confirmation that the

Father-Mother’s glorious concept is the only concept there is of you in the whole of being. This

prayer blesses you with the sonship of God. It blesses you with the inheritance of spiritual riches.

It blesses you with God’s own Life, God’s own Mind. It blesses you with complete harmony in

every one of its aspects, giving complete exemption from all that is mortal.

We acknowledge with deep gratitude the perfection of our being which this prayer

reveals. At the same time this prayer makes a most sacred demand. Praying this prayer with

sincerity and understanding, acknowledging with reverence that God is the only Parent, never

again can we identify man as mortal. Never again can we attribute to man one quality, one

condition, one action which we would not ascribe to the Most High.

We can henceforth regard man in terms no less than those which this prayer reveals him

to be—God’s man, God’s own son, God’s own ideal. This prayer makes it impossible to attribute

to oneself, or to what appears as one’s neighbour, anything less than the glory which one had

with God “before the world was” (John 17:5).

We continue our prayer in conformity with our Leader’s statement in her Message for

1901 (p. 19): “. . . I know that prayer brings the seeker into closer proximity with divine Love,

and thus he finds what he seeks, the power of God to heal and to save.”

Hallowed be Thy name.

Adorable One.

The word “hallowed” means holy, sacred. “Name” means nature. This section of the

Lord’s Prayer pays divine honour to the holy, sacred nature of the infinite oneness of Being. I

quote two important statements from our books (Miscellaneous Writings, p. 258; Science and

Health, p. 112):

In divine Science, God is One and All . . .

From the infinite One in Christian Science comes one Principle and its infinite idea . . .

May I repeat this:


This statement authorises the acknowledgment of your inclusion within the infinite One,

your inclusion within the one infinite All. Further authority for this inclusion is on page 18 of

Miscellaneous Writings:

Father, Mother, and child are the divine Principle and divine idea, even the divine

“Us”—one in good, and good in One.

We are all familiar with our Leader’s vital statement, “Principle and its idea is one”

(Science and Health, p. 465) and Jesus’ acknowledgment, “I and my Father are one” (John

10:30). The inseparability of ‘God and man is then an established fact. I quote our Leader

(Science and Health, p. 476):

God and the real man are inseparable as divine Principle and idea.

God and man, distinct as Principle and idea, constitute the one infinite whole, the

Adorable One in His forever hallowed nature. This nature is evident as your changeless beauty

and loveliness, your tenderness, your integrity, patience, and grace. The oneness and allness of

God means that He is actually manifesting Himself as yourself. It means that there is one nature

only, and this is divine. It is God’s own perfect nature manifested as your nature. In endless

continuity God is being your actual condition. He is being your peace, your joy, your security.

God is being the whole of you, and because Being is One you can experience nothing which He

does not express. There is no other source from which anything could come. This sweet and

sacred sense of oneness makes it impossible for man to escape from identification with all the

harmony which dwells in the eternal Mind. Your coexistence with this Mind makes your

perfection unoptional. It means that not for one instant can you be separated from anything

which is included within the Life which is God, the Life which is fetterless, strong, buoyant,

whole and free. Your coexistence with God assures your harmonious action, your permanent

health, your abundance of good. In fact, your coexistence with God assures your continuous

well-being in all its innumerable aspects.

The Adorable One does not include one conflicting element within its entire infinite Self,

and therefore your complete harmony is without one contesting or opposing element. Thus your

immunity from all discord is guaranteed. Inasmuch as there is no error to oppose your health,

your wholeness and your integrity, your consciousness is peaceful, restful and serene. There is

no discord to enter your home, your relationships, your business affairs, and thus any disturbance

of your peace of Mind is impossible. The most ideal conditions that even God Himself can know

are the conditions of your Life.

The holiness of the Adorable One is your holiness; the bliss and freedom which constitute

the One altogether lovely are your bliss and freedom. They are within the one Mind, the

Adorable One, and there is no mind to think of itself as unhappy, elderly, sick, weak or lonely.

There is no mind to think of itself as mortal.

The allness of the hallowed name or nature of the Adorable One is evidenced always as

the presence of everything that means blessedness in every way, and this precludes even a

suggestion of anything to the contrary.

Within the Adorable One every element is divine. Outside of the Adorable One nothing

exists. I quote from Miscellaneous Writings (p. 93):

Christian Science authorizes the logical conclusion drawn from the Scriptures, that there

is in reality none besides the eternal, infinite God, good.

The whole of divine oneness and allness is holiness and perfection, where discord has

never been known. How inviolable, then, is this infinitude of oneness, in which you are

included! In the whole of being there exists nothing to obscure the hallowedness—the

holiness—of God and man.

The Adorable One excludes duality to the point of its non-existence. Oneness is

uninvadable. On this point our Leader leaves no doubt. I quote (Science and Health, p. 228;

Retrospection and Introspection, p. 61):

. . . nothing inharmonious can enter being, for Life is God.

. . . man’s harmony is no more to be invaded than the rhythm of the universe . . .

The Adorable One permits only its own infinitude of perfection and thus maintains and

perpetuates the perfection of all that exists.

Total harmony is your daily experience and nothing but good can ever confront you. All

misconception, all intrusion of discord is precluded forever from your being.

The infinite oneness of being is an all-powerful fact in the silencing of any evil

suggestion. In our Leader’s words (Miscellaneous Writings, p. 259):

It is this infinitude and oneness of good that silences the supposition that evil is a

claimant or a claim.

This infinitude and oneness of good silences duality, contention, divisions and strife. It

silences all that would claim to contradict the one glorious infinitude of good. It shows the utter

futility of attempting to divide Mind into minds, or Being into beings. Oneness silences the

falsities of a so-called mortal mind and the belief that there are minds many and natures many.

This oneness and allness of good silences the belief that there is any mortal man or any

Adam-dream. We will turn again to Miscellaneous Writings (p. 331):

As mortals awake from their dream of material sensation, this adorable, all-inclusive

God, and all earth’s hieroglyphics of Love, are understood . . .

Sincerely to worship the Adorable One and to hallow His name is to hallow the nature of

the one Father-Mother and child. It is to permit not one concept but God’s concept. It is to

acknowledge with reverence that the one infinite, indivisible whole of flawless Being is all that

is! It is to acknowledge that all belongs to God, and to acknowledge that He is All. I read from

Miscellany (p. 225):

In divine Science all belongs to God, for God is All; hence the propriety of giving unto

His holy name due deference,—the capitalization which distinguishes it from all other names,

thus obeying the leading of our Lord’s Prayer.

Whilst giving to His holy name due deference—giving to “Mind the glory, honor,

dominion, and power everlastingly due its holy name” (Science and Health, p. 143)—this would

still be inadequate worship unless we attributed to man not one quality contrary to God’s

adorable nature. Nor would our worship be adequate if we were to permit into consciousness the

existence of anything which the Adorable One does not embrace and cherish as His own

Selfhood.

This is prayer indeed. It is true adoration—even the acknowledgment of the glorious

nature of Principle and idea— God and you—the acknowledgment of the maximum of good,

expressed by our Leader in these words, “the maximum of good is the infinite God and His idea,

the All-in-all” (Science and Health, p. 103). The Adorable One whose name we praise and

hallow is one indivisible whole of endless perfection. It is of this allness of infinite good, so

flawless in nature, so worthy of our reverence, that we pray,

Hallowed be Thy name.

Adorable One.

We continue our prayer, which reveals our experience to be nothing less than the

kingdom of heaven within,— even the experience of our true divine nature, which is health,

peace, joy and harmony, already established. Our prayer reveals God’s kingdom to be the realm

of Spirit, where all that exists is infinitely superior to the state which even the best human

thought could conceive. God’s kingdom is the realm where God is the source and substance of

all that exists, and this is your realm.

Thy kingdom come.

Thy kingdom is come; Thou art ever-present.

God’s kingdom is the sum-total of divine evidence, and divine evidence only. This is the

evidence of joy, peace, health and harmony. God’s kingdom is the ultimate of perfection. It is the

ultimate reality of existence. It is the kingdom of the one primal Cause, free from the viewpoint

of so-called mortal mind, and consequently free from the false view of existence which this

so-called mind objectifies. It is the kingdom where there is no pain, no suffering, no conflict.

Divine Mind’s viewpoint reveals the glory of all Being, and this is your being.

Christ Jesus and the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science proved that this

spiritual reality, consisting of health and peace, is the substance of one’s own being here and

now. The teachings of Christian Science emphasise the importance of acknowledging one’s true

status, or divine sonship, to be one’s present state, not a future attainment. Thy kingdom is come.

In this connection, I quote (Science and Health, p. 428):

The great spiritual fact must be brought out that man is, not shall be, perfect and

immortal.

Present perfection could not be more clearly stated than it was by Jesus when he said, “I

and my Father are one.” He did not say shall be one, but are one. The Revelator declared, “Now

is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of His Christ”

(Revelation 12:10). The kingdom of our God is come. It is within you, here and now. I quote our

Leader’s portrayal of this kingdom (Miscellaneous Writings, p. 174):

What is the kingdom of heaven? The abode of Spirit, the realm of the real. No matter is

there, no night is there—nothing that maketh or worketh a lie. Is this kingdom afar off? No: it is

ever-present here. . . The kingdom of heaven is the reign of divine Science: it is a mental state.

Jesus said it is within you, and taught us to pray, “Thy kingdom come . . .

Let us then remember this all-important scientific fact. We are not striving towards this

sacred consciousness of perfection. We do not labour for something outside of our being. The

kingdom is within. This divine fulness, this perfection constituting the kingdom to which nothing

can be added and from which nothing can be taken away, is indivisibly complete now as your

own being. All that is within God is within His expression now.

Our Leader says, “. . . man has no Mind but God” (Science and Health, p. 319). We are

not hoping to attain the glorious experience of having no Mind but God. It is our present status.

The perfection of Being is everpresent, and this is the fact we joyously acknowledge—not

something we attempt to attain in the future. In support of this statement, I quote (Science and

Health, p. 285):

This Science of being obtains not alone hereafter in what men call Paradise, but here and

now . . .

The following quotation (Science and Health, p. 39) is so well known to every one of us

that to repeat it would appear almost superfluous. Yet its implications are of the greatest

importance.

“Now,” cried the apostle, “is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of

salvation,”—meaning, not that now men must prepare for a future-world salvation, or safety, but

that now is the time in which to experience that salvation in spirit and in life.

The truth that now is the time in which to experience the simultaneity of good not only

indicates the folly of postponing one’s perfection, but emphasises the fact that the entireness of

good is included in the nature of God and man. Christ Jesus discerned this present withinness,

this withinness of harmony, peace, joy, bounty. Hence he could say, “The kingdom of God

cometh not with observation . . . for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you” (Luke 17:20,

21).

Thus our prayer is the acknowledgment of the ever-presence of all the perfection that

constitutes the kingdom of God in contradistinction to the attitude of personal endeavour,—the

forever reaching out in the attempt to attain perfection.

“When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy” (Job

38:7), man was already blissfully complete. Creation was finished. In this primeval perfection of

God’s universe, which has never changed, how impossible it is that man should have to struggle

for well-being. One accepting such an unscientific theory would start from an erroneous premise,

as did Moses and Paul, wonderful characters though they were. Moses thought that he had to

make a long mental journey to a promised land which he hoped one day to reach. Paul’s

approach to the kingdom of God was illustrated not as a long journey but as a race! Both states

of consciousness were working towards harmony, but divine Love already encompasses all in

the tenderness of everpresent perfection.

When what is sometimes called a demonstration occurs, it is merely that we have become

divinely aware of the harmony which already exists and which has always been. We are now at

the zenith of perfect Life. To wait for perfection is the ignorance of the carnal mind. Waiting for

any form of good would be our self-imposed obstacle to the true perception and experience of

the glorious fulness of all-harmonious divine Life, which is the everpresent now of your being.

We must view all from the standpoint of pure Science, as is indicated in our textbook. I

quote (p. 264):

When we learn the way in Christian Science and recognize man’s spiritual being, we

shall behold and understand God’s creation,— all the glories of earth and heaven and man.

What simple requirements for so glorious a result! (1) We are to learn the way in

Christian Science. The way is not from the mortal sense of life to the immortal, from discord to

harmony; the way is out from God, out from the standpoint of perfection—out from reality. (2)

We are to recognise man’s spiritual being. Starting out from Spirit reveals man’s spiritual being.

Spiritual being is man’s only being. From the standpoint of ever-present perfection, we behold

the glories of earth and heaven and man. We behold and experience perfection itself, exempt

from any process of attainment.

Because the kingdom of God is come, you know yourself to be whole, living freely,

spiritually, abundantly, gloriously, here and now. May I emphasise—divine revelation, God’s

revelation, is not a future experience of perfection. It is perfection. It is divine Mind’s sense of

Life evident here and now as one perfect, infinite whole of all-inclusive good. This kingdom of

our God includes all that is divine. It is your kingdom, and it is now.

The harmony of this kingdom does not come and go, does not ebb and flow. In the words

of the Psalmist (145:13): “Thy kingdom is an everlasting kingdom . . .” It is your everlasting joy,

your everlasting harmony, your everlasting perfection. “. . . of this kingdom there shall be no

end” (Luke 1:33).

To be conscious of the kingdom of heaven already within is to experience one’s true

selfhood. This is not a process. Whilst old theology tries to attain love, happiness, security and

health, Christian Science acknowledges that love, happiness, security and health constitute man’s

forever immutable being here, now, and always. Our Leader makes this plain when she writes

(Miscellany, p. 242):

Christian Science is absolute; it is neither behind the point of perfection nor advancing

towards it; it is at this point and must be practised therefrom.

It is to be noted that perfection is not our goal. It is our starting point. In every way

possible the carnal mind would rob the present by attributing good to the future. As an example

of this, Jesus said that “while ye say, There are yet four months and then cometh the harvest, I

say, Look up, not down, for your fields are already white for the harvest” (Unity of Good, pp.

11-12).

Our prayer is the joyous spiritual acknowledgment of everpresent, infinite, divine

well-being, everpresent completeness, in all its endless security. It is the joyous recognition that

the reign of harmony is present at this moment and every moment.

In praying this section of our prayer we acknowledge that the one Mind manifests itself

as celestial being here and now, and this is your being. There is no other mind. There is

therefore no mind which believes itself bereft of harmony, and which in consequence tries to

bring harmony into being. There is no mind to wish, no mind to want. There is no mind to hope.

The state of thought which longs and yearns would be the denial of one’s true being, which is

incapable of any sense of lack or imperfection. Instead of living in anticipation, the one Mind

lives and rejoices in realisation—the realisation of its everpresent beauty, glory, peace and joy,

and this is your everpresent beauty, glory, peace and joy. Indeed your kingdom is come. It is in

this understanding of present perfection that we pray,

Thy kingdom come.

Thy kingdom is come; Thou art ever-present.

The next item of our prayer we will preface with the statement from Science and Health

(p. 2): “Prayer cannot change the Science of being, but it tends to bring us into harmony with it.”

Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.

Enable us to know,—as in heaven, so on earth,—God is omnipotent, supreme.

I now quote from Pulpit and Press (p. 22):

All Christian churches have one bond of unity, one nucleus or point of convergence, one

prayer,—the Lord’s Prayer. It is matter for rejoicing that we unite in love, and in this sacred

petition with every praying assembly on earth,—”Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth,

as it is in heaven.”

This section of our sacred prayer, “Thy will be done,” is stupendous in power and in

benediction.

We acknowledge God to be the one and only power in heaven and on earth, and that this

power is limitless in its resistless might. This dominant divine power is law to every situation

and brooks no interference from any supposititious source.

The will of God is imperative, absolute, final. This divine will is irreversible. It is

irrevocable. No scheming, no planning nor plotting of the so-called mortal mind could ever hope

to sway the sceptre of God’s wielding. “But he is in one mind,” the Bible says, “and who can

turn him? and what his soul desireth, even that he doeth” (Job 23:13). The same sense of the

might of God is expressed in the book of Daniel (4:35):

. . . he doeth according to his will in the army of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the

earth: and none can stay his hand, or say unto him, What doest thou?

What is the will of God? It is the activity of divine Love, the tenderness of might,

manifesting the sum-total of good as our entire experience. It is the gentleness of Love insisting

upon that which is right and permitting nothing but the right.

The will of God is the established supremacy of the one and only Mind which stands as

the Rock, unmoved, unmoveable. This mighty will of God is uninfluenced by all the

machinations of the so-called human mind.

How does the one Mind assert its supremacy on earth as in heaven? This supremacy is

asserted in every detail of our experience. How is this supremacy asserted over what appear as

discordant bodily conditions? The irresistible will, or power, of divine Mind as uttered by

Jesus—”Be thou clean,” “Arise and walk,” “Come forth,” “Stretch forth thine hand”— banished

the lie of false belief instantly and finally. The will of God is the law which cannot be defied and

which banishes every suggestion of sickness or pain, disease, sorrow, sin and death. The will of

God is the ever-operative law of health and wholeness. I quote our Leader (Miscellaneous

Writings, p. 185), “The will of God, or power of Spirit . . . strips matter of all claims, abilities or

disabilities, pains or pleasures.” If one is tempted for a moment to believe that matter, a false

growth or any other discordant condition can defy the absolute supremacy of good, assurance is

to be found in the following citations (Psalm 46:6; Unity of Good, p. 60; Science and Health, p.

572; II Chronicles 20:6):

. . . he uttered his voice, the earth melted.


Under the supremacy of Spirit, it will be seen and acknowledged that matter must

disappear.

. . . in thine hand is there not power and might, so that none is able to withstand thee?

Indeed, the divine Mind is as powerful in the physical realm, so-called, as in the spiritual.

No condition exists which could withstand the almighty power of God, any more than the night

can resist the dominion and glory of the morning.

Does a situation arise in which one is uncertain of the right course of action? The

following statement was made by our Leader to her household, “It is more important to know

that right is than to know what is right.” The will of God is always right and His will alone is

done. We can rest in the certainty that all propulsion and action are in the divine Mind and

therefore only that which is of God Himself can possibly happen. Good is enthroned. Nothing

but good is going on.

Be emphatic in your realisation that nothing is going on at this moment but God,—the

perfect will of God, which expresses itself in its own unerring way. God says, “. . . I will do all

my pleasure” (Isaiah 46:10). Willingness and gladness to have Mind express itself in its own

way—the divine way— silences human will and removes its obstructive presence.

The temptation to outline, or to decide humanly what would be the best course of action,

is far from prayer. The prayer which acknowledges the authority and supremacy of God inspires

with right motives and right consequences, far superior to and beyond even the best of human

thought and action.

We pray this section of our prayer with the sense of the omnipotence of good and the

utter impotence of evil. We pray in the knowledge that all suggestions of minds many, all

mesmeric beliefs, are precluded forever from the one Mind, your Mind.

Every former doubt, every fear of yesterday, is gone forever in the realisation that

nothing whatsoever can happen which is contrary to the tender will of God, the giver of all good.

We learn this in Isaiah, where we read, “The Lord of hosts hath sworn, saying, Surely as I have

thought, so shall it come to pass; and as I have purposed, so shall it stand” (14:24). Again I quote

from the Bible, “Who is he that saith, and it cometh to pass, when the Lord commandeth it not?”

(Lamentations 3:37). All suggestions of any presence, power or action of a so-called human will

are null and void. We are assured of this in the Acts of the Apostles (5:38-39), where it is

recorded that Gamaliel stated before the Council: If “this work be of men, it will come to nought:

But if it be of God, ye cannot overthrow it . . .” No evil can come to pass. This was proved by a

Christian Science practitioner. He was taking a journey by bus when a tornado appeared. He

described the tornado as a great black twister, which would have swept all to destruction in its

wake. The practitioner sprang to his feet and said aloud, “Either this thing is of God or it is

nothing!” The tornado, he said, turned completely around and spent its destructive force over the

sea, doing no harm. A tornado is not the will of God, so it is nothing. Again, “Who is he that

saith, and it cometh to pass, when the Lord commandeth it not?”

No matter how intense may seem the stubborn resistance of error to the will of God, no

matter how long such resistance may have persisted, the will of God, good, operates with divine

insistence to “overturn, overturn, overturn it . . . until he come whose right it is” (Ezekiel 21:27).

The impelling and compelling power of divine Principle tolerates no error in premise or

conclusion. His power overrules and banishes all that is contrary to Himself. As we read in Isaiah

(14:27), “. . . the Lord of hosts hath purposed, and who shall disannul it? and his hand is

stretched out, and who shall turn it back?”

In the infinite realm where God reigns supreme and where good alone can occur, there is

no evil cause, no evil effect, no discordant action and no domination of material sense.

The will of God asserts our ceaseless, natural joy. It asserts our peace, our abundance of

good and our harmony. This unalterable will of God insists upon our experience of complete

harmony in every circumstance. So it is that we give glory to almighty God who ruleth in heaven

and upon earth, whose gracious will and decree are everlasting perfection.

We declare, “. . . as in heaven, so on earth,—God is omnipotent, supreme.” And so we

close this section by quoting two passages from our Leader’s Miscellaneous Writings (pp. 277,

213):

“The Lord reigneth; let the earth rejoice.” No evidence before the material senses can

close my eyes to the scientific proof that God, good, is supreme.

Loyal Christian Scientists, be of good cheer: the night is far spent, the day dawns; God’s

universal kingdom will appear, Love will reign in every heart, and His will be done on earth as in

heaven.

Prayer is in itself a privilege, for whoever does not pray must accept the material picture

of existence as final. He knows no spiritual power to lift himself above the endless conflict of

so-called material forces and counterforces. He who does not pray is unfamiliar with the power

of Spirit and consequently has no trust in the Almighty, our only source of good. True prayer is

the understanding trust in the absolute certainty of good. True prayer reveals the glorious

conditions of God to be the only conditions of man. It is divinely practical and of immediate

efficacy.

Give us this day our daily bread;

Give us grace for to-day, feed the famished affections;

“Give us this day our daily bread . . .” What is the daily bread for which we pray? Our

Leader answers this question in Miscellany (p. 196):

The good in being, even the spiritually indispensable, is your daily bread.

And again in Miscellaneous Writings (p. 127):

When a hungry heart petitions the divine Father-Mother God for bread, it is not given a

stone,—but more grace, obedience, and love.

That which alone can feed the famished affections is the bread of heaven, and this

spiritual bread, this grace and love, for which we pray is found within—within our all-inclusive

divine being. This is the bread which alone can satisfy the hunger or longing of the human mind

for deliverance from its famished misconception of life. “The poor suffering heart,” our Leader

says, “needs its rightful nutriment” (Science and Health, p. 365). What is this rightful nutriment?

It is the bread of heaven—“peace, patience. . . and a priceless sense of the dear Father’s

loving-kindness” (pp. 365-366)—all of which are your own true nature. Such a misconception of

the one glorious Life as the “poor suffering heart” does indeed need this heavenly bread, does

indeed need the true concept of life—grace and truth, health and holiness. It certainly does need

“the tender grace of spiritual understanding, that love-linked holiness which heals and saves”

(Miscellany, p. 206).

“Give us grace for to-day . . .” The dictionary definition of grace is “an individual virtue

of excellence, divine in its origin; the divine influence ever-operative in man to regenerate and

sanctify.”

Is not this grace, this divine influence, identical with that of which our Leader writes in

the preface to Science and Health (p. xi): “. . . a divine influence ever present in human

consciousness and repeating itself, coming now as was promised aforetime,

To preach deliverance to the captives of sense,

And recovering of sight to the blind,

To set at liberty them that are bruised.”

The necessity of the healing power of grace is cogently expressed in Miscellaneous

Writings (p. 354), where our Leader writes,

A little more grace, a motive made pure, a few truths tenderly told, a heart softened, a

character subdued, a life consecrated, would restore the right action of the mental mechanism,

and make manifest the movement of body and soul in accord with God.

When our Leader tells us, “What we most need is the prayer of fervent desire for growth

in grace, expressed in patience, meekness, love, and good deeds” (Science and Health, p. 4), she

encourages mankind to recognise the value of the exquisite nature of the Christ which was so

perfectly exemplified by Jesus, and which is our nature.

Referring to the Christ, the Psalmist writes, “Thou art fairer than the children of men:

grace is poured into thy lips: therefore God hath blessed thee for ever” (45:2). The Christ is the

very essence of grace, and the Christ is your true identification. You are the Son of God, the

Christ-idea. The poor suffering heart does not refer to you. You are God’s most glorious concept

of Himself, and this concept is grace itself.

In speaking of Jesus, Luke says, “And the child grew, and waxed strong in spirit, filled

with wisdom: and the grace of God was upon him” (2:40). John says, “For the law was given by

Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ” (1:17).

Throughout his entire career, Jesus manifested the divine quality of grace in all that he

said and did, in great loveliness of character, in gentleness of demeanour, tenderness and the

refinements of true lovingkindness. His life was filled to overflowing with the grace of God.

As we acknowledge that the Christ-nature constitutes our divine sonship, we, too, can

enjoy the blessings which John recognised when he said, “And of his fulness have all we

received, and grace for grace” (1:16), and which Paul describes as the “grace, which was given

us in Christ Jesus before the world began” (II Timothy 1:9). Grace for grace, that is, grace

adequate for all graciousness—no matter how much the situation may require-—has been forever

our Christ-nature.

Grace is tenderness, patience, comeliness. It is the love that never faileth. Grace is the

gentleness that is greatness. One marvels that one single divine quality can embrace within itself

so much divine feeling as does grace.

It is recorded that Jesus was walking one day with Peter, James and John when they met

some rough men who spat upon Jesus. Jesus went on his way as though the incident had not

occurred, but Peter was indignant with Jesus because he had shown no anger. Jesus replied to

Peter that a man could but give of his store. Jesus’ store included no resentment, no sense of

retaliation. He was “full of grace and truth” (John 1:14).

It was this grace of God, the Christ-nature, which enabled Jesus to “open not his mouth”

and to pray, “Father, forgive them...” He expressed the same graciousness to the Magdalen, to

the publicans and sinners, to Zacchaeus, and to all whom he healed. It is the graciousness of the

Christ which made it natural for Jesus to wash the disciples’ feet.

It is the same spirit of graciousness which enabled Mary Baker Eddy to give Christian

Science to the world, to return love for hostility, and to pray, “Dear God, give me grace to keep

silent when it is not necessary to speak.”

May our prayer enable us to live as the Christ,—to live the stillness, the mellowness and

the warmth of Love in which any sense of harshness, impatience, intolerance and

inexpressiveness is unknown.

May our every thought, word and deed be invested with the spiritual loveliness of

grace—the grace which is an everlasting quality of our own Christliness, an everlasting

benediction.

As we live the nature of the Christ, who said, “I am the bread of life: he that cometh to

me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst” (John 6:35), the grace of

our being will be so felt that humanity’s unsatisfied, hungering sense will be fed with the bread

of heaven, with the fulness and satisfaction which are man’s own being.

The drabness and coldness of famished affections will be forgotten in the joy of

everlasting completeness, warmth and bliss found already within, in infinite and everlasting

measure.

The God who is grace itself, the infinite Oneness, has forever and forever tenderly

declared with the graciousness of Love, “My grace is sufficient for thee” (II Corinthians 12:9).

I will read a paragraph from No and Yes (p. 39):

True prayer is not asking God for love; it is learning to love, and to include all mankind

in one affection. Prayer is the utilization of the love wherewith He loves us. Prayer begets an

awakened desire to be and do good. It makes new and scientific discoveries of God, of His

goodness and power. It shows us more clearly than we saw before, what we already have and

are; and most of all, it shows us what God is. Advancing in this light, we reflect it; and this light

reveals the pure Mind-pictures, in silent prayer, even as photography grasps the solar light to

portray the face of pleasant thought.

And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.

And Love is reflected in love;

Our Leader’s writings make plain the fact that God’s pardon is the destruction of error. I

quote from Science and Health (p. 339):

The destruction of sin is the divine method of pardon. Divine Life destroys death, Truth

destroys error, and Love destroys hate. Being destroyed, sin needs no other form of forgiveness.

And from No and Yes (p. 31):

To me divine pardon is that divine presence which is the sure destruction of sin; and I

insist on the destruction of sin as the only full proof of its pardon.

The divine presence is the destruction of sin, and this presence is divine Love. The

wiping out of whatever error would claim to hold one in bondage is indeed the very essence of

divine Love. Even more, the penalty incurred by the error is banished together with the error.

The error and its penalty go hand in hand, inseparable. Once the error is gone, the penalty cannot

remain. Such complete absolution—freedom from both the error and its penalty—is Love itself,

and this is true forgiveness.

In this connection, I would like to tell you of one of our Leader’s conversations with Mr.

Edward A. Kimball. She said, “If a man stole a sheep yesterday but would not steal that sheep

today, there is no penalty today for the stealing of the sheep yesterday.” This is corroborated in

Science and Health (p. 404):

If the evil is over in the repentant mortal mind, while its effects still remain on the

individual, you can remove this disorder as God’s law is fulfilled and reformation cancels the

crime.

Whatever the mistake, the moment the error ceases, the penalty is remitted. The

consequences of error are wiped out, to be remembered no more forever. I quote from Isaiah,

“The former shall not be remembered nor come into mind” (65:17). And from Psalms, “The

wind [that is, the might of God’s omnipotence] passeth over it, and it is gone; and the place

thereof shall know it no more” (103:16). This, then, is clear: Science removes the penalty by first

removing the sin which incurs the penalty.

“And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.” What debts are we incurring?

What is it that requires forgiveness—that requires wiping out? It is the misconception of

existence—the misconception of man. Every mistaken concept must be wiped out: “Truth

bestows no pardon upon error, but wipes it out in the most effectual manner” (Science and

Health, p. 11).

To regard man as mortal, as a debtor, as sick, sad, ageing, as difficult in temperament or

unlovely in character would be, indeed, to entertain an erroneous concept. By entertaining a sick

or sinning concept we ourselves are sinning. We thereby incur a debt, a debt which is forgiven

only when the mistaken sense is corrected and man’s true status is acknowledged.

Any unlovely concept is unknown to the divine Mind, which reveals the Son of God to be

the glory of God, the beauty and loveliness of the divine nature. The realm of the real knows

neither debt nor debtor. The consciousness of perfection has no sense of imperfection. Divine

Love sees nothing but perfection everywhere, and this Love is your consciousness.

Our Leader once asked, “What is it to love?” She answered her question thus: “It is

always to see the man of God’s creation and nothing else, and to separate from our thought of

man any belief of fear or disease; this is Love.” Jesus exemplified this Love when he “beheld in

Science the perfect man, who appeared to him where sinning mortal man appears to mortals”

(Science and Health, pp. 476-477). The Christ-consciousness never beholds a man who needs

forgiveness. The Christ-consciousness beholds absolute perfection always, and this is your

consciousness.

Forgiveness of debt and debtor is illustrated in the story of Jacob and Esau. Jacob had

deprived Esau of his birthright and later of his blessing. He thereby incurred a debt to be

forgiven. His sin must be destroyed. In turn, Esau hated Jacob and threatened to kill him. He

certainly did not behold the perfect man of God’s creating, but entertained a sinful concept.

Because he harboured this sinful sense of Jacob, Esau himself was also in need of forgiveness.

His sin also must be destroyed.

Jacob prayed all night at Peniel. After his night of prayer, Jacob said, “. . . I have seen

God face to face, and my life is preserved” (Genesis 3 2:30). He had seen his own true self, and

the recognition of the perfection of man removed also his misconception concerning his brother,

Esau. When they met they embraced, the Bible tells us, and Jacob said to Esau, “I have seen thy

face, as though I had seen the face of God, and thou wast pleased with me” (Genesis 33:10).

Esau, who had harboured hatred and resentment because of Jacob’s wicked actions, conformed

to Jacob’s beholding of the one perfect man. He embraced his brother and finally accepted the

gift which Jacob was so desirous of giving to him. Divine Love had revealed the perfection of

the Son of God in which no enmity exists. Love was reflected in love. Debt and indebtedness

were expunged. In her article “Love Your Enemies,” Mary Baker Eddy writes, “ ‘Love thine

enemies’ is identical with ‘Thou hast no enemies’ ” (Miscellaneous Writings, p. 9). The

dismissal of the mortal concept of man, and the acknowledgment of his flawless divine identity,

merits complete divine forgiveness.

May I make the fact quite clear that when we exchange our mortal misconception of man

for the true concept—the spiritual and perfect man—our debt to divine Love is summarized,

“Thy sins are forgiven.” I again quote this wonderful line from Science and Health (p. 339):

“Being destroyed, sin needs no other form of forgiveness.” Here we can also quote with aptness

the words of Jesus (Mark 11:25):

And when ye stand praying, forgive, if ye have ought against any: that your Father also

which is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses.

Jesus lived the Life which is Love itself, and Mary Baker Eddy, who is teaching the

world that Love alone is Life, concluded her reply to one of her critics with these words


I would that all the churches on earth could unite as brethren in one prayer: Father, teach

us the life of Love.

And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil;

And God leadeth us not into temptation, but delivereth us from sin, disease, and death.

It could seem surprising that Jesus should teach his disciples to pray to an infinitely good

God, “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.” The dictionary defines the meaning

of “to lead,” as “to direct with authority; to guide or conduct in a certain course, by making the

way known.” God’s direction is the way of peace, joy, righteousness, health and harmony.

Within this divine direction—within this divine way of life—temptation is unknown. God’s way

is the way of complete freedom from all evil, from sin, disease and death. It is, in fact, our total

immunity from everything unlike good. In this sense we understand our Leader’s interpretation,

“And God leadeth us not into temptation, but delivereth us from sin, disease, and death.”

With uncompromising consistency, Christ Jesus had reformed the sinner, healed the

sick, raised the dead. He had lifted mortals out of the myriad temptations into which the carnal

mind had led them. To the carnal mind Jesus said, “Ye are of your father the devil” (John 8:44).

The carnal, or mortal, so-called mind is the only tempter and the only tempted. It suggests that

man is an entity separate from God, having a mind of his own and a life of his own. Temptation

bids us believe that existence is material. Mrs. Eddy writes in Science and Health (p. 393):

A false belief is both the tempter and the tempted, the sin and the sinner, the disease and

its cause.

Temptation comes always in the guise of one’s own thought. It did so even with Jesus,

suggesting that he should command the stones to be made bread. Secondly, the suggestion came

to Jesus that he should cast himself down from the pinnacle, and thirdly, that he should fall down

and worship the devil—the belief of life in matter. With divine authority, Jesus dismissed both

the tempter and its temptation in the words, “Get thee hence, Satan” (Matthew 4:10). Not all the

kingdoms of the world and the glory of them could tempt the pure Mind of Christ to be

conscious of the suggestion that life could be material

No more can the carnal mind tempt us to believe that man could ever be subject to such

preposterous delusions as accident, luck, sin, disease, old age, and death. To all of this you are

totally unrelated. Another universal temptation is to believe in more than one power, resulting in

constant conflict and apprehension. Our Leader says (Science and Health, pp. 428-429):

It is a sin to believe that aught can overpower omnipotent and eternal Life .

And again (p. 495):

When the illusion of sickness or sin tempts you, cling steadfastly to God and His idea.

Allow nothing but His likeness to abide in your thought.

And further, in Miscellany (p. 146):

. . . a Christian Scientist never mentally or audibly takes the side of sin, disease, or death.

. . . The Christian Scientist voices the harmonious and eternal, and nothing else.

The Christian Scientist identifies himself as having the divine Mind alone, never

ascribing to himself any thought, tendency or quality but the divine.

Never does the Christ-consciousness fall into the basic temptation of regarding existence

as material The belief that existence is material is referred to by Isaiah (2 5:7) as “the face of the

covering cast over all people, and the vail that is spread over all nations.” The fact that the only

Life is spiritual destroys the veil; and thus the glory, tenderness and love, the sublimity, beauty

and radiance of divine reality shine forth as your very being.

We reiterate the fact that false belief, or corporeal sense, is the only tempter,—the

talking, lying serpent which would beguile and cheat. It would deceive us, making us believe that

Mind is vulnerable to temptation, and capable of both good and evil.

The scientific method of dealing with temptation is stated in Miscellaneous Writings (p.

198):

When tempted to sin, we should know that evil proceedeth not from God, good, but is a

false belief of the personal senses; and if we deny the claims of these senses and recognize man

as governed by God, Spirit, not by material laws, the temptation will disappear.

Because of his sinless Christ-nature, he who was untouched by the temptations of the

devil could say, “. . . the prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in me” (John 14:30). The

Christ never was and never could be aware of even one of the myriad suggestions of the carnal

mind.

Your Christ-consciousness makes no response to the suggestion that man is mortal, or

that he is a separate ego, subject to sin and suffering. Your Christ-consciousness is never tempted

to believe that Life could be less than perfect and infinite. Your Christ-consciousness is sinless. I


The perfect man—governed by God, his perfect Principle—is sinless and eternal.

You are the man referred to in the First Epistle of John, who “cannot sin, because he is

born of God” (3:9).

Because the divine Mind has no awareness of sin, disease and death, this triad of errors

can never be your experience. He who has the Christ-Mind knows himself scientifically and

cannot be tempted to think of himself in terms of sickness, suffering or sin. Take, for example,

the story of the Shunammite. Her child died. In what might have been her darkest moment, when

questioned by Elisha’s servant, “. . . is it well with the child?” she answered, “It is well” (II

Kings 4:26). She refused the temptation to accept the evidence of the material senses. She was

not even tempted to relate the mortal evidence to her husband. The Christ-consciousness includes

no mortal sense of itself, yourself. It includes no mortal sense of anyone, no mortal sense of

anything.

The righteousness and integrity of your being constitute your immunity from every evil

suggestion. Your Christ-completeness is your deliverer from all temptation to believe in the

presence of lack. The Christ-dominion, which you are, is your deliverer from any temptation to

believe that man could be ever at the mercy of circumstance. Your Christ-consciousness is of

itself divine security, health, joy, invulnerable to all temptation.

God does indeed lead you, He does indeed direct you. He perpetuates the glory, the

integrity, purity and wholeness of your being, and thus you are exempt from all temptation. God

is the All and the Only of all existence, and to this divine Allness the tempter and temptation are

unknown. I quote (Science and Health, p. 76):

The sinless joy,—the perfect harmony and immortality of Life, possessing unlimited

divine beauty and goodness without a single bodily pleasure or pain,—constitutes the only

veritable, indestructible man, whose being is spiritual.

So, when praying this line of our Lord’s Prayer, recognising that all temptation lies in the

belief that man has a mind apart from the divine, we reverently acknowledge that God, who

“cannot be tempted with evil” (James 1:13), is the only Mind of man. Because the divine Mind is

your Mind, you have no alternative but to be the righteousness and holiness which Jesus

exemplified, and which enables you to say, “. . . the prince of this world cometh, and hath

nothing in me” (John 14:30).

For Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever.

For God is infinite, all-power, all Life, Truth, Love, over all, and All.

Here is the culmination of the eternal spiritual perfection of all being. This infinite

kingdom of our God is the kingdom of pure Spirit beheld from what the Bible terms a “glorious

high throne” (Jeremiah 17:12). The kingdom of God is beheld from the standpoint of ‘Truth by

Him who can proclaim: “The beauty of holiness, the perfection of being, imperishable

glory,—all are Mine, for I am God. . . . I am the substance of all, because I am that I am”


The dictionary gives the meaning of kingdom as “the sphere in which one has control or

authority.” The one authority, the one controlling power, in the kingdom of our God is God

Himself, as is made plain by our Leader when she says (Miscellaneous Writings, p. 331):

This supreme potential Principle reigns in the realm of the real, and is “God with us,” the

I am.

This kingdom of divine reality is one glorious whole of infinite good, all present in all

ways, always. This is the one and only spiritual universe, the universe not made of things that do

appear, which is the realm of Spirit. This kingdom, or consciousness, is divine Life living itself

wholly unaware of any mortal, material sense of living. It is Truth affirming itself—affirming the

joy and power, the glory and liveliness, affirming the stillness of real Being—and this is your

being. This kingdom is God’s divine ideal, where the only consciousness is the infinitely loving

Christ-nature, and this is your nature. The absolute allness of God, good, constitutes His

kingdom, your kingdom.

The fact that infinite good is all is the zenith of Science. There is nothing deeper, nothing

higher, nothing greater. “The depth, breadth, height, might, majesty, and glory of infinite Love

fill all space” (Science and Health, p. 520). Nothing apart from this Allness of perfection could

ever be your being. The acknowledgment that God’s kingdom of infinite good is the only

kingdom or consciousness means that you have no option but to experience happiness,

abundance and divine completeness, without interruption of any sort. To this spiritual concept

of Life, any restrictive sense of existence is unknown. The abundance of Being is released and

constitutes your true and only selfhood,—the selfhood of joy, buoyancy and spontaneity. This

only selfhood is divine Mind’s immutable glory. It is self-completeness, satisfaction and abiding

peace. In our Leader’s words, it is “one eternal round of harmonious being” (Miscellaneous

Writings, p. 77).

Knowing that there is nothing outside of this infinitude of true Being, we appreciate

divine Mind’s declaration, “I am All.” This declaration is Mind announcing, expressing and

experiencing itself in all its majesty, royalty, security and assurance. In this kingdom of spiritual

reality God is the only law, the only government. The whole of power and authority is in His

hand. Nothing exists which could obscure the peace and stability of this world of divine Mind,

where all the varied manifestations of Mind are harmonious and indestructible.

To God, who is perfect Life, belongs all strength, all might, all power and all glory. He is

the great forever of your health, the great forever of your peace. He is the entireness of your

being, forever. Recognising the beauty and harmony of the one infinite Being, we cannot wonder

that David thus extolled the Almighty (I Chronicles 29:11):

Thine, 0 Lord, is the greatness, and the power, and the glory, and the victory, and the

majesty: for all that is in the heaven and in the earth is thine; thine is the kingdom, 0 Lord, and

thou art exalted as head above all.

This kingdom, or consciousness, of spiritual reality is immeasurable. It has no

dimension, no time nor space. It is free from human opinions, human theories, human beliefs. It

is the spiritual consciousness in which all phenomena, evidence and tangibility are spiritual. One

therefore cherishes divine evidence—the substance that is God, in which matter is unknown.

The suggestion that one has need of material evidence would imply identification of oneself as

mortal, imperfect and incomplete, whereas the man of God, the man you are, is eternally one

with God. This man is dignity, poise, majesty, nobility. He is, I quote, “perfect and entire,

wanting nothing” (James 1:4).

The more one identifies oneself as divine substance, spiritual evidence, the more are

perfection and radiant reality experienced as everyday Life. The more one feels the presence and

power of Life’s inner joy, the more one recognises one’s immunity to and independence of

outward circumstances, and the more do outward circumstances (so-called) conform to the real.

This kingdom of God is one glorious whole of infinite good. It is the Life which is Love.

In this kingdom you freely live, not as the Adam-dream, but as the Christ-idea. You live as

beauty, sublimity, joy, forever awake in His likeness. This joy, satisfaction and harmony are felt

without interruption, because they have no opposite. In the presence of God, which is

everywhere, there is no such thing as fear, anxiety or tension. Your being is the restful relaxed

radiance which is ease, buoyancy, grace, serenity,—the summit of bliss!

Thine is the kingdom. All belongs to God, and He manifests all. All is beauty and

loveliness, because the real, the actual, and the divine which you are is never confused with any

human picture. That which is not divine does not exist. The all-knowing, all-loving, eternal Mind

holds all within itself, forever secure. In this connection I quote (Unity of Good, p. 3):

God is All-in-all. . . . He is all the Life and Mind there is or can be. Within Himself is

every embodiment of Life and Mind.

Contemplating the kingdom of God, we have seen that divine Mind’s infinite awareness

of itself is your only status. To this true and inevitable status there is no alternative. Thus you can

have no existence but the divine. You can have no experience but the divine. This status is the

glorious, everlasting here and now of all perfection in which the myth of false belief, the myth of

material existence, does not exist even as a belief. The infinite—all power, all Life, Truth,

Love—precludes completely the belief that anything but this divinely glorious state of being

could exist. In support of such a sweeping statement I quote our Leader (No and Yes, p. 35):

. . . God’s kingdom is everywhere and supreme, and it follows that the human kingdom is

nowhere, and must be unreal.

God is the allness of Life, and His Son is the flawless integrity of Truth. He is the

tenderness of never-failing Love, knowing and feeling the spiritual harmony that is Love’s own

divine nature. There is no human concept of living, knowing, loving, for in this kingdom there is

no human or mortal mind to think in terms of so-called material life. Our Book declares, “Life

demonstrates Life” (Science and Health, p. 306). We note the capitalization. Life in each case

has a capital “L.” In this kingdom of our God there is but one quality of Life and this is all

divine. This kingdom is the kingdom of Truth, aware only of its own perfection. Our Leader

states with irrefutable clarity (Science and Health, pp. 475 and 567):

To Truth there is no error,—all is Truth. To infinite Spirit there is no matter,—all is Spirit

. . .

To infinite, ever-present Love, all is Love, and there is no error, no sin, sickness, nor

death.

Of the one God, the one perfect Life, to whom this prayer ascends, our Leader writes


He is supreme, infinite, the great forever, the eternal Mind that hath no beginning and no

end, no Alpha and no Omega.

As we pray this prayer, attributing to the Most High all power, all Life, all Truth, all

Love, we acknowledge that nothing whatever apart from Him exists. We acknowledge that

nothing apart from Him has power. We give to divine Being all glory. “Thine is the kingdom,

and the power, and the glory, forever.” Thine is the glory of all reality, all health,—the glory of

joy and never-waning loveliness. Thine is the glory of perfect Life— the Life of all that lives!

Our prayer is the sacred recognition of the beauty, the security, the perfect harmony and

natural wonder of celestial being, our only being. We reverently acknowledge that to God, our

perfect Life, belongs all glory, all supremacy, omniaction, omnipotence and omnipresence

forever.

We acknowledge that the infinite All has no opposite; that the whole of Being is the

infinitude of Truth without one unlikeness. The infinite All is total blessedness. In deepest

gratitude, let our never-ending praise echo the benediction of the Revelator (7:12):

Blessing, and glory, and wisdom, and thanksgiving, and honour, and power, and might,

be unto our God for ever and ever. Amen.

The Sabbath Day

“Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy” (Exodus 20:8).

“Day. The irradiance of Life” (Science and Health, p. 584).

Webster’s definitions of holiness and holy: “An inherent state or quality, not acquired or

conferred; that which is sacred; embodying spiritual perfection; free from defilement; spiritually

whole and sound; inviolate; free from interruption or disturbance. Not susceptible of hurt, wound

or harm; incapable of being affected by injury. Exalted.”

The holy state of Life—Life which is spiritual perfection, whole, well, free from

defilement, sound, inviolate, free from interruption or disturbance, exalted, not susceptible of

hurt, wound or harm, incapable bf being affected by any injury— even the self-same Life which

is God, is your very own being, already established.

This holiness—spiritual wholeness and soundness—is not then a state to be acquired or

worked for. Wholeness, completeness, is inherent. It is your essential character, indwelling,

infixed, permanent. Sabbath means rest from labour. Remember that the “irradiance of Life,”

Life in all its glory, brightness, splendour, wholeness, is your present, perpetual, inherent state,

without any labour of acquiring. It is because this state is inherent, not having to be achieved,

that it is the Sabbath—the one endless day, light, undimmed by human toil.

In the recognition that holiness, wholeness, is indwelling, infixed, all process or effort of

acquiring harmony is dispensed with. All sense of trying to bring perfection into being gives

place to the Sabbath, the rest-from-labour state of living.

“Ye shall be holy: for I the Lord your God am holy” (Leviticus 19:2). Man is effect.

Effect has no alternative but to be that which Cause determines. Hence you have no option but to

be the glorious perfection of Life, already established in its fulness, richness, grandeur, beauty,

perpetuity, holiness—which is wholeness.

The one Life, birthless, ageless, processless, problem-less, forever includes strength,

vigour, vision, activity, loveliness, joy and harmony. It already includes all within Itself, never

has to strive for anything and is therefore a state of divine restfulness, free from all that disturbs

or troubles. This Life shines forth as your own being, in all its natural perfection, without any

assistance from you. It is your inherent nature. This perfection of Life is Self-existent,

Self-expressed, Self-maintained, Self-perpetuated. This state of perfection being already your

very being, for what could you labour? Creation is finished, complete. “God saw everything that

he had made, and behold, it was very good” (Genesis 1:31). This very goodness is your inherent

state, your inescapable nature.

Life is one endless day, one endless awareness of divine wholeness. It is “the kingdom of

God within you”; that is, everything which constitutes the kingdom or consciousness of God is

now included in your own divine Life. Peace, joy, harmony, vitality, abundance, activity, vision

are all in your Life already. There is no reaching out for harmony; it is already within. One does

not have to make perfection one’s own—it is even your very substance. There is no such thing as

having to bring harmony into being. It is your being. Nor does the son of God need to

demonstrate perfection; he is now Mind’s demonstration of perfection. His Life is full of good.

We keep the Sabbath day holy by refusing to accept any material concept of Life, thus

keeping the correct viewpoint which reveals Life as one glorious, eternal, immutable whole. To

keep the Sabbath day holy is to live and enjoy the true sense of Being, in which there is nothing

to be healed, improved, corrected, cast out, increased or diminished because the one Life, your

Life, is already a state of perfection and glory. “Nothing can be put to it, nor anything taken from

it” (Ecclesiastes 3:14).

God finished His work. What then is left for man to do? Just to be that to which there is

no alternative,—the inevitable wholeness, peace, brightness, bounty, loveliness and light of Life,

the “beauty of holiness, the perfection of being” (Science and Health, p. 253). “Being is holiness,

harmony, immortality” (Science and Health, p. 492). This is your being. The correct view of

Life includes no sense of evil to be fought, discord to be banished, harmony to be gained, health

to be restored. “Science reveals Life as a complete sphere, as eternal, self- existent Mind”

(Retrospection and Introspection, p. 60).

One can never experience this Sabbath state in which all is the acme of perfection so long

as he identifies himself with the mortal misconception of existence. From the mortal standpoint

there is always something to be done, something to be rectified, completed, dismissed or

improved. From the divine standpoint every detail of Life is eternally perfect. This perfection is

man’s inherent nature, his being. Existence seen from the standpoint of Mind is “the realm of the

real,” man’s inevitable experience. It is the scientific consciousness of all-inclusive good,

“infinite self-containment,” the Holy City, your Life, containing every spiritual attribute within

itself.

Your Life is a state of abiding security, needing no protection, of perpetual harmony with

no discord to silence, a realm in which there is no diminution or loss, no tension or strain,

nothing needing to relax. All is Truth. Yours is the consciousness of Love with no fear to cast

out, of health with nothing to heal Your experience is complete freedom, needing no liberation,

joy with no depression to dismiss, peace with no strife to still Your divine ability requires no

human effort. It is a problemless state—no solution to seek. The Sabbath is the state where “evil

is not a quality to be known or eliminated by good” (Miscellaneous Writings, p. 259). All is

perfect order. “. . . it will be found that Mind is All-in-all, and there is no matter to cope with”

(Miscellaneous Writings, p. 183). In this allness of Mind, Spirit’s awareness of itself, there is no

mortal existence to be denied. One does not toil to become that which one already is.

The command “Be ye therefore perfect” is already fulfilled, effortlessly. Perfection is

inevitable. Restriction, friction, erroneous suggestion, earth-bound sense, mortal belief—the

belief that there is a belief—are unknown to the kingdom of holiness within. Discord never

entered your Mind. Your peaceful well-being remains forever undisturbed. No suggestion of evil

was ever heard, seen or felt in this consciousness of holiness which you are. Yours is the

“boundless thought [that] walks enraptured,” free from impediment, obstruction or limitation,

enjoying the natural perfection of its own being. “There shall in no wise enter into it anything

that defileth, neither whatsoever worketh abomination, or maketh a lie” (Revelation 21:27). This

preclusion forestalls all effort of excluding. Perfection is established; the light and glory of

God—which you are— shines forth from within, uncontested, unopposed.

This holy state is infinite—nothing else exists; it needs nothing from outside, there could

be nothing outside of the infinite allness of Love.

“God, Mind, spake and it was done” (Science and Health, p. 557). Processless fulfillment

is established. There is no process to any divine concept. All unfolds on the spiritual basis of

Self-existence, divine Self-expression, Self-revelation, Self-continuation, Self-experience,

Self-enjoyment.

Let prayer be the joyous recognition and acknowledgment of that which already exists,

the glories of Life: the joyous, restful experience of health and harmony already and permanently

established as one’s own being. The Sabbath means that the whole of infinity is “the secret place

of the most High.” Think of the peace and security of such being, your being, unassailed because

there is nothing but Itself!

Yours is the sacred consciousness of wholeness, with no sense of any goal to be reached,

but including all good within itself.

Man plays no part in causing or expressing this perfection. It is not man’s province to

express or reflect. “God reflects Himself” (Retrospection and Introspection, p. 56). Man is

reflection, not a reflector. “God expresses in man the infinite idea” (Science and Health, p. 258).

Your being is divinely complete. The son of God lives as wholeness, instead of striving

for it. He enjoys the inherent perfection of his being. There is no escape “from identification with

what dwelleth in the eternal Mind” (Unity of Good, p. 64). You cannot avoid the experience of

all the good there is.

The belief that one must improve oneself never entered Mind. “There remaineth therefore

a rest to the people of God” (Hebrews 4:9). All that exists is the ever-presence of Love. The

whole of your consciousness is “holy ground,” the restful awareness of holiness. “God saw . . .”

Mind sees and reflects upon His own glorious Selfhood, and His reflection is you. Mind and

Mind’s knowing—man—constitute the sum-total of Being. “Infinite Mind knows nothing

beyond Himself or Herself” (Miscellaneous Writings, p. 367). “They shall sit every man under

his vine and under his fig tree; and none shall make them afraid” (Micah 4:4). “The divine

understanding reigns, is all, and there is no other consciousness” (Science and Health, p. 536).

“Look upon Zion, the city of our solemnities: thine eyes shall see Jerusalem a quiet habitation, a

tabernacle that shall not be taken down; not one of the stakes thereof shall ever be removed,

neither shall any of the cords thereof be broken. But there the glorious Lord will be unto us a

place of broad rivers and streams; wherein shall go no galley with oars” (Isaiah 33:20-21).

No personal effort, no slavery to the belief that mortals must demonstrate all they get!

Mortals are in bondage to their own bleak misconception of life. Blessedness in all its aspects

has always been the natural condition of God’s son, without his having to take one step to

acquire it. You are this son of God, and no sense of struggle or toil can enter your Life of divine

quietude, which is unbreakable, indestructible.

Every divine quality and condition has been forever inherent in your Life. You were

perfect “in the beginning.” Your Mind knows nothing but the immutable perfection of its

“infinite self-containment.” It knows, experiences and enjoys all that exists in the infinitude of

Truth. The peace of Mind and the effortless living of this rhythmic wholeness and oneness of

Being is the Sabbath. It is the forever awareness and experience of the never-ending “irradiance

of Life,” which you inescapably are. Only Mind knows, only Life lives.

“The divine Principle carries on His harmony” (Miscellaneous Writings, p. 353). Hence

the eternal day of neverending rightness. Do not take the government of your affairs upon your

own shoulders. “. . . intelligence, apart from man and matter, governs the universe; and . . . this

intelligence is the eternal Mind or divine Principle, Love” (Science and Health, p. 270).

Do not take upon yourself the responsibility of having to prove your harmony. You are

the proof, the evidence of God’s perfection, His witness.

The Love which never loses sight of loveliness; the Life which lives its own irradiance;

the Mind which manifests all that exists; Soul which is beauty, bliss and satisfaction; Principle

which governs with flawless precision; Spirit the source of all good and imperishable glory;

Truth which is eternal freedom—combine as One. This holy state of divine Life includes all the

knowing there is, all the living, loving and feeling. It is your Life. This fulness and beauty of

your being is within you. Every divine attribute, quality and condition is a fixed element of your

being, permanently incorporated, blended and combined. To “the One altogether lovely,” to

divine Mind embracing its own kingdom or consciousness of holiness, we attest: “Hallowed be

Thy name”; Holiness is Thy nature.

We will “remember the sabbath day to keep it holy”; remember that the splendour, the

wholeness, of Life is our being, without any effort of achieving. We will keep this holy concept

as man’s only identification, and enjoy our oneness with this Life forever.

Instantaneous Healing

“. . . whosoever layeth his earthly all on the altar of divine Science, drinketh of Christ’s

cup now, and is endued with the spirit and power of Christian healing” (Science and Health, p.

55). The “earthly all” is the mistaken, mortal concept of existence in its entirety. It is the belief

that man could be mortal To lay down this “earthly all” is to surrender the total misconception of

life and mind, together with the sickness, fear and lack which this misconception includes. It is to

disown any material, personal, human sense of self. Until this mistaken sense of life is disowned,

the mortal identifies himself with it, and thus experiences its troubles and pains. The

relinquishment of the misconception—the belief that man is mortal—brings immediate freedom

and the enjoyment of the harmony of one’s true selfhood, the Christ-selfhood. Not one element

of good is to be surrendered. The smallest expression of good is spiritual, Godlike—evident in

spite of the human mind, not because of it. Nothing is surrendered but a false sense of life, and of

everything. False sense alone is given up.

When the material sense of existence has been renounced, God and His full

manifestation is acknowledged to be all that exists. All is Mind’s infinite Self-completeness and

Self-awareness—one glorious infinite whole of absolute perfection. This perfection is man.

Material sense would adopt a half-way position and, instead of laying down the belief in

a human mind, would lay down only those bits and pieces that cause discomfort, pain, fatigue,

lack But the “earthly all”—the whole misconception of existence—must go.

“ ‘When thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and, when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy

Father’ ” (Science and Health, p. 14). The belief that there is a mortal mind or mortal life must

first be shut out. Instead of praying about our problems we are to see them as non-existent before

we begin to pray. Prayer is then the sacred acknowledgment of absolute perfection already

established.

Do not deal with error as though it were a wrong thought which must be eradicated from

consciousness. That which declares itself as the wrong thought of the patient is an impersonal

false belief, without mentality, identity, reality— without anything. Unless one accepts the

suggestion, “I am a human mind with a human body,” disease is impossible.

The futility of attempting to divest the human mind of its troubles instead of discarding

human sense is shown in Luke 11:24-26:

When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he walketh through dry places, seeking rest;

and finding none, he saith, I will return unto my house whence I came out. And when he cometh,

he findeth it swept and garnished. Then goeth he, and taketh to him seven other spirits more

wicked than himself; and they enter in, and dwell there: and the last state of that man is worse

than the first.

Instead of identifying himself with the divine Mind, this man attempted to banish trouble

from his human consciousness. He tried to get a more harmonious human mind, instead of

acknowledging that because divine Mind is the only Mind, there is no human mind at all He even

“garnished”— extolled—certain of his mortal-mind elements which he wished to perpetuate.

Thus despite the sweeping of his consciousness—the effort to sort out and dismiss whatever he

considered detrimental to his well-being—this man’s experience continued to be beset with

added troubles.

If we keep a human sense of mind, we keep all the trouble there is. The only place where

discord claims to exist is in the so-called human mind.

Failure to heal in certain cases, and the recurrence of many of our problems, physical or

otherwise, is due to the fact that we have remained in the half-way position of trying to improve

the misconception, instead of laying it “on the altar of divine Science.” Instead of believing that

we have to reject evil from human consciousness, we must acknowledge that there is no human

consciousness. So long as you admit a human mind, you have no protection whatever against the

return of those errors you have tried to dismiss. The misconception is the trouble itself, and is

disposed of only in the acknowledgment that the one and only Mind and Life, with its wholeness,

harmony and perfection, is the Mind and Life of man.

“Truth is ever truthful, and can tolerate no error in premise or conclusion” (Science and

Health, p. 129). Truth tolerates no suggestion of a human mind, no human sense at all. Man is

then recognised to be the full and rich experience of all the joy, beauty, health and harmony

incidental to his glorious being. The forsaking of the mortal misconception includes, of course,

the relinquishment of the false sense of body. Divine Mind, being conscious of itself, embodies

itself,—embodies the truth about everything. This embodiment is the only body there is. The

real body, as the embodiment of ideas, the embodiment of perception, discernment, intelligence,

mercy, spiritual power, strength, understanding, joy, bliss, inspiration, is the perfect compound

idea, not organisation. “Life is inorganic” (Miscellaneous Writings, p. 56). In the real body there

is perfect coordination of ideas (not of organs), perfect action. The material sense of body is

exhaustion; the divine body—which you are—is unencumbered freedom, divinely sustained and

maintained, active without flaw or interference, always in perfect order. This is the only body.

“The description of man as purely physical, or as both material and spiritual,—but in

either case dependent upon his physical organization,—is the Pandora box, from which all ills

have gone forth” (Science and Health, p. 170). “. . . whosoever layeth his earthly all on the altar

of divine Science, drinketh of Christ’s cup now” (my emphasis). Until the “earthly all” is laid

down, one can drink only of the Master’s cup, which includes the sorrows of human experience.

When the erroneous sense is forsaken and we no longer identify ourselves as mortals, we drink

of Christ’s cup,—the cup of blessings, the cup of glorious, divine fulfillment. To drink of

Christ’s cup is to live so lovingly, so abundantly, harmoniously, joyfully, universally and

effortlessly, that any suggestion of discord is precluded by the dynamic spiritual power of your

Christ-joy, your Christ-wholeness, your natural and sacred awareness of immutable perfection

already existent. To “drink of Christ’s cup” is to recognise that the harmony of being is your

subjective experience. It is the ability to see and experience all as all divinely is—your

at-one-ment with everything that is divinely real and good. To “drink of Christ’s cup” is to be the

actual experience of infinite beauty, bliss, peace, abundance, completeness: the fulness of

harmony to which there is no alternative. To “drink of Christ’s cup” is to know oneself as the

Christ-idea, the son of the living God. In the recognition that the son of God is the Christ, your

absolute perfection is revealed. Thus your experience is the uninterrupted continuity of harmony,

spiritual wholeness, peace and joy. The son of God is the consciousness of Truth and Love, free

from all suggestions of evil He is the fulness of divine Life, lacking nothing. To “drink of

Christ’s cup” is to be the enjoyment of scientific being, perpetuated in all its harmony by Spirit.

The essence, beauty and loveliness of God is the very nature of man as the Christ-idea, which

you already are. To “drink of Christ’s cup” is the joy of knowing yourself as Truth’s infinite

manifestation.

The moment you lay down the mortal sense of existence, you experience wholeness,

beauty, perfection, joy and bounty as your subjective state. That which appears to human sense

as healing is actually the revelation of your Christ-withinness, the perfection which you already

are. When you have drunk of Christ’s cup, all sense of having to be healed is lost in the joy,

beauty, satisfaction, completeness and loveliness of your Christ-selfhood. The

Christ-identification is forever free from personal sense. The mortal sense is swallowed up in

immortality and the infinite Ego; I or I am announces itself as all—the sum-total of perfection.

This Ego is cause and effect, God and man. The divine I is God; am is the full manifestation,

man. I am is the term which emphasises man’s inclusion within the divine I. It is Principle

including idea—the sum of all that is universally perfect, eternal, spiritual. I am is the subjective

acknowledgment of Mind, experiencing its own perfect nature, the infinite All of good. To this

divine perfection there is no process,—”God, Mind, spake and it was done” (Science and Health,

p. 557).

“If Spirit or the power of divine Love bear witness to the truth, this is the ultimatum, the

scientific way, and the healing is instantaneous” (Science and Health, p. 411). Spirit, or the

divine I, bearing witness to the truth constitutes a Christian Science treatment. Spirit’s evidence

is final, “the ultimatum.” When Spirit pours forth the truth about itself, it bears witness to the

changeless beauty, loveliness, wholeness, perfection, security and bounty of Being, and this is

your being. Think of the rapture with which Mind beholds and experiences the infinite range of

its imperishable glory! Mary Baker Eddy gives many instances of Spirit, the I, bearing witness to

the truth:—”I am All. A knowledge of aught beside Myself is impossible” (Unity of Good, p.

18). “I am the infinite All. From me proceedeth all Mind, all consciousness, all individuality, all

being” (Unity of Good, p. 24). “I am infinite good. Dwelling in light, I can see only the

brightness of My own glory” (Unity of Good, p. 18). “I am Spirit . . . The beauty of holiness, the

perfection of being, imperishable glory,—all are Mine, for I am God. I give immortality to man,

for I am Truth. I include and impart all bliss, for I am Love. I give life, without beginning and

without end, for I am Life. I am supreme and give all, for I am Mind. I am the substance of all,

because I am that I am” (Science and Health, pp. 252-253).

The I, I am, or Mind is all that feels. “Thou shalt not admit that error is something . . . to

feel or be felt” (Unity of Good, p. 22). “Mind is not, cannot be in matter. It . . . feels as Mind, not

as matter” (Unity of Good, p. 25). “Mind is all that feels” (Science and Health, p. 166). The

meaning of feeling must be metaphysically defined. “The effects of Christian Science are not so

much seen as felt” (Science and Health, p. 323). Feeling is divine experience, deep awareness,

spiritual sensation. Divine Mind—your Mind—is ceaselessly feeling—experiencing—perfection.

Mind knows no suffering, grief or pain. When and where the mortal misconception would

suggest, “i feel weary, i feel sick, in pain, lonely,” all that is really happening is the real I or

Mind effortlessly and naturally feeling love, completeness, harmony, perfection. The I, in which

man is included, knows itself in terms of beauty, majesty, perfection, completeness and

excellence, bears witness of itself (yourself) in these glorious terms. No suppositional power can

withstand Truth’s declaration of its own allness and perfection. Even the gates of hell—difficult

situations which appear as obstructions to harmony—cannot prevail. They cease to appear. “The

spirit of Truth extinguishes false thinking, feeling, and acting” (Retrospection and Introspection,

p. 81). “Divest your thought … of the mortal and material view which contradicts the

ever-presence and all-power of good; take in only the immortal facts which include these, and

where will you see or feel evil…?” (Miscellaneous Writings, p. 14).

When asked to define Christian Science treatment our Leader replied: “It is the

acknowledgment of absolute, ever-present perfection.”

Our treatment should always be Spirit’s acknowledgment of its own—which is your

own—perfection, the unutterable love, tenderness, and completeness which is Love’s pouring

forth of itself. The truth which Spirit utters is already an established fact.

The importance of treatment being “the ‘still, small voice’ of Truth uttering itself”

(Science and Health, p. 323), and not the utterance of the human mind, is illustrated by two

remarks by Jesus which, if not understood, appear contradictory. Speaking from the standpoint of

his human selfhood, he said:

“If I bear witness of myself, my witness is not true” (John 5:3 1). Speaking from the

Christ-standpoint, he said: “Though I bear record of myself, yet my record is true” (John 8:14).

All that Truth utters is true, now and forever, but whatever the human selfhood says of itself is

never the truth of being. Treatment must be the Word of God itself,—the Christ, Truth uttering

itself.

“. . .the voice of Truth utters the divine verities of being” (Miscellaneous Writings, p. 81).

“Let the voice of Truth and Love be heard above the dire din of mortal nothingness”

(Miscellany, p. 245).

Mind, or the divine I, is the spiritually active, sacred awareness of bliss, love, joy,

substance, power, harmony, good, and this Mind is all that feels. The divine I, aware of its own

perfection and immutable glory, declares itself in all its fulness, directness, power, exactness, and

this divine utterance constitutes Christian Science treatment; for example: What joy I am! What

joy I feel! What harmony I am! What harmony I feel! What peace I am! What peace I feel! What

strength, spontaneity, satisfaction I am! What strength, spontaneity, satisfaction I feel! I in all my

universality and fulness, I, in all my glory, bliss, completeness, wholeness and perfection, “am

alive forevermore.”

Such is Spirit’s record of itself, which is all there is to yourself. Spirit’s record of

perfection is the truth of your being now and forever.

Spirit, the divine I, forever lifted up from the earth, bearing witness to the perfection of

itself, bears witness to the perfection of God, man and the universe. This is “the scientific way,

and the healing is instantaneous” (Science and Health, p. 411).

“When Christian Science has melted away the cloud of false witnesses . . . and ‘Israel

after the flesh,’ who partaketh of its own altars, shall be no more,—then ‘the Israel according to

Spirit’ shall fill earth with the divine energies, understanding, and ever-flowing tides of spiritual

sensation and consciousness” (Miscellaneous Writings, p. 360).

When Spirit alone bears witness, “Israel after the flesh”—the mortal sense—shall be no

more. The pain and suffering, restriction, frustration and lack, the toils and struggles of the

misconception, disappear forever in the “ever-flowing tides of spiritual sensation and

consciousness.” All discord is lost in the deep, deep divine awareness or feeling of peace—the

abiding sense of uninterrupted security, harmony, wholeness.

“Which of these two theories concerning man are you ready to accept? One is the mortal

testimony, changing, dying, unreal. The other is the eternal and real evidence, bearing Truth’s

signet, its lap piled high with immortal fruits” (Science and Health, p. 494).

The mortal testimony, the belief in mortal existence, we have laid already “on the altar of

divine Science.” To the eternal and real evidence, “bearing Truth’s signet, its lap piled high”

with the immortal fruits of peace, love, joy, wholeness, harmony and perfection, there is no

alternative.

I AM

We read in Exodus (3:11, 13, 14; 4:1, 10):

And Moses said unto God, Who am I, that I should go unto Pharaoh, and that I should

bring forth the children of Israel out of Egypt? . . . Behold, when I come unto the children of

Israel, and shall say unto them, The God of your fathers hath sent me unto you; and they shall

say to me, What is his name? what shall I say unto them? And God said unto Moses, I AM

THAT I AM: and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto

you. . . . And Moses answered and said, But, behold, they will not believe me, nor hearken unto

my voice: for they will say, The Lord hath not appeared unto thee. . . . And Moses said unto the

Lord, O my Lord, I am not eloquent, neither heretofore, nor since thou has spoken unto thy

servant: but I am slow of speech, and of a slow tongue.

At this point in his experience Moses had made the mistake of identifying himself as the

small “i.” This small “i” is finite personality—a total misconception of the one infinite I am. This

mortal self is that state with which we must never identify ourselves. To the divine I, the only I,

the I of your being, belongs all power, all eloquence, all action, all wisdom and ability, whilst the

small “i” is the very absence of everything that constitutes the wonderful nature of the glorious I

am.

In view of Moses’ incorrect appraisal of himself—that is, regarding himself as a

mortal—how overwhelming would appear his task of delivering the children of Israel from their

bondage! Moses assessed his qualifications from the standpoint of the small “i,” the mortal

standpoint, and consequently he felt the inadequacy and the doubts and fears which characterise

the very nature of the small “i.” He said, “Who am I, that I should go unto Pharaoh, and that I

should bring forth the children of Israel out of Egypt? . . . they will not believe me, nor hearken

unto my voice . . . I am not eloquent . . . I am slow of speech, and of a slow tongue.” How devoid

of conscious dominion is the small “i” of mortal man! The mortal has no divine authority; it has

no power of action. If this small “i” is permitted to be the substance of our being, then we forfeit

our divine nature and divine ability, and we shall be always striving to achieve and to attain.

But God spake unto Moses and said unto him, “Now therefore go, and I will be with thy

mouth” (Exodus 4:12). And, “Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me

unto you.” This is the utterance of the one and only I, the I which declares (Isaiah 44:6;

Revelation 22:13):

I am the first, and I am the last . . .

I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last.

This is the I which announces its allness, and which ascribes to itself the whole of power,

and the whole of feeling, authority, ability and dominion. The great I AM includes all. The great

I AM is all. Incidental to this divine allness is your power, your authority and eloquence, your

ability and your dominion.

The revelation to Moses’ consciousness, “I AM hath sent me unto you,” enabled Moses

to appreciate, in some degree, his oneness with the infinite I AM. He realised something of his

oneness with the I which is all the dominion and action there is, all the power, ability, strength

and might there is. This sense of oneness with God is the power which dissolves all sense of

inadequacy, incompetence and ineloquence,—the power which brought to Moses some degree of

liberation from identification with the small “i,” with its restrictions, limitations, fears and

doubts.

If accepted as one’s being, this small “i” would be an obstruction to one’s infinite

harmony and limitless capacities. It would obscure the grandeur and the bliss of one’s true and

glorious being. The small “i” is the dam—the obstruction— explained on page 338 of Science

and Health. But this small “i” does not in any way relate to you. The small “i” has never been

your identification. You are as unlike a mortal as God is. There is no point of contact between

the perfection which you are and the mortal, finite, mistaken sense of existence. There is no

connecting link between the fulness and wholeness that you are and the finite, struggling sense of

the small “i.” The I am has within itself every element of your eternal health, every element of

your joyful completeness and your endless harmony.

No mightier statement than I am that I am could ever be uttered. The question arises,

“What exactly does this great I am include?” It would be agreed that the great and only I is God,

God enthroned as the sum-total of all Being. But where is man? Man is coexistent with God. He

is included within the great I am, the “only I, or Us” (Science and Health, p. 591). We read in

Miscellaneous Writings (p. 18), “. . . Father, Mother, and child are the divine Principle and

divine idea, even the divine ‘Us’—one in good and good in One.” “Father, Mother, and child are

. . . the divine ‘Us’”! The divine Us is another term for the one I am, Principle and idea, Cause

and effect, God and man. The divine Us is Father, Mother and child: God and you. I is the divine

Mind; am is man. There must be no doubt as to your inclusion, as divine idea, within the “only I,

or Us.” The divine I am includes idea. It includes all there is to you. I quote Miscellany (p. 239):

God is one, and His idea, image, or likeness, man, is one. But God is infinite and so

includes all in one.

When the great I am declares His wholeness and perfection, He refers not only to

Himself, but also to you. “I and my Father are one.” Man’s indissoluble oneness with God

renders futile any attempt to separate the divine Us—Father, Mother and child. Any attempt to

separate you for one instant from wholeness, joy, freedom is defeated at the outset. I quote from

Science and Health (pp. 520, 477, 333, 476):

Principle and its idea, man, are coexistent and eternal.

. . . man, divorced from Spirit, would lose his entity. But there is, there can be, no such

division, for man is coexistent with God.

The divine image, idea, or Christ was, is, and ever will be inseparable from the divine

Principle, God.

In divine Science, God and the real man are inseparable as divine Principle and idea.

Your eternal coexistence with God makes your perfection unoptional. It is the guarantee

of your wholeness. Not for one instant can you be less than the full expression of the Life which

is God—the Life which is God’s ideal. Because Father and Son are one in being, Father, Mother

and child—Cause and effect—experience one and the self-same state of unalterable harmony.

It was the Christ’s recognition of this eternal coexistence and oneness which gave him

divine authority to utter these two immortal statements: “Before Abraham was, I am” (John

8:58), and “I and my Father are one” (John 10:30). Those who heard these mighty metaphysical

declarations of the Christ misinterpreted their meaning and took up stones to stone Jesus. In their

ignorance, they thought that Jesus referred to his human personality, whereas he referred solely

to the Christ, the divine idea, which is forever one with the Father. Miscellaneous Writings (p.

182) states, “. . . man and his Maker are inseparable and eternal” When Jesus did refer to himself

in a human way, he actually said, “I can of mine own self do nothing” (John 5:30).

I quote from Science and Health (p. 314):

Thus he found the eternal Ego, and proved that he and the Father were inseparable as

God and His reflection or spiritual man.

Could Jesus’ opponents have understood the redemptive power of that statement, “I and

my Father are one,” their entire existence would have been transformed. Their freedom from the

impositions of mortal sense would have been realised. These opponents would have come to

understand their inseparable oneness with all good, even to recognise that God’s Mind is the

Mind of man, and that God’s own Life is the very Life of man. They would have understood the

perfection of Father, Mother and child. This glorious heritage they rejected. They took the hard

way—the way of the small “i,” with all its unhappy implications.

How unbounded is our gratitude to our beloved Leader, who more than eighteen hundred

years later blessed the world with a statement as important as “I and my Father are one.” She

wrote, “Principle and its idea is one” (Science and Health, p. 465). These six words constitute the

statement of full emancipation to the whole world from what our Leader terms “the ghastly farce

of material existence” (Science and Health, p. 272). To live as the oneness implied by our

Leader’s statement “Principle and its idea is one” would mean at once the utter end of all

sickness, lack, sin, strife, and every other phase of the carnal mind. In the understanding of

“Principle and its idea is one,” the mortal “i” is entirely outlawed—expunged-—and its discords

go with it to their native nothingness.

Our Leader shows unmistakably that Principle and its idea—God and man—constitute

the “only I, or Us”—the divine I am whose name and nature we glorify forever—when she says

(Science and Health, p. 114):

In Science, Mind is one, including noumenon and phenomena, God and His thoughts.

The I am is changeless glory. It is all the Life there is, all the Mind there is, all the

substance there is. The I am—infinite Principle and its infinite idea—is all that exists. The

allness of I am, perfect God and perfect man, constitutes all health, all peace, all reality, all

substance, all action. The true substance of everything that Love could cherish is forever safely

included within the one I am. Your very being is included. Your entire universe is embraced

within it. The allness of I am—Father, Mother, and child, noumenon and phenomena, Cause and

effect—is the infinite whole of pure joy, limitless freedom, perpetual harmony. All of this divine

state is your own perpetual experience. This eternal All permits nothing but itself. It permits

nothing but good for you. It permits no lack, no pain, no sorrow, no discord of any sort. Your

inclusion within the one I am guarantees your harmony, your complete freedom from any

mistaken sense of existence—freedom from fear, pain, suffering, confusion and limitation. There

can be nothing in addition to divine Allness. There can be nothing contrary to divine Allness.

This means that no mortal sense, no misconception, no discord can exist. Thus all suggestions of

pain, fear, sorrow, tension or lack have no option but to dissolve into native nothingness. I quote

from Unity of Good (p. 60):


How is the majesty, the glory, of the infinite nature of I am, Father, Mother and child, to

be cognised? Certainly not by a so-called human mind. Even the highest and most expansive

human sense is limited and incorrect. The human sense is but a finite sense of the infinite; and

the human errs, our Leader says, because it is human. God’s concept of Himself is the only true

concept of your Life. Divine Mind could not conceive of itself in a limited way, a sick way, a sad

way, a lonely way, or a painful way; so no phase of discord can ever be your experience.

Because the divine Mind—the I am—has no sense of anything but its own sweet harmony, this

Mind goes on being and feeling undisturbed peace and undimmed joy. This is the Mind which

says, “I can see only the brightness of My own glory” (Unity of Good, p. 18). The divine I can

cognise only its own infinite, wonderful Self, because nothing but Itself exists. This glorious

cognisance, or expression, is you.

The I am not only knows nothing but Itself but can express nothing but Itself,—can

experience nothing but Itself, can feel nothing but that which is its own nature,—even perpetual

harmony. Nothing but good is happening. Nothing is going on but God—Principle and its idea,

Father, Mother and child—living as flawless security. This I, which is the whole of Being, the I

or Us, in which you are included, is forever experiencing and acclaiming its own serenity,

beauty, completeness, security, bounty, wholeness. I am is the whole of Being experiencing the

fulness of infinite good, and not another thing is going on, not another thing is being

experienced.

There are not two states of being—the wonderful state of I am and the mortal. Because

God and man are inseparable, it is impossible that God could experience one state whilst His

idea experiences something to the contrary. Our Leader writes (Science and Health, pp. 361 and

470):

. . . Father and son, are one in being.

Man is the expression of God’s being.

This being is so sweet, so whole, so safe, so divinely substantial and harmonious, so

concrete! It is too exquisitely beautiful for mere words to portray, but the one and only I, the

divine Us—Father, Mother and child—perpetually feels it. It is the feeling of abiding peace and

perfection in every aspect of being. This is the state which Nehemiah says is exalted above all

blessing and praise. This blessedness is our natural, everyday life.

May we emphasise here that the divine Us is another term for I am, and reiterate also

your inclusion within the one I am. It is stated in Miscellaneous Writings (pp. 361 and 18):

God is the only Mind, and His manifestation is the spiritual universe, including man and

all eternal individuality.

. . . Father, Mother, and child are the divine Principle and divine idea, even the divine


On pages 522 and 121 of our textbook, our Leader refers to the material concept of man,

the small “i,” as

. . . mutable and mortal,—as having broken away from Deity and as revolving in an orbit

of his own.

. . . the wandering comet or the desolate star—“a weary searcher for a viewless home.”

Identification with the small “i” has reduced the mortal to being what our Leader terms

“weary wanderers, athirst in the desert . . . waiting and watching for rest and drink” (Science and

Health, p. 570). What a pitiable and deplorable state! Think of the audacity of the carnal mind in

daring to suggest such separation when all the suffering, sorrow, lack and toil of mortal

experience are attributable to the belief that man is separated from God and has a mind of his

own and a life of his own. Think of the desolation,—separated from good, separated from peace,

joy, harmony and abundance! But, happily, our Leader assures us (Science and Health, p. 522):

Existence, separate from divinity, Science explains as impossible.

I still quote (Science and Health, p. 306):

If God, who is Life, were parted for a moment from His reflection, man, during that

moment there would be no divinity reflected. The Ego would be unexpressed, and the Father

would be childless,— no Father.

Let us again repeat (Miscellaneous Writings, p. 18):



This is more than closeness, or unification. It is indissoluble oneness. The I is God, am is

man,—the oneness in which man is inseparably one with all good. I quote from Miscellany (p.

356):

The infinite is one, and this one is Spirit; Spirit is God, and this God is infinite good. This

simple statement of oneness is the only possible correct version of Christian Science.

Indeed, Father, Mother and child are inseparable. Our Leader refers to this oneness in

tender words (Miscellaneous Writings, p. 196):

The sweet, sacred sense and permanence of man’s unity with his Maker, in Science,

illumines our present existence with the everpresence and power of God, good.

She says further (Unity of Good, p. 24):

. . . God is All-in-all; and you can never be outside of His oneness.

It is this sweet and sacred sense of oneness which makes it impossible for you to “escape

from identification with what dwelleth in the eternal Mind” (Unity of Good, p. 64). You cannot

escape from the kingdom of heaven. You cannot escape from the love of God. You cannot

escape the peace of God, the health, joy, the affluence and sublimity of the one Life, because “I

and my Father are one.” I quote Miscellaneous Writings (p. 182):

. . . man and his Maker are inseparable and eternal.

When I am speaks of His own glory, He speaks of your glory. All the acclamations of I

am refer to you. Only that which I am says of Itself can ever be your experience. Divine Life

declares nothing but divine Life. Divine Love declares nothing but divine Love. Divine Mind

declares nothing but divine Mind. Truth declares nothing but Truth, and the sum-total of this

declaration of infinite perfection is the very substance of your being.

Knowing that all there is to you is divine Mind’s glorious concept of Life, you experience

the very depth of peace, the height of joy, the fulness of affluence, and the continuity of health

and bliss. But if we think of ourselves as the small “i” trying to demonstrate this fulness, our goal

is far beyond our reach.

Such an ideal as divine fulness and Allness is indeed far beyond the capacity of the small

“i.” The sublimity which is your being is never the attainment of the human mind. Such complete

satisfaction is experienced only by I am, by Principle and its idea, God and you, the divine

Us—Father, Mother and child. Perfect God and perfect man must be our starting point and

continuous standpoint.

The I of all reality, in which you are included, is forever relaxed in just being the perfect

Selfhood which it always is. This I is never tense, is never taut, in trying to achieve. It is often

remarked, “I must get more understanding; I must get peace of mind.” These are not statements

of the I of all-inclusive Being—the I of your Being—which is forever joyously aware of its own

peace, its own completeness.

Every element of everlasting peace, joy, understanding and assurance is found in the

fearless allness of I am. The I which says, “I am health” (and this is the I of your being), is never

afraid of not having health. The I which announces, “I am abundance,” is never afraid of lack.

Fear of any sort is never your experience. Fear belongs to the small “i” which is not you! There

is no affinity, no connecting link, between the I of your being and the mortal misconception.

Whatever frightening suggestions of evil may present themselves, they are, one and all, dissolved

in the glory of infinite, divine Allness. Not one discordant suggestion ever refers to you!

The Ego, Principle and idea, is sheer contentment. This contentment is your being. The

Ego remains its own sweet serenity, with no sense of disturbance. This is the peace of your

being. The only I is forever wholeness, with no small “i” to contend with. This uncontested

wholeness is your being. You are the very consequence of God. You are the am of the divine I.

The infinite I, so aware of its perfection, safety, satisfaction and completeness—so aware of its

infinite nature, so conscious of including every divine element within itself— can announce

always, “I am All” This all of good is your being. I quote from Unity of Good (p. 24):

I am the infinite All. From me proceedeth all Mind, all consciousness, all individuality,

all being.

“From me proceedeth . . . all being.” This is your being—as perfect as God Himself is

perfect—forever whole.

Miscellaneous Writings states (pp. 173, 78):

Mind is its own great cause and effect.

. . . man is the idea of God; and this idea cannot fail to express the exact nature of its

Principle . . .

Both Cause and effect, God and you, are “immutable and immortal” (Miscellaneous

Writings, p. 79).

Remember that there are not two states of being going on. The small “i” is not going on.

From the standpoint of Truth this mistaken sense of existence does not exist. Continue to identify

yourself as one with the divine I am until all temptation to classify yourself as anything less falls

away. The Ego (Principle and its idea; Father, Mother and child) is the very acme of perfection

always, and is the only possible state of your being.

The divine I can at all times say, “I am Love, enjoying my own loveliness, gentleness,

tenderness, enjoying the fearless certainty of good.” This is your loveliness, your fearless

certainty of good.

This I can bear witness of itself: “I am Truth rejoicing in my own withinness of

restfulness and clarity, immortality, liberty.” This restfulness, clarity, immortality and liberty are

your being, your permanent state.

The divine I can always acclaim, “I am Mind enjoying my might, my power, wisdom,

majesty and harmonious action.” This is your might, your power, wisdom, majesty and

harmonious action.

The divine I can always announce, “I am Soul revelling in my own beauty, joy, serenity,

bliss, complete satisfaction.” This is your beauty, joy, serenity, bliss, complete satisfaction.

“I am Principle aware of my own undeviating nature, law, precision, integrity.” This is

your being.

“I am Spirit, the natural awareness of graciousness, abundance and substance.” This is

your awareness and your experience.

“I am Life, forever experiencing my own vigour, vitality, buoyancy and continuity.”

Thus you experience the continuity of the vigour, vitality, buoyancy of divine Life. From all of

this sublime perfection you can never be separated. The am is always one with the divine I.

The I am is forever enjoying every perfect condition of all its own divine withinness.

There is no alternative to the glorious divine feeling, “I am health, I am peace, I am harmony,

joy, abundance and security.” This is your feeling.

The Ego, the whole of reality—Father, Mother and child— is health, peace, joy, liberty,

wholeness. Outside of the Ego nothing exists, and thus the harmony of the one I am—Father,

Mother and child—is forever uninterrupted, forever intact. In support of the statement that the

one I refers to the sum-total of being are the following references (Miscellaneous Writings, p.

105; Message for 1900, p. 4):

God is the sum total of the universe.

Man and the universe coexist with God in Science, and they reflect God and nothing else.

Divine Love in all its tenderness embraces all within itself, embraces all in and as Love’s

most perfect sense of Life, which is your Life. The I am can always say, “I, in all my

universality, am wholeness; I am perfection; I, the sum-total of being, Principle and idea, am

endless, boundless bliss.” The Psalmist sang, “Let the whole earth be filled with His glory.” We

today can pray, “Let the earth be filled with the endless glory of I am—the glory of God and His

idea—God and man.” Our Leader gives us the prerequisite for this ideal state on page 360 of

Miscellaneous Writings:

When mortal mind [the small “i”] is silenced by the “still, small voice” of Truth . . . and

Jesus, as the true idea of Him, is heard as of yore saying . . . “I came from the Father,” “Before

Abraham was, I am,” coexistent and coeternal with God,—and this idea is understood,—then

will the earth be filled with the true knowledge of Christ.

The small “i” is silenced forever by the voice of Truth bearing witness to itself. I now


I am Spirit. Man, whose senses are spiritual, is my likeness. He reflects the infinite

understanding, for I am Infinity. The beauty of holiness, the perfection of being, imperishable

glory,—all are Mine, for I am God. I give immortality to man, for I am Truth. I include and

impart all bliss, for I am Love. I give life, without beginning and without end, for I am Life. I am

supreme and give all, for I am Mind. I am the substance of all, because I am that I am.

To her great friend Mr. Neal, our Leader wrote, “In the depth of your soul realise I am, I

am, I am, with ceaseless feeling, and you will find your whole being filled with the power of

God.”

Could anything be more wonderful or more natural than the divine Mind contemplating

its own vast infinitude of perfection, and feeling without cessation the depth of its own peace,

the height of its own joy, the continuity of health—the divine Mind contemplating and feeling

the beauty and loveliness of its own being, including man, and announcing, “I am All!

With this ceaseless feeling of sacred perfection in the very depth of your soul—your

spiritual sense—realise I am, I am, I am, until your whole being is filled with the power of God.

The one I am beholding the perfect harmony of the sum-total of Being, feeling the wonder of the

flawlessness of itself, the flawlessness of Father, Mother and child—this Allness can acclaim,

“What joy I am! What joy I feel! What harmony I am! What harmony I feel! What perfection I

am and feel! I, total Cause including total effect, am complete and endless security. I, the divine

Us (Father, Mother and child) am the very essence of satisfaction. I, the sum-total of being, in all

my glory, in all my majesty and blessedness, am all.” Indeed, from this infinite divine I, or Us,

the suppositional small “i”—the “prince of this world”—finds no response. Live so exclusively

as one with the divine I that any suggestion of a suppositional opposite finds nothing in you.

The wonder of the only I, or Us, apart from which nothing whatsoever exists! Outside of

I am there is nothing—no action, no feeling, no substance, no hearing, no seeing, no living, no

awareness at all. The infinite glory of I am is the whole sphere of exquisite Life. It is divine Life

living itself in the most healthy, happy, abundant and perfect way, and you are the very

consequence—the absolute perfection which divine Life is living. To the sacred Self of I am—to

the immutable perfection of Father, Mother and child—we pronounce the everlasting benediction

(Psalm 145:2):

Every day will I bless thee; and I will praise thy name [the nature of Principle and its

idea, of Father, Mother and child] for ever and ever.

The Sum-Total of Good Is Man’s Natural State

From our Leader’s works we will gather the nature of divine Life—the Life which is our

present experience.

Our Leader presents two contrasting theories and asks (Science and Health, p. 494),

“Which of these two theories concerning man are you ready to accept? One is the mortal

testimony, changing, dying, unreal. The other is the eternal and real evidence, bearing Truth’s

signet, its lap piled high with immortal fruits.”

Not one of us here would, for a moment, identify himself with the mortal testimony with

its paucity and countless discords. The Christian Scientist acknowledges himself to be the eternal

and real evidence of God—evidence piled high with immortal fruits.

What are the immortal fruits constituting this high pile? They are all the elements of

divine Life—the Life of God and you. These immortal fruits include peace, abundance, joy,

harmony, vitality, strength, perfect sight, perfect hearing, vigour. What glorious evidence this is!

There is so much of it that it is piled high with everything that is included within the divine

Mind. This evidence of God’s perfection is what you are. God manifests it, and you are it. It is

God’s evidence of Himself. Our Leader describes these fruits of spiritual perfection as

“immortal.” Let us consider the wonderful implication this word “immortal” has for our being.

This immortal nature is our guarantee of immunity from every material belief and condition. It

means that our sight, substance, hearing, action, abundance, vigour, vitality are beyond and

above any possibility of loss or impairment.

The immortality of the eternal evidence which we are is illustrated by the story of the

burning bush (Exodus 3: 1, 2). “Now Moses kept the flock of Jethro his father in law . . . And the

angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush: and he looked,

and, behold, the bush burned with fire, and the bush was not consumed.”

The bush represents our immortal substance—God’s evidence of Himself, which is

yourself. Not even fire, one of the most destructive of mortal beliefs, could make the slightest

impression on immortal Being. Our Leader tells us that “so-called material law [cannot] trespass

upon God-given powers and resources” (Science and Health, p. 387). No matter in what guise

this so-called material law may parade, it can never trespass upon the peace, harmony and

abundance of God and man, for this is holy ground, where all is “harmoniously existent in Truth”

(Science and Health, p. 120), safe within our consciousness of reality.

There is no fear to trespass upon our peace; no sickness to trespass on our health; no lack

to encroach upon our infinite resources of abundance; no age to trespass upon the noontide of our

being. There is no sense of inferiority to trespass on our limitless ability; no weakness to trespass

on our strength; no procrastination to trespass on the immediacy of the divine Mind; no drought

to trespass on our harvest. There exists nothing which could steal away the treasures of Truth, the

treasures which are our real and eternal evidence.

So much for the immortal nature of the fruits piled high. We will now consider a second

aspect: How many of these immortal fruits are ours? Our Leader answers this question: Man

“reflects spiritually all that belongs to his Maker”; “Allness is the measure of the infinite, and

nothing less can express God” (Science and Health, pp. 475 and 336). Paul wrote, “For all things

are yours” (I Corinthians 3:2 1); and Jesus acknowledged the completeness of his

Christ-selfhood in his glorious assurance, “All things that the Father hath are mine” (John 16:15).

There are many convincing references relating to our completeness, but I will quote just a

few more:

And of His fulness have all we received . . .

(John 1:16)

For in him [the son] dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead . . .

(Colossians 2:9)


(Colossians 2:10)

For it pleased the Father that in him [the son] should all fulness dwell . . .

(Colossians 1:19)

Man is . . . ever beautiful and complete.


The question was, “How many of these immortal fruits are ours?” But such fulness as “all

things that the Father hath” cannot be counted. So, for the answer to our question, we will

borrow the statement from Psalms (40:5): “. . . if I would declare and speak of them, they are

more than can be numbered.”

Your Life is the fulness of strength, peace and comfort—the fulness of abundance in

unfailing continuity. I repeat, God is manifesting all of this wonderful evidence, and you are it. It

is your very being. This sacred state is already so whole that “nothing can be put to it”

(Ecclesiastes 3:14). On this point I quote our Leader: “Man . . . represents infinite Mind, the sum

of all substance” (Science and Health, p. 259). Also speaking of the spiritual idea she says, “His

substance outweighs the material world” (Miscellaneous Writings, p. 167). Our substance

outweighs the material world. Yes, too much good to be measured! Too much good to be

weighed! Our substance outweighs the material world.

The third aspect of interest is the indivisibility of Being. Our Leader will never permit us

to be content with a percentage of good. She says, “God is not part, but the whole”

(Miscellaneous Writings, p. 102). Also, “Christian Science declares that there is but one Truth,

Life, Love . . . Any attempt to divide these arises from . . . mortal man’s ignorance, from enmity

to God and divine Science” (Retrospection and Introspection, pp. 60-6 1). This is a very strong

statement: “Any attempt to divide [Truth, Life, Love] arises from . . . mortal man’s ignorance,

from enmity to God and divine Science.” Yet mortal mind spends its time dividing. Indivisible

abundance is our present and permanent state. All of it, all of health, all of strength, all of good is

ours. Abundance is unapportioned.

Let us disown the cramping, limiting incongruities of the mortal concept. We are

reminded by our Leader: “Finite belief limits all things” (Science and Health, p. 280). Finite

belief has no place in your consciousness. It is as foreign to you as it is to God. You exhibit the

real concept of Life. You are the actual evidence of divine Life’s glorious characteristics, the

evidence of all the immortal fruits piled high by God. We do not pile them. We enjoy them. We

enjoy any amount of harmony, any amount of vitality and unrestricted abundance.

Our fourth aspect is the everpresence of divine evidence. That Jesus tolerated nothing less

than the everpresence of good is illustrated by the story of the fig tree: “And seeing a fig tree afar

off having leaves, he came, if haply he might find any thing thereon: and when he came to it, he

found nothing but leaves; for the time of figs was not yet. . . . And in the morning, as they passed

by, they saw the fig tree dried up from the roots” (Mark 11:13, 20). The “time of figs was not

yet.” This indicated the absence of good—good being present only at certain times, known as

seasons. But to Jesus, good was an all-the-year-round state; so he smote the tree, thereby

rebuking the belief that harmonious evidence could be intermittent. For divine fruition there is

neither coming nor going. All good is omnipresent.

The continuity of divine evidence is natural to us. It is a sense of lack and toil which is

foreign to our nature. Security and harmony without any lapse are evident as our unoptional

experience. All that is good is the unbroken continuity of scientific being. All that is good is your

continuous experience.

Our fifth aspect is the processless nature of harmonious evidence. Everything that means

blessedness is independent of all external conditions. Jesus proved every aspect of abundance to

be already in evidence. We are all familiar with his illustration of the tribute money to pay the

taxes. When a boat was needed, there it was. An upper room was furnished, all prepared for the

Passover. The ass was in readiness for the entry into Jerusalem, and Jesus wore the seamless robe

which was considered to be the highest luxury of the day. The five thousand were fed, and there

was food already cooked on the coals. All of this was evidence without process, all in practical

form.

I quote from Unity of Good (pp. 11-12): “Jesus required neither cycles of time nor

thought in order to mature fitness for perfection and its possibilities. He said that the kingdom of

heaven is here, and is included in Mind; that while ye say, There are yet four months, and then

cometh the harvest, I say, Look up, not down, for your fields are already white for the harvest . .

.”

What would be the impediment to our experience of total good? It is the suggestion of

being outside the kingdom of heaven. This is illustrated by the story of the lame man who was

healed by Peter and John.

This man believed himself to be a deprived mortal, lame and poor. He was laid daily at

the gate of the temple which is called Beautiful. Temple means consciousness. Mesmerized by

dependency and poverty he believed himself to be left out of the kingdom of heaven. He

believed himself to be left outside of the consciousness of beauty—outside of the consciousness

of all-inclusive good. Considering himself to be in a state of poverty, he asked an alms. Alms

means relief to the poor. Admitting such deprivation, it is indeed no wonder that he felt lame,

poor and incomplete. In view of the sad misconception this man entertained of himself, it is not

surprising that he was unable to stand on his own feet. Such a faltering, incorrect sense of life

afforded him no basis or foundation on which to stand.

What a contrast between this barren state of consciousness, this lack and dearth, and the

glorious awareness of the son of God, the continuous experience of affluence, bounty,

inexhaustible plenty—enjoying the overflowing fulness which is our own being!

Peter and John doubtlessly healed this man on the basis of his spiritual independence and

all-inclusiveness. No longer was he left at the gate; no longer did he believe himself to be outside

or separate from the consciousness of beautiful being; no longer did he identify himself with

paucity and lack; no longer did he think of good in terms of remoteness, outside of his

experience.

His poor sense of life yielded to Life abundant. He was freed from his crippling sense,

and so “he leaping up stood, and walked, and entered with them into the temple, walking, and

leaping, and praising God” (Acts 3:8).

There may be times when one is tempted to believe that the evidence of God’s goodness

is outside of his experience, but on this as on every other point, our dear Leader comforts us. She

says, “. . . but verily I say unto you, God is All-in-all; and you can never be outside of His

oneness” (Unity of Good, p. 24). And also: “Divine Love hath opened the gate Beautiful to us,

where we may see God and live, see good in good,—God all, one,—one Mind and that divine”

(Miscellany, p. 132). Divine Love has revealed that beautiful being, even all good, is our

complete experience, here and now. Never can we be outside of it; never can we be separated

from this beautiful, bountiful state of life.

In a wonderful way our Leader’s experience illustrates that abundance is incidental to the

recognition of the all-inclusiveness of divine Mind. Previous to her discovery of the Truth, our

dear Leader’s circumstances seemed indeed far from affluent. The Life of Mary Baker Eddy by

Sybil Wilbur gives a vivid picture of the great change that occurred in our Leader’s

circumstances as her appreciation of Life abundant increased. She discovered for all of us that

there is but one Life, the Life which is forever a state of completeness and overflowing bounty.

Everything that means blessedness is within this Life forever, and this is the only Life of the son

of God. Incidental to her recognition of this glorious fact, she accepted the eternal and real

evidence in place of the mortal concept. Loveliness and grace, affluence and profusion became

abundantly evident as her own being—her kingdom within.

She thought and wrote in such expansive terms as “floodgates,” “flood-tides,” “the

teeming universe of Mind,” “the infinite ocean of Love,” “boundless bliss,” “the infinite All of

good.” And the Bible speaks of the banqueting house as our state of consciousness: “He brought

me to the banqueting-house, and his banner over me was love” (Song of Solomon 2:4).

Our privilege is to be alert in realizing that anything pertaining to the mortal

misconception of life does not in any way refer to man. We have no point of contact, no

relationship, with the mortal sense of life. Let us come back to our keynote: the eternal and real

evidence of God piled high with immortal fruits. This is what we are. The one Life is infinite

Self-containment, including every spiritual attribute within itself. Our Leader reminds us in

Science and Health (p. 563) that “the spiritual idea . . . is prolific in health, holiness, and

immortality.” This again is man’s true identification. His Life is one glorious, indivisible whole

of good. It is unopposed perfection. You are not a mortal doing your best to manifest health and

abundance. God Himself is the reason for all you are. Therefore, you have no option but to be the

full experience of great plenty.

Jesus came that we might have life more abundantly. So let us enjoy the overflowing

fulness which knows no sense of stint.

Let us then acknowledge that man has no affinity with finite belief, but is the fulness, the

buoyancy, the spontaneity, joy and bliss of abundant Life. In the recognition of the indivisible

wholeness of Being, the limited concept with its lack, frustration, personal dependence is lost,

forever unknown. This limited concept is swallowed up in the limitless Allness of divine

oneness, which is your permanent, subjective state. This limitless abundance is what you are. In

fact, the most important aspect of all is the subjective nature of all good. God manifests it. You

are it!

This is illustrated by Jesus in the story of the woman at the well. Jesus said to her,

“Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again” (John 4:13). That is, whoever believes that

he needs anything from “outside” has placed himself on the unsatisfied basis of

incompleteness—the basis where good does not last.

Mortal mind so-called is always thirsting for one thing or another. Its basis is indeed a

dry and thirsty land. Jesus explained to the woman (John 4:14), “. . . but the water that I shall

give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.” He showed her the

subjective nature of all good.

Water symbolises the elements of divine Life, every element of which is subjective and

springs up irresistibly, by divine volition, from within the one Mind, your Mind. Every element

of good springs up without interruption or limit. It is the welling up of overflowing abundance,

the eternal evidence of all that constitutes the one Life. As we have already said, every element is

everlasting. Instead of thirsting for harmony, we enjoy its presence as our very being—our actual

within-ness.

Jesus said, “. . . he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and . . . shall never thirst” (John

6:35). That is, he that comes to the recognition of his own Christ-selfhood is permanently aware

of infinite good, which is forever indwelling. We neither hunger nor thirst for that which we

already are. We enjoy everlasting substance, bliss and bounty—even the divinely royal state of

Life. It is already established that the divine evidence which we are appears always in practical

form, needing no assistance from any material condition. It appears without fear that it could

come to an end. Such subjective being is independent of inflation or any other mortal belief.

With the one Mind there is no variableness.

Please, may I summarize this all-important aspect (sixth aspect)—subjectivity. Total

good is included wholly within divine Mind—your Mind. Your peace, your joy, your abundance

of blessedness, remains within and operates within the divine Mind. All that you are is

subjective. All feeling is the function of your divine and only Mind. This means that you feel

harmony, strength and perfection as your natural state.

All that is your essential nature is inherent. Not one element or condition of your being is

derived from a suppositional outside. Yes, your entire action, your every movement, is made by

Mind within Mind. Hence our complete invulnerability. If tempted to doubt your ability to

experience this glorious sense of Life, remember that God Himself is manifesting it and you have

no alternative but to be it. We cannot escape from being the real and eternal evidence piled high

with immortal fruits.

In view of “God giving all and man having all that God gives” (Miscellany, p. 5), we

acknowledge with the Christ: “All things that the Father hath are mine . . .”

The All-Inclusiveness of Being

Being is undivided, and because it is undivided it includes everything within itself. On

page 255 of Science and Health we read, “As mortals drop off their mental swaddling-clothes,

thought expands into expression.” Let us today abandon the very last tatters of the material,

restricted, finite sense of existence, and enjoy the limitless good which is our true status as the

Son of the living God. Our Leader writes further (Science and Health, p. 258):

Mortals have a very imperfect sense of the spiritual man and of the infinite range of his

thought.

We are clear at the outset, of course, that we are not mortals. Mortals can never conceive

of the infinite. They are never aware of limitless good. Their sense of life—the mortal sense—is

a poor misconception of reality. Mortals believe that the one Life, God, good, is divided into

countless portions—one portion for each person. But our Leader proves the contrary to be the

fact, in her statements: “God is indivisible” (Science and Health, p. 336); “God is not part, but

the whole” (Miscellaneous Writings, p. 102); and “Science reveals Life as a complete sphere”

(Retrospection and Introspection, p. 60). Your Life—a complete sphere!

In further support of the indivisibility, the undivided nature, of Being, our Leader states

(Retrospection and Introspection, pp. 60 and 56):

Christian Science declares that there is but one Truth, Life, Love, but one Spirit, Mind,

Soul. Any attempt to divide these arises from the fallibility of sense, from mortal man’s

ignorance, from enmity to God and divine Science.

Whatever diverges from the one divine Mind, or God,—or divides Mind into minds,

Spirit into spirits, Soul into souls, and Being into beings,—is a misstatement of the unerring

divine Principle of Science . . . and is of human instead of divine origin. . . . there is but one

Mind; and that one is the infinite good, supplying all Mind by the reflection, not the subdivision,

of God.

Just think, any attempt to divide Spirit, Mind, Soul arises from mortal man’s ignorance!

Many people today still think that man has a mind of his own, separate from God. But, in view of

this indivisibility, we will never again attempt to divide Good.

The only true sense of Life is God’s concept. This concept is one of total

good—undivided, unapportioned, infinite. It is wholeness, all-inclusiveness. God’s sense of Life

is everything that is wonderful, and this divine allness constitutes your Life. As God’s

expression, your Life is one indivisible, complete, all-inclusive whole of good. The reflection of

allness is not a mere portion. It is allness. Our Book says (p. 336):

Allness is the measure of the infinite, and nothing less can express God.

Let us no longer live as a mere fraction of the one Life, a fraction of joy. Let us no longer

live as the small half-measure, the divided sense, of good, which mortals in their ignorance

believe to be Life. Let us become more closely acquainted with our own true nature, which is the

all-inclusiveness of good. God does all the including within Himself; so man, God’s expression,

is all-inclusive. Man is the all-inclusive effect of the one all-inclusive Cause. This

all-inclusiveness is constituted of right ideas, which are the very substance of everything that

exists.

We will now consider two of our Leader’s definitions of man. The first appears on page

475 of the textbook:

He is the compound idea of God, including all right ideas…

Note that man, the compound idea, is in the singular. He includes all right ideas (plural).

Some of these ideas which you include are joy, peace, strength, harmony, security, tenderness,

might, beauty. You are the compound idea itself, constituted solely of these right ideas, and

every idea is tangible and productive. The tangibility and reality of these ideas is proved by the

following statements from our Book (pp. 279, 419, 331):

Ideas are tangible and real to immortal consciousness . . .

. . . God and His ideas alone are real and harmonious.

. . . nothing possesses reality nor existence except the divine Mind and His ideas.

The second definition is on page 591:

Man. The compound idea of infinite Spirit; the spiritual image and likeness of God; the

full representation of Mind.

To be the full representation of divine Mind, man must comprise all the elements, or

ideas, of this Mind. I quote from Science and Health (pp. 259, 475):

The true likeness cannot be lost in divine reflection.

Man . . . reflects spiritually all that belongs to his Maker.

You do not reflect a limited amount, but all. This is why Science and Health says (p.

302):

Principle is not to be found in fragmentary ideas.

In order to refute the limited, divided sense of good, we will refer again to the statement

on page 336 of the textbook: “God is indivisible.” God is the sum-total of good, all in One. He

cannot be divided into portions. Then God’s reflection of total good is not divided into portions.

As God’s reflection, your experience cannot be less than all harmony, all good, all peace; as

God’s reflection, you experience all health, all joy, all substance. Only old theology would limit

this allness.

A most important statement appears on page 239 of Miscellany:

God is one, and His idea, image, or likeness, man, is one. But God is infinite and so

includes all in one.

Let us reiterate: God is total good. His reflection, then, which you are, could not be a

mere fraction of this good. The reflection of one infinite whole of good is one infinite whole of

good, and nothing less. This all of good expressed by God Himself is your status. It is absolutely

inevitable.

Webster’s dictionary gives the meaning of the word “whole” as: “Complete; all;

comprising all the parts; totality; all of a thing without deficiency; the sum.” Accept this

wonderful status of wholeness as your true identification. Rejoice in the completeness which you

inevitably are as the Son of God. As God’s expression of Himself, you experience His allness,

without a single deficiency.

Think of the sacred wonder of your being, the very quintessence of divinity, the

expression of Allness from which nothing could ever be subtracted,—even that which is so

divinely and infinitely whole that nothing could even be added to it. This is the state of your

being referred to in Ecclesiastes 3:14: “ . . . nothing can be put to it, nor any thing taken from it .

. .” Our Leader makes no reservations. She states, “Man . . . represents infinite Mind, the sum of

all substance” (Science and Health, p. 259). How little mortals do accept of the sum of all

substance! Contemplate the wonder, the majesty and magnitude of your being. Which of us can

truly say that he identifies himself consistently every day in terms even approaching such

grandeur as the “sum of all substance”? Nevertheless, this is your glorious and permanent status.

You are the very image, the very expression of all-inclusive Life. You are the compound idea, or

the aggregate of every right idea. You are divine Mind’s infinite expression of infinite allness in

all its grandeur and glory. God maintains this state; so you cannot be less. How unlike a limited

mortal you are!

Do our Leader’s statements of man’s completeness and fulness seem too wonderful to

refer to you? If so, then you are still believing yourself to be a mortal and are clinging to the

cramping, limiting incongruities of the divided concept of human sense. The cruelty of the carnal

mind would seek to divide and thereby to limit everything. I quote from Science and Health (p.

280):

Finite belief limits all things [it would limit your health, your peace] . . . and to

accommodate its finite sense of the divisibility of Soul and substance, it seeks to divide the one

Spirit into persons and souls.

Such a divided and limited sense of substance is entirely foreign to your nature. You are

not a mortal experiencing a mere portion of good. You are the man of God—the only man there

is. You are the “compound idea of God, including all right ideas . . .” You are Mind’s full

manifestation, in all its measureless harmony.

Leave the portion-of-good basis. Disown the divided, mortal sense, which has no better

concept than one of restriction, division, finity. Have done forever with the drabness and the

penury of limited sense. This is old theology—the darkness of mortal mind. Start out as the Son

of God that you are, on the indivisible allness-of- good basis—the basis of full measure, the basis

of the divine all-inclusiveness of everything that means blessedness—the only basis. The

indivisible allness of all that is divine is your original, natural and permanent state as God’s

expression. You are at home in this; so start out always as the fulness, as the completeness—as

all the beauty, all the substance; start out as all the security, all the harmony, which divine Mind

is manifesting as you. God’s infinite concept of His infinite Self is the only concept and is all

there is to you. You exhibit divine Life’s glorious characteristics. You show forth Life’s fulness

and unalterable perfection in all its aspects. So, in reply to the query, “How many of Mind’s right

ideas do I include?” our Book replies (p. 336):


Nothing less than allness can be the expression of God, but happily (and I quote): “. . . of

his fulness have all we received” (John 1:16). “For it pleased the Father that in him [in the Son]

should all fulness dwell” (Colossians 1:19). “For in him [the Son] dwelleth all the fulness of the

Godhead bodily” (Colossians 2:9). “And ye are complete in him” (Colossians 2:10). I quote our

Leader (Science and Health, pp. 527 and 475):

Man is God’s reflection . . . ever beautiful and complete.

Man . . . reflects spiritually all that belongs to his Maker.

Yes, by reflection, God’s allness of indivisible good is your allness of indivisible good.

Like produces like. You are here and now “the stature of the fulness of Christ” (Ephesians 4:13).

How unlike a mortal!

This is why we can be firm in laying down the mistaken concept of a divided,

apportioned sense of God and His expression. Thus we can confidently renounce the old

theological shreds of divisibility, which would identify man as less than the Son of God,—less

than God’s expression of the entireness of good. God does not deal in fragments. Piecemeal is

not the measure of His goodness and allness.

The infinite nature of our being is confirmed on pages 258 and 336 of Science and

Health:

Man reflects infinity, and this reflection is the true idea of God.

Immortal man was and is God’s image or idea, even the infinite expresssion of infinite

Mind . . .

This is your status—“the infinite expression of infinite Mind . . .” “Of a truth thou art the

Son of God” (Matthew 14:33). As the Son of God, you are divine fulness,—the fulness of

strength, the fulness of peace and joy expressed in all their unfailing continuity and inexhaustible

completeness. You live as the radiance of Soul. You include all the beauty of divine reality as

your own and only selfhood. You include every right idea about everything, and the infinite

variety of these ideas constitutes the infinite versatility of your experience.

No demand can ever arise for which you do not include the right idea. The compound

idea of God, which you are, consists of every right idea, each one divinely perpetuated, infinitely

productive, inexhaustible and inextinguishable. Acknowledge this, and the ideas of

Truth—practical and productive, always functioning—will well up from within as living water,

liberating mankind from the parched sense of mortal existence. In support of your status as total

good, we find on page 5 of Miscellany:

Wholly apart from this mortal dream, this illusion and delusion of sense, Christian

Science comes to reveal man as God’s image, His idea, coexistent with Him—God giving all and

man having all that God gives.

Included within this “all that God gives” is all health, all joy, security, peace, all vigour,

all stability. Paul recognised the indivisibility of being when he wrote that “all things are yours”

(I Corinthians 3:2 1), and the Christ repudiated any belief of half-measure, or partial expression,

by his acknowledgment, “All things that the Father hath are mine” (John 16:15). Christ knows no

finite sense. Finity is predicated on division. It is a fragmentary sense of existence. Completeness

is the reality of the Infinite, and this is your being.

God, in His great love, manifests His allness as your experience of all good. His

completeness is your completeness. By reflection, His infinite self-containment is your infinite

self-containment. In full expression of Himself, God constitutes the fulness of your being, even

the fulness of all that constitutes the stature of Christ.

Continuing the recognition of divine all-inclusiveness, fulness, wholeness, infinite

self-containment, we will gather from our books what is the nature of these countless right ideas.

Every idea is specific in its own character. What is the value of these ideas? How do they

function?

The right idea of joy, which you include, is experienced as your uninterrupted happiness.

The right idea of wholeness, which you include, is experienced as your continuous health.

The right idea of spiritual discernment is experienced as your perfect sight.

The right idea of security is experienced as your peace of mind and your permanent

safety.

The right idea of substance is experienced as your abundant good, in all its aspects.

The right idea of spiritual perception is experienced as your perfect hearing.

The right idea of activity is experienced as your perfect functioning.

Each idea comes forth as practical evidence of its own nature, and these ideas constitute

your substantiality, your being.

On page 307 of Miscellaneous Writings appears the much-loved statement, “God gives

you His spiritual ideas, and in turn, they give you daily supplies.” When the substance of an idea

comes forth, the substance is divinely derived from its never-failing source, the divine Mind.

True and lasting substance does not come from a material source, but as divine manifestation. As

an example, the most ideal material circumstances could never guarantee permanent satisfaction,

but spiritual joy is everlasting. The ideas which constitute your consciousness, such as peace,

harmony and love, determine the peace, harmony and love of your human experience. Each right

idea comes forth always in the tangible form most helpful to the specific human requirement of

the moment.

Now let us deal with the idea of substance. We readily admit that the spiritual idea of

substance is just as evident, concrete, just as efficient, powerful and productive today as when

Jesus fed the multitude nineteen centuries ago. By what means did Jesus feed the five thousand?

He did not divide the five loaves and two fishes into five thousand parts, and pass the fragments

around. No, he turned away from the limited, material picture to the awareness of his heaven of

right ideas. He gave thanks. He acknowledged with gratitude the everpresence of all true

substance. He knew the practical, productive, everpresent nature of every right idea.

Jesus always entertained right ideas. They constituted the Christ-consciousness then, and

they constitute your Christ-consciousness today. When Jesus was about to feed the multitude, the

idea of true substance was needed, and so it came forth. In conformity with divine law, this

everpresent, inexhaustible idea of substance reproduced its own characteristics, reproduced its

own ingredients, and the practical evidence came forth as food—food in plenty for the hungry

five thousand, and “that, too, without meal or monad from which loaf or fish could come”

(Science and Health, p. 90). When the substantiality of an idea is understood, the supply of

essential commodities is always forthcoming, always plentiful, and exactly right for the

occasion. It was perfectly natural and fitting that the five thousand were fed. When these right

ideas are cognised, the most wonderful things do happen.

To the Christ-consciousness, whether exemplified by Jesus or by you, lack—or any phase

of discord—is an impossibility. When Jesus needed a boat, one was at hand; the tribute money

was produced; for the triumphal entry into Jerusalem, an ass was in readiness; an upper room

was all ready and furnished, just when required; through the conscious, spiritual discernment of

the Christ, the blind were healed. The Christ-awareness of the perfection of spiritual perception

gave hearing to the deaf; dumbness gave place to the right idea of expression; and the right idea

of ever-active Life disproved the possibility of any withered hand. Resulting from the Christ’s

inclusion of right ideas, there appeared the fire of coals and the fish and bread already prepared

for the glorious morning meal. When substance is understood as the right idea, the manifestation

of Mind, it comes forth without process and is instantly evident, in the very form that is required.

One of our Leader’s household related to me that one day our Leader asked her, “Laura,

if a carriage stopped at your door and some unknown person stepped out and handed you a gift

of one hundred thousand dollars, would you be surprised?” “I certainly should be surprised,

Mother,” was the reply. To this our Leader remarked, “Then what a poor sense of your God you

have!”

On another occasion our Leader told her students that they accepted only one per cent of

the good which belonged to them, and added, “Ninety-nine per cent is left unowned,

un-enjoyed.”

How human sense does limit good, because it is ignorant of the “teeming universe of

Mind”—the teeming universe of right ideas, which is your consciousness! Every idea in this

teeming universe—spiritual discernment, spiritual perception, peace, tenderness,

harmony—everlastingly remains itself in full expression, in complete wholeness, and in full

evidence, never tinged by division, limitation or impairment. These ideas never fail; they are

never depleted. They never dry up. This is why (Jeremiah 17:8) you are:

as a tree planted by the waters, and that spreadeth out her roots by the river, and shall not

see when heat cometh, but her leaf shall be green; and shall not be careful in the year of drought,

neither shall cease from yielding fruit.

Every idea is eternal, productive, ever operative, everpresent, infinite and intact. These

ideas, which constitute your being, operate independently of material conditions. You are the

man “whom Spirit creates, constitutes, and governs” (Science and Health, p. 316). Constituted of

the ideas of Spirit, your entire being is infallible in its perfection. Your being is undivided

wholeness. Nothing ever could impair or divide a spiritual idea. Every idea is eternally intact.

The indivisibility of Being is sure protection from the belief of loss. Nothing can be taken away

from that which is incapable of division. Life is one indivisible whole. Because of this there can

be no loss of health, no loss of peace, no loss of joy, no loss of abundance. Let us reiterate that as

God’s expression you cannot be less than the allness of health, the allness of strength, the allness

of harmony, the allness of security, the allness of affluence, even the allness of good in every one

of its countless aspects. The indivisibility of being precludes any possibility of an alternative to

this state of allness. Every idea operates unspent; it can never wear out, can never be exhausted,

can never be affected by any material belief.

Consider the contrast between the infallible spiritual idea of discernment and the merely

material belief of sight, dependent on material organism. Spiritual discernment and every other

right idea is forever intact, unimpairable, indestructible, permanent, and whole. With what

gratitude we acknowledge this everlasting spiritual discernment to be our sight, in place of the

frail, mortal, limited misconception of material sight! Every idea—strength, sight, hearing,

action—is one hundred per cent perfection, one hundred per cent of the time. Never is any idea

less than the expression of the fulness of harmony—never.

Let us illustrate. Intelligence is a right idea. Mind manifests this intelligence

continuously. One might say that Mind uses its intelligence incessantly. Yet, never is Mind’s

intelligence diminished, never could any idea be depleted. We have said that every idea operates

unspent, is never diminished, never reduced, but remains its fulness always. Your peace, your

strength, your activity, your sight, your hearing are inexhaustible.

An important statement appears on page 298 of the textbook:

Spiritual ideas, like numbers and notes, start from Principle, and admit no materialistic

beliefs.

Every idea remains its own pure self, unaltered by any material belief. Its substance

remains in Mind, where “neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break

through nor steal” (Matthew 6:20). The thieves of fear, anxiety, age, mortal belief can never steal

away your treasures of peace, affluence, joy, beauty, agility, sight, hearing, strength. By their

very nature, right ideas are immutable. These ideas are never touched by chance, by climate, by

fears or mistakes. In our Leader’s words, they are “verities priceless, eternal, and just at hand”

(Miscellaneous Writings, p. 61). These ideas are your everlasting possessions.

Constituted of divine ideas, the whole of you—your entire being—is permanently intact,

and every right idea is fraught with blessings. The presence of the Christ, the compound idea of

God—this is what you are—is the presence of blessedness to every situation. Because Jesus

exemplified the Christ, he included every right idea as his Christ-consciousness, and so, as Hymn

388 says:

Where’er he went affliction fled,

The sick were healed, the hungry fed.

Affliction melts in the presence of the Christ. Sickness gives place to the Christ-sense of

health, and all sense of lack is banished by the Christ-awareness of limitless substance. This

awareness is your consciousness.

Let us so live the all-inclusiveness of the Christ that every suggestion of error is

dissolved. Let us so live the tenderness of our own Christ-being that the sorrowing are

comforted. May we so live that by our awareness of right ideas the sick are healed, and all upon

whom our thoughts rest are blessed. May we ever be the Christ-peace to every fear, the

Christ-calm to every storm of error. May we so feel and live the wholeness of Love’s allness that

“he that cometh to me shall never hunger” (John 6:3 5). May we never entertain a lesser concept

of man than “the compound idea of God, including all right ideas”—“the full representation of

Mind.”

To this Christ-consciousness, to your consciousness of absolute perfection, the human

picture conforms, and man will be “found perfect and entire, wanting nothing.”

In conclusion, we have seen that your correct identification as divine Mind’s full

manifestation places you, at once and forever, in the realm of security and complete satisfaction,

where nothing but good ever happens, and where good knows no limit.

We have seen that the fulness of the one indivisible Mind could not be expressed, or

experienced, in a divided or fragmentary way; that the spiritual man’s substance could not be

divided into portions, into limited amounts. We have seen something of the natural wonder,

infallibility and universality—their perfection and their power. We have seen that every right

idea is filled with blessings, blessings which Mind unfolds in the most loving and most beneficial

way, and that the human situation conforms always to the consciousness of right ideas, which is

the consciousness of the Christ, your only consciousness. Our books have shown us that these

ideas constitute your infinite substance, your inexhaustible wellbeing. They are the very essence

of Love itself, infinite in power, liberating mankind from the impoverished, inadequate,

fragmentary sense of peace—the fragmentary sense of health and substance.

Your everlasting security lies in the fact that you are the compound idea itself. As such,

you cannot experience less than the allness of health, the fulness of joy, the completeness of all

that is divinely good.

Let us cherish every idea as the very substance of our being. The allness of God, the

allness of good, in every one of its aspects, is all ours now. Every element within this allness is

divine, perfect, infinite, and cannot be impaired. Therefore, there is nothing anywhere to interfere

with the infinite harmony of our being. There is nothing to limit Mind’s infinite allness. In

support of this our Book states (pp. 127 and 514):

. . . there can be nothing beyond illimitable divinity.

. . . nothing exists beyond the range of all-inclusive infinity, in which and of which God

is the sole creator.

Finally: “All is infinite Mind and its infinite manifestation . . .” To live as the infinite

manifestation of infinite Mind, feeling the fulness of the peace, joy and harmony of Life,

rejoicing forever in the all-inclusiveness of your Being, the Christ, which is all there is to you, is

to acknowledge always (John 16:15):

All things that the Father hath are mine . . .

Man’s Inevitable Abundance

According to Webster, abundance means “an overflowing fullness; ample sufficiency;

great plenty; profusion; copious supply.”

Christ Jesus said (John 10:10):

I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.

The Christ revealed the one and only Life—your Life and mine—to be a state of

“overflowing fullness; ample sufficiency; great plenty; profusion; copious supply.” Such is the

unalterable nature of the one Life; such is your nature.

Someone may ask, “If abundance is man’s original and permanent state, then why do

some seem to struggle and toil and yet have little more than the bare necessities of life? Why

does life often seem to be a state of insecurity and limitation?” This limited, precarious sense of

life is not Life. It is an utter misconception. It is the false, mistaken sense of mortals, unaware of

the all-inclusiveness of divine Life, the Life of the son of God. In consequence of this

unawareness—this lack of recognition that abundance is one’s very being—mortals regard

abundance as a state to be attained, and all too often this attainment is regarded as being

dependent upon favourable human conditions—even at the mercy of person or circumstance! An

illustration of this is given in the third chapter of Acts, where the story of the lame man healed by

Peter and John is recorded.

This mortal, ignorant of his own true nature, unconscious of the fact that Life abundant is

man’s own status, believed himself to be lame and poor. He was laid daily at the gate of the

temple which is called Beautiful. What a place to leave him—at the gate!

Temple means consciousness. This man, mesmerized by dependency and poverty,

believed himself to be left out of the kingdom of heaven, and therefore laid outside of the

consciousness of beauty, outside of the beautiful consciousness of all-inclusive good—the

consciousness which recognises all good to be already present—to ask an alms, which means to

ask for “relief to the poor.” This man identified himself with poverty, lack, restriction and

personal dependence. Admitting such deprivation, such mistaken identification, it is indeed no

wonder that he felt lame—inefficient, poor and incomplete. In view of the sad, mortal

misconception he entertained of himself, it is not surprising that he was unable to stand on his

own feet. Such an uncertain, faltering, incorrect, unscientific sense of life afforded him no basis

or foundation on which to stand.

What a contrast between this barren state of consciousness—this limitation, lack, dearth,

inadequacy and inefficiency—and the glorious consciousness of the son of God, aware of his

own all-inclusiveness, conscious of affluence, bounty, inexhaustible plenty, as his own

withinness, enjoying the boundless good which is already and forever his own experience!

Peter and John doubtlessly healed this man on the basis of his divine completeness,

spiritual independence and allinclusiveness. No longer was he left “at the gate”: no longer did

he believe himself to be “outside,” or separate from, the consciousness of beautiful Being; no

longer did he identify himself with paucity and lack; no longer did he think of good as being

outside of his experience. His misconception, his finite, limited and poor sense of life, had

vanished. It had yielded to the true sense, to Life abundant. Freed from his crippling, fettering,

blinding mortal sense, “he leaping up stood, and walked, and entered with them into the temple,

walking, and leaping, and praising God” (Acts 3:8). The faltering mortal sense—the lame

endeavour to get a living—was exchanged for the recognition of his own true being, as the

fulness of divine Life.

In the words of our Leader:

. . . but verily I say unto you, God is All-in-all; and you can never be outside of His

oneness.


Divine Love hath opened the gate Beautiful to us, where we may see God and live, see

good in good,—God all, one,—one Mind and that divine . . .


Divine Love has revealed that Beautiful Being, even all good, is our very consciousness

and experience here and now. Never, never can we be outside of it, never can we be separated

from this beautiful, bountiful state of Life; never can we believe that the son of God has to

achieve or attain it.

Let us here consider a word vitally important to us— “subjective.” Webster gives this

definition: “Arising from, concerned with, or belonging to the individual mind.”

Abundant good does arise from, is concerned with, and belongs to the one individual

Mind, your Mind. Abundant good is your subjective state. You include good in all its aspects.

Once this divine inclusion is understood, abundance appears as your experience in the

most effortless and harmonious way, and is always evident in the most practical form. This

practical aspect is portrayed in Deuteronomy, Isaiah, Joel, and Jeremiah:

[We are given a] land of wheat, and barley, and vines, and fig trees, and pomegranates; a

land of oil olive, and honey; A land wherein thou shalt eat bread without scarceness, thou shalt

not lack any thing in it . . .

(Deuteronomy 8:8, 9)

. . . and the desert shall rejoice, and blossom as the rose. It shall blossom abundantly, and

rejoice even with joy and singing . . .

(Isaiah 35:1, 2)

And the parched ground shall become a pool, and the thirsty land springs of water . . .

(Isaiah 35:7)

. . . and thou shalt be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water, whose waters fail

not.

(Isaiah 58:11)

And the floors shall be full of wheat, and the fats shall overflow with wine and oil. . . .

And ye shall eat in plenty, and be satisfied . . .

Joel 2:24, 26)

For he shall be as a tree planted by the waters, and that spreadeth out her roots by the

river, and shall not see when heat cometh, but her leaf shall be green; and shall not be careful in

the year of drought, neither shall cease from yielding fruit.

(Jeremiah 17:8)

There is no suggestion of stint, scarcity, or meagre sufficiency in the one Mind, your

Mind,—no sense of struggle or toil. Mind experiences its affluence, plenty, and all good,

effortlessly, constantly, measurelessly.

Laborious striving and achieving are mortal effort. They are never the function of divine

Mind and are no part of the son of God.

Deuteronomy (6:10, 11) again illustrates this point:

And it shall be, when the Lord thy God shall have brought thee into the land which he

sware unto thy fathers . . . to give thee great and goodly cities, which thou buildest not. And

houses full of all good things, which thou filledst not, and wells digged, which thou diggedst not,

vineyards and olive trees, which thou plantedst not; when thou shalt have eaten and be full . . .

Acknowledge that effortless, natural good in its every aspect constitutes your very being.

Divine Love manifests its fulness, its wealth of beauty, joy, divine completeness and bounty, and

nothing less than this state of divine all-inclusiveness can ever be the experience of the son of

God. Divine Love expresses itself indivisibly as one perfect whole, and man is the full

expression of this whole good. Such is your very nature, as our dear Leader makes plain on page

336 of Science and Health: “Allness is the measure of the infinite, and nothing less can express

God.” Jesus said (Luke 12: 32), “Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father’s good pleasure to

give you the kingdom”—that is, to give you the everpresent awareness of your own true being as

spiritual completeness, in all its everlasting glory.

The importance of understanding the subjective nature of being is made plain in the

fourth chapter of John in the story of the woman at the well. “Jesus answered and said unto her,

Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again” (John 4: 13)—that is, whoever believes that

he needs anything from “outside” has placed himself on the unsatisfying basis of incompleteness,

on the basis where good does not last. This basis is indeed a “dry and thirsty land” (Psalm 63:1).

In other words, mortal mind, so-called, is always thirsting for something. But Jesus continued: “.

. . the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting

life” (John 4:14).

The water—the crystal clarity of divine all-inclusiveness—wells up from within as

everlasting joy, everlasting substance, everlasting bliss and bounty. It wells up like an

irrepressible fountain from within the one Mind, without interruption or interference, and this

infinite expression knows neither boundary nor limit. It is a welling up of overflowing

abundance,—the affluence of good, forever evident in practical form, without restriction,

needing no consent of any material condition, and without fear that it will ever come to an end.

The very nature of this withinness of all good is everlasting. Such subjective abundance is

Un-diminishable. It is independent of slump or boom— independent of person or of

circumstance. With the one Mind there “is no variableness” (James 1:17).

Jesus, who said, “I and my Father are one” (John 10:30), said also, “All things that the

Father hath are mine” (John 16:15). This true identification reveals man as one with the whole of

good. The Christ-consciousness is itself the consciousness of abundance, as Jesus proved in

meeting the need of every moment. Abundance evidenced itself as loaves and fishes, as tribute

money. When Jesus needed a ship, one was always at hand. He wore the seamless robe which

was the highest luxury of his day. Identification with the one Mind means identification with

problemless, joyous, all-inclusive, inevitable Life abundant. “Son, thou art ever with me, and all

that I have is thine” (Luke 15:31).

Let us rejoice that divine Being, the only Being—our Being—is a state of inevitable,

infinite fulness and completeness, all unassailed. The Bible shows plainly that divine substance

is entirely independent of heat, drought, war, famine, or any other belief. It is beyond depletion

or impairment. It remains infinite and perfect, irrespective of anything and everything that claims

to be happening in socalled mortal existence. We read in Science and Health (p. 129): “. . . be

the material fable pro or con”—that is, whether material conditions seem propitious or

unpropitious, they are of no account. No circumstance, no combination of circumstances or

events, could limit or obscure the perfection of your divine completeness. The dignity of divine

Allness is beyond the influence of human policy, human ways and means. The bounty of your

being—infinitely and permanently substantial—can never be diminished. Such substance knows

no crises, no ebb, no inflation, no devaluation.

Our Leader has written in Science and Health (p. 255): “. . . mortals take limited views of

all things.” At this point acknowledge that you are not a mortal. You are totally unrelated to the

mortal, so you never did and do not now take any limited view. Only mortals take limited views.

When asked by Elisha, “. . . what hast thou in the house?”—and house means

consciousness—the widow replied, “Thine handmaid hath not any thing in the house, save a pot

of oil” (II Kings 4:2). Such, indeed, was the limited view of a mortal, whose restricting, barren

misconception of life hid from her view the glories of divine Life—the effortless, spontaneous

welling up, from within one’s infinite consciousness, of all that means divine completeness,

bliss and heaven. Life is the Love which never loses sight of the fulness and loveliness of its own

nature. This Life lives itself fully, joyfully, harmoniously, and remains its own fulness and

wholeness from everlasting to everlasting.

In the wonderful sense of omnipresence there is nothing unsupplied. The Life which is

Love is so naturally all-inclusive that nothing could be left out. The “infinite self-containment”

(Science and Health, p. 519) contains all.

Know yourself to be the experience of the never-waning fulness and inexhaustible

completeness which constitutes the divine nature.

Should ever the occasion arise that you ask yourself, “What have I in the house?” there

can be but one answer: “My house, my consciousness, is filled with all the fulness of God.

Allness is my nature.”

It is stated in Science and Health, p. 475: “Man . . . is the compound idea of God,

including all right ideas . . .” The true idea about everything is already permanently included in

your kingdom within. The truth about whatever seems humanly desirable is already your very

own, in limitless measure. The infinite “I am” includes the truth about home, the truth about

business, the truth about wealth. Hence the joy and security of one’s own divine

self-completeness.

Does a home seem to be needed? The divine Mind, your Mind, already includes, without

limit, all the beauty, security, loveliness, warmth, comfort, joy, sweetness and affection which

means home. The acknowledgment of this, and the recognition that divine Life is forever living

and enjoying these qualities, means that home in all its loveliness, completeness and perfection

will appear as your experience. The acknowledgment of your all-inclusiveness will appear as

the presence of total good, always in practical form.

To permit the mental attitude of wishing, wanting or needing would be the very denial of

having. You already embrace the divine idea about everything. You include every idea. “I lack”

was never uttered by the one and only “I,” but by the false suggestion of “I”—the spurious

mortal. Let your mental attitude be the present acknowledgment of your divine fulness as “the

full representation of Mind” (Science and Health, p. 591), and know yourself, in the words of

James (1:4), to be “perfect and entire, wanting nothing.”

The mass mesmerism of world conditions would suggest that mortals must lower their

standard of living. The answer to this is found on page 195 of Science and Health: “Incorrect

views lower the standard of truth.” The incorrect view of life and substance as material and

finite, as depletable and insecure, and as subject to outside conditions, is of itself the very basis

of lack. The mortal concept is the only lack. The son of God is forever the full awareness of

inevitable abundance. He has no relationship to or affinity with the mortal, mistaken sense of

life, which is restriction and limitation itself.

With Christ Jesus one can acknowledge with joy, “My kingdom is not of this world”

(John 18:36). The one and only kingdom is indeed within, and it is an everlasting kingdom (or

consciousness) of security, grandeur, freedom, bliss and bounty. It is your kingdom, here and

now.

In a wonderful way our Leader’s experience illustrates that abundance is incidental to the

recognition of the all-inclusiveness of divine Mind—the only Mind. Previous to this full

understanding, our dear Leader’s experience seemed far from affluent. But great changes

occurred in her circumstances as her appreciation of spiritual Being increased. She discovered

that there is but one Life, the Life which is forever a state of completeness, fulness, satisfaction.

The one Life includes within itself absolutely everything that is good. It includes joy, peace,

bliss, bounty. It is indeed a state of “overflowing fullness; ample sufficiency; great plenty;

profusion; copious supply.” Life is one complete whole of good. Everything that means

blessedness is within this Life forever, and this is the only Life of the son of God. Incidental to

our Leader’s recognition of this glorious fact, beauty, grace, loveliness and affluence became

abundantly evident as her own being—her kingdom within—and the human situation conformed.

The one Life is a state of divine affluence itself, and this is your subjective state. You are never

in the limited mortal concept, which is the only poverty there is. Yes, our Leader accepted the

glorious evidence of divine Mind in place of the mortal misinterpretation.

Let us, then, become more and more familiar with the wonderful nature of our own Life.

Divine Life’s concept of itself is changelessly all-harmonious. It is fulness, richness, beauty,

loveliness, freshness, affluence and peace, and this is your Life. This divine perfection is all there

is to you. As this is acknowledged, you will find, as did our Leader, that all good is incidental to

your true being, and that it appears always in the most practical way. You will find, as she did,

that as “mortals gain more correct views of God and man, multitudinous objects of creation,

which before were invisible, will become visible” (Science and Health, p. 264). The correct view

is indeed the essential.

Our Leader told her household that mortals avail themselves of no more than one per cent

of the good which belongs to man. To the mortal, ninety-nine per cent remains unrecognised,

invisible, unenjoyed. One per cent, then, is the measure of so-called mind. One hundred per cent

is the measure of the divine. Again I quote: “Allness is the measure of the infinite, and nothing

less can express God” (Science and Health, p. 336). Mortal mind, in its ignorance, measures

prospects according to the evidence of material sense, which by its very nature is negative, bleak

and depleted. This is illustrated in I Kings 17:12, where the widow, whose vision extended no

further than material evidence, saw nothing more than “an handful of meal in a barrel, and a little

oil in a cruse.” Restricted vision has no place in the all-seeing, all-knowing Mind. Does not

Science and Health (pp. 542-543) refer to the “sinful misconception of Life as something less

than God”? Do we always realise that to think of Life as something less than God—less than

total good—is sinful?

Let us, then, acknowledge that man has no affinity with the mortal concept, but is the

fulness, the buoyancy, the spontaneity, joy and bliss of abundant Life. In the recognition of the

indivisible wholeness of Being, the limited concept, with its lack, frustration, personal

dependence, is lost, forever unknown, swallowed up in the glorious, limitless allness of divine

oneness, which is your permanent, subjective state.

Our Leader thought and wrote in such expansive terms as “flood-gates,” “flood-tides,”

“the teeming universe of Mind,” “the infinite ocean of Love,” “boundless bliss,” “the infinite All

of good.” In this “infinite All of good” there can be no absence of fruition, no restrictive times or

seasons. Jesus illustrated this fact by rebuking the fruitless tree, as is recorded in Mark (11:13,

20):

And seeing a fig tree afar off having leaves, he came, if haply he might find any thing

thereon: and when he came to it, he found nothing but leaves; for the time of figs was not yet. . . .

And in the morning, as they passed by, they saw the fig tree dried up from the roots.

Despite the fact that “the time of figs was not yet,” Jesus rebuked even the temporary

absence of fruition. Not for one moment, not in any circumstance, did he tolerate a barren state.

The fulness expressed by divine Mind is never less than fulness, irrespective of the

limited, mortal sense which sees only its own finite concept. This mortal sense, knowing nothing

of the unbroken continuity of scientific being and of the “teeming universe of Mind,” contents

itself with partial manifestation, with good that is intermittent—sometimes present, sometimes

absent. The “fig tree dried up from the roots” shows that Jesus rebuked the very foundation and

source of fruitlessness. Our Leader writes in Unity of Good (pp. 11-12):

Jesus required neither cycles of time nor thought in order to mature fitness for perfection

and its possibilities. He said that the kingdom of heaven is here, and is included in Mind; that

while ye say, There are yet four months, and then cometh the harvest, I say, Look up, not down,

for your fields are already white for the harvest; and gather the harvest by mental, not material

processes. The laborers are few in this vineyard of Mind-sowing and reaping; but let them apply

to the waiting grain the curving sickle of Mind’s eternal circle, and bind it with bands of Soul.

What is Mind’s sowing and reaping? It is divine Mind expressing and enjoying the

everpresence of its own withinness, experiencing the joy of the fulness of being, in all its divine

perfection. It is the one and only Mind being and enjoying the “range of all-inclusive infinity”

(Science and Health, p. 514), seeing and revelling in the gladness and rapture of its own

loveliness, experiencing the forever satisfaction of its own abundant completeness.

In such infinite awareness there could be no lack, no cessation of good. There is not

anything in infinity that will ever cease. All good unfolds infinitely as your own being, as true

being, which is divinely self-supported, self-sustained, and is the uninterrupted living of the

fulness of joy, the bliss of reality in all its aspects.

Jesus showed us that the only way to live is in one’s true identification as the son of the

living God, and he performed his mighty works in this Christ-capacity. His important statement,

“I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly,” could only

be made in the recognition of his Christ-identification.

The basis of our abundance is the understanding that all substance is Spirit and is

everpresent in all its inexhaustible fulness. Jesus taught that the son of God is the very

experience of the harmony and abundance of divine Life. Had he believed that abundance came

from material conditions or from person, he could never have fed the multitude. Jesus knew that

the one Life is divine completeness by nature, and that there is no alternative Life for man.

The son of God, or divine Mind’s manifestation of itself, has no choice, no option, but to

be “the full representation of Mind.” We also read that man “cannot help being immortal”

(Science and Health, p. 81). He has no alternative.

“He that hath the Son hath life” (I John 5:12). He who identifies himself as the son of

God is the very fulness of self-existent perfection, and includes the beautiful, permanent idea of

everything. His Christ-withinness shines forth as infinite joy, infinite beauty, peace,

completeness, to which there is no alternative or limit.

In conclusion, know yourself as blessed with the substance of the never-ending

benediction: “Son, thou art ever with me, and all that I have is thine” (Luke 15:31). Mind’s

“infinite self-containment” is your subjective experience. In this infinite sense of Love itself,

there is no unfulfillment, no fragmentary, incomplete, unsatisfied sense of life. This is but the

misconception of mortal sense, utterly blind to the reality and royalty of Life, ignorant of the

glory and bliss, the grandeur and majesty, the security and abundance, all so divinely inevitable.

Having dismissed this ignorant mortal sense with its lack, its toil, its hardship—having

realised that man was never identified with any such misconception—yours is the enjoyment of

measureless good, the vastness and permanence of all-inclusive Being. Identified as the son of

God, you are divine Mind’s experience of wholeness, fulness, freedom and bounty, which will

never come to an end.

Mind’s divine, subjective, infinite awareness revels in its forever abundance, and this

glorious Truth utters itself, announces its own everpresence of illimitable good: “I am allness,

omnipresence, spiritual independence. I am divine completeness, undiminishable—even the

fulness of bounty— forever.”

“What Went Ye Out for to See?”

(Matthew 11:8)

It is sometimes asked, “To what extent is one permitted to know the truth for one’s fellow

man without his specific request for treatment?” Justification for such healing is found on page 9

of Rudimental Divine Science, which I quote: “The spiritual power of a scientific, right thought,

without a direct effort, an audible or even a mental argument, has oftentimes healed inveterate

diseases.” In entertaining a scientific, right thought one does not trespass upon another’s

kingdom; and yet this right thought, without a direct effort, without an audible or even a mental

argument, is infinite in power.

In support of this fact I would like to tell you of a sacred experience. My close friend, a

most saintly woman, was faced with what appeared to be an insurmountable problem. Over

many years her non-Scientist husband had been an alcoholic suffering from delirium tremens. He

needed care night and day, and owing to the complete absence of morals it was not possible to

engage a nurse. My friend would care for him day and night until she could continue no longer.

Then I would go to stay nights in order to give my friend some rest.

One night, quite late, an urgent message came for me to go to my friend. As usual, my

brother took me by car. It was a glorious moonlit night. As my brother was expressing

appreciation for the beauty of the moonlit scenery, I suddenly remembered that on the previous

occasion when I was called, we had had just such beautiful moonlight. I remarked on this fact

and quoted: “The planets have no more power over man than over his Maker” (Science and

Health, p. 102). Just that; nothing more. But the simple spiritual fact was indeed mighty in

power. We simply saw God’s man untouched by planetary influence. That was enough. The

patient was instantly, completely and permanently healed, not only of alcoholism but also of lack

of morals.

Like all of us, you Ministers are privileged to enjoy these scientific, right thoughts,

which, our Leader assures us, have oftentimes healed inveterate diseases.

Your identification is the Christ, who acknowledged, “I am the light of the world.” You

go forth as this light—the light which so naturally and effortlessly outshines the darkness, the

suffering and bleakness of the mortal misconception of life. A sacred calling indeed!

Let us consider for a moment the consequences of some of the scientific, right thoughts

of Jesus. To the lame man he was able to say, “Arise, and walk.” To the Christ-consciousness it

was absolutely natural that the lame man should arise and walk. To the man with the withered

hand he said, “Stretch forth thine hand.” To the leper, “Be thou clean.” To the storm, “Peace, be

still.” And the most beautiful of all, “Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more.” Such is

the natural power of the Christ-consciousness, which is precisely the same power whether uttered

by Jesus or by you.

This Christ-power was exemplified by our Leader’s healing of the dumb girl, the boy

with ankylosed joints, the Quaker lady with hip disease, the little girl who had passed on, and

many others—healings that have been related by members of her household. Mrs. Eddy’s

healing work was marked by such simplicity that often a single statement of truth was enough to

bring about the desired result. Mrs. Sargent spoke to me of her joy at being asked to tell Mrs.

Eddy about an outstandingly wonderful demonstration. Our Leader quietly responded,

“Wonderfully natural and naturally wonderful.”

Indeed, the spiritual power of a scientific, right thought without a direct effort, an audible

or even a mental argument, is boundless. My purpose in speaking of these healings is to rejoice

with you that the truth known by Mrs. Eddy and the truth known by you is one and the

same,—just as it was for the Shunammite, when, irrespective of the overwhelming material

evidence to the contrary, she was able to acknowledge, “It is well” (II Kings 4:26).

The consciousness which outshines all error is divine Mind, your Mind. The divine Mind

is the Mind of our friends whom we are remembering specially today. This consciousness is, in

our Leader’s words, “Pure Mind [which] gives out an atmosphere that heals and saves”

(Miscellaneous Writings, p. 260). In your ministerial office you acknowledge that divine Mind is

the only consciousness of man. You refuse all misconceptions, and, in our Leader’s words, you

“gather the facts of being from the divine Mind” (Science and Health, p. 370)—where alone the

true facts are to be found.

Your glorious consciousness of perfection is the power which is to error precisely what

light is to darkness. Where light is, darkness is not. Where divine Love is, mistakes are

remembered no more.

In support of this fact, may I quote our Leader: “. . . pure Mind is the truth of being that

subjugates and destroys any suppositional or elementary opposite to Him who is All”

(Miscellaneous Writings, p. 260). She tells us, and I quote: “As vapor melts before the sun, so

evil would vanish before the reality of good” (Science and Health, p. 480). Also, she says that

“sin and sorrow . . . flee as phantoms of error before truth and love” (Science and Health, p.

215). Evil, she says, flees “like a shadow at daybreak” (Unity of Good, p. 27). “Sin, sickness, and

disease flee before the evangel of Truth as the mountain mists before the sun” (Miscellaneous

Writings, p. 251).

The light of Truth, your consciousness, which is God’s concept of Himself, indeed rolls

back the clouds of error and reveals the true concept. Light and darkness cannot dwell together.

During the war, one of the American Christian Science naval chaplains was crossing the

ocean in one of the convoys of ships. This particular day there was a severe storm. The sea was

extremely rough. One of the women of the naval service who knew something of Christian

Science had been ill for several days and had reached a very low ebb. The chaplain was asked to

see her. Finding her very ill, he sat silently, rejoicing in the truth of being. Presently he said to

her, “ ‘O’er earth’s troubled, angry sea, I see Christ walk.’ What do you see?” The woman

replied, “I see earth’s troubled, angry sea.” The chaplain related to me that he then became so

conscious of pure Being that he lost all sense of a patient or sickness, all sense of a storm or any

type of problem. He was conscious only of God. Soon he repeated, “ ‘O’er earth’s troubled,

angry sea, I see Christ walk.’ What do you see?” This time came the joyous response, “I see

Christ walk.” That was the end of the trouble. The woman, perfectly well, dressed and returned

to duty. The chaplain saw all in God’s light, in which is no darkness at all. It is from this

standpoint that we behold our fellow man.

To the consciousness of Truth there is never a problem. Our Leader left no doubt on this

score. Whatever appears as a problem is a mere misconception, and in obedience to our Leader

we acknowledge that the “plea of False Belief we deem unworthy of a hearing” (Science and

Health, p. 441), and that “Christ, Truth, alone can furnish us with absolute evidence” (Science

and Health, p. 142). This evidence of man’s harmony is furnished by seeing him in God’s light.

Seen through the camera of divine Mind, man is the experience only of that which divine

Principle is manifesting. Man cannot “escape,” our Leader says, “from identification with what

dwelleth in the eternal Mind” (Unity of Good, p. 64). Integrity is his innate characteristic. The

immutable qualities of God constitute his character. Such is the nature of the only begotten of the

Father. Such is the nature of the only man you Ministers acknowledge. This is your model, from

which the unhappy mortal concept vanishes. Your work is indeed a sacred privilege, but at the

same time great demands are made upon you. We have seen that the scientific, right thought

which you are called to entertain is God’s ideal with no tinge of error.

We have touched upon the importance of identification with the Mind of Christ and all

the harmony this includes. The importance is this: the Christ is the glorious Redeemer to the sick,

the sinning, the weary, the lonely, the forsaken. Indeed, the Christ is the Redeemer to every

trouble in which the misconception of life has involved one. The belief that man is mortal is done

away. His true being, God’s ideal, is revealed. Jesus accepted no mortal viewpoint. In every

circumstance he gathered evidence from Truth itself. This evidence was peace and

contentment,—the man “perfect and entire, wanting nothing” (James 1:4).

I quote No and Yes, p. 30: “God’s law reaches and destroys evil by virtue of the allness of

God.” What a tender, gentle way of destroying evil! This irresistible, everpresent law of God

operates without contest and with unfailing immediacy and love.

Our Leader is so definite on this point that I ask your permission to quote again. “God’s

law is in three words, ‘I am All;’ and this perfect law is ever present to rebuke any claim of

another law” (No and Yes, p. 30). “. . . Truth beams with such efficacy as to dissolve error”

(Retrospection and Introspection, p. 87).

The active presence of all that is divine is the gentle, beneficent power forbidding all

hurt, all blemish—setting at nought all the tragedies of seeking substance and pleasure in a

mistaken world.

With your work comes the demand to see your fellow man dissociated completely from

all “earthborn taint.” He has no material record. You see your fellow man as God’s own concept,

with no option but to be the bliss and satisfaction of real Life. You see the man to whom

righteousness is divinely natural and without alternative, of whom it is written that “his name

shall be in their foreheads” (Revelation 22:4). In other words, His nature, God’s nature, is

permanently established as the nature of man, the only man you acknowledge.

However sad may be the mortal picture, however rough the sea, or however tough the

conditions, just see Christ walk. Let “Truth’s knowledge of its own infinitude” (No and Yes, p.

30)—the Christ-consciousness—be your only awareness. The pure Mind acknowledges no sin,

no mistakes. I quote: “ . . . pure Mind is the truth of being that subjugates and destroys any

suppositional or elementary opposite to Him who is All” (Miscellaneous Writings, p. 260).

The light of Truth rolls back the clouds of error and reveals the glory of man’s real being.

Light and darkness cannot dwell together.

I again quote our Leader: “As vapor melts before the sun, so evil would vanish before the

reality of good.” “So sin and sorrow, disease and death . . . flee as phantoms of error before truth

and love.” She says in Unity of Good (p. 27): “. . . evil is egotistic,—boastful, but fleeing like a

shadow at daybreak . . .” And finally, “Sin, sickness, and disease flee before the evangel of Truth

as the mountain mists before the sun.” Again, let us realise the great love of God.

A most powerful scientific, right thought which will be of great value to our friends is

that Life is a state of all-inclusive good. Why will this spiritual fact be especially helpful?

Because so much wrong-doing stems from the belief that one lacks what he would like to

possess. So he resorts to unlawful means to acquire it. In such a case, the happy, scientific, right

thought is that the Life which God is manifesting—the only Life—includes all blessedness

within Itself.

In support of the all-inclusiveness of our being I quote: “And ye are complete in him”

(Colossians 2:10). “And of his fulness have all we received” (John 1:16). “Man is . . . ever

beautiful and complete” (Science and Health, p. 527). “Man represents infinite Mind, the sum of

all substance” (Science and Health, p. 259). Man does not have to acquire that which he already

includes.

Another temptation is the suggestion of being outside the kingdom of heaven. This is

illustrated by the story of the lame man who was healed by Peter and John.

This man believed himself to be a deprived mortal, lame and poor. He was laid daily at

the gate of the temple which is called Beautiful Temple means consciousness. Mesmerized by

dependency and poverty he believed himself to be left out of the kingdom of heaven. He

believed himself to be left outside of the consciousness of beauty—outside of the consciousness

of all-inclusive good. Considering himself to be in a state of poverty, he asked an alms. Alms

means relief to the poor. Admitting such deprivation, it is indeed no wonder that he felt lame,

poor and incomplete. In view of the sad misconception this man entertained of himself, it is not

surprising that he was unable to stand on his own feet. Such a faltering, incorrect sense of life

afforded him no basis or foundation on which to stand.

What a contrast between this barren state of consciousness, this lack and dearth, and the

glorious awareness of the son of God, the continuous experience of affluence, bounty,

inexhaustible plenty,—enjoying the overflowing fulness which is our own being!

Peter and John doubtlessly healed this man on the basis of his spiritual independence and

all-inclusiveness. No longer was he left at the gate; no longer did he believe himself to be outside

or separate from the consciousness of beautiful being; no longer did he identify himself with

paucity and lack; no longer did he think of good in terms of remoteness, outside of his own

experience.

His poor sense of life had yielded to Life abundant. He was freed from his imprisoned

sense and so “he leaping up stood, and walked, and entered with them into the temple, walking,

and leaping, and praising God” (Acts 3:8).

There may be times when one is tempted to believe that the evidence of God’s goodness

is outside of his experience, but on this, as on every other point, our dear Leader comforts us.

She says (Unity of Good, p. 24): “. . . but verily I say unto you, God is All-in-all; and you can

never be outside of His oneness.” Also I quote Miscellany, p. 132: “Divine Love hath opened the

gate Beautiful to us, where we may see God and live, see good in good,—God all, one,—one

Mind and that divine . . .” Divine Love has revealed that beautiful being, even all good, is man’s

complete experience, here and now. Never can he be outside of it; never can he be separated

from this beautiful, bountiful state of life.

Dear friends, you and I know so well that what appear as the calamities of mortal

existence—its fabrications of mistakes, its entanglements, unemployment, despair, its

self-imposed agonies—seem real, but in place of such dark images of mortal thought, God is

manifesting all His wonderful evidence, and this evidence of Himself is man.

At this point I would like to read one of my favourite excerpts given to me in the early

days by Mr. Neal, Mrs. Eddy’s secretary and a fine practitioner. I quote our Leader’s own

interpretation of “Christmas Morn” in healing a patient:


And deathless Life!






striving, as far above the conditions that brought her there. “Or cruel creed”— the doctor’s





“Thou all of her. Thou all of me.” In your capacity as Ministers, remembering those you

seek to help, you can acknowledge, “Thou all of him. Thou all of her.” This is the

acknowledgment that divine Mind constitutes every element of man’s being. Acknowledge this

often in the deep realisation that there can be no after-effect of any mistake. There can be no

stigma, no hardship, no material history, no unemployment. A mistake of the past can not ruin

the present. In brief, I quote, “There is but one primal cause. Therefore there can be no effect

from any other cause” (Science and Health, p. 207). This means that security and harmony are

man’s unoptional, continuous experience.

In conclusion, I quote from Miscellaneous Writings, p. 51:

“When from the lips of Truth one mighty breath

Shall, like a whirlwind, scatter in its breeze

The whole dark pile of human mockeries;

Then shall the reign of Mind commence on earth,

And starting fresh, as from a second birth,

Man in the sunshine of the world’s new spring,

Shall walk transparent like some holy thing.”

Starting fresh, as from a second birth! From this standpoint we shall see His name

“written in their foreheads” (Revelation 14:1)—a new name, which the mouth of the Lord shall

name.

In Thy Light

We are all familiar with the two pictures in Christ and Christmas—the one called

“Christian Science Healing” and the other “Treating the Sick.” The picture “Christian Science

Healing” shows the patient’s quick response, whilst “Treating the Sick” gives no evidence of

recovery.

One of our Leader’s household related to me that he had been very puzzled by these two

contrasting pictures and asked our Leader why the one “Treating the Sick” was necessary. Our

Leader’s reply was that she had taught her students Christian Science healing—metaphysical

healing—and to her amazement she found them treating the sick. Our Leader also explained that

the point of importance in the picture “Christian Science Healing” is the seamless robe.

We all know that in biblical language the words “raiment,” “robe,” “coat” and “garment”

mean consciousness. In John (19: 23) we read that Jesus’ “coat was without seam, woven from

the top throughout”—consciousness emanating from “on high.”

This seamless robe worn by the Master symbolises divine consciousness, the

consciousness of the Christ. The Christ-consciousness—the garment of Truth—is without seam

or rent. A rent, a tear, would indicate need of repair. A seam would imply reparation, a joining

together. The pure Christ-consciousness recognises neither seam nor rent—nothing needing to

be healed and nothing having been healed— nothing added, nothing taken away from Life seen

in God’s light.

Whittier wrote, “The power that filled the garment’s hem / Is evermore the same.”

Indeed, the power that fills the garment’s hem is mighty, irresistible, practical. It is the undivided

consciousness which no discord can withstand. This consciousness is so pure that our Leader

twice refers to it as the “white Christ.” It is the law of instant annulment to every form of error,

physical or otherwise.

We turn to our Leader’s words for clarification. I quote:

Nothing that “worketh or maketh a lie” is to be found in the divine consciousness.

(No and Yes, pp. 15-16)

Matter, or any mode of mortal mind, is neither part nor parcel of divine consciousness . . .

(No and Yes, p. 17)

. . . real consciousness is cognizant only of the things of God.


The consciousness of good has no consciousness or knowledge of evil . . .


Truth has no consciousness of error.


This divine consciousness, so filled with perfection that it can never cognise anything

unlike itself, is our consciousness.

Speaking in the absolute—that is, speaking from God’s viewpoint—our Leader says, “. . .

man has no Mind but God” (Science and Health, p. 319). This glorious consciousness of

perfection is the power which is to error precisely what light is to darkness. Where light is,

darkness is not. Not one iota of imperfection could enter this holy consciousness of God and

man, illustrated as the seamless robe.

On this point I quote our dear Leader (Unity of Good, p. 7):

When I have most clearly seen and most sensibly felt that the infinite recognizes no

disease, this has not separated me from God, but has so bound me to Him as to enable me

instantaneously to heal a cancer which had eaten its way to the jugular vein. In the same spiritual

condition I have been able to replace dislocated joints and raise the dying to instantaneous health.

In the same spiritual condition! What infinite healing power is pure Mind—the light of

Truth!

In support of the power of the seamless-robe state of consciousness, I quote our Leader:




. . . pure Mind is the truth of being that subjugates and destroys any suppositional or

elementary opposite to Him who is All.


For man to know Life as it is, namely God, the eternal good, gives him not merely a

sense of existence, but an accompanying consciousness of spiritual power that subordinates

matter and destroys sin, disease, and death.


. . . Truth beams with such efficacy as to dissolve error.


Divine Science rolls back the clouds of error with the light of Truth . . .


During the war, one of the American Christian Science naval chaplains was crossing the

ocean in one of the convoys of ships. This particular day there was a severe storm. The sea was

extremely rough. One of the women of the naval service who knew something of Christian

Science had been ill for several days and had reached a very low ebb. The chaplain was asked to

see her. Finding her very ill, he sat silently, rejoicing in the truth of being. Presently he said to

her, “‘O’er earth’s troubled, angry sea I see Christ walk.’ What do you see?” The woman replied,

“I see earth’s troubled, angry sea.” The, chaplain related to me that he then became so conscious

of pure Being that he lost all sense of a patient, sickness, all sense of a storm or any type of

problem. He was conscious only of God. Soon he repeated,” ‘O’er earth’s troubled, angry sea I

see Christ walk.’ What do you see?” This time came the joyous response, “I see Christ walk.”

That was the end of the trouble. The woman, perfectly well, dressed and returned to duty. The

chaplain saw all in God’s light, in which is no darkness at all.

To the consciousness of Truth there is never a problem. I quote our Leader (No and Yes,

p. 30):

It is Truth’s knowledge of its own infinitude which forbids the genuine existence of even

a claim to error.

Truth’s knowledge of its own infinitude constitutes Christian Science healing as

portrayed in the picture in Christ and Christmas.

The woman wearing the seamless robe symbolises the consciousness of Truth. It is to be

noted that she takes no account of the material evidence. The Christ-consciousness, to which

material sense evidence is unknown, acknowledges no patient, no sickness, no suffering. The

Christ-consciousness, aware only of limitless harmony, beholds this perfection right in the very

place at the very moment when mortal mind would see sin and sickness. I quote from Science

and Health (pp. 476-477):

Jesus beheld in Science the perfect man, who appeared to him where sinning mortal man

appears to mortals.

Right where problems seem to be, right in their stead, in that very place, the Christ is

forever beholding, experiencing, expressing and announcing its own presence and

nature,—revealing the perfect Life of God and man. As the picture “Christian Science Healing”

illustrates, this Christ acknowledgment of everpresent perfection results in immediate healing.

The patient lifts himself unaided.

In contrast to this is the picture “Treating the Sick.” There is no star, no light there.

Consciousness is divided between Truth and the sick. In the correct picture there is no

acknowledgment of sickness. What a contrast between this divided sense, acknowledging both

Spirit and matter, and the Christ-acknowledgment of Life as seen in the light of Truth!

We read on page 269 of Science and Health:

The categories of metaphysics rest on one basis, the divine Mind.

Christian Science healing is the Christ-recognition of the perfection already existing.

Christian Science healing is the divine Mind, testifying of itself, bearing witness to its

unimpeachable perfection, aware of nothing else. Jesus was accused of bearing record of himself.

The Christ said (John 8:14), “Though I bear record of myself, yet my record is true . . .” The

Christ-Mind acknowledges its present perfection, beholding and feeling the joy, beauty and

wholeness of itself.

Our Leader expresses the same thought in a beautiful way on page 411 of Science and

Health:

If Spirit or the power of divine Love bear witness to the truth, this is the ultimatum, the

scientific way, and the healing is instantaneous.

Pure Mind, aware of its own nature, precludes all unlike itself. In the presence of such

enlightenment, how natural is the absence of discord! From this recognition of reality, material

beliefs vanish.

What a simple, direct way to heal! Truth being itself, seeing and experiencing its own

infinite wholeness, means that nothing else is present: “ . . . light and darkness cannot dwell

together” (Science and Health, p. 474).

I now quote our Leader:

As vapor melts before the sun, so evil would vanish before the reality of good.


So sin and sorrow, disease and death . . . flee as phantoms of error before truth and love.


. . . evil is egotistic,—boastful, but fleeing like a shadow at daybreak . . .


Sin, sickness, and disease flee before the evangel of Truth as the mountain mists before

the sun.


Tumors, ulcers, tubercles, inflammation, pain, deformed joints, are waking

dream-shadows, dark images of mortal thought, which flee before the light of Truth.


Our Leader left no doubt on this score. Whatever appears as a problem, physical or

otherwise, is a mere misconception. When Spirit or divine Love bear witness—when they tell the

truth about Life—there is no mention of a problem, but just an outpouring of the fadeless beauty,

freshness, bliss and grandeur of our being.

In his early days, Mr. William P. McKenzie asked our Leader how she healed. She

referred him to Psalm 85, verse 8:

I will hear what God the Lord will speak: for he will speak peace unto his people, and to

his saints: but let them not turn again to folly.

In obedience to our Leader, we acknowledge, “The plea of False Belief we deem

unworthy of a hearing” (Science and Health, p. 441). The woman at the well said, “I know that

Messias cometh, which is called Christ: when he is come, he will tell us all things” (John 4:25).

The pure Christ, aware only of perfection, voices “all things” from the standpoint of

divine Mind. Let the Christ alone “tell us all things” from the standpoint of Truth itself. Let us

gather the facts of Being from the divine Mind alone, permitting the material senses no report

whatever of any situation.

I quote Science and Health (pp. 142, 276, 243, 475, 567):

We must seek the undivided garment, the whole Christ, as our first proof of Christianity,

for Christ, Truth, alone can furnish us with absolute evidence.


Truth has no consciousness of error.

To Truth there is no error,—all is Truth.

To infinite, ever-present Love, all is Love . . .

In the Science of being, Truth constitutes one’s entire realisation and shines forth as the

health of man’s countenance. Perfect health is incidental. It is our natural, inevitable state of

Life, seen in God’s light.

In God’s light, man is God’s ideal, experiencing nothing less than the fulness and

wholeness of God’s expressing, with no tinge of error. Thus we wear the robe without seam or

rent.

This is such a happy state! It is so free from conflict! All that is divinely real shines forth

as tangible perfection in the most natural way.

Our Leader’s writings have shown the importance of identification with the Mind of

Christ. Having the Christ-consciousness, we experience all the harmony it includes. We

experience heaven itself.

The Christ-consciousness is the power that wrought the wonders of the Old Testament

and the so-called miracles of the New. We acknowledge that before the Christ, the undivided

garment of Truth, innocent of all error, the erroneous concept vanishes. This is corroborated in

Isaiah (25:7):

And he will destroy in this mountain the face of the covering cast over all people, and the

vail that is spread over all nations.

The veil is the belief that man is mortal, with a life and mind that are mortal. The veil

represents the entire Adam-dream. What darkness! What trouble is involved in such a

misconception—the “face of the covering cast over all people, and the vail that is spread over all

nations”! To the Christ-consciousness, which, like the coat, is “without seam, woven from the

top throughout,” there is no veil, no darkness, no obscuration or opacity—”which vail,” Paul

says, “is done away in Christ” (II Corinthians 3:14).

The Christ-innocence, unaware of mortal belief, is the glorious Redeemer to the sick,

sinning, the halt, the weary, the deaf, the blind, the dumb. All sense of pain, lack, loneliness—

everything constituting the veil—disappears. Harmony in all its fulness and naturalness is

revealed. The belief that man is mortal is done away, and the Christ, God’s ideal, our true being,

is revealed.

The contrasting evidence of two opposite viewpoints is illustrated in the story of the

disciples out fishing. They toiled all night and caught nothing. They were not working in the true

light. They toiled in the darkness. “When the morning was come”—when the light dawned upon

them—the nets were more than filled to capacity. Jesus accepted no mortal viewpoint. In every

circumstance he gathered evidence from Truth itself, always revealing the fulness of harmony,

tangible substance and complete blessedness.

In acknowledgment of your true nature, you have forsaken mere adequacy for

overflowing abundance; you have rejected mediocrity for God-established perfection. Seen in

God’s light, the very fibre of your being is peace, happiness and abundance. You are wholeness.

Are we perhaps tempted to doubt whether seeing a situation in God’s light pays

sufficient attention to our problem? How much attention did John give to the “former things”

that had passed away? None whatever. The vanishing of every problem, no matter what its name,

nature or magnitude, is the natural and immediate effect of Truth’s evidence. “Error is a coward

before Truth” (Science and Health, p. 368). Divine Love is so thorough in dealing with all

discord that nothing is left for the human mind to do. Divine Mind covers the whole ground.

I quote Miscellaneous Writings, pp. 209-210:

Divine Love, as unconscious as incapable of error, pursues the evil that hideth itself,

strips off its disguises, and—behold the result: evil, uncovered, is self-destroyed.

And No and Yes, p. 30:

God’s law reaches and destroys evil by virtue of the allness of God.

This irresistible, everpresent law of God operates without contest and with unfailing

immediacy. Our Leader is so definite on this point that I must quote yet again:

God’s law is in three words, “I am All;” and this perfect law is ever present to rebuke any

claim of another law.

(No and Yes, p. 30)

The spirit of Truth extinguishes false thinking, feeling, and acting . . .


. . . His spirit . . . extinguishes forever the works of darkness by His marvellous light.

(Rudimental Divine Science, p. 4)

. . . the cloud of mortal mind . . . was not even fringed with light. . . . The world was dark.

. . . The senses could not prophesy sunrise or starlight.

Thus it was when the moment arrived of the heart’s bridal to more spiritual existence. . . .

The character of the Christ was illuminated by the midnight torches of Spirit. . . . Soulless famine

had fled. . . . Being was beautiful, its substance, cause, and currents were God and His idea.


What a natural consequence of divine illumination: Soulless famine has fled. Being is

beautiful!

In these statements the divine power alone pursues evil, strips off its disguises, reaches it,

rebukes it, extinguishes it and destroys it. The active living presence of all that is divine is the

positive dynamic power forbidding all hurt, all suffering.

Christliness is regarded generally as compassion, kindness, goodness, gentleness,

tenderness, meekness. But Christliness is more than this. It is the fulness of the divine

nature,—the full representation of divine Mind. Christliness is also strength, wholeness, beauty,

loveliness, vigour, power, might, joy. It is radiance, vitality, completeness, bounty, harmony,

peace, and every other divine quality—each one, by its very nature, infinite in power to banish

its suppositional opposite.

This Christliness is man’s own infinite being, man’s own nature and experience. This

Christliness, this God-likeness, is all there is to you, and it shines forth incessantly as your

completeness.

The Christliness of your being has never known the misconception of a mistaken world.

Your joyful sense of divine living is dissociated completely from all earthborn taint. This

Christliness is your natural, continuous existence, really alive, buoyant, fetterless, free. It is the

magnificence and grandeur of the son of God, the divinely royal man, the man you are.

Christian Science healing is Truth knowing itself, declaring itself,—Truth actually being

the perfect health, the perfect harmony of man. It is the perception of perfect Cause being its

perfect effect. Christian Science healing is divine Mind unfolding itself infinitely as the

incontestable, unassailable harmony of our being. It is Infinity being its own infinite expression,

and this infinite concept makes the existence of anything unlike itself impossible. In Christian

Science healing the reality of all things is brought to light.

To summarize: The consciousness of holiness is wholeness. This consciousness is the

robe without seam or rent. The way to wear it is simple. Our Leader says (Miscellany, p. 111):

… Christian Science is valid, simple, real, and self-evident …

She says (Miscellany, p. 247):

Put on the robes of Christ, and you will be lifted up and will draw all men unto you.

Having put on “the robes of Christ”—the Christ-acknowledgment that the whole of

infinity is divine, and that health, strength, ability, perception, discernment and wholeness are

your own being here and now—we attest our Leader’s statement (Science and Health, p. 242):

The divine Science of man is woven into one web of consistency without seam or rent.

She says also (p. 267):

The robes of Spirit are “white and glistering,” like the raiment of Christ.

Finally, I quote Revelation (20:11):

And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the

heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them.

The mortal sense of earth, the mortal sense of heaven, the erroneous sense of everything

always will flee away from the spotless consciousness of the Christ, the great white throne, the

reality and royalty of all being.

“My Kingdom Is Not of This World”

(John 18:36)

In these days, when the material world seems to have lost its balance and all sense of

values, we can have no better rules of life than those given by Christ Jesus and our Leader. Jesus

announced, “My kingdom is not of this world” (John 18:36). Our Leader said, “My world has

sprung from Spirit, / In everlasting day” (Miscellaneous Writings, p. vii). These two witnesses,

Jesus and our Leader, have found the same kingdom—the real universe, untouched by the

troubles and trials of material sense.

Viewed in the light of divine metaphysics their kingdom is heaven itself. They have

shown us that this is our kingdom and that the subjective premise, which reveals all good, is our

undisturbed condition, despite the many threats these days of the carnal mind.

I quote Miscellaneous Writings, p. 174: “What is the kingdom of heaven? The abode of

Spirit, the realm of the real. . . . Is this kingdom afar off? No: it is ever-present here. . . . The

kingdom of heaven is the reign of divine Science: it is a mental state. Jesus said it is within you .

. .”

Here is a most important point. The kingdom of heaven is a mental state, and it is within

us. Jesus placed the onus upon us. He did not accept human government or man-made laws as a

reason for our lack of security or abundance. He said, “The kingdom of God is within you”

(Luke 17:2 1). This realm is divine consciousness. There is not more of it in one country than in

another, or in one government than another.

Jesus’ spiritual vision of undeviating harmony and abundance was so clear, so tangible

and practical that all contrary evidence simply had to yield to his kingdom within. As an

example, when tax was due he had no sense of inability to meet the demand; the money appeared

in a most unusual place—the fish’s mouth. So now, when the taxes of the material world seem

high, rents and rates are soaring, and prices of necessities are exorbitant, let us remember that

Jesus furnished evidence of the practical and substantial nature of the all-inclusiveness of his

kingdom. His kingdom included, for example, abundance in illimitable variety. This was

evidenced as every essential. The amplitude of which Jesus was perpetually aware,

notwithstanding apparent shortages, was evidenced as loaves and fishes, as the upper room

already furnished for the Passover, as the ship he needed and the seamless robe which was the

height of luxury of his day. Jesus’ kingdom was the realm of all that was real. It was the realm of

health. And so it was that the multitude who thronged him were healed. Nothing that “worketh

abomination, or maketh a lie” had any place in Jesus’ universe.

Our Leader found “the teeming universe of Mind”—a universe overflowing with

abundant good. She too found the kingdom to be within. Her writings have taught us that in no

circumstance could divine Life live itself in a limited way. She shows us that no condition of the

material world could interrupt divine Mind’s causation, which constitutes our inexhaustible

well-being.

I quote Miscellaneous Writings, p. 93: “. . . all cause and effect are in God.” Also: “There

is but one primal cause. Therefore there can be no effect from any other cause” (Science and

Health, p. 207). And Miscellany, p. 118: Truth, or Christ, finds its paradise in Spirit, in the

consciousness of heaven within …”

We are not permitted to believe that this or that government can deprive us of well-being.

Man is the all-inclusive effect of the one and only all-inclusive Cause, and I quote: “Into His

haven of Soul there enters no element of earth to cast out angels” (Miscellaneous Writings, p.

152). I quote also: “There is a path . . . which the vulture’s eye hath not seen” (Job 28:7). This

path is your Christ-consciousness. Every element within it is safe and secure.

We can therefore rejoice that nothing of a discordant nature can in any guise enter your

experience. Your serene and permanent immunity from all suggestion of a power apart from God

is assured. This is our divine guarantee that good alone can happen. World conditions cannot

make the slightest impression upon us any more than so-called medical laws can dominate our

health.

Our heaven is still our everlasting haven of Soul. Our consciousness is still the abiding

sense of contentment and overflowing bounty, leaving no opportunity for fear or anxiety. A

misconception cannot change the spiritual fact. Let us be filled with joy and gratitude in the

knowledge that no mortal sense, calling itself a material world, can intrude upon our spiritual

sense of Life, which is all the heaven there is. We will remember our Leader’s words: heaven “is

a mental state.”

At this point we might ask, “Was it possible for Jesus to be unaffected by the material

concept of the world?” In reply may I read from Mark 4:35-40:

And the same day, when the even was come, he saith unto them, Let us pass over unto

the other side. And when they had sent away the multitude, they took him even as he was in the

ship. . . . And there arose a great storm of wind, and the waves beat into the ship, so that it was

now full. And he was in the hinder part of the ship, asleep on a pillow: and they awake him, and

say unto him, Master, carest thou not that we perish? And he arose, and rebuked the wind, and

said unto the sea, Peace, be still. And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm. And he said

unto them, Why are ye so fearful? how is it that ye have no faith?

Jesus and his disciples were in the same ship, in the same weather, but what a contrast of

experience! To the disciples, in their material world, there was a great storm—wind, waves and

danger. To Jesus, in his kingdom not of this world, there was peace, rest and a great calm. Christ

Jesus certainly found his paradise in Spirit, in the consciousness of heaven within.

Our Leader says also: “The real jurisdiction of the world is in Mind, controlling every

effect” (Science and Health, p. 379). Subject to such control, any suggestion of our being

deprived of good is readily dismissed. I quote John 14:27:

“Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto

you.” Not as the world giveth. The world cannot give peace. It has none to give. In fact, the

material world cannot contribute anything to our harmony. It is mere misconception. A member

of our Leader’s household told me that on many occasions when Mrs. Eddy was confronted with

serious problems, she assembled her workers and read, “The Spirit’s sweet control freely we will

confess.”

Our glorious kingdom within—the kingdom so divinely complete—could not need

anything from a so-called “outside,” which anyway is non-existent. You will remember that

nothing can be added, and perhaps what is more important today, nothing can be taken away.

Our kingdom is a state of all-inclusive spiritual independence, uninfluenced by any

misconception. It is divine Self-experience. It is divine Mind’s infinite Self of undeviating

perfection. Jesus expected nothing from the material world. He had all, from the Father. He said,

“All things that the Father hath are mine” (John 16:15).

Even the best of material circumstances can never guarantee harmony. So we do not look

to the material concept. We do not expect light from darkness. I quote Science and Health (p.

213): “Immortal and spiritual facts exist apart from this mortal and material conception.” So,

despite the world’s unrest, our realm is safe and secure, as complete as ever it was. Our realm is

divine Love’s concept, and I quote, “. . . divine Love holds its substance safe” (Miscellany, p.

295). This, of course, is your substance.

Another aspect is that within our kingdom is divine wisdom and stability. We are not at

the mercy of any economic situation. We are subject alone to the government of divine Love.

Despite the much-discussed belief in shortages, under the government of divine Mind the supply

of all essentials is in full evidence. To the Christ-consciousness, whether exemplified by Jesus or

by you, abundance is revealed as everpresent and without process.

Our kingdom remains itself in full expression, including every divine element. May we

never entertain a lesser concept! Ours is the heaven of divine experience—the joyous continuity

of everlasting satisfaction. This is the kingdom in which the joy, gladness and wisdom which you

are preclude all ignorance, all futility. The reality of your being remains undisturbed. You are at

all times the Christ-capacity to enjoy the wholeness of your Christ-awareness. Webster’s

definition of wholeness is “Totality; comprising all parts; the sum.” This defines your true status.

The material concept of world cannot change it. Our Leader makes no reservation. She says in

Science and Health (p. 259) that man “represents infinite Mind, the sum of all substance.”

Not all the material governments on earth can stop God from manifesting Himself as you.

You are the very evidence of the beauty and bounty of divine Love’s expressing. Acknowledge

this, and the fulness of good, divinely perpetuated, will well up from within as living water to the

parched sense of material existence.

Let us see of what Jesus’ kingdom is constituted and what is happening there. Inasmuch

as Jesus referred to this kingdom of reality as “my kingdom,” it must be a truly wonderful state.

The kingdom of the Christ is what our Leader terms “the divine infinite calculus”

(Science and Health, p. 520). It is constituted of the seven synonyms for God, all in full action

and perfect coordination. From our books we will take the synonyms one by one, and in this way

we will find what constitutes our real realm.

Soul

Let us begin with the synonym Soul. Your kingdom is kindness, good-will and bliss. It is

a state of immutable tranquility free from disturbance. Soul’s announcement of perfection is

absolutely conclusive and permits of no further analysis. As Soul’s concept of Life, we live the

beautiful, the infinite. We live joy, radiance and completeness. In the soaring heights of true

being we experience the atmosphere of Soul, the rarefaction, satisfaction and sublimity of our

own true being. Soul is radiance, so your experience is never monotonous or drab. It is

effulgence and brightness.

The rhythm of Soul assures your sense of balance, congruity, proportion. The dignity of

Soul determines your grace and distinctiveness. The affluence of real riches is in full evidence.

The highest sense of happiness, blessedness and felicity is your natural state. The equanimity of

Soul accounts for your equitable nature, your immutable tranquility and calm.

Soul is your affluence, your joy. The realm of Soul is harmony and immortality. Soul is

the only real substance. You are Soul’s full awareness and full experience: that is, you

experience every quality and every activity of Soul as your own being. To be the experience of

Soul is to feel the peace and the harmony of Soul and to enjoy without limit all that is delightful

and lovable—to experience without interruption the joy that never fades and which has no taint

of earth.

Principle

Now we turn to our books and the dictionary for Principle. Principle works out the ends

of eternal good by its own ways and means. This is happening in your kingdom now. “The

divine Principle and idea,” our Leader says, “constitute spiritual harmony,—heaven and eternity”

(Science and Health, p. 503). Principle is holy and immortal and reveals man as harmoniously

existent in Truth. Principle is an immovable foundation. Hence your standard of Life is sustained

in strict conformity with its primal Cause.

Governed by divine Principle, your entire universe is flawlessly regulated without

interruption, lapse or cessation. Principle is unbreakable law and operates to the exclusion of all

else. It keeps its entire realm strictly in accordance with its own unerring sense of right and

controls all with precision; not because of human judgment, but because of the unerring,

intelligent, infallible law of Principle Itself. You are the direct and permanent experience of all

this glorious power.

Divine Principle is final. You cannot avoid or evade the perfect harmony it produces.

Principle reveals compulsory perfection. Principle fulfills its own justice and integrity and

thereby causes you to experience rectitude and impartiality. Principle experiences its own

clemency, gentleness, charitableness and good-will. Of such is your kingdom.

Mind

Mind is the source of all movement; so your every action is unrestricted, unfettered. You

have infinite scope. Mind is omnipresence: hence the presence of all good as your continuous

experience. Your Mind is infinite. You are subject to no external influence.

Divine Mind’s omniscience constitutes your perception and discernment. You are divine

Mind’s awareness and experience of all the qualities of divine Mind.

You are the intelligence and wisdom of Mind. Hence your clarity of thought and

expression. Mind is agelessness, constancy, stability, fully sustained vigour. Mind is brightness,

buoyancy, spontaneity. This accounts for your radiance and glow, your vitality, your freedom

from depression.

Mind is dominion, majesty, might. This appears as your ability, efficiency, dominion.

The personal domination of the material world is the perversion of Mind’s dominion of your

heaven.

Mind is perfection, so you include every divine property and quality without defect. Mind

is the grand creator. This accounts for your total freedom from heredity and the mortal

characteristics with which the counterfeit world abounds. You are Mind’s invariableness and

accuracy and competence. Mind is unerring, so incapable of mistakes.

Love

Now we will see what Love is doing. Infinite Love loving incessantly constitutes your

kingdom. Your universe includes not one tinge of condemnation or guilt. You are the awareness

of perpetual security and complete immunity from the fallacies of the mortal world. Love

experiences the heaven of its own nature. It illumines. It supplies all good in every hour. Love

holds man in endless Life and in one eternal round of harmonious being. Love’s experience of

Love’s conditions constitutes your kingdom.

Love is practical, impartial, charitable, unquenchable. So you are the experience of

Love’s active benevolence, tenderness, kindness. Your experience of Love’s bounty can never

diminish. It is forever.

The universality of Love appears as your full experience of constant affection, sincerity.

Love is unselfish and gives sweet assurance. Hence your continuous feeling of confidence and

certitude, free from care or doubt. You feel the absolute serenity of Love’s trustworthiness.

Love is without dissimulation; so your Life is free from the deception of personal sense.

Discord has never depleted your heaven of the tenderness, warmth and glow of the Love which

you are and feel.

Love is strength. You experience the firmness and divine Self-reliance of Love’s nature.

All of this is taking place in your kingdom now. In fact, it constitutes your kingdom.

Spirit

As Spirit’s self-experience, your sight and hearing are permanent in all their fulness.

Because Spirit is grace, the charms of beauty and comeliness are your innate

characteristics. The efficiency, virtue, ability and capacity of Spirit are forever evident as your

being. All the glorious qualities of Spirit constitute your character and experience. These

qualities are your natural instincts. Spirit evolves, so your capabilities are fully developed.

Because Spirit is the source of all substance, we are free from the suggestion that

substance is limited. Contrariwise, substance is present in its infinite nature as your own

experience.

Spirit is free from the turmoil of the material world, free from strain, thus permitting one

to enjoy his real universe, the realm of Spirit, in all its glory.

The kingdom of Spirit is freedom from the material and limited sense of existence. The

nature of Spirit is spontaneous immediacy, free from process. It is the permanence of all that is

good, never open to destruction or disintegration. Thus we show forth the continuous fulness, the

newness and freshness of our being without any sense of age.

Truth

What is the nature and function of Truth in the kingdom of reality? Our books tell us that

Truth is the consciousness of health, holiness and immortality. Truth is entirely free from

conflicting mortal opinions. It reports man to be joyously, naturally spiritual, without the

restrictive fetters of a human mind. The certainty of Truth precludes the fallibilities of human

sense testimony and frees from the erroneous sense that man is a mortal in a material universe.

Truth is the active presence of all that is right. Truth is perpetual preservation and wholeness. In

Truth, there is no mortal sense. It is tranquility. Inharmony has no place in the realm of God.

Truth demonstrates itself as glory, beauty, strength and bliss. All that is meant by the truth of

being unfolds in endless continuity. You live as Truth’s self-awareness, Truth’s self-experience.

You live the glorious liberty of the son of God, which you are. All of this is Truth’s aspect of the

one and only realm.

Life

Now we will hear what our Leader has to say about Life’s activities in the kingdom. Life

is everlasting, changeless, supernal immortality. It goes on unchanged—the same forever,

limitless, self-sustained, self-existent, self-expressed. Life is never at the mercy of matter. It is

divine energy, the God-ideal, might, reality, a complete sphere. Life is the vast forever. It is

holiness, consummate naturalness. What a kingdom in which such harmony is the only state!

You are ever the experience of Life’s unfolding of its spontaneity and joy, dissociated

from all mortal, material sense. Your Life is evident in its original perfection. Our Leader refers

to Life most sweet, and this, of course, is free from the limitations attached to the human sense of

abundance and of health.

Life is the divine ideal. This means that you exemplify Life’s standard of perfection,

beauty, and excellence. You are boundless freedom, limitless energy, active strength. Life

maintains its original quality and knows no other. Your experience is free from restraint,

oppression and trouble.

Undiluted good is your subjective state, and anything less than this does not relate to you.

You cannot escape the health and happiness of the one Life—in fact, Life’s experience of sheer

sublimity, Life in all its undivided fulness. Such is the naturalness of the kingdom of heaven, the

only kingdom.

So we see that the infinitude of divine qualities classified by our Leader as seven

synonyms operating in perfect coordination constitutes one indivisible whole—the kingdom of

God which is within you, and of His kingdom there shall be no end.

I conclude with our Leader’s words from No and Yes (p. 35): “. . . God’s kingdom is

everywhere and supreme, and it follows that the human kingdom is nowhere . . .”

There Is No Unwedded State

On page 561 of Science and Health appears the marginal heading “Espousals supernal.”

Our Leader explains two wedded states, both of which have most valuable consequences. Both

of these wedded states and their consequences are your inevitable experience.

The first “espousal supernal” is the weddedness of the manhood and the womanhood of

God: that is, the weddedness of your own manhood and your own womanhood. The second

espousal is the wedded state of God and the compound idea, man.

We will now consider the first wedded state. I quote from Genesis (1:27) and from

Science and Health (p. 524):

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and

female created he them.

With a single command, Mind had made man, both male and female.

This was not a dual command. Mind did not first create manhood and then womanhood.

But with a single command Mind created manhood and womanhood in one. Man is the

compounded spiritual individuality which includes every quality of the divine Father-Mother.

You include every quality of both the manhood of God and the womanhood of God. The

manhood of God is life, strength, pure consciousness, spiritual understanding, vitality, vigour.

This is your manhood. The womanhood of God is tenderness, love, beauty, loveliness,

sweetness, spiritual bliss, purity and innocence. This is your womanhood. The reflection of the

Father-Mother is the man who is the full expression of divine manhood and the full expression of

divine womanhood, all in one.

Your manhood has been indissolubly one with your womanhood since “before the world

was” (John 17:5). You have always been God’s ideal of divine completeness. Our Leader tells us

in Unity of Good (p. 52) that “Christ’s immortal sense of Truth . . . presents Truth’s spiritual

idea, man and woman.” Note that the word “idea” is in the singular. Man and woman is the one

idea. This is the weddedness—your manhood qualities and your womanhood qualities all in one.

Our Leader gives us the spiritual definition of Bride and Bridegroom on page 582 of

Science and Health:

Bride. Purity and innocence, conceiving man in the idea of God; a sense of Soul, which

has spiritual bliss and enjoys but cannot suffer.

Bridegroom. Spiritual understanding; the pure consciousness that God, the divine

Principle, creates man as His own spiritual idea, and that God is the only creative power.

You cannot be the partial expression of the Father-Mother. You cannot be the bridegroom

qualities alone, nor can you be the qualities of the bride without those of the bridegroom. You

are all. The bride and bridegroom are eternally wedded. I quote from John 3:29: “He that hath

the bride is the bridegroom …”

In addition to his manhood, the bridegroom is, and loves, his purity, innocence, beauty,

tenderness—the spiritual bliss which “enjoys but cannot suffer.” The bride has all the divine

manhood of the bridegroom in addition to her womanhood. The bride and bridegroom of your

being are indissolubly wedded. This means that your spiritual understanding, your vigour,

strength and vitality are wedded to your tenderness, purity and innocence. Jesus said (Matthew

19:6):

What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.

One does attempt to put asunder what “God hath joined together” if one thinks of oneself

as either male or female. By this mistake, one would divorce oneself from half of one’s own

being and would thereby forfeit the wonderful consequence of the weddedness of divine

manhood and womanhood, even the enjoyment of eternal spiritual bliss.

Life is the Fatherhood of God; Love is the Motherhood of God; and you are the

Father-Mother’s glorious concept of divine manhood and divine womanhood combined as one.

All the manhood qualities and all the womanhood qualities that exist are within your own being.

Incidental to this withinness of all divine qualities you will experience completeness

always in whatever way blesses you the most. Divine self-completeness appears in human

experience as sweet friendship and harmonious companionship. In whatever form this divine

completeness is humanly evidenced, you can never be without the womanhood qualities of

tenderness, sweetness and love, nor can you ever lack the manhood qualities of strength, vigour,

understanding and might. Your manhood is always accompanied by your womanhood, and vice

versa.

I quote from Science and Health (pp. 514 and 577):

Tenderness accompanies all the might imparted by Spirit.

The Lamb’s wife presents the unity of male and female as no longer two wedded

individuals, but as two individual natures in one; and this compounded spiritual individuality

reflects God as Father-Mother, not as a corporeal being. In this divinely united spiritual

consciousness, there is no impediment to eternal bliss,— to the perfectibility of God’s creation.

Here our Leader refers to the oneness of your divine manhood and your divine

womanhood in these terms: “two individual natures in one”; “this compounded spiritual

individuality”; and “this divinely united spiritual consciousness …” The consequence of this

divinely united state of your manhood and womanhood is the absence of any impediment to your

eternal bliss.

Acknowledge this divinely united spiritual consciousness, in which is no impediment to

your eternal bliss, to be the only consciousness you have ever had. This is your consciousness

now. It is the consciousness from which all sense of loneliness and futility has been forever

precluded, and it is the divine fact of your being. You actually are the consciousness in which

there is no impediment to perpetual harmony.

Incidental to every divine fact, wonderful harmony becomes evident as one’s everyday

experience.

If loneliness and incompleteness appeared to be the problem, the practitioner would

realise that God is the one Father-Mother; that the expression of the Father-Mother is the

manhood and womanhood of God, two individual natures in one—the divinely united spiritual

consciousness. He would acknowledge this divinely united spiritual consciousness to be the only

consciousness of man—the expression of “the One ‘altogether lovely’” (Science and Health, p.

3), which is bliss itself. It would be realised that in this consciousness there is no impediment to

radiant joy—no alternative to contentment, satisfaction and completeness. Incidental to these

divine facts, the human situation would conform to the divine. In place of loneliness and

incompleteness, harmony, happiness and completeness would be felt, and all sense of loneliness

would vanish.

No matter what discord the human picture may present— even were it the sadness and

hardship of widowhood, or the loneliness and sometimes uncared-for state of widowerhood—all

of this would conform to the divine fact that man is a state of spiritual completeness, even the

supernal wedded state of God’s manhood and God’s womanhood that can never be put asunder.

In some way, existence would be restored to a full, happy, cared-for—even blissful—state of

Life.

Your Christliness—your beauty, loveliness, strength, vigour and fulness—is illustrated

by harmonious human circumstances and happy relationships. These, however, merely illustrate;

they are not contributory to your divine completeness. Man is forever complete. As already

stated, the consequence of this wedded state is your experience of eternal bliss without a single

impediment.

We will now consider the second “espousal supernal”— your weddedness to divine

Love. I quote from the textbook (p. 561):

The Revelator saw also the spiritual ideal as a woman clothed in light, a bride coming

down from heaven, wedded to the Lamb of Love.

The second espousal supernal is the weddedness of the compound idea of manhood and

womanhood, which you are, to divine Love. This compound idea is here referred to as the

“bride,” who symbolises generic man—manhood and womanhood in one. The bride, the

spiritual ideal—the compound idea—came down from heaven wedded—wedded already—to the

Lamb of Love. May I emphasise that the bride did not come down from heaven to be wedded.

Her oneness with divine Love has existed throughout eternity. This wedded state is the

correlation of Principle and spiritual idea, referred to by our Leader in Science and Health (p.

561):

The woman in the Apocalypse symbolizes generic man, the spiritual idea of God; she

illustrates the coincidence of God and man as the divine Principle and divine idea.

Your eternal weddedness with divine Love means that your completeness, satisfaction,

bliss and fulfillment are irrevocably established. It means that you are divine Love’s

self-experience. To be the self-experience of divine Love is to experience Life as it really is from

divine Love’s point of view: it is to experience all that is Love’s own nature—Love’s gentleness,

tenderness, bliss, satisfaction and harmony—all independent of any human circumstance.

Incidental to your weddedness with Love, your Life is perpetual joy. You experience Love’s

infinite provision, endless security and affection—even the infinite all of good. As Love’s

self-experience, you are Love’s own concept of completeness; so your Life is free from all

anxiety, free from strain or stress. No mortal belief can enter the consciousness of Love. As

Love’s self-awareness, your Life includes not one harsh note, no unkindness, no problem at all,

but is forever radiant and serene in its permanent security and peace. Love permits no pain, no

hardship. Love permits no bleak sense of Life, no sadness nor sorrow, no toil. Love includes all,

and so you can have no fear of being deprived of any good. Your weddedness with Love is

forever, and its sweet consequence of unbroken bliss is forever.

Referring to the son of God, our Leader writes: “. . . nor is he an isolated, solitary idea”

(Science and Health, p. 259). Never could man be desolate, lonely. He is wedded, and thus his

experience is the fulness of divine Love’s expressing. You can never be less than divine Love’s

sweet sense of Life. Thus your Life is alive with love, full of vital purpose, interest and

happiness. Divine Love feels its own sublimity—feels its own uninterrupted joy and peace. This

sublimity, peace and joy are your being. This weddedness with divine Love is satisfaction

itself—the permanent blessedness of indissoluble oneness.

I quote from Science and Health (pp. 574-575):

Then thought gently whispers: “Come hither! Arise from your false consciousness into

the true sense of Love, and behold the Lamb’s wife,—Love wedded to its own spiritual idea.”

Arise from the false sense of life with its problems, its loneliness, drabness and absence

of real Love, by beholding as your very being the Life which is Love itself—the Life which by

its very nature is forever the sum-total of bliss. Behold your twice-wedded state and its glorious

consequence.

In Science and Health (p. 575) our Leader gives us the stupendous consequence of the

second espousal:

. . . this revelation will destroy forever the physical plagues imposed by material sense.

As the result of your conscious weddedness with Love, physical plagues are destroyed

forever. Think of it! Your conscious oneness with Love means the end of all suffering. Physical

plagues are destroyed forever. Realising your oneness with God, never again can you be sick,

lonely or sad. Your two-fold weddedness is a spiritual fact.

“What God hath joined together, man cannot sunder” (Miscellany, p. 268). There is no

alternative to your wedded state, nor is there any alternative to the absolute perfection resulting

from this weddedness. In this you have no option. There is no unwedded state.

To summarize: The first weddedness is the inseparability of your divine manhood and

divine womanhood. I will repeat our Leader’s words (Science and Health, p. 577), which tell us

of the consequence of this oneness:

In this divinely united spiritual consciousness, there is no impediment to eternal

bliss,—to the perfectibility of God’s creation.

No impediment to your eternal bliss! Wedded as you are, there is no impediment ever to

your contentment, your joy and harmony, your complete satisfaction.

The second weddedness is Love wedded to its own spiritual idea, wedded to the

compound idea—manhood and womanhood—which is your being. Your entire freedom, perfect

health and eternal blessedness are thereby irrevocably established. I repeat the consequence of

this second wedded state: physical plagues are destroyed forever. Man is eternally free.

I quote from Miscellany (pp. 268-269):

Look long enough, and you see male and female one—sex or gender eliminated; you see

the designation man meaning woman as well, and you see the whole universe included in one

infinite Mind and reflected in the intelligent compound idea, image or likeness, called man,

showing forth the infinite divine Principle, Love, called God,—man wedded to the Lamb,

pledged to innocence, purity, perfection.

Man “wedded to the Lamb”—pledged to his own “innocence, purity, perfection”!

Because of your inseparable oneness with God, the Life which is the evidence of all the wonder

of perfect Love is your own Life forever.

In conclusion, let the fact of your weddedness be your hourly realisation. I quote our

Leader (Unity of Good, p. 17):

Hourly, in Christian Science, man thus weds himself with God, or rather he ratifies a

union predestined from all eternity . . .

“What Is His Name?”

“Christ Science.”

(Miscellaneous Writings, page 167)

The serenity, might and tenderness of the Christ are to be subjectively understood as

one’s own nature and substance. This is the kingdom within, the sole kingdom existing.

The Christ Science is the Christ-power. Truth knowing Itself is all there is to the

practitioner. Only as Truth-knowing can we feel heaven within.

We turn away from the contemplation of corporeality and its seeming effects to the

realisation of God and man as the glorious Ego.

All that exists here and everywhere is God and His idea. We cannot acknowledge God

without including man; nor can we think of man except in terms of his relation to God.

In the scientific relation of man to God, man is the divine ideal, incorporeal and spiritual,

not a Christian Scientist.

We are not persons realising spiritual truths.

Divine Mind is forever revealing Itself,—not through the statement and power of a

person inspired by God.

We live as the Christ-idea,—no option. Thus we are fulfilling the liberating, comforting

function which the Christ has always been.

Recognise the full scope of the Christ as your own identity. Personal sense is a restricted

sense. The personalist has not experienced the relaxation of permitting the Christ to be his

identity.

The effulgence of the Christ is the power which emancipates the world from subservience

to matter.

Note the difference between the Way-shower and the Way.

Immortal Truth is knowing Itself and this is all there is to myself.

In your Christ-presence error fades out. Feel the Christ Science. Do not use it as a

corrective. In reality no corrective is needed because there is nothing but the Ego.

In the presence of the Christ-consciousness discordant evidence disappears.

Divine Mind knows Life as it is, free from any misconception.

As the Christian Scientist you declare. As Christ Science you feel.

As a Christian Scientist you have to use Truth, but as Christ Science you live Truth.

The genius of the Christ is my natural state as God’s likeness,—not a Christian Scientist.

Christ Science is wholly impersonal, not a person applying the Truth.

Change the concept of yourself from Christian Scientist to Christ Science. You then

include the right idea about everything that, as a Christian Scientist, you believe could hamper or

harm.

Person and all discord is attached to the Christian Scientist,—not related in any way to

Christ Science.

Truth’s knowing is the Christ Itself, not a Christian Scientist knowing about Truth.

To lay down one’s life for one’s friends is to lay down the personal, human concept of

life.

Nothing is inaccessible to divine Love. All frustration of inaccessibility and antagonism

is in material sense, in the human concept, never in Christ Science. Christ Science has been

forever free from the crippling restriction of person, place and time.

Christ Science knows no crucifixion.

Christ Science is a state of divine authority, divine understanding, and personless,

spiritual independence.

The personalist, that is, the Christian Scientist, is engrossed in the reality of a personal

sense of self. He believes that his faculty is a human mind enlightened by the Christ instead of

the Christ Itself.

When the personalist takes the absolute point of view, he does it as a person doing his

best to do so. The result is that his personal sense imposes certain restrictions and reservations.

See Unity of Good, p. 48: “He sustains my individuality. Nay, more—He is my individuality and

my Life. Because He lives, I live.” The spiritual concept destroys the last stronghold of personal

sense.

Man is Spirit’s full self-awareness.

Man’s divine and only state is Christ Science. In the presence of the conscious realisation

of man’s divine status, which is wholeness, personal sense can have no foothold.

Lay down the personal, relative sense of life.

That which divine Mind knows about everything is your own being.

Reality is the indivisible allness of the Ego, not a Christian Scientist looking for the

promised land or a Christian Scientist trying to reach it, but the Christ-awareness of all that

constitutes reality.

Man is not a person who thinks he must express God. To know the Truth is not the ability

of the human mind but the Christ-consciousness.

Discard the human, personal sense. Personal sense misrepresents existence. Let go of it.

Enjoy exchanging the human sense of existence for the scientific nature of the Christ.

There is no human birth. Only in the recognition of this fact can you identify yourself as

Christ Science. When human generation, your personal sense of creation, ceases to be your

consciousness, you will know yourself as you divinely are—as Christ Science.

Whatever is not in strict accordance with divine reality is not our present condition but

mere suggestion. The Christian Scientist is mortal, whereas Christ Science is pure Spirit.

Man is not a person who thinks he must express.

Lay down a human, personal sense of being in favour of divine Science. Personal sense,

even at its best, misrepresents existence.

We are willing to exchange the human sense of existence for the scientific nature of the

Christ.

Everything that is of God belongs to the divine Sonship.

Christ Science has never been subject to error.

Personal sense believes in the necessity of a medium—the worst being the human mind.

Burdens are felt by entertaining a personal sense of self.

Jesus taught as one having authority; the authority was the Christ.

Our Saviour is not a person, not Jesus, but the Christ, Truth.

The ever-operative Principle is Itself the power which banishes personal sense and is a

transforming influence.

Note the difference between Christ’s cup and the Master’s cup (Miscellaneous Writings,

p. 125). Jesus refused to identify himself with any element of personal sense. Let the finite,

material sense of “I” yield to the divine. The Master’s cup typifies the attitude of the one

thinking of himself as a person who is earnestly striving to attain his real spiritual nature.

The striving to attain one’s Christ-nature is supplanted by the joyous acknowledgment

that one actually is the Son of God already.

“. . . nor does he pass through material conditions prior to reaching intelligence” (Science

and Health, p. 63).

All problems relate to the mortal concept of man. Christ Science has never known a

mortal concept.

The human sense is a counterfeit. We can never make a counterfeit into a reality, nor can

any material belief ever be attached to the spiritual idea.

The only immaculate concept is God’s concept. It is Truth’s acknowledgment of its own

infinitude.

The personal misinterpretation of Jesus’ mission humanly appeared as the cross.

“I and my Father are one.” This “I” refers to the Christ, our own being.

The cross is a material, personal sense of man. The Christ takes this mistaken sense away

and shows what we already are in the sight of God. The Christ Science is the crowning glory of

the Son of God. Know what you forever are in the sight of God. Never think of yourself in a

human way but in the sacred understanding of Christ Science.

The Christ Science, which you already are, is the spiritual fact which dispels the illusions

of the senses.

We repeat: God is doing all the expressing. This is our divinely restful attitude. That

which God has expressed in flawless perfection and maintains in unlaboured Self-perpetuation

is your life, which is wholeness.

God sustains, upholds, the whole sphere of life—keeps it fully provided. The curse on a

personal sense of man is due to the misconceived personalisation of God. The curse on man is

objectified in a material sense of life full of lack and labour.

When one no longer identifies himself as mortal, he is liberated from restrictions and

discords and is free to enjoy all that constitutes his Christ-awareness and Christ-experience.

The “I” of your being does not refer to the human mind but to the Christ, your own and

only identity.

The Christ never identified man as mortal. The concept of the Christ is never less than the

perfect, changeless Christ-idea.

Science and Health, p. 280: “Finite belief [a Christian Scientist] can never do justice to

Truth in any direction.” Whilst the mortal is striving to reach health and harmony, Christ Science

is forever enjoying the fulness of perfection as the one and only state of being.

Beauty, love and goodness constitute spiritual reality,— your perpetual experience as

Christ Science forever unfolding as divine Mind.

We are not persons making use of divine power.

All there is to man is Christ Science. In this acknowledgment all sense of trying to

achieve is swallowed up in the divine “I am All.” The “I” is not a human mind enlightened by

the Christ but is the Christ Itself.

Healing is the finite view giving place to the infinite.

Reality is the one, indivisible, conscious Presence of Mind.

Miscellaneous Writings, p. 328, refers to “the everpresent Christ, the spiritual idea which

from the summit of bliss surveys the vale of the flesh, to burst the bubbles of earth with a breath

of heaven . . .” Truth bursts the bubbles of earth, but not a thing in God’s kingdom is being

touched.

Spiritual simultaneity is not a sequence of events.

Only as Christ Science can the total nothingness of error be demonstrated.

Insensibility to error is the prerogative of the one knowing himself as Christ Science, not

the one accepting the personalisation called a Christian Scientist as his present status.

The capacity of what appears as each one of us is the Christ Itself, not the capacity of a

human mind enlightened by the Christ.

In the face of God’s Allness, evil is absolutely nothing. As Christ Science the practitioner

is never touched by the evidence of the senses. The universal, self-perpetuating Christ-power is

eternally operative and cannot entertain one material misconception.

So long as we think as persons perceiving something of divine reality with the human

mind, the kingdom is not subjective.

Whatever suggests itself as material conditions and material feeling is but a

misconception of true body.

Man is the consciousness of Truth and Love. Mankind is the counterfeit of spiritual

reality and expresses a human concept.

Man is God’s concept of His own completeness, infinitely expressed. The only true sense

of the world is divine Mind’s concept. Neither weariness, fear nor pain attends the divine

consciousness. Everything that constitutes the divine “I” is your experience.

The divine idea is never in competition with any human symbol. Miscellany, p. 127: “We

thank the Giver of all good for the marvellous speed of the chariot-wheels of Truth.”

Greater Works

Jesus had healed the sick, the blind, the dumb and the lame. He had healed the lepers, the

mentally disturbed, the withered hand. He banished sin and proved the impossibility of lack. In

addition to all else, he raised the dead. What then could Jesus have meant when he said to the

disciples (John 14:12), “Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I

do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father”? The

Glossary definition of Father is “Eternal Life; the one Mind; the divine Principle . . .” Greater

works than these shall he do because I go unto eternal Life, the one Mind, the divine Principle.

What are the greater works? Jesus sent forth the seventy disciples as recorded in Luke

(10:17, 20). “And the seventy returned again with joy, saying, Lord, even the devils are subject

unto us through thy name.” The disciples must have been astonished at Jesus’ reply when he

said, “Notwithstanding in this rejoice not, that the spirits are subject unto you; but rather rejoice,

because your names are written in heaven.”

Let us compare these two statements of Jesus—”rejoice not, that the spirits are subject

unto you” and “greater works than these shall he do”—with page 2 of Rudimental Divine

Science, where our Leader asks, “Is healing the sick the whole of Science?” She answers,

“Healing physical sickness is the smallest part of Christian Science. It is only the bugle-call to

thought and action, in the higher range of infinite good-ness.”

Is not our Leader’s attitude identical to that of Jesus? One would have considered healing

to be indeed abundant cause for rejoicing. But the fact that there are still greater works—even

more good than we have hitherto known—awakens us to investigate the undiscovered wonder

and glory of infinite goodness, which constitute our being. Healing is the bugle-call to our full

enjoyment of the sum-total of good without a single impediment. Healing is the bugle-call to our

active awareness and experience of our flawless being as expressed by our Leader: the “infinite

idea of infinity” (Miscellaneous Writings, p. 165). This is your status.

In rejoicing that the devils were subject unto them, the disciples were contenting

themselves with an improved human concept. Jesus in his great love was awakening them to the

glorious perfection of divine Life as man’s only status. He was revealing total harmony, the

range of infinite goodness, as man’s inherent state, belonging by nature, not having to be

acquired or conferred.

Your names are indelibly written in heaven. As you know, name means nature. Jesus’

statement has profound implications. He was elevating the disciples from even the best human

concept of life, which errs because it is human, to the changeless fact that nothing less than

flawless completeness is man’s being. He was elevating their consciousness from healing to

wholeness, from matter to Spirit, as their present and only state—even a complete change of

base. Our Leader writes, “. . . we must leave the mortal basis of belief and unite with the one

Mind” (Science and Health, p. 424). Just as Jesus was liberating his disciples from the mortal

concept of life, so our dear Leader frees us today by telling us to drop this mortal concept,

discard it, disown it, deny it, leave it, turn from it, reject it, rise above it, forsake it, abandon it.

We are privileged to exchange the mortal misconception for man’s true nature—for our names

written in heaven.

Isaiah and the Revelator glimpsed the meaning of the name written in heaven. I quote

Isaiah 62:2; Isaiah 56:5; and Revelation 22:4:

. . . and thou shalt be called by a new name, which the mouth of the Lord shall name.

Even unto them will I give . . . a name better than of sons and of daughters: I will give

them an everlasting name, that shall not be cut off.

. . . his name shall be in their foreheads.

On page 167 of Miscellaneous Writings, referring to the divine idea, our Leader asks,

“What is his name?” She answers, “Christ Science.” Could anything be further removed from the

sense of organic life or mortal nature than Christ Science? This is our new name, our new nature:

Christ Science. What a completely new sense of existence, revealing the wonderful Life which is

God to be the Life of man, whole in every aspect!

In relation to this new sense of Life may I relate the experience of four members of my

family when Christian Science was introduced to my parents many years ago. We were in a very

sad plight. In fact, a friend referred to our home as a small hospital. My mother and brother were

pronounced incurable by the medical faculty. They had hereditary lung trouble. My father was

frequently incapacitated by a liver complaint. My own condition was even more desperate: there

was certainly no hope of my recovery. At this point the text-book was loaned to my parents, with

the result that by reading the book my mother was instantaneously and permanently healed. You

can imagine my father’s utter astonishment to find my mother well and strong, in one instant.

She actually said, “I am a new woman.” To my brother and me she explained that my father and

she had just learned about a new Life. She said, “It is the Life which God gives us, and this new

Life is never sick and never has pain. We have learned about this Life,” she said, “from a book.

So from now on you will have no more pain.” And from that time the agony I had always felt,

due to carious bones in my head, entirely disappeared. My brother was healed and the entire

family was completely well.

We experienced the new heaven and the new earth, and for the first time enjoyed our

correct identification—harmony and bliss experienced as our everyday Life. Our name was

indeed written in heaven. Wonderful though this healing was, we experienced much that was

even greater throughout the years to come. We learned that the perfection of divine Life is the

very Life of man—one’s own being. Maybe we remember one of our lecturers who related our

Leader’s remark that in general we accept no more than ten per cent of the blessings which

belong to our God-established Life. Our Leader said, “The ninety per cent of good remains

unclaimed while we accept but an infinitesimal part of our divine inheritance.”

May we now review Jesus’ promise, “He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall

he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father [unto eternal

Life; the one Mind; the divine Principle].” I will quote now from Miscellaneous Writings, pp.

195-196:

The “I” will go to the Father when meekness, purity, and love, informed by divine

Science, the Comforter, lead to the one God: then the ego is found not in matter but in Mind, for

there is but one God, one Mind; and man will then claim no mind apart from God.

A point of importance is the prerequisite for the greater works. The prerequisite is the

understanding of the indissoluble oneness of God and man. I quote Science and Health (p. 18):

“Jesus of Nazareth taught and demonstrated man’s oneness with the Father, and for this we owe

him endless homage.” It was Jesus’ conscious awareness of his oneness with God which enabled

him to interpret “thought and action, in the higher range of infinite goodness.” It was this

oneness which enabled him (I quote our Leader) “to know Life as it is, namely God, the eternal

good” (Miscellaneous Writings, p. 189), and it is our oneness with the Father which enables us to

enjoy that which is even greater than healing,—the experience of the Life which is God,

changeless good, forever uninterrupted and unthreatened by any mortal sense. We bear in

thought the prerequisite for these greater works, this experience of the kingdom of heaven

within: the “I” of our being must be with the Father, infinite distance away from material sense.

In this respect I quote Miscellany, p. 356:

The infinite is one, and this one is Spirit; Spirit is God, and this God is infinite good. This

simple statement of oneness is the only possible correct version of Christian Science.

Our Leader’s works will show us the wonderful consequences when the I of our being is

with the Father, even the natural wonder of our experience of the greater works—may I say, the

wonder of the breath-taking revelation that the self-same Life which is God is the Life of man, a

state of infinite goodness. I quote Miscellaneous Writings, p. 18:



The infinite One, then, is Father, Mother and child, Father, Mother and you—”one in

good, and good in One.” The infinite One includes all peace, health, joy, abundance. The infinite

One is the sum-total of infinite good in every one of its aspects. It is the all-inclusive, exquisite

Life, perfection itself—the Life which is God and you.

In view of the overwhelming good included in this Life, which is man’s subjective state,

it is not surprising that Paul wrote (I Corinthians 2:9):

Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things

which God hath prepared for them that love him.

Our natural experience of total good is the greater works.

I now quote Miscellany, p. 239: “God is one, and His idea, image, or likeness, man, is

one. But God is infinite and so includes all in one.” All the glories of the one and only Life

constitute your being, simply because, as Jesus said, “I go unto my Father.” In other words, I

identify myself with eternal Life, divine Mind, the divine Principle. Again I quote our Leader:

“Principle and its idea is one” (Science and Health, p. 465). “Principle and its idea, man, are

coexistent and eternal” (Science and Health, p. 520). Any sense of separation between God and

man is an utter impossibility. The I of your being is forever with the Father, and your eternal

coexistence with God makes your perfection unalterable. This coexistence means that you are

happily and inevitably one with the Life which is God’s ideal state of freedom, bliss, harmony

and abundance. You will recall Miscellaneous Writings, p. 167, which relates to the divine idea:

“His substance outweighs the material world.” This is your substance. You can never be other

than Mind’s joyous experience of its own infinite Self-containment and all-inclusive infinity.

This recognition of the oneness of Being gave the Christ divine authority to utter three

immortal statements (John 10:30; 8:58; 14:9):

1. “I and my Father are one.”

2. “Before Abraham was, I am.”

3. “. . . he that hath seen me hath seen the Father . . .”

The six words, “I and my Father are one,” speak volumes. They tell us of the

indivisibility of the one Ego. The marginal heading on page 336 of Science and Health is

“Indivisibility of the infinite”—the undividedness of God and you.

What response did Jesus receive from the Jews when he expounded this oneness? They

stoned him. His declaration of but one Ego tore away the very foundation of their false theories.

The basis of their false ego was destroyed. But Jesus, undisturbed, hid himself, went out of the

temple and healed the man who had been blind from birth. The Jews were evidently infuriated by

Jesus’ announcement and again took up stones to stone him. This time Jesus passed by again and

raised Lazarus from the dead. Jesus’ works proved his words.

“I and my Father are one” is a powerful spiritual fact in metaphysical healing. Because

God and you are “one in quality” (Science and Health, p. 361), you can entertain no concept of

life that can become in any way discordant. Indeed, this divine coexistence means that you can

experience nothing less than God’s own sense of Life, which is perpetual bliss, even “the higher

range of infinite goodness.” The indivisibility of the infinite is the guarantee of the self-same

quality of Life for God and you. These words tell us also that the infinite contents of the one and

only Life cannot be divided into portions, a portion for you and a portion for each of

mankind,—a portion of strength, a portion of joy, a portion of abundance. No, not so! The

indivisibility of the infinite forbids any sense of apportioning. The prodigal got into trouble when

he said to his father, “Father, give me the portion of goods that falleth to me” (Luke 15:12).

Now we come to the second statement. What did the Christ imply when he said, “Before

Abraham was, I am”? Here again he implied the eternal oneness of God and man. I is God; am is

man. I am is God and you, inseparable. This statement, “Before Abraham was, I am,”

emphasises the fact that the divine Life, the Life of God and you, has existed forever, and has no

point of contact with the Adam-sense of creation. This preexistence of Life is a mighty power,

overruling any belief of heredity. In fact, it overrules the entire mass of error, inasmuch as the I

am is all that exists. The I of your being is perpetually with the Father, indivisibly one. The

mortal, divided sense of existence is a mere misconception, which in no way relates to you. The I

of your being has no connecting link with any condition separate from God. This I antedated

Abraham and is the divine Life itself. It is God’s own sense of Life, which is perpetual health,

peace and joy, with no taint of fear, no worry, no anxiety, no sorrow or loneliness. The I which

antedated Abraham is the holy state of all-inclusive good, here, now and always. It is a glorious

state of Life, inevitably whole. This is your Life because the I is from everlasting to everlasting

with the Father.

The third powerful statement, “. . . he that hath seen me hath seen the Father . . .” is

Christ’s acknowledgment that there is nothing whatever to man but the Life which is God. The

Christ was emphasising that the correct concept of himself was the Father’s Life, the Father’s

Mind, the Father’s joy, peace, harmony. All of good is the Father’s, and being the Father’s, it is

yours.

In support of this statement I would like to read one of my favourite excerpts given to me

in the early days by Mr. James Neal, private secretary to our Leader, and a practitioner. I quote

our Leader’s own interpretation of “Christmas Morn”:


And deathless Life!






striving, as far above the conditions that brought her there. “Or cruel creed”—-the doctor’s





Our Leader certainly knew that the Father’s Life was all there was to that girl. Likewise,

let us acknowledge that God’s own Life is all there is to us. Acknowledge that God constitutes

every element of our being. In the understanding that the Father’s Mind, the Father’s Life, the

Father’s substance constitutes you, say often, “Thou all of me.” This is oneness indeed,—no

separate life from God, no separate condition from God.

All the calamities of mortal existence—its fabrication of sickness, sorrow, accident, sin,

lack, heredity and so on—stem from the belief that man has a separate life from God, revolving

in an orbit of his own. This belief of separateness, the belief that the I of our being is in the realm

of so-called mortal mind instead of with the Father, is gross cruelty. Duality is the afflicter, laden

with unjust penalties.

I quote Science and Health, p. 539: “Error begins by reckoning life as separate from

Spirit . . .” If we believe that material life is our identity, we shall experience the contents of this

limited, fragmentary, mortal sense of existence. We shall be forever striving with its barrenness,

frailty, unreliability and so on, whereas the realisation of our Godhood reveals our Life to be the

glory of “thought and action, in the higher range of infinite goodness.” The experience of infinite

goodness as the All and Only of Being, without any sense of an opposite, is the greater

works,—the state promised by Jesus.

Let us now review the experience of Paul with all his calamities because the I of his

being was not with the Father. Even after his conversion, Paul identified himself as a mortal.

Unacquainted with his inseparability from God, he was forever striving to reach God. Convinced

of the necessity of unremitting efforts to gain his oneness with God, he considered no sacrifice

too great. He wrote to the Philippians (3:8) of having suffered the loss of all things. Because he

believed himself to be separate from the Father, it is not to be wondered that so many problems

beset his path. I quote his own words (II Corinthians 4:8-9):

We are troubled on every side . . . we are perplexed . . . Persecuted . . . cast down . . .

He spoke of himself as being “in afflictions, in necessities, in distresses, in stripes, in

imprisonments, in tumults, in labours” (II Corinthians 6:4-5). Dear Paul! Up to this point, the I of

his being was with the mortal sense of life; so he experienced the bitter consequences. He

continues (11:24-26):

Of the Jews five times received I forty stripes save one. Thrice was I beaten with rods,

once was I stoned, thrice I suffered shipwreck, a night and a day I have been in the deep; In

journeyings often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils by mine own countrymen, in

perils by the heathen, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils

among false brethren . . .

The belief of life separate from God is a perilous affair, separate from good, separate

from love, separate from comfort, wholeness, security and peace. If we permit the I of our being

to be on the mortal plane, we continue to experience unhappy mortal conditions, whereas when

we are one with the Father the range of infinite goodness is our subjective state, our very being.

The experience of the infinitude of peace, security, harmony, comfort, abundance is then our

natural state. There is certainly no security on the basis of being a good person revolving in an

orbit of his own, separate from the divine, but there is one hundred per cent security in the

glorious fact that the I of one’s Being is inseparable from the Father. A happy and glorious

moment arrived for Paul with wonderful consequences: inspiration changed his standpoint. Fle

saw his mistake in believing that he must cope with struggles, tribulations and distresses. His

oneness with Love dawned upon his thought. He wrote (Romans 8:35, 37-39):

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or

persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? . . . Nay, in all these things we are more

than conquerors through him that loved us. For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor

angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor

depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ

Jesus our Lord.

May we emphasise that in the understanding of the oneness of Being, Life is permanent

harmony, infinite goodness. “Father, Mother, and child . . . one in good, and good in One” is our

state of absolute perfection in endless continuity. Oneness is the holy consciousness of God and

man in which nothing but good is ever to be found, because in divine oneness nothing but good

ever happens. What a contrast between your Life which is God and the mortal sense of

existence! In our Leader’s words (Science and Health, pp. 492, 481, 319), your Life is “holiness,

harmony, immortality”; “infinity, freedom, harmony, and boundless bliss”; “Life supernal.” The

I with the Father.

In contrast to this blissful state, which you are, is what our Leader terms (Science and

Health, p. 272), “the ghastly farce of material existence . . .” This material sense is a state of

turmoil, tempest, sorrow, incompleteness, sickness and suffering, a state to which we are entirely

unrelated.

Again we rejoice that the I of our Being is with the Father. It is infinite distance away

from such a misconception of existence as the mortal. Even the children of Israel believed

themselves separated, as our Book says, “with all mortals . . . from man’s divine origin” (Science

and Health, p. 562), and in consequence they walked “wearily through the great desert of human

hopes,” through “the dark ebbing and flowing tides of human fear” (p. 566).

Our Book (pp. 570, 121) refers to them as “weary wanderers, athirst in the desert . . .

waiting and watching for rest and drink”—as weary searchers “for a viewless home.” Whilst the

mind separate from the divine searches wearily for a home it cannot find, the I of our Being is

safely in the Father’s house, in the Father’s consciousness, embraced in divine Love, enjoying all

the perfect conditions with the Father, where discord has never been seen, heard or felt. Home is

one of the ideas included within the one consciousness, and is filled, as we read in Ephesians

3:19, “with all the fulness of God.” Oneness with God is oneness with

Providence—provide-ence. This explains the illimitable nature of our abundance (Song of

Solomon 2:4):

He brought me to the banqueting house, and his banner over me was love.

At this point one might ask, “How does one remain in the Father’s house, when the world

is rampant with contrary evidence?” Unity of Good (p. 64) gives us the comforting assurance that

we cannot “escape from identification with what dwelleth in the eternal Mind.” The infinitude of

allness provides no escape from perpetual wholeness, love, peace, abundance and bliss. We have

no option. Such is the state of the one and only Life,—the Life of God and man. Authority for

this statement is given in the following references:

. . . God alone is man’s life.


. . . God is the only Life; [and] therefore, we must entertain a higher sense of both God

and man.


God is infinite, the only Life, substance, Spirit, or Soul, the only intelligence of the

universe, including man.




. . . Spirit is discerned to be the Life of all . . .


He sustains my individuality. Nay, more—He is my individuality and my Life.


So then, God is your only Life. You cannot have a sick life, a sad life, a lonely life, a

struggling life. In the whole of Being there is no such thing as discordant life.

The following references give us authority to acknowledge that divine Mind is your only

Mind:

. . . man has no Mind but God.




. . . the Soul, or Mind, of the spiritual man is God . . .


All consciousness is Mind . . .


God, then, is all the Life and all the Mind there is to you. “Thou all of her. Thou all of

me.” Knowing that the Life of God is all the Life there is to you, and the Mind of God is all the

Mind there is to you, you experience divine Mind’s ideal sense of Life, which is, of course,

sublimity itself. Continuous harmony in all its aspects is the natural feeling of this Life. Divine

Mind, your only Mind, can never feel anything contrary to peace, serenity, and complete

well-being, and there is no other feeling. In support of this statement, I quote Science and Health

(pp. 166, 485) and Unity of Good (p. 25):

Mind is all that feels . . .

Science declares that Mind, not matter . . . feels . . .

Mind is not, cannot be, in matter. It . . . feels . . . as Mind . . .

Feeling is solely the function of divine Mind. “Mind is all that feels . . .” This one Mind,

your Mind, feels continuously the joy, harmony and health of the one and only Life,—the Life

incapable of discord. The fact to be emphasised is that in the oneness of Being the divine Mind

alone feels,—feels only its own blissful sense of Life, to which all pain and suffering are

unknown. In the oneness of Being, your being, there is never any feeling of sadness, sickness,

discord or lack. The perfect harmony which divine Mind feels is your inherent and permanent

state, because the I of your Being is with the Father, with the Life that is divine, feeling all that is

divine. The one Mind, your Mind, feels continuously all that exists in the higher range of infinite

goodness,—feels continuously the Life constituted of every divine element. In the higher range

of infinite goodness, there is of course no mortal mind, no mortal feeling. The I of your Being

feels security, no danger; feels joy and no sorrow; feels strength, never weakness; feels

completeness and no void; feels abundance, and knows no lack; feels peace—no disturbance.

The I that is with the Father is the experience of all that the Father is being and doing, and

nothing else is going on. Satisfaction, wholeness, beauty and loveliness are felt in unbroken

continuity.

Our Leader has made it abundantly clear that there are not two states of being, not two

kinds of substance, not two kinds of life. Any appearance of life which is in any way unlike God

is not Life,—is not you. You are identified with the Life which is by nature the sum-total of

good, forever intact.

I quote Message for 1900, p. 4:


The coexistence of God, man and the universe makes our treatment universal—reaching

“over continent and ocean” (Science and Health, p. 559), reaching everywhere.

May I repeat, Love in all its tenderness embraces all within itself, embraces all within the

Life which is divine glory. Jesus prayed (John 17:5):

And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with

thee before the world was.

“. . . glorify thou me with thine own self”—not a self like thine, but thine own self,

oneness indeed!

Man is glorified with the very selfhood of God—glorified with the changeless glory of

immortality. This glory appears as our continuous wisdom, beauty and limitless capacities. The

Psalmist sang (72:19): “. . . let the whole earth be filled with his glory . . .” We today can pray,

“Let the whole earth be filled with the endless glory of I am, the glory of God and His Christ, the

glory of God and you.” The bugle-call of healing has indeed summoned us to divine heights, to

the higher range of infinite goodness so natural to the son of God.

Another interesting consequence of oneness is recorded in Acts (2:1, 4). The disciples

“were all with one accord in one place. . . . And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost . . .”

They were at one in the recognition of divine reality. The Christ appeared to the disciples as

light, as the light of perfect unity. Incidental to this, the Bible tells us that “the same day there

were added unto them about three thousand souls.” The understanding of oneness, Pentecostal

glory, is evidently the way to fill our churches. As one of my friends said, “The ushers would

have a busy time! Three thousand additional congregation on one day!”

May I repeat that the range of infinite goodness appears to us always in the most

effortless way and practical form. Property is the human evidence of spiritual substantiality. This

appearing of infinite goodness in practical form is metaphorically expressed in Deuteronomy

(8:8, 9) as a “land of wheat, and barley, and vines, and fig trees, and pomegranates; a land of oil

olive, and honey; A land wherein thou shalt eat bread without scarceness, thou shalt not lack

anything in it . . .” And I quote again:

. . . and the desert shall rejoice, and blossom as the rose. It shall blossom abundantly . . .

and the parched ground shall become a pool, and the thirsty land springs of water . . .

(Isaiah 35:1, 2, 7)

And the floors shall be full of wheat, and the fats shall overflow with wine and oil. . . .


(Joel 2:24, 26)

For he shall be as a tree planted by the waters, and that spreadeth out her roots by the

river, and shall not see when heat cometh, but her leaf shall be green; and shall not be careful in

the year of drought, neither shall cease from yielding fruit.

(Jeremiah 17:8)

Thus instead of the need to work to improve human conditions, the Bible illustrates

infinite goodness already existing and evidenced as the natural good essential to our everyday

experience.

We are given “great and goodly cities, which thou buildest not, And houses full of all

good things, which thou filledst not, and wells digged, which thou diggedst not, vineyards and

olive trees, which thou plantedst not” (Deuteronomy 6:10, 11). This just illustrates the appearing

of good according to the need of the moment.

From Miscellaneous Writings (p. 360) I quote:

When mortal mind [the small “i”] is silenced by the “still, small voice” of Truth . . . and

Jesus, as the true idea of Him, is heard as of yore saying . . . “I came from the Father,” “Before

Abraham was, I am,” coexistent and coeternal with God,—and this idea is understood,—then

will the earth be filled with the true knowledge of Christ..

Love, completeness, joy and wholeness are so incidental to the oneness of Being that the

Revelator likened this happy living to a marriage feast. The symbolic feast is the sheer

enjoyment in endless continuity of all that constitutes the divine nature, with no shadow to

obscure the brightness of your Life. This state is not your objective. It is your subjective state,

your natural characteristic. The sum-total of good in every one of its aspects is your

experience,—a state in which, our Leader says, “there is no impediment to eternal bliss” (Science

and Health, p. 577). This state of bliss is the heaven in which your name is written. It is the

higher range of infinite goodness,—your inevitable state, all because the I is with the Father.

We remember that the prerequisite for this happy experience is our detachment from

mortal sense and our at-onement with the divine. Our Leader makes this plain in Science and

Health (p. 14):

Entirely separate from the belief and dream of material living, is the Life divine . . .

Your name written in heaven means that your wholeness, completeness, and divine

satisfaction are already irrevocably established, dependent upon no external circumstance

whatever. The bugle-call of healing has summoned us to the Life in which any sense of worry,

sickness, anxiety, loss, stress or strain is unknown.

In the Father’s house we enjoy the tenderness and gentleness of divine Love. As Love’s

self-expression we can know no disappointment, no hardship, no lack or bleak sense of life. In

the Father’s house is no galley with oars, no slavery, forever toiling with the problems of mortal

life. Love’s concept is the only concept there is of you in the whole of Being. There is no

erroneous sense about you anywhere. You can have no mistaken concept of yourself. Mind has

no sick concept, no lonely concept.

Every phase of mortal mind—all that it claims to be and to do—disappears like a pricked

bubble before the power of infinite Love. Even the great red dragon with all its horns, typifying

all the evil that claims to exist, had to bow before the Christ. Indeed, the allness of divine Love

sets at naught whatever would claim to obscure our kingdom of heaven within. In the light of the

Father’s house, there are no shadows. In the range of infinite goodness, there are no weary

wanderers athirst in the desert. Instead of weary wanderers, “boundless thought walks

enraptured” (Science and Health, p. 323).

We rejoice in our Leader’s teaching that there is nothing to man but that which God is

expressing. Please, still bear in thought: “Thou all of her. Thou all of me.”

We are grateful to our Leader for the understanding of the indescribable glory and

grandeur of the I which is with the Father, the Life which lives Itself in its own divine way, free

from all material theories, false beliefs and hypotheses. Ignorance is outshone by the intelligence

of Mind. In the brightness of His glory, dullness, parsimony, drabness are nowhere to be found.

So it is that man has no alternative but to be the experience of the sweetness of divine

Life. Our Leader’s poem “Love” speaks of “life most sweet”; and Science and Health (p. 304)

gives the assurance that nothing can alienate us from “God, from the sweet sense and presence of

Life and Truth.” Let us not lose sight of the all-important key to our wellbeing,—the oneness of

God and man.

In this connection I quote our Leader, who stood alone in the face of the whole world

with courage to voice her revelation that Being is one:

Jesus taught and demonstrated the infinite as one, and not as two.

(No and Yes, pp. 35-36)

. . . man cannot be separated for an instant from God . . .


. . .Christian Science . . . reckons one as one and this one infinite.

(Message for 1901, p. 6)

Reason and revelation declare that God is both noumenon and phenomena . . .






The allness of Deity is His oneness.




May I draw your attention to the fact that the last quotation makes plain that the infinite

One is Principle and its infinite idea. Two other references from Science and Health are equally

important, and I quote: “. . . all is divine Mind, or God and His idea” (p. 372); “. . . the Supreme

Being, or divine Principle, and idea” (p. 285). This is plainly stated,— divine Mind, or God and

you. The Supreme Being, or divine Principle and you. Your inclusion as idea is unmistakable.

I now quote: “Existence, separate from divinity, Science explains as impossible” (Science

and Health, p. 522). I well remember a story told to me by Mrs. Laura Sargent. Walking in the

garden with Mrs. Sargent, Mrs. Eddy was admiring the flowers and remarked to the gardener

what beautiful flowers he had grown, to which he replied, “But I have not grown them, Mother.

Divine Mind has done that.” Mrs. Eddy’s reply was, “I never separated you.”

All the discord that claims to exist is traceable to duality. In the world of today much is

heard of frustration, whereas in the higher range of infinite goodness, where all that ever happens

is the activity of God, there is no threat to your certainty of fulfillment and happy satisfaction.

Because God is omniactive, we are certain of all that is right.

In this connection I quote from the Bible:

. . . yea, I have spoken it, I will also bring it to pass; I have purposed it, I will also do it.

(Isaiah 46:11)

. . . it shall come to pass, and I will do it; I will not go back. . .

(Ezekiel 24:14)

. . . he doeth according to his will . . .

(Daniel 4:35)

. . . he hath made a decree which shall not pass. . .

(Psalm 148:6)

. . . I will do all my pleasure . . .

(Isaiah 46:10)

. . . the Lord of hosts hath purposed, and who shall disannul it? and his hand is stretched

out, and who shall turn it back?

(Isaiah 14:27)

. . . he is in one mind, and who can turn him? and what his soul desireth, even that he

doeth.

(Job 23:13)

Conversely, we have the comforting assurance:

Who is he that saith, and it cometh to pass, when the Lord commandeth it not?

(Lamentations 3:37)

All that is divinely right happens and cannot be delayed, obscured or reversed.

Your name written in heaven is the evidence of limitless good in full evidence. We will

now assess the implications of your name written in heaven; your Life lived in the Father’s

house; your thought and action in the higher range of infinite goodness. In this connection I

quote Miscellaneous Writings (p. 196):

The sweet, sacred sense and permanence of man’s unity with his Maker, in Science,

illumines our present existence with the ever-presence and power of God, good.

Let us review the practical blessings resulting from man’s unity with his Maker. In the

Father’s house the maximum of good is divinely natural. It is the only state existing. Life retains

its every divine quality and condition. Health, joy, wisdom, beauty, intelligence are sustained

eternally. The permanent perfection of all faculties is an established fact.

The ignorant assessment of man as mortal, with sight, hearing and action separate from

the divine,—long sight, short sight, keen hearing and not so keen,—all this never enters the

Father’s house.

Mind alone possesses all faculties, perception, and comprehension.


. . . there is no matter to cope with.


The wonder of the name, or nature, written in heaven is beyond all words, but the one and

only I, the I of your being, perpetually feels it. This is the state to which Nehemiah (9:5) refers as

“exalted above all blessing and praise.”

Another practical consequence is the absence of the preposterous belief of age. The

metaphysician never slows his pace, will never bow to the bondage inflicted by mythical beliefs

attributed to accumulated years. Agility, flexibility, elegance are the natural order of immortal

Mind. They are inherent in your being. I quote Science and Health (p. 247): “Immortality,

exempt from age or decay, has a glory of its own . . .” The immortality which you are is a state of

total exemption from the corrosive elements of time. You are “the everlasting grandeur and


In the Father’s house, in the consciousness of the eternal allness of Love, is the

measureless abundance of good. Science and Health (p. 336) states,


There could be no suggestion of limitation, no mention of depleted resources, in the

awareness of overflowing bounty. Our Leader refers to “flood-gates,” “flood-tides,” “the teeming

universe of Mind,” “the infinite ocean of Love.” Mind’s concept is indeed “conception

unconfined,” and this concept is your being. It is God’s ideal, inexhaustible completeness,

“perfect and entire, wanting nothing” (James 1:4).

Now we turn again to page 575 of Science and Health. Referring to the weddedness of

Love to its own spiritual idea, our Leader writes, “Then cometh the marriage feast, for this

revelation [the revelation of man’s oneness with God] will destroy forever the physical plagues

imposed by material sense.” Physical plagues are destroyed forever. You can never be sick! Your

inseparability from God means the utter end of all suffering.

God and man wedded! I quote Miscellany, p. 268, and Science and Health, p. 575:

What God hath joined together, man cannot sunder.

Then cometh the marriage feast . . .

The water is changed into wine: that is, in place of the dullness, monotony, parsimony,

drabness, futility and bleakness of existence separate from God, our Life is revealed as bliss,

wholeness, even as the sum-total of harmony in every one of its aspects. All parched and

desolate sense is lost in the spontaneity and immediacy of Life’s divine self-experience. Love’s

way of Life, aglow with infinite tenderness and warmth, is the enjoyment of reality unending.

Within this oneness of Being is the joy that wells up forever, and which appears to us, as

expressed by the Psalmist (126:2), as a “mouth filled with laughter.” Happiness is our natural

state.

The Revelator beheld the oneness of Being. Of the holy city he wrote (Revelation 21:21):

And the twelve gates were twelve pearls; every several gate was of one pearl . . .

One pearl! The pearl of oneness! The pearl of great price,— the most priceless pearl of

all! Oneness is the key to the kingdom within. Twelve symbolises completeness. By this

symbolism St. John indicates the all-inclusive nature, the fulness, of the one Life in which man is

forever embraced. Oneness is the divine guarantee of infinite goodness as our permanent

condition.

Our Leader says (Science and Health, p. 577):

Its gates open towards light and glory both within and without, for all is good, and

nothing can enter that city, which “defileth, . . . or maketh a lie.”

Light and glory within and without! Light and glory everywhere in “the higher range of

infinite goodness”! Oneness reveals your freedom to walk at will, unshod, for everywhere is holy

ground. Within divine Mind’s concept of its own glorious infinite Being, the mortal sense of life,

the mortal sense of mind, action and substance has no place. All is radiant loveliness,—the very

acme of perfection with no alternative. Within this sacred sense of Life all the elements of

everlasting happiness and health are consistently and everlastingly your natural state.

In such certainty of Love’s security, fear, loneliness, pain, doubt have never been felt.

Any suggestion of suffering is unknown. This is the Life inseparable from God, of which the

Revelator wrote (21:1, 4):

And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were

passed away . . . and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there

be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.

What are the former things that are passed away? They are all the conditions comprised

in the misconception of a life believing itself to be separate from God,—the life of sorrow, pain,

separation, tribulation, distress. That which is passed away is the life that was “athirst in the

desert,” “walking wearily,” “a weary searcher for a viewless home,” “revolving in an orbit of its

own”! This pathetic sense of existence has given place to the oneness of Being, to the Life of

God and you. All things are become new. The cruel evidence of mortal so-called life, with its

dark ebbing and flowing tides of fear, is nowhere to be found. Duality is gone!

Soul-existence is the only existence. There is no Life but God. There is no Mind but God.

There is no existence separate from God. Yes, the afflictive, cruel misconception of a life

separate from God is passed away.

Then what remains? The I am All, which antedated Abraham, remains. The Being that

cannot be divided into beings; the Holy One; the Adorable One; the One altogether lovely, in

which you are indissolubly included, remains. Your name written in heaven remains. The I of

your Being, which is forever with the Father, remains. All that constitutes the higher range of

infinite goodness remains. Our Leader writes in Science and Health (p. 514):

. . .nothing exists beyond the range of all-inclusive infinity, in which and of which God is

the sole creator.

Yes, God including His concept of Himself, inseparable from Himself, your glorious

being, remains intact forever.

In conclusion, we cherish the bugle-call of healing which has summoned us to greater

heights and greater works,—the bugle-call which awakens us to the recognition that the health,

majesty, glory, beauty and wholeness of divine Life are man’s inherent state.

The Nature of the Infinite

The nature of God and man—the Ego—is blissful reality. It is harmonious beyond any

human concept of harmony. The divine nature is essentially perfection itself. The infinite One

reflects Himself as yourself in every detail of His own being, and thus you experience fully and

directly all that is true about everything.

God is eternality, ever-living, ever-loving, ever-being. He is everpresent allness. Allness

spontaneously perpetuates itself by the very reason of its infinite nature. Everything within

infinite, divine oneness is truly indestructible. Hence the permanent nature of all that constitutes

your complete well-being. Divinity, by its nature, forever perpetuates its own

characteristics—your characteristics.

In order to be infinite, infinity must be forever unfolding, and this is the forever unfolding

of your abundance, your peace, your harmony, your joy, your all. The infinite One in its glorious,

infinite nature goes on being infinite, as everyone’s infinite health, infinite joy, infinite action,

infinite abundance, infinite vision and perception. All its characteristics and potentialities are

one. It means that each one has his activity, his abundant good, his home, his friends, his health,

infinitely. They can never be less than infinite.

All that the infinite One is expressing, or revealing, of Himself is ours today in all its

glorious, original nature. Nothing can make us believe that we are something foreign to, or less

than, the fulness of our divine nature. All that is the nature of the Infinite—even Mind’s “infinite

self-containment” (Science and Health, p. 519)—is our very own being, forever unfolding, in all

its loveliness, spontaneity, freshness, newness.

Everything that is truly worthwhile has its source in God, the source that never fails.

Hence all the qualities of God are present in infinite measure as your “stature of the fulness of

Christ” (Ephesians 4:13). Because they are of God, all your qualities are lasting, impersonal,

everpresent, wholly spiritual. They constitute the complete man of God and are evidenced in the

world today as grand, noble-minded men and women.

In her Message for 1901 (p. 5) our Leader says: “. . . the nature of God must be seen in

man, who is His eternal image and likeness.” In knowing the nature of God, you find your own

nature. You find your true, real, only self as the Son of God—the pure manifestation of God.

You find your health and strength, your spiritual integrity. You find your innate tenderness, your

gladness, your peace, your infinite bounty. In knowing your true nature, you forsake adequacy

for abundance; you forsake mediocrity for perfection. You experience the spontaneity of Love,

the resiliency of Spirit, the intelligence and power of Mind, the bliss of Soul. The “range of

all-inclusive infinity” (Science and Health, p. 514) is the range of your infinite being. The

understanding that God is allness, and therefore all there is to us, accounts for the spontaneous

self-perpetuity of the joy, the harmony, the freedom, all evident in their fulness as our own

selfhood.

Christian Science defines the nature of God in seven synonymous terms: “Principle;

Mind; Soul; Spirit; Life; Truth; Love” (Science and Health, p. 587). Man is the glorious

experience of all that is included within these seven aspects of God. Sometimes the mistake has

been made of distorting the use of the synonyms by reducing their application to a formula or

system. This must never be done.

Soul

Here is what our Leader has to say about Soul:

Soul is the heritage of man—the only truth-giver to man. It gives dominion and upholds

man’s individuality. It confers freedom. Soul explains the phenomena of improvisation and the

fervor of untutored lips. Soul is never without its representative. It confers everlasting happiness;

it governs man harmoniously. It has infinite resources with which to bless mankind. It is the

health of one’s countenance. Soul is identity in all its perfection.

Soul is sinless, blameless. It is moral freedom. Soul is the central Life and intelligence; it

is sustenance. Soul is incorporeal. It controls the body. It is consciousness that is wholly

spiritual. Soul is indivisibility; it is singular and cannot be rendered in the plural.

Soul is beauty, loveliness, bliss, rhythm, music. It is the recipe for beauty. It is

immaculate being, radiance, sublimity, serenity, grandeur, glory.

Soul is spiritual Life. It is our master. It is supreme, the only true consciousness. It is

dignified; it informs. It is harmony and activity; it unfolds Life as immortality. Heaven is the

atmosphere of Soul. Soul is completeness, satisfaction. It is affluence, fulfillment, joy,

equanimity, quickness, reality. Soul is noble. It is perfect affection, painlessness, abundance.

Soul is infinite.

Soul is all-acting, all-wise; it is the spiritual sense of being. Soul rebukes material sense.

It resolves the dark visions of material sense into harmony and immortality. It reveals the

existence of good, and is right intuition. Soul prevails over material sense through harmony and

immortality. Soul is innocent of any coming or going; hence it is omnipresence.

Soul is unchanging, constant, eternal, immortal—the only real substance. It is always

right. It knows no parting, no pain. It is imperishable. It is perpetuity, reality, the recognition of

infinite perfection.

You are Soul’s full awareness and full experience. Let us see exactly what this means.

You are the awareness of every quality of Soul, and you experience every quality and activity of

Soul as your own being.

Soul is divine completeness, peace, beauty, loveliness. Soul reveals its own divine

completeness as the beauty and loveliness of your being. To be the experience of Soul is to feel

the peace, the happiness, the harmony which you divinely are. it is to enjoy without limit all that

is beautiful, delightful, loveable. It is to experience without interruption the joy that never fades,

and which has no taint of earth.

Soul is radiance. So your experience can never be dull, monotonous or drab. It is

brilliancy, effulgence, brightness and splendour.

Soul is satisfaction and freedom. Yours is a state of sweet content and permanent joy—a

state of spiritual ease, independence, release.

Soul is rhythm. This rhythm is evident as the symmetry of your being—your perfect

sense of balance, congruity, proportion.

Soul is substantial. For this reason everything in your experience is real, true, divinely

important.

Soul is dignified. All that is included within your experience is distinctive, noble,

excellent. You include grace and loftiness. Your being is exalted, stately.

Soul is grandeur. You are Soul’s experience of its own greatness—greatness of degree

and greatness of power, position, character, appearance. You are Soul’s experience of its own

magnificence, stateliness, sublimity, majesty.

Soul is noble. For this reason, you have excellence of Mind and character. You are

honourable, great, exalted, eminent, renowned, sublime, magnanimous.

Soul is affluence. Hence your abundant supply of all good; your plenitude; your real

riches; your constant wholeness, with not one element lacking.

Soul is sustenance. As Soul’s experience, you are maintained and supported bountifully

and abundantly. Your provision is plenteous. Your means of living are not only adequate but

overflowing.

Soul is legitimate affection. As Soul’s experience, you have always the feeling of

tenderness, kindness, good-will, and love.

Soul is immaculate. Thus you are without flaw or fault.

Soul is happiness, joy and bliss. The highest sense of happiness, rapture, blessedness,

felicity, prosperity is your natural status. Your experience is the most blissful state possible. It is

the constant feeling of divine rapture and gladness.

Soul is equanimity, equipoise. This accounts for your perfectly balanced, equable

nature—your composure and equilibrium.

Soul is quietness. This accounts for your happy feeling of immutable tranquility, peace,

security. It is the reason for your freedom from disturbance and your invariable calmness.

Soul is the ultimate and predicate of being. Soul is the declaration, affirmation, of its own

qualities, properties and attributes—all glorious and perpetual, all evident as your own being.

Soul’s announcement of your perfection is absolutely conclusive and permits of no further

analysis.

Soul is the master and is triumphant. You experience Soul’s full and victorious command

of any situation—Soul’s full control and complete authority and success.

Soul is health. Hence your continuous well-being—your soundness, your permanent

wholeness.

Soul is the substance of all art, music, colour. In recognition of the beauty and loveliness

of Soul, we experience beauty and loveliness hitherto unknown. We experience beauty in its

infinite variety and fadeless perfection.

Regarding ourselves from the standpoint of Soul instead of personal sense, we do not live

as persons trying to demonstrate something of the nature of Soul; we live the beautiful, we live

the infinite, we live the joyful, the forever harmonious. We live the radiance, the completeness,

which we are. In the soaring heights of true Being, we experience the activity of Soul—the

rarefaction, the satisfaction, the grandeur and sublimity of our own true being.

Spirit

From our Leader’s works come these statements on Spirit:

Spirit is independent of matter. It is substantial, supersensible. It is the life-giving quality

of Mind and is spiritual consciousness alone. It is tangible. It is defiant of matter or error. It

proves material law to be valueless and causes false views to perish. It shuts out sinful sense and

lets in Truth and Love. It silences a finite, mortal sense of things, breaks the dream of material

sense, and disperses the mists of matter. It made all that was made, and thus it extinguishes

forever the works of darkness. It strips matter of all claims, abilities and disabilities, pains or

pleasure, and explains matter away.

Spirit is without beginning and without end. It is without an element of self-destruction. It

is immortal, eternal—the same yesterday, and today, and forever. Spirit is immortality brought to

light. It is unchanging, and it neither advances, retreats, nor halts. It gives Life, without

beginning and without end. It is glory and permanence.

Spirit and its formations are the only realities of being and are imperishable. Spirit is

all-presence and strength. It is the creator, the great architect; it is causation. Spirit is the realm of

the real. It is the beauty of holiness, the perfection of being. It includes all identities as distinct

and eternal. It diversifies, classifies, individualizes, names, and blesses all. It dwells in its own

infinite light and infinite harmony. Spirit gathers unformed thoughts into their proper channels

and unfolds these thoughts. It holds the earth in its orbit; it sends forth its own harmonious

likeness.

Spirit is light—immortal Truth; it is the Life of all things, the substance of all things, the

continuity of all things. It is majestic; it is all harmony; the one and only I, the I am that I am the

primitive and ultimate source of being. It is natural and positive, perfect, the source of all supply,

the richness of grace. Spirit is the light of the city. It is immutable law, the ultimate and predicate

of being. It is all might, individuality, omnipresence, the heavenly atmosphere, the kingdom of

heaven. It is impregnable. It never dreams, but understands all things; never errs; never believes,

but knows. It has infinite ability. It signifies Deity and nothing else. It gives all and reflects only

good. Spirit is moral, spiritual might. It sustains all being, possesses all power, and unites

understanding to eternal harmony. Spirit comprehends all and expresses all. It evolves Life and

brings forth ideas.

Spirit is your model. It is the preserver of man. It makes the body harmonious and washes

it of the impurities of flesh. It makes man superior to the soil—never causes him to till the

ground. Spirit heals the sick, comforts the sorrowing, reforms the sinner, constitutes and governs

man. Spirit feeds and clothes, and tenderly expresses the fatherhood and motherhood of God. It

confers enlarged individuality, a widLer sphere of thought and action, a more expansive love, a

higher and more permanent peace. Spirit transforms and renews. It imparts tenderness; it

supplies all forms of comeliness and grace. It destroys physiology and is harmonious action. It

overcomes the flesh, it forms you anew, brings you into newness of life. It makes one’s robes

white, controls the body, bestows spiritual gifts, and bears witness that man is the Son of God. It

gives liberty, shelters from storm and tempest, and makes the heart tender, faithful, and true. It

transforms and illumines all. It makes pure, subdues the false sense of generation, and subdues

human will.

What bearing has all of this upon your everyday life? You are Spirit’s full awareness and

full experience. Let us see exactly what this means. You are the awareness of every quality of

Spirit, and you experience every quality and activity of Spirit as your own being.

Spirit is imperishable. Because you are Spirit’s self-experience, your health, your joy,

your sight, your hearing, your abundance are permanent and indestructible in all their fulness.

Spirit is glory. On this account you live at the height of prosperity. Your being is a state

of divine splendour, excellence and radiant beauty—the full manifestation of the divine nature.

Spirit is majestic. All that is regal, magnificent, noble, grand, sublime is your natural

experience.

Spirit is grace. You are the experience of Spirit’s attractiveness and tasteful harmony.

The charms of congruity, beauty, and comeliness are your innate characteristics.

Spirit has sovereign power and might. You are the experience of the supreme power of

Spirit, which means that no other power can operate as your experience. The efficacy, virtue,

ability and capacity of Spirit are forever evident as your own being.

Spirit is tangible and natural. All the glorious, immutable qualities of Spirit constitute

your character and experience. They are your natural instincts and feelings.

Spirit is tenderness. You are the continuous experience of the gentleness of Spirit, its love

and affection, its kind, careful, considerate nature. This means that harshness, severity, or

exaction is never you or your experience.

Spirit is impregnable. For this reason your joy, your harmony, can never be subdued.

Spirit is independent. You are Spirit’s awareness and experience of harmony, abundance,

joy and freedom, never contingent on any material condition or on any person. You experience

the certainty, the continuity and natural ever-presence of the fulness of good, despite any change

of circumstance or any material condition.

Spirit is supernal freshness and fairness. Because of this fact, your original qualities are

unimpaired, showing no sign of being faded, tarnished, worn, exhausted, or fatigued. You are a

state of briskness, vigour, alacrity—the continuity of heavenly perfection, beauty, and grace.

Spirit preserves and shelters. Hence your perpetual preservation from injury, destruction,

hurt or harm of any kind; your natural and continuous awareness of the restful feeling of safety,

well-being, security; and your freedom from annoyance.

Spirit is unerring. Your experience is entirely free from any mistake or deviation. You

can never be wronged.

Spirit evolves. Man’s capabilities are fully developed.

Spirit is natural everpresence, never localised. The universe of Spirit is so vast that it

cannot be measured; yet it is all here as everpresence, all here as your own infinite

all-inclusiveness. Where space seems to be, right there is Spirit; hence there is no space. What

would otherwise be space is filled with solid Spirit. This accounts for your safety when flying.

You cannot fall through space—there is none!

Spirit is the source of supply. Substance is ours, but not through material means. When

we realise that Spirit is the infinite source of all substance, then we have the fulness of substance

here and now, and thus are free from the mortal suggestion that substance is material and limited.

The material sense of existence is the source of all lack, but substance is spiritual, infinite,

limitless, present in its measureless nature as your own experience.

Spirit disposes of all the restrictive claims attached to what is known as human

experience and human environment. It frees from the turmoil of a material world and the strain

of trying to improve it, thus permitting one to enjoy his real universe—the realm of Spirit—in all

its glory.

Freedom from the material and limited sense of existence reveals your bounty, your

peace, your happiness. The substantiality of Spirit is infinite. The bounty of Spirit is forever

evident in all its processless nature, as your limitless being. The nature of Spirit is spontaneous

immediacy, free from process. Spirit is the permanence of all that is good, never open to

destruction or disintegration. Thus we show forth the continuous fulness, the newness and

freshness, of our being without any sense of age. We show forth unalterable wholeness,

harmony, painlessness.

You are not a mortal trying to demonstrate a little more of the nature of Spirit. The living

presence of Spirit, subjectively experienced, is the presence of infinite joy, infinite harmony,

infinite abundance, infinite glory and understanding, evident forever in all their inexhaustible

permanence as your own inevitable and natural experience.

Principle

The following statements are gathered from our Leader’s works:

Principle is one. It is the one I or Ego. It is incorporeal, immortal, natural and perfect. It

comprehends and expresses all. For this Principle there is no dynasty, no ecclesiastical

monopoly. It is intelligence; it is the life of man. It is I am. It is divine substance; it is always

right. Principle is “God with us.”

The divine Principle of all expresses Science and art throughout His creation. Principle is

the only term that fully conveys the ideas of God. Principle is ever-present Life; it is deathless.

Principle permits no half-way position. Everything starts from Principle.

The infinite, governing Principle is creative. Principle governs all that is real; it creates

and governs man. Divine Principle interprets the universe and man. It is the source and origin of

all.

Principle is absolute perfection, imperative, unchanging, unerring. It is accurate. It is

immutable; it never repents; it remains perfect. It is supreme.

Principle is exact in nature. Principle is law. Principle is Love and demonstrates Love.

Divine Principle produces all. It sustains and is ever-operative. Government by divine Principle

is heaven. It governs the universe. It is fixed. Principle is divine, fundamental.

Principle and its idea constitute spiritual harmony— heaven and eternity. This divine

Principle of harmony is ever with men. It carries on its own harmony, and it is harmonious action

and freedom. Principle moves all inperfect harmony.

Principle and its idea is one. It is indivisible— omnipotence, omniscience, omnipresence;

it is noumenon and phenomena. Principle is total good; it is the Principle of heavenly harmony.

Principle is demonstrable. It is the Redeemer. Principle works out the ends of eternal

good and destroys both faith in evil and the practice of evil. Divine Principle, Love, destroys all

error and triumphs over death. It brings out all harmony, works wonders, and brings immortality

to light. Divine Principle demonstrates Christian Science.

Principle is curative. It heals the sick, casts out error. It makes whole the diseased; it

cures both sin and sickness. Before the operation of this Principle, sin and disease lose their

reality. Principle reverses the testimony of the material senses and reveals man as harmoniously

existent in Truth. Principle reforms the sinner. Principle kills the dragon. Principle is the Father

and Mother of the universe. Principle is absolute, imperative, final. It is a living Principle, which

produces harmony and saves. Man never existed without this perfect Principle. It is glorious,

holy, immortal.

What bearing has all of this upon your everyday life? You are divine Principle’s full

awareness and full experience. Let us see exactly what this means. You are the awareness of

every quality of divine Principle, and you experience every quality and activity of divine

Principle as your own being.

Principle is the basis of all true being. It is the source and origin of all. Principle is the

very foundation of all that you divinely are—an immovable, fixed foundation. Hence your

unalterable perfection is maintained and sustained in strict conformity with the one primal Cause.

Whatever is not in strict accordance with the divine nature is precluded forever from your

experience.

Principle is unbreakable law. The law of divine Principle operates to the exclusion of all

else. It excludes all so-called physical laws, laws of nature, of heredity. Whatever appears as

deviating from the law of God is a perversion of the only law. Governed by divine Principle,

your entire universe is flawlessly regulated without interruption, lapse or cessation.

Principle is imperative, absolute, final. You cannot avoid or evade the perfect harmony

and security produced by Principle. Such harmony is compulsory, obligatory, positive and

inevitable. It is already and forever your being.

Principle is divine justice. Principle fulfills its own justice and integrity, and thereby

causes you to experience its rectitude, rightness, fairness, impartiality.

Principle is Love. Principle experiences forever its own clemency, kindness, gentleness,

charitableness, good-will and tenderness. Of such is your experience. Principle is absolute,

permitting no half-way measure. Your experience is therefore unmixed and is complete in its

own divine character. It is free from imperfection. It is independent, certain, positive.

Principle is the interpreter. In the correct interpretation of Being, you find the nature of

yourself as the true idea—the operation of divine Principle—not as a person making use of the

operation of divine Principle. The infinite, perfect, immaculate nature of Principle is your nature.

Principle is unswerving, fixed. The certainty and permanency of your absolute perfection

exist in the fact that Principle departs not one degree from its harmony-producing,

harmony-maintaining role. Principle observes strict fidelity and constant adherence to itself.

Principle is undeviating and is exact. You can never be deflected. You can never digress

from the security, wholeness, harmony of your being. You experience the permanent safety

resulting from the flawless accuracy of Principle. The carefulness and correctness of divine

Principle insure your freedom from any mistakes.

Principle is integrity. Principle experiencing itself constitutes your undivided wholeness,

your unmarred state.

Principle is never cold, distant, hard, stern or harsh. Principle indicates warmth,

tenderness, and is ever available. The very exact and undeviating nature of Principle is Love

itself—the Love which will permit no hurt or harm. Principle keeps everything strictly in

accordance with its own unerring sense of right, and controls all with absolute precision; it keeps

all so undeviatingly perfect that your life is immune to any mishap. You experience safety,

security, flawless precision— not because of any human ability but because of the unerring,

intelligent, infallible divine Principle. Principle works wonders, and you experience the wonders

it works. You are not a person trying to demonstrate divine Principle. You are the direct

operation—the grand and permanent experience—of divine Principle itself.

Mind

These statements are drawn from our Leader’s writings:

There is one Mind. Man has no Mind but God. Man is the experience of all that Mind is

and does. Mind is fetterless, ever active, limitless. Mind is omnipresence, omnipotence,

omniscience. It is intelligence, immortality, causation. It is complete, all-hearing, all-seeing,

all-knowing, all-feeling. It is infinite, glorious, honorable, supreme, holy—first chronologically,

potentially, and eternally. Mind is medicine, infinite individuality, noumenon and phenomena. It

is the author of all things, the source of all movement, the only action, perpetual motion, the

source and condition of all existence—joyous in strength and infinite in its capacities. Mind is

the multiplier and the builder, and is its own interpreter. It is unerring, incorporeal, self-existent

perfection, ever conscious, real, and supreme.

Mind is the master of the corporeal senses. It is the law of God, the only healer, the only

remedy, the antidote to error, the natural stimulus, the master of the body. Mind is wisdom,

immortal good, without beginning or end. It is adhesion, cohesion, and attraction. It is

changeless, restful, inexhaustible, ever available, absolute and entire. It is salutary and potent. It

is exempt from change or diminution; its power is displayed and its presence felt in eternal

stillness and immovable Love. It renders the perversion of its power impossible and dispels false

sense; it has power over and above matter in every mode and form; it corrects, and it gives out an

atmosphere that heals and saves, it reconstructs the body and proves the powerlessness of matter;

it transcends the evidence of the material senses; it divides, subdivides, increases, diminishes,

constitutes and sustains; it gives all volition and impulse. It destroys the mental error made

manifest physically and establishes the opposite manifestation of Truth upon the body in

harmony and health.

Mind destroys the errors of mortal sense and supplies the truth of immortal sense; it

wards off disease, gives strength instead of weakness, creates and governs all from the mental

molecule to infinity, sends forth perfection, circulates; it possesses all faculties, perception, and

comprehension, and reflects its own limitless idea. It has infinite expression; it holds man forever

in the rhythmic round of unfolding bliss, and exhales a spiritual atmosphere; it testifies truly,

controls, creates beauty, sustains man, bestows grand capacities, heals what eye hath not seen,

and makes void the conjectural and speculative law of mortal mind; it feeds the body with

supernal freshness and fairness and supplies it with beautiful images of thought; it makes its own

record and conquers sin, disease, and death.

Mind gives light. It made the plant of the field before it was in the earth; it manifests all

that exists in the infinitude of Truth; it measures time according to the good that is unfolded; it

gives man faith and understanding whereby to defend himself, not only from temptation but from

bodily suffering. Mind governs the entire universe; supplies all form, color, quality, quantity, and

comeliness; rules out intruding pain, prevents the development of pain; walks over the waves of

error and ignores space. It perpetuates harmony and immortality, evolves ideas, promotes all

growth, destroys the errors of mortal sense, supplies the truths of immortal sense, and guides

man. It conquers fatigue, handles serpents unharmed, casts out devils, regulates, disposes of all

evil, sustains the earth’s motion and position, transcends all other power, and supports the

sublimity, magnitude, and infinitude of spiritual creation. Mind understands, saves from belief in

plagues, possesses of itself all beauty and poetry and the power of expressing them, outweighs

drugs in the cure of disease, assigns sure rewards to righteousness, supports the world, gives all,

and forms man as perfect as itself.

Mind has the real jurisdiction of the world, renders the body well, recuperates, forms the

bud and blossom, and maintains all identities from a blade of grass to a star as distinct and

eternal. It imparts eloquence, expresses all truth, governs every function of the real man,

maintains its own image and likeness, heals prenatal deformities, ends human bondage and

makes perfect. It leads the human mind to relinquish all error, gives accurate views, destroys the

false belief of pleasures, pain or fear, and removes all obstacles; casts out self-seeking, envy,

passion, pride, hatred and revenge.

What bearing has all of this upon your everyday life? You are divine Mind’s full


every quality of divine Mind, and you experience every quality and activity of divine Mind as

your own being.

Mind is awareness, intelligence, perspicacity, wisdom. Hence your quick understanding,

your clarity of thought and expression; your acuteness of mental vision; your clear-sightedness,

your translucent nature, free from ambiguity and opacity.

Mind is understanding. Hence your freedom from the malicious suggestion that you are

not sufficiently advanced to acknowledge and to experience the allness of good, or to enjoy the

natural unfoldment of the fulness of good as your very being.

Mind is permanence, timeless Being, agelessness, immortality. Incidental to this is your

abiding, everlasting, inextinguishable well-being; your constancy and stability; your fully

sustained vigour, vitality, energy—never deviating, never diminishing. “I am getting old” is an

incorrect identification and false evaluation that is ruled out by Mind.

Mind is brightness, freshness, spontaneity, buoyancy. This accounts for your

cheerfulness, with no sense of depression. It accounts for the fulness of your radiancy and glow,

your joyous activity, briskness, promptitude and alacrity. It means that you are unimpaired,

vivacious, light-hearted, full of life.

Mind is dominion, majesty, might. This appears as your sovereign power, your dignity,

grandeur, regal stateliness, ability, capacity, efficacy. The perversion of dominion is domination,

from which you are perpetually free by virtue of your divine dominion.

Mind is perfection, wholeness. You are complete, whole, sound. You have every divine

property and quality naturally belonging to you—nothing wanting. You are healthy, well,

uninjured, integral, entirely intact, without defect.

Mind is the grand creator. This accounts for your utter freedom from heredity, from

family traits, mortal tendencies and mortal characteristics.

Mind is freedom. Hence you enjoy immunity from pain and disease, immunity from

discord of every nature. You are subject only to God. You are the enjoyment of spiritual

independence, subject to no personal obligation. Your action is unrestricted, unimpeded,

unhampered, unfettered, free from restraint. You have infinite scope.

Mind is divine experience. Your divine experience is your divine feeling—the feeling of

holiness, harmony, peace, the feeling of constant happiness and gladness, without a material

reason—happiness and gladness dissociated entirely from human events.

Mind is omnipresence. Hence the presence of all good is your continuous experience. The

everpresence of all that is dlivine precludes any possibility of the absence of anything that would

bless.

Your Mind is infinite. Your capacity is unlimited; your knowledge is boundless. You are

subject to no external determination. Your Mind is immeasurably great, all-embracing,

unlimited. Divine Mind’s infinite knowing constitutes your glorious being.

Mind is All-in-all and supreme. Hence your experience of Mind’s allness and

unsurpassable power; your experience of the naturalness of harmony; your perfection, which can

never be overruled.

Mind is all knowledge. Hence your clear perception of truth, your enlightenment, your

wisdom, your discernment, your limitless intelligence.

Mind manifests all and is the only evidence. The evidence of Mind is man. You are

Mind’s proof of its own immutable perfection—Mind’s expression and experience of unoptional

wholeness.

Mind is sublimity and unity. This is evidenced in the concord and harmony of your noble

character. You are Mind’s grandeur, excellence, magnificence, invariableness and constancy.

Mind is omnipotence, sufficiency, all-inclusiveness. Hence your unlimited ability,

capacity and competence, and your spiritual independence.

Mind is reality and is unerring. Your Mind is undeviatingly accurate, infallible,

permanent, incapable of any mistakes. Mind is unlaboured energy. This accounts for your fully

sustained vigour and for your freedom from fatigue, freedom from overwork and from depletion,

freedom from lethargy and from ponderosity.

Mind is individuality. Thus you are free from the enslaving features of personality—free

from the depleting machinations of material sense.

Mind is medicine. Mind can take cognisance only of its own infinite, perfect, and

immaculate nature. Mind perpetuates its own nature as your wholeness and harmony, thereby

precluding any sense of sickness and suffering.

Mind is restful. Mind experiencing its restful nature appears as your experience of

quietude, confidence and stillness, free from weariness, toil, trouble and disturbance.

Mind is Allness. Hence evil’s total nothingness, and your freedom from temptation. Mind

unfolds its own infinite nature as the only-ness of Being, thus precluding all mortal sense.

Mind controls. Mind’s divine self-control means that every detail of your experience is

divinely regulated, divinely directed, divinely right.

Accidents are unknown to Mind. Therefore they can never become your experience.

Divine Mind’s glorious experience of itself is the only experience we are. In this

understanding we find ourselves the direct inevitableness of the perfection of this Mind. Instead

of permitting mortal mind, devoid of spiritual feeling, to think for us as struggling

mortals—feeling tired, feeling sick—we, as the exalted function of the one Mind, feel peace, feel

joy, feel freedom and harmony. In the recognition that man is divine Mind’s full awareness and

full experience, we can declare that we have the fulness of understanding. On the basis of

indivisible fulness and allness, we can acknowledge the sum-total of good to be our subjective

experience. Surely, never again can we be tempted to live as a finite, limited mind reaching out

for a little more of the infinite. The infinite in all its vastness, in all its majesty, in all its

naturalness and blessedness is already our being.

Truth

Our Leader says of Truth:

Truth is the consciousness of health, holiness and immortality. It bruises the head of the

serpent, it annihilates all sense of evil and all power to sin, it makes free and reclaims the sinner.

It antidotes material, conflicting, mortal opinions and invigorates and sustains existence. Truth

elevates mankind—redeems the whole human family, transforms human nature and melts and

purifies even the gold of human character. It elevates the human race. Truth uplifts, brightens the

way, rests the weary and heavy-laden, turns sorrow to joy, gives harmony. It reforms, bringing

light instead of darkness. It gives rest and refreshment, invigorates and purifies, feeds the thought

with the bread of Life and brings man’s real existence to light.

Truth demonstrates good. It leads to health, holiness. It makes the system every whit

whole. It makes a new creature, in whom all things are become new. There is no death, no

inaction, diseased action, overaction, or reaction. Truth heals the sick—hence your permanent

health and strength. It subdues the belief in disease and confers harmony. It sends a report of

health over the whole body. Truth brings immunity from sin, disease and death. It opens wide the

prison doors and sets the captive free. It forces impurities to pass away. It utters the divine

verities of being, which deliver mortals out of the depths of ignorance and vice. It reassures

depressed hope. Truth strengthens; it rests us more than hours of repose in unconsciousness. It

breaks the dream of the material senses and prevents the fear of error.

Truth destroys what mortals seem to have learned from error. It tolerates no error in

premise or conclusion. It spares all that is true and destroys only what is untrue. It deprives error

of its imaginary power, and prevails against the dragon. It bruises the head of error. It has but

one reply to all error: “Dust [nothingness] thou art, and unto dust [nothingness] shalt thou

return.”

Truth shines vividly. It is the spiritual lawgiver. It furnishes the key to the kingdom and

unfolds its own immortal idea Truth remains forever intact. It evolves its own unerring idea and

produces calmness. It unfoldeth forever, and attests the solemn splendor of immortal power.

The infinite penetration of Truth extinguishes false thinking and enlightens the

understanding. It perpetuates being, fills immensity and works out the ends of eternal good.

Truth solves the problem of being. Truth quiets fear, turns sorrow to joy; brings light

instantaneously, gives power and strength; gives the consciousness of health, holiness and

immortality; gives proof of itself, unfolds forever, makes free, reclaims the sinner, confers

harmony; is an alterative in the entire system and can make it every whit whole; can tolerate no

error in premise or conclusion, engrounds us on the Rock, happifies life; brings immunity from

sin, disease and death; soars above falsehood, is spontaneity, destroys intemperance and

impurity; delivers from the seeming power of error; awakens man spiritually; compels us all to

exchange the pains and pleasures of sense for the joys of Soul is the sole authority; is

recuperative energy; is final; is clear and powerful, still strong, the open fount, the Principle of

all happiness, harmony, immortality; the healing balm, salvation; the spiritual lawgiver,

ever-present, crowned with endless days; the impersonal Saviour; supreme, applicable to all, the

tonic for the sick, the medicine of Mind; and is demonstrable, eternal.

What bearing has all of this upon your everyday life? You are Truth’s full awareness and

full experience. Let us see exactly what this means. You are the awareness of every quality of

Truth, and you experience every quality and activity of Truth as your own being.

Truth is aware of itself. The self-awareness of Truth is the glory of your being—the glory

that you had with God “before the world was.” It is the natural awareness of all the perfection

that constitutes your true selfhood.

Truth is the victor and prevails. You live as divine dominion, as the continuity of divine

well-being, which precludes all falsities from your experience.

Truth is our refuge and deliverer. Hence your experience of continuous security, safety,

glorious liberty and perpetual preservation.

Truth is affirmative. Truth, being its own joyous selfhood, is all there is to your selfhood.

Truth affirms, declares its own freedom, its own harmony, its own limitless perfection—and this

affirmation is man.

Truth is an alterative and is the healing balm. Truth, forever experiencing its own

wholeness and perfection, precludes from your experience all discordant evidence, all suffering

and pain.

Truth utters itself. Incidental to this utterance of the truth of being is the falling away of

all discord. The active presence and operation of Truth appears to us as healing, regeneration,

restoring that which seems to be lost and pained.

Truth reveals itself. It reveals the crystal clarity of your being. You are Truth’s evidence

and experience of its own light, transparency, serenity, spiritual illumination, lucidity.

Truth is the sovereign panacea, leaven and tonic. You are the fetterless freedom of Truth.

Truth’s experience of its own glorious allness outshines all else, and is thus the corrective and

restorative power, putting an instant and utter end to all disease and suffering.

Truth is our salvation and Saviour. Hence our permanent freedom and preservation from

any sense of destruction, calamity or danger.

Truth is power. This accounts for your ability, capacity, efficiency, efficacy, strength,

vigour, energy.

Truth is justice. Thus you experience only that which is integrity, rectitude, uprightness,

equitableness, fairness and impartiality.

Truth is calm. It is experienced as your freedom from agitation or disturbance. It is your

tranquility, your stillness, your quiet serenity.

Truth is a law of annihilation and an antidote to all that is unlike good. Thus any sense of

discord is reduced to nonexistence; it ceases to be; it is void and of none effect. Inharmony is

never your experience.

Truth soars above falsehood. Hence your sublimity, your exalted consciousness,

precluding all heavy, mortal sense, all faltering sense. Your consciousness is permanent joy,

forever free from depression, free from burden.

Truth is incorruptible. All that is your experience is inflexibly just and upright, incapable

of defilement. Your all-harmonious Being is uninterruptible, changeless. Truth is the actual Life

of man and demonstrates itself as your Life, which is glory, beauty, strength, freedom, bliss.

Truth is forever. It is strong, crowned with endless days, eternal. Your happiness, your

sublimity, all that is meant by the truth of Being, unfolds in endless continuity as your

experience, precluding all sense of discord.

Truth confers harmony and has no consciousness of error. Incidental to this is your

awareness and experience of everpresent good in all its aspects.

Truth expresses itself. Truth constitutes its own self-understanding, self-articulation and

self-expression without deviation or flaw. This accounts for your perfect articulation, your ability

and freedom of expression.

Truth is simple and clear, beyond any human concept of simplicity and clarity. Its

all-inclusiveness constitutes the fulness of your own being, and this precludes any suggestion of

inability to understand Truth. Whatever you wish to prove is already established as the actual

fact of your own being.

Truth “has fulfilled its perfect work.” You are Truth’s completeness and satisfaction.

Imperfection, frustration or unfulfiliment is never your experience. Truth stands for logical

constancy, which never changes or wavers. Truth includes no error. Truth is everpresent,

everywhere, and nowhere is Truth absent. Nothing but Truth is going on, and that is why the

presence of Truth is so potent in the destruction of the lie.

Truth is the actual Life of man, and the nature of Truth is freedom. You are free to be

joyously, naturally spiritual, without the restrictive fetters of a human mind. The certainty of

Truth frees from the fallibilities of human sense testimony, from the insecurity of considering

oneself as a mortal with a material body and a material universe. The mortal way is not your way

of Life. You are not a mortal trying to understand a little more of truth. The actual truth of Being

in all its glorious fulness is your present, natural state. Live as Truth’s selfawareness, Truth’s

self-experience; live the joy, the freedom; live nothing less than the glorious liberty of the Son of

God, which you are!

Life

The following statements on Life come from our Leader’s works:

Eternal Life is the Father; it is man’s eternal Principle. Life is everlasting, changeless,

supernal immortality. It is continuous— I am. It is deathless. Life is consciousness; it is full

representation, abiding, without beginning and end. It is perpetuity—birthless, permanent,

ever-present. It goes on unchanged and makes man undying. It has no partnership with death. It

is the same yesterday, and today, and forever. Life never mingles with sin and death; it is never

for a moment extinct.

Life is divine Mind; it is the creator; it is incorporeal, limitless, self-sustained,

self-existent, self-expressed. It is neither in nor of matter. Life is free from organization and time,

and is the spiritual sense of being. It is inorganic. It is glorious supersensibility. It is not

contingent on bodily conditions, not embryonic. There is no matter in Life and no Life in matter.

Life is not at the mercy of matter, but is independent of it. Death and finiteness are unknown to

Life.

Life enlightens, and it destroys the unrest of mortal thought; it is not functional. Life is

divine, the law of Being. It is God’s statement, evidence and proof of Himself. It is divine

all-inclusiveness, divine sense, divine energy, divine testimony, divine conception. It is the

God-ideal, the indication of Deity, purely spiritual. The only real Life is God. God’s thoughts are

Life, and no Life is Life but the divine. Life cannot be disabled by matter or impaired by mortal

sense. Life is efficacious. It denies death, evil, sin, disease. Sin, sickness, and death yield to Life.

Life is unconfined; it is purity and it controls. Life is the law of man’s being; it is

continuous. Life is the bread which cometh down from heaven; it is light, might, and is

omnipotent.

Life is omnipresent, infinite, supreme. It is irradiance, manifestation, awareness, reality,

inseparability. It is one, ineffable, immeasurable. It is the bridal consciousness, only-ness. It is

the understanding of the perfection of all things. It is withinness, the law of Love. It is resistless;

it is perfect revelation, moral good, infinite knowledge, action, the forever consciousness. Life is

ever appearing. It is the great reality, aloneness. It is the true ideal, the divine Arbiter, and a

complete sphere. Life is the sole reality, the law of being, heaven. It is almighty. Life

demonstrates Life. It is reflected in existence; it is the origin and ultimate of man, and is

all-powerful. It is the reality of divine Science, the creative Principle. It governs all, and cannot

be united to its unlikeness. Life is imperative and complete.

Life is the vast forever; it is universal good. Life reveals spiritual understanding and the

consciousness of man’s dominion over the whole earth. Life is the healer of the sick, a firm

foundation, a rock. Life is newness, freshness, fairness, vigor, vitality, buoyancy, strength, joy,

happiness, fulfillment. It is holiness, health, bounty, consummate naturalness, glorious

sovereignty. Life is harmonious and is not limited. Life is the spontaneity of Love.

What bearing has all of this upon your everyday life? You are divine Life’s full


every quality of divine Life, and you experience every quality and activity of divine Life as your

own being.

Life unfolds itself. You experience Life’s unfolding of its spontaneity and joy. You

experience the continuity of spiritual reality, infinite completeness. Life lives itself, fully, freely;

hence the glorious freedom and fulness of your being.

Life is separate from mortal sense. “Entirely separate from the belief and dream of

material living,” divine Life lives itself. This Life, dissociated from all mortal, material sense, is

evident in all its purity and original perfection as your very being. Life “most sweet” is your

natural state.

Life is universal good. Your life is a state of changeless well-being, prosperity, happiness.

It is benign, bountiful, liberal. This real Life, your Life, is free from the limitations attached to

the human sense of everything—free from the limitations attached to the human sense of joy,

free from the uncertainties attached to the human sense of abundance, the human sense of health,

the human sense of intelligence, the human sense of security.

Life is newness, vitality, vigour, energy, buoyancy. Life experiences its own freshness,

active strength, infinite capacity, inherent power, vivacity, cheerfulness, liveliness, and you are

the inevitable experience of all this.

Life is the whole sphere. You are the experience of Life’s infinite range of action, Life’s

infinite range of knowledge, Life’s infinite range of all true being. Life is the divine ideal. You

experience divine Life’s standard of perfection, beauty and excellence, which excludes every

defect.

Life is the spontaneity of Love. You experience the buoyancy, vigour, and vitality of

divine Life—its boundless, fetterless freedom. You experience the limitless energy, strength and

action of Life. Life lives itself as Love, and this loving aliveness is man.

Life is irradiance. Such brightness and splendour, which you are, could never be drab or

dull.

Life is self-sustained and is self-completeness. Life maintains its original fulness and

original quality, knows no interruption, no diminution. Not one element is lacking. Your Life is

divine entireness. The fulness of your real nature is to be found in the one I am, and never in a

human sense of life.

Life is unconfined. You are the experience of limitless freedom, liberty itself. You are

free from restraint, free from oppression, free from pain, trouble or bondage. Yours is the

freedom which soars aloft—which only freedom knows.

Life is the bridal consciousness. This is your experience, which, according to the

Glossary, “has spiritual bliss and enjoys but cannot suffer” (Science and Health, p. 582).

Life is changeless. Knowing nothing but itself, Life remains its own integral

self—remains the whole of perfection in endless continuity—and is thus the very presence here

and now of your unalterable health, peace, vision, security and abundance in every aspect.

Life is the only, the I am. Because I am, or the allness of good, is forever evident in all its

fulness as your experience, the mistaken, mortal sense of life is entirely precluded and thus has

no entity, no evidence. You have no option but to be the glorious experience of the Life which is

all good and nothing but good.

Life is ineffable. The harmony, the glory, the perfection of your experience transcend

human definitions. Only the eloquence, of Love could describe the beauty, the sublimity, the

wonder of your being.

Life demonstrates Life. Note the capitalization. Boundless, permanent, undiluted good is

your subjective experience. Erroneous suggestion, which believes that Life could manifest itself

as anything inferior to itself, does not in any way relate to you. Discord is never your experience.

You are the experience of all the peace, freedom, joy and harmony of divine Life itself—the very

Life which is God.

The very Life which is God—Life present here and now and always, in all its glorious

newness, freshness, vigour, buoyancy, freedom—is all the Life there is to you. You cannot

escape the health, harmony and happiness of this Life; you cannot escape the sheer bliss of

divine Life’s living. Let us then never again drudge along as mortals, living the restriction and

frustration of mediocrity, trying to demonstrate something of the real. Let your Life be the “. . .

raptured song, / With Love perfumed” (Miscellaneous Writings, p. 396). Let it be the Life “most

sweet” of which our Leader writes. Start out as the divine reality which you are. Start out as

Life’s experience of sheer sublimity—the experience of good in all its undivided fulness, glory

and permanence. Such is the everpresent naturalness of your being.

Love

The following excerpts on Love are from our books:

Love is the Principle of all happiness, harmony and immortality. It propagates the higher

joys of Spirit. It supports the struggling heart and gives happiness and joy. It wipes all tears away

and lifts the shade of gloom—it makes for you radiant room midst the glories of one endless day.

Love binds up the broken-hearted and fills the vacuum of solitude. It gives us everything to

enjoy on earth and in heaven, and makes all burdens light. It rests the weary and heavy-laden,

and more than compensates for every seeming trial. Love rejoices the heart.

Love is practical—it is the sweet assurance of “Peace, be still” to all human fears, to

suffering of every sort. To Love, there is no error, no sin, sickness, and no death. It is the practice

of divine metaphysics and corrects and governs man. Love makes powerless the poisonous viper

and awakens the sick from his suffering. It restores physical fitness. It delivers man from the

fiery furnace and from the jaws of the lion. It opens the dark passages of sin, disease, and death

with Christ’s righteousness. It brings immunity from sin, sickness, and death—it antidotes

mental miasma, and redeems man from the law of matter. It is Love which alone confers the

healing power. Through divine Love, the healing work will be accomplished at one visit. Love is

freedom, unalterable perfection.

Love ministers—it is the way always. It is our refuge, and is divinely near. Love is the

shepherd, which makes us lie down in green pastures and leads us beside the still waters, restores

our spiritual sense and leads us in the paths of righteousness. Love shields from human hatred

and its effects. Love inspires, illumines, designates, and leads the way. It restrains untempered

zeal. It guards the nestling’s faltering flight. It rests the weary and heavy-laden. It blesses and

comforts. It brings back the wanderer to the Father’s house.

Love is triumphant—the universal solvent of error. It is the master of hate and is

possessed of divine energy. Love is the power which no evil can withstand. It casts out fear. It

chastens pride and earth-born fear. It overcomes error in our daily walk and conversation. It

prevails against and kills the dragon. It pardons through reformation. It gives the true sense of

victory. It quenches the pride of life. It destroys all sense of eviL It destroys the lie which says

there is something besides God.

Love is the origin, substance, and life of man. It alone governs man. It is the divine

nature. Love is reflected in love. It is the Principle of Christ. It keeps man unspotted from the

world. It reigns in the real man and shows that God’s image is unfallen and eternal. It reinstates

man in God’s image and likeness. It cannot be deprived of its manifestation or object.

Love is permanent and fundamental. It is the basis of all right thinking and acting. It is

the all of good; it is universal. It is the ever-operative divine Principle, inseparable from Life, the

only jurisdiction. It is motive-power—the mighty actuality of good. It is supreme in its

government. Love sends forth her primal and everlasting strain. Love holds control over alL It

gives nothing that can be taken away. It works out the ends of eternal good. It overlies, underlies,

and encompasses all true being.

Love is the true substance of immortal Mind; it is a foretaste of eternity. It awakens from

the mortal dream, or illusion. It furnishes the vision of the Apocalypse. It shows the way of Life,

marks the hour of harmony. It sustains harmonious evidence and illumines the dark way of

mortal sense. Love forms the perfect concept.

Love is ever-present. It is man’s eternal mansion. It gives peace and purity. It gives to the

least spiritual idea might, immortality, and goodness. It creates trust in good, and promotes

success. It finds all things possible. It has full efficacy to conciliate. It regenerates the affections

and blesses its own ideas. It supplies all good to man in every hour. It meets every human need.

It includes and imparts all bliss. It holds man in endless Life, and in one eternal round of

harmonious being. It gives the peace which passeth all understanding. Love feeds, and it

prepareth a table in the wilderness. It is equal to the greatest emergency. It enables one to enjoy

the full scale of being—to partake of the bread of heaven and to drink of the cup of salvation. It

is an ever-present help and gives power to act. It gives strength to human weakness.

Love is beauty, and bathes all in beauty and light. It paints the petal with myriad hues,

glances in the warm sunbeam, arches the cloud with the bow of beauty, blazons the night with

starry gems, and covers earth with loveliness. It blesses the earth and gives the earth for man.

Love never loses sight of loveliness. Love bears the fruits of Spirit.

Love is wise, unchanging, illimitable, ever-present. It is the same yesterday, and today,

and forever. It is impartial, intelligent, faithful, boundless, immovable, unquenchable. It is

charity, it is heaven’s signet, without dissimulation. It is unselfish, unambitious. Love is shown

in brotherliness, charitableness, and forgiveness. It is ineffability. It is eloquent; it fills

immensity. It holds its substance safe in the certainty of immortality. It is holiness. It arms faith

with power to remove mountains. It anoints and attests the solemn splendor of immortal power.

It blesses even those that curse it.

Love creates and governs all that is real. Love holds universal watch. It illustrates the

unlabored motion of the divine energy.

What bearing has all of this on your everyday life? You are divine Love’s full awareness

and full experience. Let us see exactly what this means. You are the awareness of every quality

of divine Love, and you experience every quality and activity of divine Love as your own being.

Love is practical, charitable, unquenchable. You are the awareness and experience of

Love’s active benevolence, goodwill, tenderness, kindliness, peace, joy and harmony. Your

experience of Love’s bounty can never decrease or diminish. It is forever.

Love is impartial, universal, faithful. Hence you experience Love’s impartiality, fairness

and justice. The universality of Love appears as your experience of constant affection, sincerity

and steadfastness.

Love is unselfish, is the liberator and gives sweet assurance. Hence your continuous

feeling of confidence and certitude, entirely free from care or doubt—your constant experience

of fetterless freedom, never in bondage to anything or anyone. You feel the absolute serenity of

Love’s trustworthiness. Such is your being.

Love is without dissimulation. Because Love is indissolubly one, your experience is free

from the deception of personal sense.

Love is the universal solvent. In the understanding of the allness and universality of Love,

error is nowhere to be found. This is felt in the tenderness, warmth and glow of the Love which

you are and feel.

Love is the way. Love is your only mode of Life and action.

Love is strength. You experience the firmness and selfreliance of Love’s nature—its

supporting and upholding power.

Love is forgiveness. Love knows only the infinite oneness of Being without an

unlikeness; hence your freedom from any sense of condemnation or guilt. The perfection which

you are today wipes out all penalty for the misconception of yesterday.

Love is our defence. Your awareness of perpetual security and safety is your complete

immunity from any sense of danger.

Love is brotherliness. Constant kindness, affection, tenderness and fraternalism are

always your experience.

Love is everpresent; Love ministers, is illimitable and. is the Giver of all. Love is

vastness and boundlessness, yet is never out of reach but always at hand, immediately operative,

instantly effective. You are the experience of that tender Love which forever lives only to

bless—the Love which by its very allness and everpresence leaves no need unsupplied.

Love is Father-Mother. You are Love’s awareness and experience of all the wonderful

good emanating from the one and only source; you are the awareness and experience of the

constancy and care of Love’s maternal tenderness and all-embracing gentleness, warmth,

affection.

Love is permanent and pure. Thus you experience all the blessings of the changeless

nature of Love—its stability, wholeness, completeness.

Love is the rod. Therefore you are the happy experience of Love’s almighty power,

authority, protection and care, permitting only that which is Love’s own nature, only that which

is loveable, tender, kind. The rod of Love prevents any form of discord from becoming your

experience.

Love is indivisible and all-inclusive. From all-embracing, all-encircling divine Love,

nothing is ever excluded. You are always tenderly included within the warmth of Love.

Love casts out fear. The sweet assurance of Love—its everpresent peace, the certainty of

never-ending, never-varying good—leaves nothing to fear. You are Love’s awareness and

experience of constant happiness, harmony, affection, fulne ss, comfort, freedom, unalterable

perfection— blessings infinite. In such awareness fear is forever unknown. In such overflowing

fulness of Love, present as your own divine completeness, where would the vacuum of solitude

be found?

Love is eloquent. Your subjective experience of the eloquence of Love accounts for your

apt and fluent diction. It accounts for your power of perfect expression—unrestricted.

Love is enthroned. You are Love’s experience of the unbroken continuity of sovereign

power, authority, dignity.

Love is our shield. This accounts for your immunity from any form of distress,

misfortune, injury.

Now is the tenderness of Love, ineffable, incomparable, everpresent; now, at this present

moment, man is the experience of boundless, inexhaustible, tireless Love—the feeling of its

warmth, its glow, its changeless certainty, in which fear and anguish have no place. The allness

of tender, gentle, patient Love, which alone is Life, is enthroned forever as your own being—is

enthroned in its fulness of beauty, efficiency, loveliness, blessedness, restfulness, all forever

fully sustained. Who could ever again identify himself as a mortal trying to demonstrate a little

more of Love? Infinite Love itself, loving infinitely, constitutes the fulness of your being.

All that is defined by the seven synonyms of God is your own glorious being here and

now. Yours is the restful function of acknowledging that God is doing all the expressing, all the

upholding, all the maintaining, sustaining, and perpetuating. The one all-compelling Being,

whose eternal oneness is His everpresent allness, experiences forever the ineffable glories of His

own wondrous nature, and thus we rejoice in restful security as God’s infinite, spiritual

Self-experience.

Having no affinity with any material condition, you experience total immunity from

whatever suggests itself as contrary to the infinite nature. Your experience is unthreatened joy

and peace. It is problemless Being. Such acknowledgment assures imperatively the harmony and

abundance of your everyday living. It assures that all the inexplicable glories of “all-inclusive

infinity” are here and now your own being—your very nature.

The entireness of this glory, the fulness of divine harmony, is your daily experience

without one opposing element, for, in our Leader’s words (Science and Health, pp. 514, 336):

. . . nothing exists beyond the range of all-inclusive infinity, in which and of which God

is the sole creator.


Such is the nature of the Infinite. Such is your nature in all its infinite range. Such is the

grandeur of your Being, your unending perfection, your greatness—inexhaustible, boundless,

measureless, infinite!

The Holy City

We meet today in the recognition that divine reality constitutes our very being. The one

and only Life forever reveals the wonder and beauty of its own nature. This one divine Life

unfolds the majesty and glory of itself—unfolds all the harmony that constitutes itself—and that

which Life unfolds, or reflects, is yourself.

Introduction

All that is happening here today is Truth revealing its own characteristics. This unfolding

of Truth appears to us as a fuller experience of the reality of being—a fuller sense of the beauty,

the happiness and the affluence of our own Life. It appears as an altogether better sense of

existence.

The old theological sense of worship and reverence was that of looking up to God. True

reverence is to attribute to God and man only that which is God’s own nature and character. That

we should unite in this true reverence is our purpose today.

The Christianly scientific approach reveals man as divine idea, already within Mind,

never outside of God: “For in him we live, and move, and have our being” (Acts 17:28). So here

today, from within divine Mind, we look out from Mind. The maintaining of this viewpoint is of

basic importance inasmuch as the viewpoint determines the view.

Our Leader makes unmistakably plain the fact that the human mind cannot cognise

reality. The following passages are from her works:

Neither does the temporal know the eternal.


Human reason is inaccurate; and the scope of the senses is inadequate to grasp the word

of Truth. . .


The carnal mind cannot discern spiritual things.


It is erroneous to accept the evidence of the material senses whence to reason out God,

when it is conceded that the five personal senses can take no cognizance of Spirit or of its

phenomena.


The true idea of man, as the reflection of the invisible God, is as incomprehensible to the

limited senses as is man’s infinite Principle.


Neither God nor the perfect man can be discerned by the material senses.


Mind is God, and God is not seen by material sense, because Mind is Spirit, which

material sense cannot discern.


We cannot serve two masters nor perceive divine Science with the material senses.


Material sense never helps mortals to understand Spirit, God.


The absolute ideal, man, is no more seen nor comprehended by mortals, than is his

infinite Principle, Love.


The corporeal senses can take no cognizance of spiritual reality and immortality.


The five corporeal senses cannot take cognizance of Spirit.


Matter is the primitive belief of mortal mind, because this so-called mind has no

cognizance of Spirit.


. . . the material so-called senses have no cognizance of either Principle or its idea.


There is but one spiritual existence,—the Life of which corporeal sense can take no

cognizance.


The brain can give no idea of God’s man. It can take no cognizance of Mind.


The physical senses can take no cognizance of God and spiritual Truth.


The corporeal senses can take no cognizance of spiritual reality and immortality.


. . . the corporeal senses can take no cognizance of Spirit.


. . . the material senses can take no cognizance of Spirit or the spiritual idea.


. . . the world of sensation is not cognizant of life in Soul, not in body.


As the five senses take no cognizance of Soul, so they take no cognizance of God.


The so-called material senses, and the mortal mind which is misnamed man, take no

cognizance of spiritual individuality, which manifests immortality, whose Principle is God.

(Unity of Good, pp. 37-38)

. . . substance . . . is the glory and permanence of Spirit: it is . . . that which the material

senses cannot take in.


We should prohibit ourselves the childish pleasure of studying Truth through the senses,

for this is neither the intent of my works nor possible in Science.

(Miscellaneous Writings, pp. 309-3 10)

We cannot . . . perceive divine Science with the material senses.


Mortal beliefs can neither demonstrate Christianity nor apprehend the reality of Life.


A sense material apprehends nothing strictly belonging to the nature and office of Life.


The realities of being, its normal action, and the origin of all things are unseen to mortal

sense . . .


To attempt the calculation of His mighty ways, from the evidence before the material

senses, is fatuous.


It is plain that the human mind cannot comprehend Truth. How, then, is the real sense of

Life to be cognised? Our books give the answer:

Soul is the only real consciousness which cognizes being.

(Rudimental Divine Science, p. 5)

. . . Truth . . . unfolds the real nature of God and the universe.


. . . Mind is its own interpreter.


The divine Principle of the universe must interpret the universe.


Mind alone possesses all . . . comprehension.


The divine Principle, or Spirit, comprehends and expresses all . . .


Only by the illumination of the spiritual sense, can the light of understanding be thrown

upon this Science . . .


The evidence of the existence of Spirit, Soul, is palpable only to spiritual sense . . .


. . . the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God.

(I Corinthians 2:11)

The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit . . .

(Romans 8:16)

And God saw every thing that he had made . . .

(Genesis 1:31)

So, from our books we learn that the revelation and declaration of the reality of Life

come forth from God out of heaven. Spirit is the standpoint from which our real Life is beheld.

Spiritual sense, which is our own true consciousness, does the beholding.

The first marginal heading on page 576 of Science and Health is “Revelation’s pure

zenith.” From this pure zenith all is seen in its true light. From this divine height John realised

the subjective nature of the new heaven and the new earth. Only when this all-harmonious state

of Life is recognised and felt as our own being is it of any avail to us. A clergyman who found

that one parishioner was in great trouble hoped to persuade the man to come to church. The

clergyman said, “Do come to church on Sunday—I am going to preach about heaven.” The man

replied, “What is the use of hearing about heaven when my own life is hell!”

On page 573 of Science and Health appears a phrase of great value. It refers to “the

subjective state by which he [John] could see the new heaven and new earth . . .” John discerned

the glorious harmony of Being to be his own experience. it is our experience. This perfection had

not to be attained; it was John’s own being, and it is the present actuality of our existence today.

From the spiritual altitude alone—from “Revelation’s pure zenith”—is this glorious perfection of

Life subjectively experienced.

The correct standpoint avoids the danger of finding oneself in a suppositional,

intermediate realm—a mid-way position, as it were—where the human mind is forever

contending with its own belief in evil. When our Life is beheld in its true light, discord is

non-existent and there is no error to resist, no problem with which to contend.

Christian Science shows us the Life which is a state of perfection that cannot be invaded.

This state of divine wholeness is portrayed by the Revelator as the Holy City. From the “mount

of revelation” (Miscellaneous Writings, p. 17) the beloved disciple beheld “a new heaven and a

new earth” (Revelation 21:1). What a crystal-clear view of exquisite loveliness! How wonderful

a scene! I quote from Revelation (21:10-11):

And he carried me away in the spirit to a great and high mountain, and shewed me that

great city, the holy Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God, Having the glory of God . . .

The “great and high mountain” symbolises the scientific standpoint, “Revelation’s pure

zenith,” to which reference has already been made. The great and high mountain is the altitude of

divine Mind, which was John’s post of spiritual observation—the post which our Leader says we

should never desert (see Miscellaneous Writings, p. 154).

Our textbook (p. 576) says:

This heavenly city, lighted by the Sun of Righteousness,—this New Jerusalem, this

infinite All, which to us seems hidden in the mist of remoteness,—reached St. John’s vision

while yet he tabernacled with mortals.

This glorious view of being reached John’s vision when he no longer looked at existence

from mortal mind’s point of view. How identical was our Leader’s experience to that of John!

She writes (Retrospection and Introspection, pp. 27-28):

The divine hand led me into a new world of light and Life, a fresh universe—old to God,

but new to His “little one.”

Viewed in the light of divine metaphysics, all things were become new to John. They

were become new to our Leader, and in the same light they are new to us, because they are seen

in their true light. No longer does the heavenly city, “this infinite All,” seem “hidden in the mist

of remoteness . . .” No longer do joy, peace and serenity seem so far away; no longer does health

evade us; all good is evident here and now as the tangible reality of our being—our natural,

everyday state. I quote from Miscellaneous Writings (p. 174):

What is the kingdom of heaven? The abode of Spirit, the realm of the real. No matter is

there, no night is there—nothing that maketh or worketh a lie. Is this kingdom afar off? No: it is

ever-present here. . . . The kingdom of heaven is the reign of divine Science: it is a mental state.

Jesus said it is within you . . .

It is clear that the subjective premise is the only practical approach. It is the only premise

which reveals all good to be our own condition. Divine light not only discloses the true sense of

being, but reveals this fulness of perfection in all its infinite blessedness, its comfort and bliss, as

our actual state.

John’s spiritual vision of the undeviating harmony and wholeness of Life was so clear, so

tangible, so practical and subjective that all contrary evidence was completely outshone.

Soul-existence was experienced in the place of sense-existence. The sense-dream had vanished.

Death, sorrow, crying and pain were nowhere to be found—the former things were passed away.

The misconception, the mortal sense of life, which included within itself all discord, had

disappeared. In place of the false sense was the spiritual sense—the divine concept of Life in its

everlasting glory.

The Revelator depicts the Life that is Spirit in all its beauty and perfection, and this is our

only Life. Our authority for acknowledging that the divine Life is the Life of man is found in the

following references:





. . . Truth is the actual life of man . . .


You will admit that Soul is the Life of man.


The origin, substance, and life of man are one, and that one is God . . .


Spiritual sense reveals our Life to be a state of serene immunity from all that does not

emanate from God, even total exemption from whatever would interrupt our abiding security as

the son of God.

Life invested with serenity and radiant loveliness, Life which is the very acme of spiritual

perfection in all its aspects, is all there is to us. Within this sacred consciousness is every element

of everlasting happiness, every element of exquisite beauty, every element of our own divine

completeness. In such completeness of being—in such certainty of Love’s security—fear,

loneliness, doubt and darkness have never been felt. Any suggestion of suffering is a myth. All

that exists is God’s ideal state of Life made manifest as our Life. To spiritual sense this divinely

satisfactory state of Life is spiritually substantial. It is practical and is evidenced as the natural

peace, health and abundance of our everyday living. This heavenly state is consistently and

permanently our withinness.

St. John revealed this kingdom within. Jesus taught and demonstrated it. He said plainly

(Luke 17: 20-21):

The kingdom of God cometh not with observation: Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo

there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you.

Our Leader explained this kingdom fully and demonstrably, and, like Jesus, she gave us

abundant proof of its practical worth.

Divine Withinness

Let us consider for a moment the term “within” as related to the kingdom of heaven. The

Glossary (Science and Health, p. 588) defines the word “in” as follows: “A term obsolete in

Science if used with reference to Spirit, or Deity.” It is obsolete if used with reference to the real

man; that is, neither God nor His reflection can ever be “inside” anything.

Again I quote our Leader: “Man . . . is the compound idea of God, including all right

ideas” (Science and Health, p. 475). Man includes ideas such as joy, peace, harmony, wisdom,

strength. These ideas constitute spiritual consciousness, and spiritual consciousness is heaven.

Thus “the kingdom of God is within you.” As Science and Health tells us (pp. 502-503):

There is but one creator and one creation. This creation consists of the unfolding of

spiritual ideas and their identities, which are embraced in the infinite Mind and forever reflected.

Creation consists of the unfolding of ideas—the unfolding of peace, joy, harmony,

tenderness—from within Mind. The ideas within your consciousness unfold. They come forth

from within and determine the harmonious conditions of your human experience.

Jesus furnished evidence of the practical and substantial nature of the kingdom within. He

included, for example, the idea of abundance, and this abundance came forth as bread and fishes.

It came forth as the seamless robe he wore—the highest luxury of his day. Jesus included

wholeness and harmony within his consciousness, and these ideas came forth as health to the

multitudes of sick who thronged him. They came forth as hearing to the deaf, feet to the lame,

voice to the dumb, sight to the blind.

Mary Baker Eddy, in her great love for mankind, discovered the present-day practicality

of Jesus’ words: “The kingdom of God [is neither] Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom

of God is within you.” She discovered that the kingdom within is the consciousness filled with

glorious ideas—ideas of bliss, comfort, joy, satisfaction, completeness—and that these ideas

come forth, each in its own character, as the permanence of all that is beautiful and good. These

right ideas constitute your heaven. They are within your consciousness now and always, and they

will come forth in human experience as conditions harmonious far beyond human

comprehension.

Your spiritual independence is based upon the fact that you are not dependent upon

anything “outside” the one infinite spiritual consciousness, which is your consciousness. Outside

conditions are not contributive to your peace, your health, or your abundance. Realise the futility

of attempting to bring health or abundance from “outside.” In reference to this, we have Jesus’

authority. He said that “the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing

up into everlasting life” (John 4:14). Every right idea is eternally included within your being. Not

one is left out.

Let us illustrate. The right idea of home is included within your being, and it comes forth

in all its comfort, harmony, warmth, and completeness, undeviating in its loveliness and

permanence. Comeliness and grace are ideas within. Cherish these ideas. They will unfold as the

beauty and elegance of your being.

The “gates” of “the city” (your priceless spiritual understanding) reveal your

consciousness teeming with countless spiritual ideas, each one infinitely good and gloriously

substantial. Each idea evidences itself in its own identical nature.

Let us take another illustration. Suppose that you are making a journey by air. You know

that as divine idea you can never be in a plane. The truth about a plane is some spiritual fact, an

idea of Mind always included within consciousness. Science and Health tells us that the ideas of

Mind “are obedient to the Mind that makes them” (p. 295), and that all “that God imparts moves

in accord with Him” (p. 515). So then, the spiritual fact relating to the plane is that plane is an

idea within Mind, is controlled by Mind, is obedient to Mind, and is moving in accord with

Mind. When the idea is held in such flawless security, any false move, any impediment or

impairment, is impossible. Incidental to this Mind-controlled idea would be a safe and

harmonious flight, free from fear.

Man is never in any material circumstance: he is never in a ship; he is never in a home.

Every idea—wisdom, beauty, joy, all that constitutes heaven—is included within your glorious

being. Thus your divine withinness shines forth in all its perfection and fulness. Emily Dickinson

once wrote:

Reverse cannot befall

That fine Prosperity

Whose Sources are interior—

(Quoted from The Poems of Emily Dickinson, ed. Thomas H. Johnson [Cambridge,

Mass.: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press; copyright 1951, 1955, by the President

and Fellows of Harvard College], no. 395.)

“And I Saw No Temple Therein”

(Revelation 21:22)

Paul asks (I Corinthians 6:19; 3:16, 17):

What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you,

which ye have of God . . . ?

Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? . .

. for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are.

He accurately states, “There is one body, and one Spirit” (Ephesians 4:4); that is, there is

one body and one Mind. Spirit, or Mind, is conscious only of its own wonderful embodiment, or

the one real body. This real body is a state of accurate action. With divine precision, whatever

this body should be doing it is doing. It is ageless, a state of untarnishable beauty and freshness,

always in immaculate condition. It is exact in its every function; it is the very acme of comfort;

its perfection is immutable. This one body is the coordination of divine ideas. It is one perfect

whole. The substance of this body is Spirit, which by its very nature is incapable of one element

of discord.

From the standpoint of incorporeal being, the material origin of existence is rejected; all

beliefs of heredity are outlawed; all limited, crippling, restricted beliefs are unknown. In the light

of divine metaphysics every error is outshone.

In the understanding that there is but one body and that this body is the divine

embodiment of spiritual ideas, we dispense with the myriad fears which beset the preposterous

belief that life is organic. Thus the belief that any organ of the human body can affect Life is

disposed of.

The last marginal heading on page 489 of Science and Health reads, “Organic

construction valueless”; and on the same page we find this statement:

. . . matter has no sensation, and no organic construction can give it hearing and sight nor

make it the medium of Mind.

So then, the real, incorporeal body embodies no brain. Instead, it includes divine

intelligence. In place of eyes it embodies the never-failing faculty of spiritual discernment.

Instead of ears the true body includes the all-harmonious action of spiritual perception. This is

the body of Life instead of blood. It is the consciousness of uninterrupted harmony and real

aliveness, in which all that ever did have Life is alive forever. This non-structural body, being

totally free from organism, enjoys full immunity from all the pains and troubles embraced in the

false, corporeal sense of existence.

The mortal sense of body is merely a picture of mortal sense. It is nothing more than an

irrational misconception of the one glorious body, and it exists only to the material senses, never

to the Christ. Mortal mind in its ignorance goes on ascribing all kinds of erroneous conditions to

its own misconception of body, whi1e we as divine idea are never less than divine Mind’s

glorious expression of its flawless self. We are divine Mind’s concept of Life—the temple, or

consciousness, of the living God. Our body is therefore the embodiment of all good—the

consciousness of all good, entirely incorporeal.

We read in Unity of Good (p. 3):

God is All-in-all. . . . He is all the Life and Mind there is or can be. Within Himself is

every embodiment of Life and Mind.

The divine Mind contemplates the harmony of every element of its own being, the natural

perfection of all that is “within Himself,” and this wonderful state of Life is all there is to us. It is

ceaselessly evident as our beauty, grace, strength, as our inexhaustible energy, vigour, vitality,

all unconnected with matter.

In Pulpit and Press (pp. 2-3) our Leader writes:

. . . our true temple is no human fabrication, but the superstructure of Truth, reared on the

foundation of Love, and pinnacled in Life. Such being its nature, how can our godly temple

possibly be demolished, or even disturbed?

In our Leader’s acknowledgment that “Mind, God, is the source and condition of all

existence” (Science and Health, p. 181), and that “Christ presents the indestructible man, whom

Spirit creates, constitutes, and governs” (p. 316), we find our only constitution to be spiritual,

always in perfect order—entirely free from all taint of corporeality. In Revelation 21:22 the

beloved disciple writes:

And I saw no temple therein: for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of

it.

Our Leader states (Science and Health, p. 576):

What further indication need we of the real man’s incorporeality than this, that John saw

heaven and earth with “no temple [body] therein”?

No, in the light of spiritual reality there is no material temple within this city of our God.

The corporeal sense of existence, which embodies all error, is not to be found there. Nor is it to

be found here within you—you who are the city of our God. The belief that the son of God could

be identified with a corporeal sense of life has vanished. It has given place to divine Mind’s

concept of the spiritual, perfect, incorporeal nature of being. The limited sense of life has given

place to the limitless Life of which God is the never-ceasing source and the never-waning

splendour.

Let us emphatically acknowledge that the divine embodiment of infinite good is the only

body. “Thus,” says our Leader, “we may establish in truth the temple, or body, ‘whose builder

and maker is God’” (Science and Health, p. 428).

Christian Science treatment is the banishing of misconceptions. That which presents

itself as a discordant material condition is never anything more than a misconception of the true

spiritual facts. We confront the suggestion of a discordant body with the truth about body as

divine idea. We have seen that the real body is divine Life’s embodiment of its own

wholeness—a state of unquestionable perfection. It is the “imperishable glory” of Spirit,

incapable of even one flaw. We know that this divine embodiment, or body, is divinely

maintained, is perpetual in its spiritual ease, is immutable in its Godlikeness.

The spiritual acknowledgment that this divine embodiment is the only body is the

healing Truth. It is the Christ, “which comes to the flesh” (Science and Health, p. 583) and

banishes all the ills of the flesh. It is the power which causes the human situation to conform to

the divine, when all that is unlike good dissolves into the nothingness it is, while all that is of

God is “preserved blameless.”

The following statement on body was made by Mrs. Eddy, according to John Lathrop,

C.S.B., as found in the notes of Bertha L. Moore, C.S.D.:

The terms Mind and body literally mean God and man, for man is the expression of

Mind, and the manifestation of Mind is Mind’s own embodiment or the body of Mind. Therefore

man is God’s body and there is but one God. Body is therefore the infinite aggregation of

spiritual ideas forever controlled and governed by the law of Life, harmony and completeness.

The body therefore is spiritual and eternal. It was never born, never material, never had a claim,

never sinned, and never left heaven, harmony. This understanding of the one perfect body is the

Saviour of the belief of bodies many and is the law of recovery to any and every claim of error.

I quote from Unity of Good (p. 61):

The mutations of mortal sense are the evening and the morning of human thought,—the

twilight and dawn of earthly vision, which precedeth the nightless radiance of divine Life.

“. . . the nightless radiance of divine Life”! This is your Life. Again I quote our Leader:

In the eternal Mind, no night is there.


In God there is no night,

— Truth is eternal light . . .

(Poems, p. 70)

The consciousness of light is like the eternal law of God, revealing Him and nothing else.

(No and Yes, p. 30)

The mortal sense of life, the mortal sense of mind, the mortal sense of action and of

substance have no place within this allness of perfect Being.

Think of the bliss and comfort of the allness of God—the security invested in the

recognition that God is all the Life there is!

The following, given to me by Mr. James Neal in 1922, presents our Leader’s own

interpretation of “Christmas Morn” in healing a patient:


And deathless Life!





striving, as far above all the conditions that brought her there. “Or cruel creed”—the doctor’s





“Thou all of her. Thou all of me.” This glorious oneness! Mind being all the Life there is,

Mind being all-inclusive infinity—and nothing else exists! This constitutes your heaven, the

heaven within, which comes forth as everlasting joy, comfort, health and peace, all without

measure. Your heaven is your sacred awareness of love and bliss, the highest form of happiness

that even Soul can know. Your heaven is your consciousness of true satisfaction. It is pure

Being, aware only of itself. It is Truth in self-expression. Your heaven is the glory of your inner

self, your mighty withinness of limitless good, supremely serene, totally true.

Indeed, these metaphorical gates, which shall not be shut at all by day, “open towards

light and glory both within and without” (Science and Health, p. 577), for your whole being is

eternal harmony. The whole of infinity is “the secret place of the most High” (Psalm 91:1). The

fulness of Truth shines forth in all its radiant splendour and constitutes your being. The Holy

City is the pure spiritual consciousness wherein infinite Mind and its infinite manifestation is all.

With her usual inspiration our Leader summarizes (Science and Health, p. 536):

The divine understanding reigns, is all, and there is no other consciousness.

“There Should Be Time No Longer”

(Revelation 10:6)

Is evidence of old age to be found in this city of our God, in the glory of our being?

Ageing is a fallacy. It is a belief of involuntary action—that is, a belief of action that goes on

against our wishes. The perfect antidote to ageing symptoms is given to us on page 187 of

Science and Health:

The divine Mind includes all action and volition, and man in Science is governed by this

Mind.

We are governed by the Mind which perpetuates “supernal freshness,” vigour and

spontaneity. There is no involuntary action of a non-existent mind in a non-existent past or a

nonexistent future. The eternal perfection of now is all that is and ever will be.

Because man is immortal, he is immune to any belief of impairment. Life is ceaselessly

and eternally expressing itself in its fulness, “without beginning of years or end of days” (Science

and Health, p. 333). Our Life is measureless might, fully sustained strength and abiding activity.

It is un-diminishing briskness, acuteness, alertness. Life is that buoyancy and vivacity which is

now, as it always was, so full and unhampered, so free from restraint.

The source of our being is eternal and everpresent; it perpetuates the pristine beauty of

our being, indescribable in its loveliness. The first marginal heading on page 280 of Science and

Health reads, “The things of God are beautiful.” They remain beautiful always. The perfection of

all that is immortal goes on in its unbroken continuity. Our Leader says, “. . . divine Love holds

its substance safe in the certainty of immortality” (Miscellany, p. 295). Man is divine Mind’s

proof of its own immutable glory. To quote from Science and Health (p. 29), he “is the immortal

evidence that Spirit is harmonious and man eternal.” We can never be less than this. In our

Leader’s words, we exemplify “the charms of being, shining resplendent and eternal over age

and decay” (Science and Health, p. 247). Job said (11:17):

And thine age shall be clearer than the noonday; thou shalt shine forth, thou shalt be as

the morning.

We have no connection whatever with anything which is not in accordance with eternal

Life. We have no connection with age—such an obnoxious word! The following references show

that we live wholly apart from the diabolical limitations of age and time:

Wholly apart from this mortal dream, this illusion and delusion of sense, Christian

Science comes to reveal man as God’s image, His idea . . .

(Miscellany, p. 5)

Immortal and spiritual facts exist apart from this mortal and material conception.


Eternal Mind and temporary material existence never unite in figure or in fact. . . . At no

point can these opposites mingle or unite.


Entirely separate from the belief and dream of material living, is the Life divine . . .


The scientific sense of being which establishes harmony, enters into no compromise with

finiteness and feebleness.




Eternity, not time, expresses the thought of Life, and time is no part of eternity.


Immortality, exempt from age or decay, has a glory of its own . . .


The glory of this immortality, exempt from age, is our being. We are the man who is

neither young nor old, the man whose faculties and capacities are not measured by calendars. We

are the man who never slows his pace, and whose spiritual energies never wear out. Ours is the

ability that knows no ebb, the agility and flexibility that never decrease. Ours is the eternal day,

winged with joy, soaring in the grandeur of the noontide of being. Our day is brightness

uneclipsed, with no sense of weariness, no sense of the frailties of the mortal world of time. No,

the eternality of our being holds no relationship to the proverbial threescore years and ten. Ours

is ageless Life— the Life that bears no evidence of the cruel creed of time.

This question was asked of Mrs. Eddy: “Is it possible to change the aged form to one of

youth, beauty, and immortality, without the change called death?” This is her answer (Christian

Science Series, vol. I, May 1, 1889, p. 10):








would appear.

The ignorant misconception of man as mortal is lost in the glory of his present

immortality—in the beauty of Soul, in the loveliness of his own divine being. The son of God

has never been identified with the instability of material records, mortal measurements and

statistics. His is the never-retrograding state of true independence, dignity, dominion. His is the

never-changing kingdom within—even timeless being.

In words so perfectly chosen by our Leader, ours is “the everlasting grandeur and

immortality of development, power, and prestige” (Science and Health, p. 244). At the beginning

of Miscellaneous Writings (p. vii) our Leader quotes one of her own poems, part of which I will

read:

If worlds were formed by matter,

And mankind from the dust;

Till time shall end more timely,

There’s nothing here to trust.

She continues:

My world has sprung from Spirit,

In everlasting day . . .

“That They . . . May Enter in Through the Gates into the City” (Revelation 22:14)

The Revelator tells us (21:21):

And the twelve gates were twelve pearls; every several gate was of one pearl . . .

One pearl! The pearl of oneness! The most priceless pearl of all! The inseparable oneness

of God and man! Twelve symbolises completeness. So by his symbolism St. John indicates that

the only scientific approach to true being is that of oneness. He shows the absolute oneness of

God and man.

All that exists is divine Mind forever manifesting itself, and this perfect manifestation is

man. God is actually being your Life; He is being your Mind; He is being your action, your

harmony, your ever-perfect condition; He is being the whole of you. The divine Mind

experiences all the comfort there is, all the peace, all the joy and freedom there is, and this is

your being. All there is to you at any time is the wholeness which God Himself is expressing.

One of our very early lecturers said, “Man has not a separate little life of his own,

running on its own steam. He is one with the great Power House of the universe.”

Man is that which God is showing forth of His own being. Thus man has no alternative

but to be the continuous experience of all the joy, wholeness, strength, peace and harmony which

divine Life is living. He is the continuous experience of this wonderful divine allness in every

one of its glorious aspects.

The understanding of oneness reveals man as a state of compulsory bliss. It is your

guarantee of total good in every hour, and is the assurance that nothing contrary to good can ever

confront you. Oneness excludes everything but itself.

Referring to the Revelator, our Leader says: “With his spiritual strength, he has opened

wide the gates of glory” (Science and Health, p. 571); that is, he has made the glory and beauty

of the one infinite Being unmistakably clear.

To “enter in through the gates” into the city is to enter into the full enjoyment of all that

oneness means. It is to enjoy the continuity of your own Christ-being, your spiritual security and

happiness. To “enter in through the gates” is to recognise man’s real existence here and now. It is

the hourly experience of all that Jesus implied when he said, “I and my Father are one” (John

10:30). This oneness means that all that is within God comes forth as man. It is your natural

experience of the fulness of heaven, all within your own infinite consciousness.

One may ask, “Of what practical value to human experience is this kingdom within?” Its

value lies in the fact that everything that means heaven within comes forth in glorious and

permanent evidence, always in concrete form.

Of this Holy City our Leader writes, “Its gates open towards light and glory both within

and without, for all is good” (Science and Health, p. 577). These symbolical, ever-open gates

have a unique function. Neither do they shut anything out nor do they shut anything in. They

reveal the one infinitude of good—perfect God and perfect man—to be one indivisible whole of

endless harmony. They reveal the one Life—your Life—to be light and glory through and

through, wonderful in every detail.

To “enter in through the gates” is to be the continuous experience and enjoyment of this

one infinite Life, which is permanent health, harmony and joy in all its fulness. It is to recognise

that the whole of being has not one conflicting element within itself. It is to feel and know that in

infinite oneness there is no element of obstruction, no opposition—not one discordant note. This

joyous realm of Truth—your only consciousness—is “quietness and assurance for ever” (Isaiah

32:17). This infinite oneness of God and man constitutes the only paradise. I quote our Leader

(Miscellany, pp. 118, 132):

. . . Truth, or Christ, finds its paradise in Spirit, in the consciousness of heaven within . . .

Divine Love hath opened the gate Beautiful to us, where we may see God and live, see

good in good,—God all, one,—one Mind and that divine . . .

Divine Love hath opened the gate Beautiful. The revelation of the oneness of being is

beautiful indeed. It means that your being is the forever unfolding consciousness of good, and

only that which is within God can come forth as man. Our Leader unhesitatingly emphasises this

oneness:

Father, Mother, and child are the divine Principle and divine idea, even the divine



. . . all cause and effect are in God.




. . . God and man, Father and son, are one in being.






Principle and its idea is one . . .


I and my Father are one . . .

(John 10:30)

This glorious oneness! In endless continuity the divine Mind is being its wonderful,

infinite, flawless self, and the consequence is man. There could surely be no greater blessedness

than to be the consequence of God, the phenomena of being, constituted of “eternal harmony,

perpetuity, and perfection” (No and Yes, p. 10).

Indeed, to “enter in through the gates” into the city, to enter into the full enjoyment of all

that constitutes the kingdom of heaven within, is no longer a quest. It is the inner certainty of the

continuity of all good, in all of its wonderful aspects. It is your actual enjoyment of the sacred

perfection of your own Christ-being—the very nature of God. It is the freedom to walk at will,

unshod, for everywhere is holy ground. Life and its harmonies are all that exist within this

holiness of being. Life, Truth and Love fill immensity. “The depth, breadth, height, might,

majesty, and glory of infinite Love fill all space” (Science and Health, p. 520). Such is your

God-filled kingdom of heaven with its ever-open gates.

Think of the wonder and the beauty of your Life when rightly apprehended—the

naturalness of Mind’s cognisance of its inner peace, its wholeness and its bliss! Divine Mind’s

infinite awareness of itself is your own wonderful state. Divine Mind’s feeling of its own peace,

security, wholeness is your only feeling. This is your heaven, with all of good within. Zechariah

(8:3) says, “Jerusalem shall be called a city of truth . . .” and our Glossary defines “New

Jerusalem” as: “Divine Science; the spiritual facts and harmony of the universe; the kingdom of

heaven, or reign of harmony” (Science and Health, p. 592).

There shall be no night there. In divine Science, the kingdom of heaven, the reign of

harmony, there is no night—no darkness, depression, doubt or fear, no mortal sense. Page 61 of

Unity of Good says:

The mutations of mortal sense are the evening and the morning of human thought,—the

twilight and dawn of earthly vision, which precedeth the nightless radiance of divine Life.

“And the City Lieth Foursquare”

(Revelation 21:16)

We read in Science and Health (pp. 575 and 577):

Taken in its allegorical sense, the description of the city as foursquare has a profound

meaning. The four sides of our city are the Word, Christ, Christianity, and divine Science . . .

This spiritual, holy habitation has no boundary nor limit, but its four cardinal points are:

first, the Word of Life, Truth, and Love; second, the Christ, the spiritual idea of God; third,

Christianity, which is the outcome of the divine Principle of the Christ-idea in Christian history;

fourth, Christian Science, which to-day and forever interprets this great example and the great

Exemplar.

A cardinal point is a point of fundamental importance. The word “side” means one of the

surfaces that define a substance. The four cardinal points, or the four sides, of the City are the

four points of fundamental importance which define the nature of the City of our God. The four

sides of the City are synonymous.

The Word

The first side, or cardinal point, is “the Word” (John 1:1):

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

John discerned that the Word and God are one. Our Leader corroborates this in

Miscellany (pp. 119-120): “St. John found Christ, Truth, in the Word which is God.”

The Word, which is Truth, constitutes its own self-perpetuation. It is eternally consistent

in remaining its own clear, inviolate self. The Word is Truth, and Christ Jesus identified Truth as

light. Centuries ago, the prophet Isaiah spoke of this Word, which is divine light, when he said

(9:2): “The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light upon them hath the light

shined.” Many of us here today can bear witness to the healing power of this great light, the

Word which is Truth. Christ Jesus exemplified this light as the Christ-consciousness. He beheld

man always in his true light—the light which today, as of yore, reveals man as upright, pure and

whole, free from the encumbrance of the mortal concept, free from all the errors which this false

sense embraces.

Our Leader beheld this great light. Even her first faint glimpse, the dawn of this light,

brought her restoration to health when material aid was of no avail. Later, the same spiritual

light, in all its sacred effulgence, gave us our precious Book. She who had herself proved the

mighty power of the Word asks of us (Poems, p. 75), “Felt ye the power of the Word?” Our

Leader had proved the powerlessness of the medical verdict pronounced upon her. No medical

verdict was, or could be, heard in the kingdom of light. Such utterances are the darkness of

mortal thought which sees only its own mistaken sense of existence. Our Leader’s consciousness

exemplified the Word, the spiritual light, which in her experience outshone the cruel bondage of

material belief. She says (Miscellaneous Writings, p. 165): “The light of this revelation leaves

nothing that is material; neither darkness, doubt, disease, nor death.” She also says, “Let the

Word have free course” (No and Yes, p. 45). Let the Word of inspiration soar.

Inspiration soars unrestrained in its own glorious heights, which the human so-called

mind could never reach or know. Inspiration is that Soul-sense which sees all and feels all in its

divine light. Let your consciousness soar and remain always in and as the divine light itself. In

this divine light, in the divine Whole and All, not one dark image of mortal thought was ever

found. Not one element detrimental to your abiding peace and health was ever known.

The Word which is God is the very truth of being. This Word, which is Allness, is pure

joy, uncontested harmony, the warmth and sweetness of Love, the strength, power, vigour and

energy of Mind, the beauty, fragrance, sublimity and loveliness of Soul, the integrity of

Principle, the constancy and clarity of Truth, the grace of Spirit, the immortality of Life. This is

your being.

Christ

The second fundamental point is the Christ. The Revelator beheld God’s spiritual and

eternal nature to be the only consciousness. He revealed the glorious Christ-life—your

life—inseparable from God, infallible, pure, divine, the same yesterday and today and forever.

He revealed the complete illumination of the Christ, its power and its strength (Revelation

12:10):

Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his

Christ . . .

Your Christ-selfhood lives forever as the only Love there is or ever was—as the

effulgent, holy light, which in the nature of its own white purity never partakes of mortal

evidence. The Christ is divine reality—Truth in all its fulness and glory.

As the Christ-light, you live as the awareness of eternal perfection—problemless being.

You are the continuous experience of unbroken harmony and perfect freedom, joyous

satisfaction, that inner glow of infinite perfection. The Christ-light—your consciousness—is

never dimmed by any human concept. The Christ, your true consciousness, permits no human

concept of body, no human concept of man, no human concept of the universe. God’s concept is

the only concept in the whole of Being.

Living as the Christ you are not merely loving, but the whole of your being is Love. The

nature of the Christ is the only nature you ever had. The Christ-consciousness is the only

consciousness you ever had, and is wholly perfect, divinely illumined.

There is nothing in existence to neutralise the joy and security of your Christ-selfhood,

which shines forth in full effulgence—for Christ is the light above the light of the sun, the Life

above all human sense of Life. The Christ is divine reality—Truth in all its fulness and

glory—reigning forever. This glorious Christ is your being.

Christianity

The south wall of the City is the third cardinal point. Our Leader writes (Christian

Healing, p. 2, and Miscellaneous Writings, p. 25):

The genius of Christianity is works more than words . . .

Christianity is Christlike only as it reiterates the word, repeats the works, and manifests

the spirit of Christ.

Was not the essential of Christianity emphasised by James (2:17, 18) when he said:

. . . faith, if it hath not works, is dead . . . shew me thy faith without thy works, and I will

shew thee my faith by my works.

When John’s disciples asked if Jesus was the Christ, Jesus’ reply made no reference to

his doctrine. Instead, he emphasised his works (Matthew 11:4, 5; John 10:25):

Go and shew John again those things which ye do hear and see: The blind receive their

sight, and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and

the poor have the gospel preached to them.

. . . the works that I do in my Father’s name, they bear witness of me.

Jesus confirmed the truth he taught by demonstration. Christianity is the demonstration of

the Science of being. The infinite whole of Being is God’s demonstration of complete perfection.

In Christ’s Christianity there is no idolatry. Christianity is scientific being, scientific

living, in which the First Commandment is fulfilled—one God, one Mind, and no other sense of

Life but good.

Another aspect of this third wall is the spirit of Christianity. In Rudimental Divine

Science (p. 17) we read,

The ways of Christianity have not changed. Meekness, selflessness, and love are the

paths of His testimony . . .

And in Miscellany (p. 148):

Christianity is the summons of divine Love for man to be Christlike—to emulate the

words and the works of our great Master.

Christ’s Christianity is the perfect idea, and it is depicted in the life of Christ Jesus,

whose understanding was inseparable from proof and demonstration.

Christianity is the noble activity of the Christ in all its aspects. Your experience is the

Christ-nature in full evidence. You are the consciousness of Love in which nothing contrary to

the spirit of Christianity is ever felt. “To infinite, ever-present Love, all is Love” (Science and

Health, p. 567). The ‘Christ-life—your life—is aglow with love, alive with active love, universal

in its beneficence, giving of its own infinity. You are the consciousness of peace, meekness,

might, purity, tenderness, and not one quality is ascribed to you which is not ascribed to God.

Divine Science

The fourth side of the City is divine Science, the consciousness of eternal reality. Here

are some references from our Leader’s works which illustrate the nature of divine Science:

In divine Science, the universe, including man, is spiritual, harmonious, and eternal.


Security for the claims of harmonious and eternal being is found only in divine Science.


In divine Science, which is the seal of Deity and has the impress of heaven, God is

revealed as infinite light.


Heaven represents harmony, and divine Science interprets the Principle of heavenly

harmony.


The kingdom of heaven is the reign of divine Science . . .


In divine Science, God is recognized as the only power, presence, and glory.

(No and Yes, p. 20)

The consciousness which is divine Science is purity itself, and has no sense of sin, no

pain, no sorrow, no death. Divine Science is that infinitude of divine Life, redolent with love,

health, holiness.

John saw spiritual Life to be the only Life; he saw divine Mind to be the only Mind;

spiritual substance to be the only substance, and divine Love to be the only Love. This vision of

divine reality is a state of abiding perfection. All is beautiful and glorious to behold. In this pure

Being, error is unknown; matter is unknown; no counterfeit exists. Our Leader writes in Science

and Health (p. 575):

This sacred city, described in the Apocalypse (xxi.16) as one that “lieth foursquare” and

cometh “down from God, out of heaven,” represents the light and glory of divine Science.

The fourth side of the City is not the fourth dimension of an Einstein, nor of the famed

Euclid of old. It is that of Spirit. This side of the City foursquare is completely beyond the range

of human research. It transcends all line, plane, length and breadth. The human mind can never

grasp its meaning. The fourth side of the City of our God is pure Being, infinite Spirit, into

which material thinking and mortal invention can never intrude.

The fourth side, or cardinal point, is the reality of the eternal All. It is all the joy there is,

all the harmony, all the freedom and beauty, all the health there is. “All is infinite Mind and its

infinite manifestation . . .” All is infinite Mind and Mind’s glorious knowing—spiritual Truth. It

is the all-presence and all-inclusiveness of the infinite One. With our Leader (and I quote), “. . .

let us think of God as saying, I am infinite good . . . Dwelling in light, I can see only the

brightness of My own glory” (Unity of Good, p. 18). There is nothing but the brightness of glory

in this infinite, eternal All; nothing to be seen but radiant splendour; nothing to be known but

glory; nothing but glory to be felt.

In divine Science there is no human mind. Divine Mind alone sees this glory, knows and

feels it as its own eternal, natural and only state. No discord, no bondage, no restriction or

limitation can withstand this consciousness of divine Science.

This was the consciousness which enabled Christ Jesus to perform his mighty works. It

was this consciousness of divine Science which enabled him to nullify the so-called law of

gravitation when he walked on the water; he disproved the limitations of time and space when he

transported himself instantly across the lake; he walked through the doors which were closed; he

proved that he could not be deprived of Life by the crucifixion of the body. His consciousness of

divine Science enabled Jesus to raise from the dead the little girl of twelve (the daughter of

Jairus, the ruler of the synagogue). His consciousness of divine Science gave the command to the

son of a widow in the city of Nain, “Young man, I say unto thee, Arise.” He commanded

Lazarus, “Lazarus, come forth.” The consciousness of divine Science, in its own white purity,

sees spiritual reality, absolute harmony, everywhere. Our Leader tells us in Science and Health

(pp. 476-477):

Jesus beheld in Science the perfect man, who appeared to him where sinning mortal man

appears to mortals. In this perfect man the Saviour saw God’s own likeness, and this correct view

of man healed the sick.

Jesus “beheld in Science.” In the very place and at the self-same moment when mortal

mind is seeing a discordant condition, the Christ-consciousness is seeing perfection. In the very

place where mortal mind sees sickness, the consciousness of the Christ sees health. Right where

lack is evident to mortal mind, the Christ-consciousness rejoices in illimitable bounty.

In this same divine-Science state of consciousness, Mary Baker Eddy raised from the

dead her faithful worker, Calvin Frye. (See Tomlinson, Twelve Years with Mary Baker Eddy, pp.

58-59.) She who was the exemplification of pure Mind said (Unity of Good, p. 7):

When I have most clearly seen and most sensibly felt that the infinite recognizes no

disease, this has not separated me from God, but has so bound me to Him as to enable me

instantaneously to heal . . . In the same spiritual condition I have been able to replace dislocated

joints and raise the dying to instantaneous health.

These healings illustrate our Leader’s own words on page 15 of Miscellaneous Writings:

“. . . the true perception of God and divine Science . . . results in health, happiness, and holiness.”

“The Foundations of the Wall of the City”

(Revelation 21:19)

St. John’s description of the foundation of the wall of the City is entirely metaphorical.

We read (Revelation 2 1:19, 20):

And the foundations of the wall of the city were garnished with all manner of precious

stones. The first foundation was jasper; the second, sapphire; the third, a chalcedony; the fourth,

an emerald; The fifth, sardonyx; the sixth, sardius; the seventh, chrysolyte; the eighth, beryl; the

ninth, a topaz; the tenth, a chrysoprasus; the eleventh, a jacinth; the twelfth, an amethyst.

These precious stones symbolise the following spiritual qualities:

Jasper—light, illumination;

Sapphire—constancy, truth, sincerity;

Chalcedony—gratitude for truth;

Emerald— immortality;

Sardonyx—harmony and bliss;

Sardius—spiritual vision;

Chrysolyte— gladness;

Beryl—joy and agelessness;

Topaz— spirituality;

Chrysoprasus— eternality;

Jacinth—meekness and might;

Amethyst— spiritual power.

The foundations of the wall of the City are the qualities of Christ, “verities priceless [and]

eternal” (Miscellaneous Writings, p. 61). This holy, spiritual foundation is the Rock of Christ.

Based on this firm and everlasting spiritual basis, your total harmony will stand forever,

unshakable, immovable.

Not even the sum-total of material belief could disturb the foundation or superstructure of

your complete well-being, which is based, not on matter, but upon Spirit. Thus one can enjoy

continuously the immutable qualities of his own being— light, constancy, gratitude, immortality,

harmony, bliss, spiritual vision, gladness, joy, spirituality, eternality, meekness and might,

spiritual power—the “gems from the New Jerusalem” (Retrospection and Introspection, p. 85).

This spiritual foundation, rightly symbolised by those precious jewels, is of inestimable

worth. The entire harmony of your being is built on it. Everything that is enduring is based on it.

Truth, our Leader says, is “eternity’s foundation stone” (Christian Healing, p. 2), and we know

that Truth is the only basis of health. Based upon this foundation-stone of eternity, the entire

harmony of your universe is secure and certain. This spiritual security is experienced in human

existence. Our Leader assures us in Miscellaneous Writings (p. 152):

Thus founded upon the rock of Christ, when storm and tempest beat against this sure

foundation, you, safely sheltered in the strong tower of hope, faith, and Love, are God’s

nestlings; and He will hide you in His feathers till the storm has passed.

The apostle John testified to the divine basis of Christian Science. Jesus’ demonstrations

were based on this Christ-foundation. Everything worthwhile that has ever been accomplished

has been founded on this spiritual Rock, for on this foundation only can a lasting structure be

built. Our Leader says (Miscellaneous Writings, p. 176) that the Pilgrim Fathers “sought the New

England shores . . . to build upon the rock of Christ, the true idea of God—the supremacy of

Spirit and the nothingness of matter.” Our Leader’s every achievement was based upon this

spiritual and only foundation. “Our church,” she tells us in Science and Health (p. 35), “is built

on the divine Principle, Love.” For this reason “the gates of hell shall not prevail against it”

(Matthew 16:18); “neither pride, prejudice, bigotry, nor envy can wash away its foundation, for it

is built upon the rock, Christ” (Science and Health, p. 484).

The basis of Spirit is the basis of harmony, prosperity and success. Because her Church is

founded on this spiritual basis, its prosperity is sure; therefore Mrs. Eddy writes in Retrospection

and Introspection (p. 85):

The Cause, our Cause, is highly prosperous, rapidly spreading over the globe; and the

morrow will crown the effort of to-day with a diadem of gems from the New Jerusalem.

“There Shall in No Wise Enter into It Anything That Defileth” (Revelation 2 1:27)

What is it that would enter your consciousness to defile or work abomination or make a

lie? It is corporeal sense—that which suggests a material sense of existence, and would attribute

to man a mind and life separate from the divine. That which would defile or work abomination or

make a lie is the mortal concept of life. This mortal sense would attempt to obscure the one

glorious Life which is the Life of man. It would claim to hide the glory, the completeness, the

wholeness arid peace so natural to your being. The mortal point of view is in itself a lie and an

utter abomination.

Do you fear that this usurper can invade your harmony and trespass upon your peace,

your health, your abundance? We have the assurance of Truth that this is impossible. I quote

from our Leader’s writings:

Whatever is false or sinful can never enter the atmosphere of Spirit.


In the universe of Truth, matter is unknown. No supposition of error enters there.


It is “easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle,” than for sinful beliefs to enter

the kingdom of heaven, eternal harmony.

(Science and Health, pp. 241-242)

. . . man’s harmony is no more to be invaded than the rhythm of the universe . . .


. . . nothing inharmonious can enter being, for Life is God.


Your Life is indeed the acme of security. How abiding is your peace! How inviolable is

your being! Nothing inharmonious can ever, in any guise or in any circumstance, enter the Life

of man. From the Holy City, your consciousness of heaven within, all misconception is forever

precluded.

What is it that precludes the intrusion of discord and renders impossible even the slightest

disturbance of your harmony? It is the oneness and Allness of God. This oneness and Allness of

divine Life is a mighty power, forbidding the existence of anything but itself.

The Allness of Deity is His oneness.


God is All, and by virtue of this nature and allness He is cognizant only of good.


If He is All, He can have no consciousness of anything unlike Himself; because, if He is

omnipresent, there can be nothing outside of Himself.


The Scriptures plainly declare the Allness and oneness of God to be the premises of

Truth, and that . . . there is in reality none besides the eternal, infinite God, good.





Think of the wonder of such oneness, Allness, wholeness, which excludes all error to the

point of nothingness and thus assures your serene and permanent immunity from every

suggestion of suffering, doubt and fear! Fear is the belief in the existence of something contrary

to good—the belief that something can happen contrary to divine Love. But Love’s all-presence,

all-power, all-action frees from any such suggestion, proving fear to be nothing more than a

mindless misconception, totally incapable of influencing the son of God, incapable of invading

the one and only consciousness, your consciousness. Fear is incapable of trespassing upon the

health and harmony and peace which are your natural state.

Invasion would require duality—the invader and the invaded. Duality is that divided,

destructive belief of opposites. But God is All, and Allness has no opposite. Allness is

indivisible, uninvadable Oneness—one infinite, all-harmonious Being, outside of which nothing

exists.

Oneness could not invade itself, deprive itself, disrupt itself, defile itself, and there is no

other selfhood. Therefore, none of this inharmony is happening.

. . . there can be nothing beyond illimitable divinity.


There is neither place nor opportunity in Science for error of any sort.

(Science and Health, pp. 232-233)

Therefore, there shall in no wise enter into your life, into your health, into your home,

your business affairs, or your relationships anything that would or could work ill.

From this Holy City—from the “infinite All of good”—all misinterpretation of Life is

forever precluded. Thus heaven itself appears, and is experienced as your natural, superb and

everlasting state, as the sweet reality and grandeur of your infinite selfhood. Your abiding sense

of contentment, fulfillment, satisfaction leaves no place or opportunity for longing, wishing and

wanting. The human sense of satisfaction, at its best, is but a poor substitute for divine

completeness, celestial bliss, which is your eternal state. As divine reflection, man includes

within himself everything that is within God. This all-inclusiveness of your being forbids the

intrusion of any sense of frustration, any sense of restriction, toil, and limitation.

There are no boundaries to infinity. There is no measure to your boundless consciousness

of good, to your healthy, happy, abundant living.

In the Holy City, in your God-established life, there is total freedom. There is freedom

from the sum-total of human sense testimony. It is the city of accuracy, immutability, eternality,

into which variableness, vulnerability, mutability shall in no wise enter. This total preclusion of

erring sense is evidenced in everyday life as your security, your wholeness, abundance, health

and complete harmony. The allness of Truth permits nothing but itself. It permits nothing but its

own infinite nature of glorious perfection, and this is your nature.

In Revelation (20:11) we read, “And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it,

from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them.”

The one infinite Life, which is your Life, is enthroned in all its purity, perfection, dominion, and

sovereignty, to reign forever. Your health, joy, peace, strength and comfort—all the harmony

that exists—is enthroned forever as your own being. From this true sense of Life, every

discordant belief—fear, worry, anxiety, lack—is precluded. There shall in no wise enter into

your experience any hint of apprehension that this glorious state can cease.

From whose face did the false concept of earth and heaven flee away? It fled, as it always

will flee, from the face—from the spiritual facts—of the great I am. Evil can never enter the

consciousness of Truth. I quote from our books:

. . . evil can have no place, where all space is filled with God.


. . . evil has in reality neither place nor power in the human or the divine economy.

Science and Health, p. 327)

. . . matter has no place in Spirit. . . and error has no foothold in Truth.


. . . define good as God, and you will find that good is omnipotence, has all power; it fills

all space, being omnipresent; hence, there is neither place nor power left for evil.

(Miscellaneous Writings, pp. 13-14)

. . . the dream has no place in the Science of being.


. . . evil finds no place in good.

(No and Yes, p. 27)

“And there was no more sea” (Revelation 21:1). The restless, tempest-tossed existence of

the human mind has no place in the stillness of your Soul-awareness, your tranquility and peace.

Our Leader writes (Poems, p. 12):

Thus Truth engrounds me on the rock,

Upon Life’s shore,

‘Gainst which the winds and waves can shock,

Oh, nevermore!

Not one of the deleterious effects of the misapprehension of existence can intrude itself

upon this spiritual sense of Life, which is all the heaven there is. There shall in no wise enter any

aggressive mental suggestion to disrupt the harmony of your universe, this glorious

consciousness of God and man. No beliefs of heredity or contagion, no so-called medical

laws—not one of Adam’s theories—can trespass upon the glory of your being.

The divine Mind’s concept is forever intact. This Mind beholds all that is within

itself—beholds its uninvaded, uninvadable Life, your life, in all its pristine perfection. This is

your permanent state, inviolable, unalterable, without a tinge of misconception. All

misconception is nothingness. It is devoid of mentality, without cause, without effect, without

evidence.

“The accuser is not there” (Science and Health, p. 568). The consciousness of Love,

which you are, knows no accuser, no accused, no accusation. “. . . perfection is the order of

celestial being” (Science and Health, p. 337). The only man is the purity of Spirit, the integrity of

Truth, the infinite tenderness of Love, the immutability of Principle, the activity of Life, the

strength and power of Mind, the sinlessness of Soul. Upon this son of God rests the never-ending

benediction, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased” (Matthew 3:17). No, the

accuser is not there. The accuser is not here!

Life, which is one infinite whole of wholeness, is enthroned from everlasting to

everlasting, and is your very being. It is that divine state inviolable, the impenetrable Rock of

Truth. This one Life is that indescribable allness of good, embracing every element of heaven

within itself. The great I am, Principle and its idea, is enthroned forever and shall reign forever.

Our Leader tells us in Science and Health (p. 503):

“The divine Principle and idea constitute spiritual harmony,—heaven and eternity.” This

is heaven indeed. This is the heaven that is within. And the Revelator says (21:27):

. . . there shall in no wise enter into it any thing that defileth, neither whatsoever worketh

abomination, or maketh a lie …

Summary

The Apocalypse illustrates in graphic metaphor the divine Science of being, the eternal

consciousness of the Christ. The Revelator states (21:23):

. . . the city had no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it: for the glory of

God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof.

This city is itself the consciousness of light, your spiritual consciousness, pure and holy,

free from the dimming, darkening beliefs of mortal sense. As Isaiah says (60:19), the Lord shall

be unto thee an everlasting light, and thy God thy glory.” God’s consciousness is your

consciousness, a state of spiritual illumination. It is ineffable joy and brightness—the joy that

springs forth spontaneously, without any material cause.

The harmony of the city—the peace of your Mind, the entirety of your perfection—is

unresisted, because there is nothing but its infinite, holy self. This problemless being— this

kingdom within, in which all is absolutely well—is the realm of the fulness of Love and the

infinitude of Life. It is the revelation of God as the whole of Allness.

In this city, our Leader writes (No and Yes, p. 27):

No night will be there, and there will be no more sea. There will be no need of the sun,

for Spirit will be the light of the city, and matter will be proved a myth.

St. John beheld the spiritual universe—the realm of Love — and our Leader says

(Science and Health, p. 577) that “his vision is the acme of this Science as the Bible reveals it.”

He beheld “a new heaven and a new earth”—the real universe whereof Christian Science now

bears testimony. We see the wonders of divine reality to be our very own being. We feel the

glory, the beauty, the joy, gladness and immortality of our kingdom within.

The mortal sense of existence—the former things— disappears, together with all its

illusions, its fears, worries and anxieties; it disappears with its frail and fleeting pleasures, with

all its sin and suffering; it disappears, with its “treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth

corrupt” (Matthew 6:19). How true are these words from Science and Health (p. 312):

What to material sense seems substance, becomes nothingness, as the sense-dream

vanishes and reality appears.

“. . . all things are become new” (II Corinthians 5:17). Life is seen in its true, glorious

light. We see Life, experiencing itself as all that is Love—Life in all its perfection, being its own

glorious self, because there is only itself to be.

From the premise of your own divine completeness, all good wells up in its simultaneity.

Your Mind knows its own infinitude as uninterrupted beauty and blessedness and wholeness.

You see the one Mind expressing itself as yourself with no sense of personal limitations, no

personal demands to mar its own sweet sense. None shall hunger, none shall thirst, in this

consciousness of complete fulfillment.

Contemplate the indescribable wonder, the beauty, wholeness and eternality of the

spiritual universe, and know that this is your being. Well does our textbook say, “Human

language can repeat only an infinitesimal part of what exists” (Science and Health, p. 520).

Christ Jesus said: “. . . it is given unto you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven”

(Matthew 13:11). They are mysteries no longer. We owe gratitude to Mary Baker Eddy, God’s

second witness, that through her revelation heaven is no longer hidden, but is clearly seen,

understood and experienced in the light of divine Science, the final revelation.

Conclusion

We have seen something of the Holy City. Thus is the true concept of oneself revealed. “.

. . for the former things are passed away” (Revelation 21:4). The mistaken view of life, together

with the suffering for which this mortal view is responsible, is outshone by the radiance of the

truth of being. “Behold, I make all things new” (Revelation 21:5). In place of the mistaken

mortal sense of existence, the beauty, glory, immortality of being shine forth. Life is the

experience of its own natural spontaneity, happiness and completeness.

This is the heaven of divine experience, the joyous continuity of complete satisfaction.

This is the kingdom in which the joy and gladness which you are preclude all cause for sorrow

and crying. This Holy City is the consciousness of everlasting Life, which permits no sense of

death. It is a state of permanent comfort in which pain cannot exist. The reality of your being

reigns undisturbed in its uncontested majesty, dominion and power.

Enjoy your Christ-capacity to feel innately the peace, the serenity, which is your own

nature, and live the Life aglow with Love, unaware of anything but its glorious, infinite

self-hood.

Your kingdom within is that “real consciousness [which] is cognizant only of the things

of God” (Science and Health, p. 276). How fully aware is your consciousness of its own

undeviating perfection! How familiar is your spiritual sense with its own contentment and

blessedness! How intimate is your consciousness with its own true and glorious nature! How

closely and happily acquainted is Mind with its own infinite withinness—its “infinite

self-containment”! How accustomed is your being to its own perpetual health, bliss, harmony!

How “at home” is your awareness with every element of divine reality! How natural it is for your

spiritual perception to experience the fulness of its own heaven within, this wonderful, infinite

whole, including all—all joy, peace, abundance, total good, all within your glorious

consciousness!

Feeling this everpresent perfection, all so natural and inevitable—feeling and enjoying

this wonderful sense of Life as all that is, or can ever be—we rejoice indeed that “of his kingdom

there shall be no end” (Luke 1:33). This is the kingdom which we attribute to the Most High in

our prayer of acknowledgment and praise (Science and Health, p. 17):

For Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever.

For God is infinite, all-power, all Life, Truth, Love, over all, and All.

The benediction is from Miscellany (p. 183):

With you be there no more sea, no ebbing faith, no night. Love be thy light upon the

mountain of Israel.

The Perfection of Being

The infallible guarantee of our complete well-being is our oneness with God.

Our Leader defines Mind as: “The only I or Us” (Science and Health, p. 591). Identical

with this is the declaration, “I am the first, and I am the last” (Isaiah 44:6).

This is the “I” which announces its own Allness, its own immutable perfection. It is the I

which holds within itself the sum-total of power, the sum-total of joy and the whole of action.

This is the I which includes all. Outside of this I nothing exists. Nothing else is going on.

The divine “Us” is God and man—God and you. I quote Miscellaneous Writings, p. 18:

“. . . Father, Mother, and child are the divine Principle and divine idea, even the divine ‘Us’—

one in good, and good in One.”

I now quote Miscellany, p. 239: “. . . God is infinite and so includes all in one.” Your

inclusion within the divine I or Us makes your perfection unoptional. It means that God and you

are one and the self-same quality of Life. “I and my Father are one” (John 10:30). In Science and

Health our Leader states plainly that God and man are “one in quality” (p. 361).

“From me proceedeth . . . all being” (Unity of Good, p. 24). This is your being—as

perfect as God Himself. You are the very consequence of God. I now quote Miscellaneous

Writings (p. 78): “. . . man is the idea of God; and this idea cannot fail to express the exact nature

of its Principle . . .” This is you. You cannot fail to express the exact nature of divine Principle.

You have no option, no alternative but to be precisely what God is expressing.

There are not two states of being. The mortal is never your being. You are not mortal, and

never were.

Recognise your true identification as one with God, until all temptation to classify

yourself as a mortal falls away. The Ego, Principle and idea, is the very acme of perfection and is

the only possible state of your being. It means that you cannot have a Life, Mind or condition

separate from God.

The most cruel and preposterous theory of the carnal mind is that man can be separated

from God and that he has an independent life and mind of his own, right apart from the divine.

Your inseparable oneness with God means your perpetual freedom from this diabolical

imposition of mortal sense.

“Principle and its idea is one” (Science and Health, p. 465). These six words constitute

the statement of full emancipation to the whole world from what our Leader terms “the ghastly

farce of material existence” (Science and Health, p. 272).

To this material existence you are totally unrelated. The son of God has no point of

contact, no connecting link, with such an utter misconception of life. The mortal sense does not

in any way or in any degree refer to you. Your oneness with God guarantees your total

exemption from sickness, pain, lack. It means the utter end of every phase of the carnal mind.

I quote Science and Health (p. 114): “In Science, Mind is one, including noumenon and

phenomena, God and His thoughts.” Mind, God and His thoughts, is One. This oneness of Being,

this divine coexistence, is an overwhelming power for good and operates as the law of

impossibility to every material belief which would claim to rob us of our glorious heritage.

The one I am is all the Life there is, all the Mind there is. It is all the substance there is.

The one I am, Principle and its idea, God and you, constitutes all reality, all action, all feeling.

The true substance of everything—everything that Love could cherish—is safely

included within the one I or Us. The truth of your being is included. The truth of all whom you

love is embraced within the allness of I am—within the infinite whole of pure joy, limitless

freedom, perpetual harmony.

Your inclusion within the only I or Us ensures your complete freedom from fear, pain,

confusion and limitation. There can be nothing in addition to divine Allness.

May I repeat the quotation from Miscellany, p. 239:

“. . . God is infinite and so includes all in one.” This One that is the whole of Being, in

which you are included, is forever shining forth. God shines. You are the shine. You are God’s

concept of Himself. Knowing that all there is to you is divine Life’s concept of Life, you

experience the very depth of peace, the height of joy, the fulness of affluence, the continuity of

security and bliss.

Principle and idea—Father, Mother and you—living as flawless security, serenity,

beauty, bounty and wholeness, experiences the fulness of good. Only that which God is being

can be your experience.

In support of this statement I quote: “. . . Father and son, are one in being” (Science and

Health, p. 361). Also: “Man is the expression of God’s being” (Science and Health, p. 470).

God’s being is sheer contentment. This contentment is your being. Divine Mind remains its own

sweet serenity with no sense of disturbance. This is the peace of your being.

I quote from Unity of Good, p. 24: “I am the infinite All. From Me proceedeth all Mind . .

.” This means your joyous awareness of contentment and completeness. It is the constant feeling

of immutable tranquility and calm. It implies problemless being, with no suggestion of sorrow,

tension or lack.

The inseparable oneness of God and man is a state too exquisitely beautiful for mere

words to portray, but the divine Us perpetually feels it.

Divine Love is at all times enjoying its own loveliness, gentleness, tenderness—enjoying

the fearless certainty of good. This is your loveliness. This is your fearless certainty of good.

You are the evidence and feeling of Truth’s liberty, restfulness and clarity. You are the might,

power, wisdom, majesty and action of Mind. You are the beauty, joy, serenity, bliss, complete

satisfaction of Soul—the precision and integrity of Principle. You are the graciousness and

abundance of Spirit—the vigour, vitality, strength and buoyancy of Life.

Father, Mother and child, God and you, enjoy the same perfect conditions. May I repeat,

there is but one state of Being. You have no choice but to be the flawless condition of God’s

expressing. I and my Father are one and the same wonderful state of Life—the Life which is

absolute wholeness. There is no alternative to your glorious feeling of this health and harmony.

Your oneness with God makes any discordant state an utter impossibility. In support of this

statement I quote from Miscellaneous Writings, pp. 105—106, and Message for 1900, p. 4:

God is the sum total of the universe.


Your entire experience is the glorious consequence of God’s government. It is a record of

your intactness, your changeless joy and freedom, all evident as your everyday state. Your record

is Life with a capital L. Science and Health, p. 306, states, “Life demonstrates Life”—both with

capitals, indicating no difference in quality between Cause and effect. So it is that you have no

alternative to total well-being. Principle causes your Life to be this glorious way, and you have

no option but to be it. You are a state of compulsory perfection.

Let us now assess the practical value to human experience of this coexistence of God and

man, the Christ-awareness which you are.

The references from our Leader show us that the perfection of Being is the pure

Christ-consciousness which does not divide its awareness between truth and error. This is

emphasised in Science and Health (pp. 475 and 243):

“To Truth there is no error,—all is Truth.” “Truth has no consciousness of error.”

We are now dealing with the healing effect of the Christ-consciousness. It is indeed a

mighty power from which “the false evidence before the corporeal senses disappears” (Science

and Health, p. 131). Our Leader also states that “all error disappears in celestial Truth” (Science

and Health, p. 267).

Celestial Truth is your consciousness. You live as the light of the world. The light, the

consciousness of Truth which you are, shines forth in its divine effulgence. In the presence of

such radiance, discord is nowhere to be found.

Let us re-affirm that from the consciousness “too pure to behold iniquity” (Miscellaneous

Writings, p. 123) every misconception vanishes. As authority for this statement I quote from our

Leader’s works:



[Real consciousness—your consciousness—permits no affinity with any erroneous

condition.]

. . . an acknowledgment of the perfection of the infinite Unseen confers a power nothing

else can.



a claim to error.

(No and Yes, p. 30)

Dwelling in light, I can see only the brightness of My own glory.


I still quote from our Leader:

It is from your Christ-awareness thati disease will vanish into its native nothingness like

dew before the morning sunshine.


[Yours is the consciousness before which blindness, disease, deafness, dumbness,

lameness flee today as they fled nineteen centuries ago.]

Tumors, ulcers, tubercles, inflammation, pain, deformed joints, are waking

dream-shadows, dark images of mortal thought, which flee before the light of Truth.


This “light of Truth” is the consciousness referred to in Revelation 20:11:

And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the

heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them.

The false sense of earth, the false sense of heaven—the false sense of

everything—always will flee away from the Christ-consciousness which you are. This

consciousness outshines discord as effortlessly as light dispels darkness.

This glorious consciousness of God and the white Christ, God and you, is the mighty

power which leads every human situation to conform to the divine.

Government

The only controlling influence in the perfection of Being is the gentle and mighty power

of divine, intelligent Mind. This compelling power is irreversible, irrevocable. It manifests the

sum-total of good as our entire experience.

No scheming, no planning, no plotting of the so-called mortal mind could ever sway the

one controlling power, imperative and final. Job recognised the security of divine Mind’s

government when he wrote (23:13, 14), “But he is in one mind, and who can turn him? and what

his soul desireth, even that he doeth. For he performeth the thing that is appointed for me . . .”

That which is appointed for you is always the very highest good. It is the highest sense of

harmony in your home, in your relationships, in your business affairs. In fact, that which is

appointed for you is never less than total good.

I quote from Isaiah (46:11): “. . . yea, I have spoken it, I will also bring it to pass; I have

purposed it, I will also do it.” This is the divine guarantee, not only of God’s determination to

bless, but also of His entire performance of the blessing. You are blessed with God’s own Life,

God’s own Mind, God’s own law—the ever-operative, unbreakable law of health and wholeness.

Jesus’ understanding of the power of this law enabled him to pronounce these commands:

“Be thou clean.” “Arise and walk.” “Come forth.” “Stretch forth thy hand.” “Receive thy sight.”

The divine law is the only power operative in our experience. It precludes every

suggestion of sickness, pain, sorrow, lack or disease. If we are tempted to believe that matter, a

false growth or any other discordant condition could defy the supremacy of this divine power,

assurance to the contrary is found in the following statements:

. . . he uttered his voice, the earth melted.

(Psalm 46:6)



Under the supremacy of Spirit, it will be seen and acknowledged that matter must

disappear.


With divine insistence Mind compels our harmony. In every circumstance this controlling

Mind stands unmoved. “. . . he doeth according to his will in the army of heaven, and among the

inhabitants of the earth . . .” (Daniel 4:35). This Mind, powerful on earth—powerful in the

physical realm so-called—permits not one quality or one condition contrary to the highest sense

of good.

If we are beset by any suggestion of the carnal mind, no matter what its name or nature,

no matter how intense its stubborn resistance, the one Mind silences its futile arguments and

removes its obstructive presence. Governed exclusively by this perfect Mind, the Christian

Scientist is never tempted to ascribe to himself or to his fellow man any tendency or

characteristic but the divine. The preposterous beliefs of sickness, loneliness, fear are never the

consciousness of the Son of God. Intelligent Mind permits nothing contrary to absolute

perfection. Mind is an intelligent, active power adjusting every detail to its own perfect pattern.

The divine Mind permits nothing contrary to absolute perfection. Only that which divine

Mind is causing can possibly happen. Acknowledge that nothing is going on at any moment but

God, total good—God’s sense of good. It is as impossible to deflect the government of God and

its blessed consequence in your experience as to check the dawn of day. Balaam said, “Behold, I

have received commandment to bless: and he hath blessed; and I cannot reverse it” (Numbers

23:20). The impelling and compelling power of divine Principle tolerates no error in premise or

conclusion.

We can indeed acknowledge that the sole determinant of our experience is divine Love,

whose limitless power governs all in flawless precision, assuring a harmonious outcome in every

circumstance. In brief, “. . . God, Mind, spake and it was done” (Science and Health, p. 557). It

is always done in accordance with these assurances:

The Lord will perfect that which concerneth me . . .

(Psalm 138:8)

For the Lord of hosts hath purposed, and who shall disannul it? and his hand is stretched


(Isaiah 14:27)

Abundance

Now we will contemplate the abundant aspect of Being. According to Webster,

abundance means “an overflowing fullness; ample sufficiency; great plenty; profusion, copious

supply.”

This abundant Being is the permanent state of the one Life, the Life of God and

man—the Life which is God and you. Any sense of lack is the mistaken concept of mortals. The

mortal sense is unaware of the profusion of good. This ignorant sense is oblivious to the glorious,

abundant Life which is your actual, God-established state. Mind, the Mind of God and you,

could conceive of no less than inexhaustible plenty. So it is that the permanent enjoyment of

affluence, bounty and divine completeness is your effortless experience.

Human sense believes itself to be outside of God’s liberal outpouring of bliss and glory.

This “outside” sense, this iron barrier to good, is illustrated in the third chapter of Acts, where

the story is told of the lame man who was laid daily at the gate of the temple—laid outside the

temple called Beautiful.

Temple, as you know, means consciousness. The temple called Beautiful implies the

consciousness of beautiful Life— the real Life, your Life—full of health and harmony. This man

had hitherto believed himself to be outside of this beautiful state of being, separated from

affluence.

Think of the contrast between this barren state of mortal thought and Mind’s subjective

awareness of inexhaustible plenty!

Peter and John, understanding divine completeness to be man’s subjective state, banished

the gate of separation, the barrier of “outsideness.” The lame man was healed. “And he leaping

up stood, and walked, and entered with them into the temple, walking, and leaping, and praising

God” (Acts 3:8). No longer did he admit a gap between himself and abundant, healthy, happy

living.

Indeed, as our Leader has written, “Divine Love hath opened the gate Beautiful to us,

where we may see God and live, see good in good,—God all, one,—one Mind and that divine . .

.” (Miscellany, p. 132).

I quote a vital statement from Unity of Good, p. 24: “. . . verily I say unto you, God is

All-in-all; and you can never be outside of His oneness.”

Inasmuch as we can never be outside of His oneness, all sense of separation from total

good is gone forever. We enter in through the gates into the city, into the kingdom of our God.

We enter into the full awareness that spiritual completeness in all its glory is already our own

being, now and forever. This awareness is the city.

This understanding banishes any sense of obscuration which would attempt to hide the

oneness of God and man, together with its blessings.

Now another point. Laborious toil is no part of the perfection of Being. This was

recognised centuries ago. I quote Deuteronomy 6:10, 11: “And it shall be, when the Lord thy

God shall have brought thee into the land which he sware unto thy fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac,

and to Jacob, to give thee great and goodly cities, which thou buildedst not, And houses full of

all good things, which thou filledst not, and wells digged, which thou diggedst not, vineyards and

olive trees, which thou plantedst not . . .”

Identical with this is Jesus’ confirmation, “. . . it is your Father’s good pleasure to give

you the kingdom” (Luke 12:32). It is divine Mind’s good pleasure to perpetuate its

consciousness of total good. This total good is your consciousness and your experience.

Isaiah had a clear sense of the practical nature of Life abundant. He wrote (35:1, 2, 7): “. .

. and the desert shall rejoice, and blossom as the rose. It shall blossom abundantly, and rejoice

even with joy and singing . . . And the parched ground shall become a pool, and the thirsty land

springs of water . . .” He also wrote (58:11), “. . . and thou shalt be like a watered garden, and

like a spring of water, whose waters fail not.”

The recognition of this perfect state is a mighty power, revealing the evidence of good in

practical form. All that exists within divine Mind is your actual being, which comes forth in the

form that most blesses human experience.

In support of this I quote Joel and Deuteronomy:

And the floors shall be full of wheat, and the fats shall overflow with wine and oil. . .


(Joel 2:24, 26)

For the Lord thy God bringeth thee into a . . . land of wheat, and barley, and vines, and

fig trees, and pomegranates; a land of oil olive, and honey; A land wherein thou shalt eat bread

without scarceness, thou shalt not lack any thing in it . . .

(Deuteronomy 8:7-9)

This overflowing abundance is always evident in human experience in the most practical

way, according to the requirement of the moment. Nothing could be more humanly practical

than wheat, fats, oil, barley, vines, fig trees and honey.

Perhaps you are conversant with a story related by Mrs. Laura Sargent.

Our Leader asked Mrs. Sargent, “Laura, if a carriage stopped at your door and some

unknown person stepped out and handed you a gift of one hundred thousand dollars, would you

be surprised?” “I certainly should be surprised, Mother,” was Mrs. Sargent’s reply. To this our

Leader remarked, “Then what a poor sense of God you have!”

Understanding, as our Leader did, that Life is a state of bounty, it is not to be wondered

that she wrote in Pulpit and Press, p. 9: “O glorious hope and blessed assurance, ‘it is your

Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.’ Christians rejoice in secret, they have a bounty

hidden from the world.”

This is the bounty which can neither diminish nor end. It is independent of person,

independent of material circumstance. This is the bounty based on the firm foundation of

Principle. Mortal mind changes may come and may go, but this abundance can be neither shaken

nor shattered. It is a certainty, in all its fulness.

So let us no longer live as a fraction of the one Life, a fraction of joy—the small

half-measure, the divided, diminutive sense of good. Let us acknowledge the perfection of

Being, our own true nature, which is all-inclusive good.

We have done with the cramping, limiting incongruities of mortal sense. We have done

with drabness and penury.

Mind’s full manifestation of total good is your status. You are at home in this real

richness; so start out as the fulness, as the completeness, the security, harmony and substance

which divine Mind is perpetually manifesting as your being. This wonderful state is not your

goal. It is your present condition.

Authority for the acknowledgment of divine completeness is found in John and

Colossians:

And of his fulness have all we received . . .

(John 1:16)

For it pleased the Father that in him [in the son] should all fulness dwell . . .

(Colossians 1:19)

For in him [the son] dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.

(Colossians 2:9)


(Colossians 2:10)

I now quote our Leader (Science and Health, pp. 527, 475): “Man is God’s reflection . . .

ever beautiful and complete.” “[Man] reflects spiritually all that belongs to His Maker.” Jesus

acknowledged, “All things that the Father hath are mine . . .” (John 16:15).

God’s allness of indivisible good is your Allness of indivisible good. Let us emphasise

that as God’s manifestation of Himself you are the fulness of strength, the fulness of peace and

joy, expressed inexhaustibly in all their unfailing continuity. Indeed, “. . . ye are complete in him

. . .” The parched sense of mortal existence has no place in your consciousness of total good.

Your status as total good, including all true riches, is illustrated by our Leader’s statement: “. . .

God giving all and man having all that God gives” (Miscellany, p. 5).

Included within this allness is all health, all joy, security, peace, comfort, all vigour, all

beauty and bounty. This was evident to Paul when he wrote, “For all things are yours . . .” (I

Corinthians 3:21).

We have seen that your correct identification as Mind’s full manifestation reveals your

permanent security and complete satisfaction. It reveals divine Love’s all-inclusiveness without

a single omission. This all-inclusiveness is your present and permanent state. Mind manifests it;

you are it. Any belief of half-measure or fragmentary expression is repudiated by our Leader in

Retrospection and Introspection (p. 60): “Science reveals Life as a complete sphere . . .”

In the recognition of this fact, material conditions give place to the divine. Lack gives

place to the unobscurable abundance which characterises the perfection of your Being.

It is well known that our Leader told her household that mortals avail themselves of not

more than one per cent of the good which belongs to man. The ninety-nine per cent, she

explained, remains unclaimed, unenjoyed.

Our Leader’s usage of such terms as “flood-gates,” “flood-tides,” “the teeming universe,”

“the spiritual outpouring of bliss and glory” indicates the nature of our being, in which any

restrictive, limiting sense is unknown. One per cent of good is the measure of mortal mind. One

hundred per cent is the measure of your Mind. You have no affinity with the mortal concept.

You are the fulness, the buoyancy, the spontaneity, joy and bliss of abundant Life. In this

understanding the mortal concept with its lack and frustration is gone forever. In the divine Life,

which is your Life—in the vastness, grandeur and eternality of your all-inclusive being—the

mortal misconception is nowhere to be found. “Allness is the measure of the infinite, and nothing

less can express God” (Science and Health, p. 336).

To conclude this section, I quote from Miscellaneous Writings and Christian Healing:

You are going out to demonstrate a living faith, a true sense of the infinite good, a sense

that does not limit God, but brings to human view an enlarged sense of Deity.


The infinite can neither go forth from, return to, nor remain for a moment within limits.

(Christian Healing, p. 4)

Here are the references which give us the authority to acknowledge that the divine Mind

is the Mind of man:

. . . man has no Mind but God . . .


. . . the Soul, or Mind, of the spiritual man is God .


How can good lapse into evil, when God, the Mind of man, never sins?


All consciousness is Mind; and Mind is God . . . This consciousness is reflected in

individual consciousness, or man . . .


I am the infinite All. From me proceedeth all Mind, all consciousness, all individuality,

all being.


. . . the Father bids man have the same Mind “which was also in Christ Jesus,” . . .


Spiritual Independence

The perfection of being is a state of spiritual independence. It is the “I am that I am”

divinely Self-expressed, divinely Self-experienced, divinely Self-perpetuated.

Could one for a moment believe that spiritual wholeness, strength, sight, hearing and

movement could be at the mercy of matter? Could matter have even one iota of power to threaten

man’s well-being—power to dictate terms and conditions to him? Could non-existent,

non-intelligent matter have power to decide how much health man can have, how well he can or

cannot see or hear, and how freely he can or cannot move? In view of the audacity of the carnal

mind’s insistence that life is dependent on matter, one appreciates our Leader’s statement in

Science and Health (p. 191), “The human thought should no longer ask of the head, heart, or

lungs: What are man’s prospects for life?”

Enlightened consciousness rejoices in the fact that sight, hearing and movement are

totally independent of matter. Our dear Leader pronounces our happy dominion, and in this

respect I quote from Science and Health and Miscellaneous Writings:

Life is, always has been, and ever will be independent of matter; for Life is God . . .


. . . matter can make no conditions for man.




Health is not a condition of matter, but of Mind . . .


Life is inorganic . . .


The blood, heart, lungs, brain, etc., have nothing to do with Life, God.


How can man, reflecting God, be dependent on material means for knowing, hearing,

seeing?


The indestructible faculties of Spirit exist without the conditions of matter and also

without the false beliefs of a so-called material existence.


So let us rejoice in this absolute freedom from matter and its senseless theories. Your

Mind, your Life, never could be in bondage to corporeality, never could be dependent upon

matter for locomotion, for hearing or for sight, or for any condition whatsoever.

Jesus showed his contempt for matter and its beliefs when healing the blind man, as is

recorded by John. You will recall that Jesus spat on the ground, made clay of the spittle, and with

this he covered the blind man’s eyes. He covered the eyes with scorn and contempt for the

ignorant belief that sight could be dependent upon a material organism.

Finally, the man was sent to wash—to wash himself free from the belief that matter could

either give sight or take it away—and he “came seeing.” Liberated from the blinding belief of

dependence upon matter, his sight was restored.

In the whole of being there is no mortal mind to suggest impairment of sight. There is no

mortal mind to suggest restriction of movement or a limited capacity to hear. Finite capacity in

any degree is unknown to you. The perfection of your being knows no obstacle to health and

heaven.

Your Christ-consciousness does not cognize any false concept of existence. Your

Christ-consciousness is the continuous enjoyment of perfect sight, hearing, vigour, movement,

all permanent because purely spiritual—spiritually independent. Spiritual indestructibility is the

established fact of your being.

I quote from Science and Health, p. 316: “Christ presents the indestructible man, whom

Spirit creates, constitutes, and governs.” This is the man you are—constituted of Spirit, the

activity of the all-seeing, all-hearing, all-knowing Mind, the Mind which is perpetually a state of

spiritual independence.

In infinite oneness there is no medium between God and His direct expression. There is

no medium or organism called an eye between God and sight; there is no medium called heart

between God and life; no medium called brain between God and intelligence. Any medium is a

claim of separation. Just as light is the direct expression of the sun, so sight, hearing, movement

are the direct action of Mind, independent of anything but Mind. Mind never uses matter through

which or by which to express itself. Matter is redundant. Page 72 of Science and Health says,

“Spirit is not made manifest through matter . . .” It is now established that Mind never uses any

organism through which to know, hear or see.

What is sight? It is the flawless action of the divine Mind. The divine Mind sees the

infinite range of its own beautiful being. Mind sees clearly, distinctly, effortlessly even the

smallest and greatest detail of its own infinitude. Mind sees all the loveliness of Being and

misses nothing.

What is hearing? The divine Mind ceaselessly perceives and appreciates its own

harmony. The still, small voice of Truth and the music of the spheres are heard by Mind.

What is true knowing? Divine Mind, alive with interest in its own infinite variety, is the

awareness of its own infinite self-containment. Divine Mind is the fulness of divine knowledge.

Seeing, hearing, knowing are the functions of the divine Mind—hence their perfection. A

vital statement appears on page 109 of Science and Health: “. . . that Mind is All and matter is

naught as the leading factor in Mind-science.”

Our independence of matter is further emphasised in these statements:

There is neither a present nor an eternal copartnership between error and Truth . . .


Science is divine; it hath no partnership with human means and ends . . .


Spirit and matter can neither coexist nor cooperate . . .


Throughout the infinite cycles of eternal existence, Spirit and matter neither concur in

man nor in the universe.


Thus matter will finally be proved nothing more than a mortal belief, wholly inadequate

to affect a man through its supposed organic action or supposed existence.

(Science and Health, pp. 125–126)

This is a blessing indeed. Matter is wholly inadequate to affect you. Any belief which

would claim to limit your activity, your sight, hearing, strength is never your consciousness; it is

null, void, powerless.

You have no connection, no affinity, with the suggestion that existence could be mortal.

Independent of matter, independent of the sum-total of material theories, the light and

splendour of your being shine forth full-orbed. This shining is Mind’s spontaneous action. It is

the spiritual independence which you are.

Age

In the perfection of Being there is no time, no evidence of age. Ageing is a fallacy. It is a

belief of involuntary action—a belief of discordant action which goes on contrary to our volition.

The perfect antidote to ageing symptoms is to be found on page 187 of Science and

Health: “The divine Mind includes all action and volition, and man in Science is governed by

this Mind.”

You are governed by the Mind which perpetuates supernal freshness, vigour and

spontaneity. Life is ceaselessly expressing itself. It is fully sustained strength and action,

undiminishable briskness, acuteness and alertness. Your Life is that buoyancy and vivacity

which is today as it always was, so full and unhampered, so free from restraint. The eternal

perfection of now is all that is and ever will be.

The first marginal heading on page 280 of Science and Health is “The things of God are

beautiful.” They remain beautiful, untouched by age. Job said (11:17), “And thine age shall be

clearer than the noonday; thou shalt shine forth, thou shalt be as the morning.” You exemplify (in

our Leader’s words) “the charms of being, shining resplendent and eternal over age and decay”


I quote again: “The scientific sense of being which establishes harmony, enters into no

compromise with finiteness and feebleness” (Miscellaneous Writings, p. 101). “Immortality,

exempt from age or decay, has a glory of its own . . .” (Science and Health, p. 247).

This glory, exempt from age, is your being. You are the man whose faculties and

capacities are not measured by calendars. You are the man who never slows his pace and whose

spiritual energies never wear out. Yours is the agility and flexibility which knows no rigidity.

Yours is the eternal day, winged with joy, soaring in the grandeur of the noontide of being. You

are brightness uneclipsed, free from weariness, having no sense of the frailties of the world of

time.

The eternality of your being holds no relationship to the ignorance of the proverbial

“threescore years and ten.” You are ageless Life—the Life that bears no evidence of the cruel

creed of time. You are the Son of God, the divinely royal man, God’s ideal. There is no point of

contact between your birth-less, ageless, perfect Life and the mortal misconception. At no point

do these opposites mingle or unite. There is infinite distance between you and any phase of the

Adam-dream.

In the oneness of God and man is found the glory that you had with God before the world

was—the changeless glory of your being, untouched by time. Because the self-same Life which

is God is the Life which is you, your sight, your hearing and your action are unimpaired and

cannot be impaired, but are permanent in their perfection. You are free from handicap, free from

restriction or limitation. Your infinite capabilities, limitless capacities, your memory, your

health, your grace remain divinely intact as the actuality of your being.

In endless continuity God is being your actual condition. God manifests Himself as

yourself. Oneness with God guarantees your continuous well-being in all its aspects, and this is

evidenced in human experience as your healthy, happy life, free from monotony and full of

interest.

The following account appears in the Christian Science Series, vol. I (May 1, 1889), p.

10. When Mrs. Eddy was asked, “Is it possible to change the aged form to one of youth, beauty,

and immortality, without the change called death?” she answered:








would appear.

The ignorant assessment of man as mortal is lost in the glory of his present immortality,

lost in this fact: “Each succeeding year unfolds wisdom, beauty, and holiness” (Science and

Health, p. 246).

All evidence of age is lost in the beauty and loveliness of your own being—lost in the

never-retrograding state of true spiritual independence, dignity and dominion.

Yours is the never-changing kingdom within; yours is timeless, ageless, beautiful being.

As described in words so aptly chosen by our Leader, you are “the everlasting grandeur and


On the basis of divine coexistence you have no option but to be the glorious experience

of the Life which is undiluted good, showing no sign of wear, no tarnish, no ebb. There is no

obstruction to the grandeur and the bliss of your being.

Loneliness

Loneliness is, of course, a state of human feeling. The human mind says, “I feel lonely”;

but true feeling is the function of divine Mind and is the antidote to human or mortal sense. I

quote from Science and Health, pp. 166 and 485:

“Mind is all that feels . . .” “Science declares that Mind, not matter, sees, hears, feels,

speaks.”

Divine Mind can feel only that which is its own nature. This Mind, your Mind, feels its

completeness—its own allness. So it is that the perfection of Being precludes all sense of

loneliness, sorrow or futility.

I quote from Unity of Good, p. 48: “To me God is All. He is best understood as Supreme

Being . . . as the affectionate Father and Mother of all He creates . . .” The Bible says that “thy

Maker is thine husband . . . ”(Isaiah 54:5), and our Leader refers to the Christ as “friend of the

friendless” (Communion Hymn).

Man is the experience of all the qualities and activities of Father, Mother, husband and

friend. The motherhood qualities of God are love, tenderness, gentleness, affection and

constancy. All these qualities are expressed in their fulness as your experience. Consequently

you are feeling this tenderness and gentleness. You are feeling affection and constancy. You

experience also the wisdom and understanding of divine fatherhood, the provision of God’s care

and the joys of divine friendship.

Your divine experience is your divine feeling—the feeling of love, the feeling of constant

happiness that is deep and lasting because it is the kingdom within. You are “the compound idea

of God, including all right ideas . . .” (Science and Health, p. 475). You are “perfect and entire,

wanting nothing” (James 1:4). In such a state of contentment and completeness there is no

vacuum, because the “seeming vacuum is already filled with divine Love” (Science and Health,

p. 266).

This vital awareness has no solitary sense, no aching void. It is the consciousness of the

divine presence embracing all within its own infinitude of endless love.

Heredity

One of the most pernicious theories of mortal existence is heredity. This mythological

belief is an imposter; it never has operated in the kingdom of God and man.

Jesus said, “And call no man your father upon the earth: for one is your Father, which is

in heaven” (Matthew 23:9). Calling no man your father upon earth, you have no connecting link

with material ancestry. You have no material history. You have no human record.

In the relationship of God and man is found your true and only record, that of the glory

which you had with God before the world was. This glory has never changed. It is what you are

today. It is the glory of divine Mind, the glory of divine Life, divine Love, all expressed as your

very being.

I quote from Science and Health, p. 516: “Man and woman as coexistent and eternal with

God forever reflect, in glorified quality, the infinite Father-Mother God.” In glorified quality!

You are the state our Leader describes in her poem “Satisfied” as: “God’s glorified!” (Poems, p.

79). The all-harmonious nature and condition of divine Life is the nature and condition of

man—the man you are—with no alternative but to be precisely what God is expressing. God is

actually being all there is to you. This confirms that you have not one trait or one characteristic

which is not to be found within divine Mind.

This truth is the law of obliteration to the diabolical belief of heredity and to any

supposed evidence that heredity claims to have produced. Let us be clear on this point. There is

no heredity. There is no disease, whether supposedly inherited or not. With Jesus we can say, “I

came forth from the Father . . .” (John 16:28); and, “Before Abraham was, I am” (John 8:58).

Here I would like to quote from Miscellaneous Writings, p. 360:

When mortal mind is silenced by the “still, small voice” of Truth that regenerates

philosophy and logic; and Jesus, as the true idea of Him, is heard as of yore saying to sensitive

ears and dark disciples, “I came from the Father,” “Before Abraham was, I am,” coexistent and

coeternal with God,—and this idea is understood,—then will the earth be filled with the true

knowledge of Christ.

Then it will be recognised that all there is to man is God’s ideal, the glorious Christ.

In concluding this section and utterly expunging the myth of heredity, I quote four verses

of our Leader’s poem “Christmas Morn”:

Dear Christ, forever here and near,

No cradle song,


To thee belong.

Thou God-idea, Life-encrowned,

The Bethlehem babe—

Beloved, replete, by flesh embound—

Was but thy shade!


And deathless Life!

Truth infinite,—so far above

All mortal strife,

Or cruel creed, or earth-born taint:

. . .

This is your being:

No cradle song,


To thee belong.

Thou God-idea, Life-encrowned,

. . .


. . .

Yes. This is you.

To summarize: The perfection of Being—your being—is a state of rectitude and serenity,

free from burden or depression.

It is a state of permanent preservation, of unthreatened safety, dissociated from all the

fallibilities of human sense.

Incidental to your oneness with God, you live as glorious liberty, as happiness, active

strength, vivacity, changeless well-being. As the consequence of God, you are the inevitable

experience of the Life which remains its own integral self in endless continuity. Indeed, only the

eloquence of Love could describe the beauty, the sublimity and the wonder of your being!

The perfection of Being is the correct view of Life. It is Life seen in God’s light. It is Life

living itself in the most healthy, perfect, abundant, infinite way, and this is your Life.

The perfection of Being is the state of which our Leader writes in Science and Health (p.

520): “The depth, breadth, height, might, majesty, and glory of infinite Love fill all space.” It is

the kingdom where good alone exists, where good alone is power.

The perfection of Being is the recognition that man has no option but to experience

health, joy, abundance and divine completeness, all unopposed, without an interruption of any

sort. In this perfection of Being any sense of limitation or restriction is unknown.

The perfection of Being is the divine Mind expressing itself in all its majesty, beauty,

security and glory, and this expression is you. You cannot escape the sheer bliss of divine Life’s

living. Our Leader refers to Life as majestic. All that is divinely regal and grand is your

God-established state. The charms of harmony, comeliness and grace are your innate

characteristics. All the glorious, immutable qualities of Spirit constitute your character.

Severity, harshness and exaction are no part of the one “I” or “Us”; so they never can be

your experience. Whatever is not in strict accordance with the divine nature is precluded forever

from the perfection of your being. The only law in the universe of the only I or Us is the

unbreakable law of Principle. Hence your immunity from every material hypothesis. Principle is

the Love which maintains such precision and rightness that no hurt or harm could ever occur. Let

us then never again drudge along as mortals tolerating the ignorance of restriction, frustration

and mediocrity. Let Life be the “raptured song,/With Love perfumed” (Poems, p. 12). Let it be

“life most sweet” (Poems, p. 7)—the gentleness, tenderness, of ever-present Love and affection,

confidence and certitude, free from care or doubt.

Your Life is aglow with the warmth of the Love which you are and feel. You are the

continuous experience of divine Love’s stability, reliability and constancy—the Love which

permits perfection alone.

Divine Love is your Mind. Hence your freedom from fear, your immunity from all that is

not the nature of boundless, tireless Love, the Love which alone is Life.

Our Leader says that “Principle wrought wonders . . .” (Science and Health, p. 133). The

wonders that Principle works today are your experience.

The Correct Standpoint Reveals Man’s Perfection

There are not two kinds of existence, one spiritual, the other material. There is one

existence only, and this one is purely spiritual.

Looking ever at the perfection of glorious Being from the mortal point of view reveals a

picture of Life the very reverse of the true. It reveals a misconception of existence—mortal

existence—and within this misconception is the sum-total of error.

The mortal point of view reveals only mortal mind’s erroneous sense of itself—the

Adam-dream, the frustrated, incomplete, unhappy, disappointed, weary, sick and burdensome

sense of existence. From first to last this material sense is entirely a mistaken view of Life.

Science and Health states (p. 301):

Delusion, sin, disease, and death arise from the false testimony of material sense, which,

from a supposed standpoint outside the focal distance of infinite Spirit, presents an inverted

image of Mind and substance with everything turned upside down.

Here, then, is our Leader’s definition of mortal existence: “an inverted image of Mind

and substance with everything turned upside down.” Happily, this upside-down state of affairs

has no connection, no relationship, no affinity with you.

Viewed from the standpoint of Spirit, Life is a state of unalterable harmony, security,

freedom, abundance. This is the only Life and the only state existing, but the erring senses,

misinterpreting this one and only Life, present a distorted view. These material senses see

discord where spiritual sense sees harmony; they sense fear where safety is; they feel bondage in

the very presence of freedom, and experience lack in the midst of plenty. All sense evidence is

the very opposite of the truth—the very antipode of divine Mind’s interpretation of itself.

Whatever the trouble may be, whether sickness, loneliness, old age or sorrow, it results

from regarding the one and only existence from the incorrect standpoint. Inevitably the incorrect

viewpoint reveals an incorrect picture.

The incorrect standpoint being the cause of all human suffering, what then is the remedy

for human woe? What is the solution to the varied problems which beset mankind? Jesus makes

it plain that any attempt to change the mortal picture is not the remedy. The correct interpretation

of the one Life is the solution. Our Leader wrote to one of her students, “Do not try to reform

that which God never made.” Does not Jesus say (Matthew 9:16, 17):

No man putteth a piece of new cloth unto an old garment, for that which is put in to fill it

up taketh from the garment, and the rent is made worse. Neither do men put new wine into old

bottles: else the bottles break, and the wine runneth out, and the bottles perish: but they put new

wine into new bottles, and both are preserved.

The human, unsatisfactory point of view with its drabness and monotony—the old

garment, the old bottles—must be abandoned. The old standpoint must be forsaken. It must be

recognised that a “supposed standpoint” is no standpoint at all.

We must leave the old viewpoint for the new standpoint. “The divine Principle of the

universe must interpret the universe” (Science and Health, p. 272), because material sense

misinterprets it. The false sense of the world is merely the misinterpretation of the real, which is

always eternally perfect.

Only from the standpoint of God, never from the human mind’s point of view, is the true

sense of Life understood. The standpoint of Spirit reveals an entirely new picture of Life—God’s

sense of Life, Life in all its divine loveliness and wholeness—and this is our Life. We must not

try to improve the old picture, which is the misinterpretation. We must not attempt to bring

harmony or health to a human sense of existence. Instead, we acknowledge the wholeness and

perfection of spirtual existence, which is the only existence. We “put new wine into new bottles.”

Accepting none but divine Mind’s interpretation of Life, “. . . all things are become new” (II

Corinthians 5:17). The whole of Being is seen to be entirely spiritual. That is, we experience

existence as it divinely is, in its fulness of perfection, not obscured by the material

misinterpretation of life. The material sense of everything must give place to the divine. Science

and Health plainly states (p. 281):

Divine Science does not put new wine into old bottles . . . The old belief must be cast out

or the new idea will be spilled, and the inspiration, which is to change our standpoint, will be

lost.

Note the purpose of inspiration: “to change our standpoint . . .” Any attempt to patch up

the material version of life is futile. Our standpoint must be rectified. There is no other way. We

must gather our evidence of Life from Spirit, which reveals Life in all its natural bliss and

beauty. “When understanding changes the standpoints of life and intelligence from a material to

a spiritual basis, we shall gain the reality of Life . . .” (Science and Health, p. 322). The reality of

Life is holiness, harmony, immortality, all of which is your being.

No matter what the material evidence may seem to be— no matter whether the problem

calls itself lack of health, lack of companionship, unhappy environment, unsatisfactory

employment, lack of peace or lack of joy—this is only a misrepresentation of the real, and the

solution is always to be found in the divine Mind’s interpretation, in the recognition of existence

as seen from the one primal Cause. One of your teacher’s favourite passages is found on page

467 of Science and Health: “Reasoning from cause to effect in the Science of Mind, we begin

with Mind . . .” Science and Health also states (p. 262), “To begin rightly is to end rightly.”

Mortals, alas, begin their reasoning with the problem. Confronted with a thoroughly

unsatisfactory state of affairs, the mortal naturally strives to improve it. He becomes involved in

the problem, where the solution can never be found. Our Leader has written in Science and

Health (p. 277), error in the premise leads to errors in the conclusion in every statement into

which it enters.” She emphasises again on page 167: “. . . an error in the premise must appear in

the conclusion.” And she says in Miscellany (p. 274): “To begin rightly enables one to end

rightly, and thus it is that one achieves the Science of Life, demonstrates health, holiness, and

immortality.”

Let us, then, “begin with Mind,” which our Leader tells us is its own interpreter” (Science

and Health, p. 577). Divine Mind, which is ever conscious of itself, interprets—explains itself,

reveals its perfection, harmony, wholeness—and this glorious revealing is man. Mind explains

all the beauty and glory of its Being as your being: “God’s interpretation of Himself . . . shows

that nature and man are as harmonious to-day as in the beginning. . .” (Miscellaneous Writings,

p. 258). Divine Mind, or Life, interprets its own nature as intelligence, bliss, beauty, loveliness,

joy, serenity, bounty; and this nature is man. Mind’s infinite knowing is man.

The divine Mind is forever aware of all that constitutes its own Being, and this awareness

is man. The divine Life is continuously living its own divine all-inclusiveness naturally, freely,

joyously, radiantly; and this effortless living is man. Divine Mind reveals the brightness,

vividness and radiance of Life, which never fade; and this is man’s Life. Hence yours is the

happy and effortless experience of all that is divinely beautiful, changeless, abundant, whole, all

of which is forever evident in all its fulness.

Jesus’ standpoint was always from Mind, from Truth itself. He accepted no mortal

viewpoint, hence no mortal evidence. In every circumstance he gathered evidence of the

situation from Truth itself, which reveals all conditions as they divinely are. Because of this, he

was able to feed the multitude. Abundance was always evident to him even when others were

unaware of it.

The contrasting evidence of two opposite points of view is illustrated in Luke (5:4-6).

The disciples had toiled all night and caught nothing. Theirs was the supposed material

standpoint. It was night—devoid of light, devoid of everything. Jesus’ true standpoint revealed,

as always, the fulness of harmony in every situation. When the net was let down again, it was

filled with “a great multitude of fishes . . .”

Our Leader has written (Science and Health, p. 273): “The physical senses can take no

cognizance of God and spiritual Truth.” Because Jesus accepted evidence only from Spirit,

perfection in all its aspects was always evident in its fulness. Mrs. Eddy states in Unity of Good

(p. 11):

Jesus stooped not to human consciousness, nor to the evidence of the senses. He heeded

not the taunt, ‘That withered hand looks very real and feels very real;’ but he cut off this vain

boasting and destroyed human pride by taking away the material evidence.

How did Jesus take “away the material evidence”? By accepting God’s point of view and

spiritual evidence as the only evidence. He accepted none but divine Mind’s interpretation of the

universe. Hence the absence of the misinterpretation—the absence of all material evidence.

Reasoning from Cause to effect disposes entirely of the mortal sense testimony.

It was because Jesus did not stoop to the evidence of the senses, and because he knew

that God’s own Life, God’s own vision, God’s own perception, God’s own substance is all there

is to anyone, that he was able instantaneously to heal the sick, give sight to the blind, and heal

the deaf, the dumb, the lame. Because he totally disregarded mortal mind as a witness, it could

not bear witness. Because spiritual evidence alone is real, natural and tangible, he was able to

heal multitudes of their infirmities, and raise the dead.

The story of the Shunammite woman fulfilled the injunction, given to us by our Leader in

Science and Health (p. 370), to

. . . turn from the lie of false belief to Truth, and gather the facts of being from the divine

Mind.

Despite the material evidence of the death of her only child, tlhe Shunammite refused to

identify either her child, her husband or herself with such misinterpretation. When she was

asked, “Is it well with thee? is it well with thy husband? is it well with the child?” her reply, “It

is well” (II Kings 4:26), was Truth uttering itself. It was the divinely true interpretation of the

circumstance seen from the spiritual standpoint—a complete contradiction of all that seemed to

be from the mortal point of view. Hence the undeniable and concrete evidence of the harmony of

being: “. . . the child opened his eyes . . . Then she went in . . . and took up her son, and went

out” (II Kings 4:35, 37). Like Jesus, the Shunammite gathered the facts of being from the divine

Mind.

Nowhere else are they to be found. There is nowhere else. The spiritual fact and its

glorious evidence are inseparable. The Word is made flesh.

Our Leader frequently referred students to Psalm 85:8:

I will hear what God and Lord will speak: for he will speak peace unto his people, and to

his saints: but let them not turn again to folly.

“Let them not turn again to folly.” Let them not identify themselves with the supposed

mortal viewpoint, or listen to the utterances of the carnal mind.

Jesus “suffered not the devils to speak” (Mark 1:34), and our Leader writes in Science

and Health (p. 441):

The plea of False Belief we deem unworthy of a hearing. Let what False Belief utters,

now and forever, fall into oblivion …

Let us be as resolute as Jesus, as our Leader and as the Shunammite in accepting only

divine Mind’s interpretation of Life and the universe, and thus avoid the pain and suffering of the

mortal misinterpretation.

That the correct viewpoint disposes of the triad of errors is illustrated in Revelation

(1:10): “I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day . . .” St. John beheld all from the standpoint of

Spirit—the only standpoint. He saw all in its true light.

And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were

passed away; and there was no more sea.

And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with

men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with

them, and be their God.

And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death,

neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed

away.

(Revelation 21:1, 3, 4)

St. John beheld a view which human sense could not grasp, “. . . that which is invisible to

the uninspired thought” (Science and Health, p. 573). “. . . all things [had] become new” (II

Corinthians 5:17); “and there was no more sea”—no human concept. All appeared in its true and

beautiful light—the light of spiritual existence, which to St. John was a new light. His vivid

awareness of the infinite All of perfection had outshone the human concept. How different did

the same heaven and earth appear when beheld from two different points of view, the material

and the spiritual, the darkness and the light!

Our Leader states in Science and Health (p. 585): “To material sense, earth is matter; to

spiritual sense, it is a compound idea.” In the light of Spirit, as she explains on page 573,

. . . man was no longer regarded as a miserable sinner, but as the blessed child of God.

Why? Because St. John’s corporeal sense of the heavens and earth had vanished, and in place of

this false sense was the spiritual sense, the subjective state by which he could see the new heaven

and new earth, which involve the spiritual idea and consciousness of reality. This is Scriptural

authority for concluding that such a recognition of being is, and has been, possible to men in this

present state of existence,—that we can become conscious, here and now, of a cessation of death,

sorrow, and pain.

How are we to become conscious of a “cessation of death, sorrow, and pain”? By

acknowledging that there is but one standpoint, the standpoint of Spirit, and by accepting Spirit’s

evidence of Life as the only evidence. Thus we no longer look at existence through the lens of

the human mind. Divine Mind, by its very nature, is forever revealing itself—revealing its own

being, displaying the glory of its withinness, and this glory is all there is, ever has been, or ever

will be to you. By seeing all from the standpoint of Truth—the only standpoint—you see

yourself as never having included one element of error. Wholeness is the inevitable consequence

of Mind’s perfect causation.

The perfection of Life—which has no relationship with any material sense of

existence—appeared to St. John as his own experience. His erroneous impression of Life had

vanished, together with its discordant evidence. His sense of sorrow, pain, grief and death was

gone forever. The former things were passed away. No “supposed standpoint”—no human

misinterpretation—remained. I quote from Isaiah (65:17): “. . . the former shall not be

remembered, nor come into mind.”

The following references are from our Leader’s works:

That which material sense calls intangible, is found to be substance. What to material

sense seems substance, becomes nothingness, as the sense-dream vanishes and reality appears.


. . . sin and sorrow, disease and death, are the suppositional absence of Life, God, and flee

as phantoms of error before truth and love.


As vapor melts before the sun, so evil would vanish before the reality of good.


The crude creations of mortal thought must finally give place to the glorious forms which

we sometimes behold in the camera of divine Mind, when the mental picture is spiritual and

eternal.


. . . evil is egotistic,—boastful, but fleeing like a shadow at daybreak . . .


[“. . . at daybreak” means “seen in the correct light”—seen from the correct standpoint.]

We can rejoice that whatever appears as a problem is nothing more than a misconception,

which cannot withstand the recognition of existence from the standpoint of Truth itself.

Let us not, then, allow mortal mind to attempt any interpretation of any situation. It

would only misinterpret it. Speaking of this mind, Jesus said (John 8:44) that it abode not in the

truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a

liar, and the father of it.” Flow impossible for that which has “no truth” in itself to give a true

interpretation of anything! As Science and Health says (p. 126), “Human thought never projected

the least portion of true being.”

Only divine Principle’s interpretation and evidence is to be admitted. This evidence is

infinite joy, harmony, beauty, freshness and bounty, all of which constitute your being.

Are we perhaps tempted to question whether divine Principle’s interpretation, which

reveals the immaculate perfection of divine Allness, pays sufficient attention to our problems?

How much attention did St. John give to the “former things” that had “passed away”? None

whatever. The disappearance of any misconception—the vanishing of every problem, no matter

what its name, nature or magnitude—is the natural and immediate effect of Truth’s evidence of

its own Allness. It has been said, “Error cannot be removed as something; it dissolves as

nothing.” A most important statement is to be found on page 411 of Science and Health:

If Spirit or the power of divine Love bear witness to the truth, this is the ultimatum, the

scientific way, and the healing is instantaneous.

When Spirit pours forth its volumes of truth about Life, everything that is uttered of the

beauty, loveliness, wholeness, perfection, joy and activity of Being is here and now your being.

“God’s interpretation of Himself furnishes man with the only suitable or true idea of Him . . .”

(Miscellaneous Writings, p. 258).

Interpreting Himself, God interprets the whole of Being, which is divine loveliness, bliss

and grandeur—the fadeless beauty and freshness of divine reality. This state of complete

harmony was termed by the Revelator “the holy city.” The holy city is simply the Revelator’s

term for all true Being.

As interpreted by divine Principle: “This heavenly city, lighted by the Sun of

Righteousness,—this New Jerusalem, this infinite All . . .” (Science and Health, p. 576)—this

happy state of perfection which is your permanent nature—no longer seems hidden, distant or

remote. The glory, effulgence and permanence of this divine living, your living—its crystal

clarity, its peace, love, joy, wholeness and perfection—are all your own withinness, here, now,

forever. Such is the bliss of your being, including your universe, “interpreted by Science from

[your] divine Principle, God . . .” (Science and Health, p. 124).

From everlasting to everlasting, God’s interpretation of Himself is the one and only

interpretation. From His standpoint—the only standpoint—there has never been even a

supposition of any other interpretation. There is no mortal—no mortal point of view, no mortal

evidence.

God’s interpretation of Himself includes man and the universe. It is divine Mind’s

interpretation of the “infinite All” in its exquisite loveliness, perfection, immmutable wholeness

and harmony. Principle interprets the whole of infinite Being in two wonderful and positive

words, the pure language of Spirit, mighty, vital, all-embracing: I am.

The Marriage Feast

“Come hither! Arise from your false consciousness into the true sense of Love, and

behold the Lamb’s wife,—Love wedded to its own spiritual idea.” Then cometh the marriage

feast, for this revelation will destroy forever the physical plagues imposed by material sense.


Whose marriage is this? It is the marriage of Love, the Lamb’s wife, wedded to its own

expression, man. It is the divine “I” wedded to its full manifestation, which is “am.” Hence the

wedded state, “I am.”

When was the marriage? This wedded state of Love and Love’s idea has existed forever.

Love and its own concept, man, have been forever indivisibly one.

Where is the marriage feast? It is within the Father’s house—within the one

consciousness of the Father-Mother and Son, and this is your consciousness.

What is the marriage feast? It is the recognition of spiritual Self-completeness and divine

Self-awareness. It is your Life lived at the standpoint of divine all-inclusiveness—perfection

itself. It is divine Love’s way of Life, so wonderfully happy, whole and free, so blithe, gleeful

and glad, so filled with the fulness of good, that the Revelator likened this blissful living to a

marriage feast. It means that your experience is aglow with the infinite tenderness, sweetness and

warmth of Love. The feast is the joy and enjoyment of everything that is divinely beautiful,

jubilant, wonderful and good.

How long does the marriage feast continue? The feast is without beginning and without

end. Love maintains the fulness of its own perfection continuously. The harmony and beauty

which divine Love lives and expresses as man lasts forever.

First comes the recognition of man’s oneness with God, symbolised as “Love wedded to

its own spiritual idea.” Then comes the result or consequence of this oneness. This consequence

is symbolised as “the marriage feast,” which is the term used by the Revelator to indicate man’s

joyous, blissful and wonderful experience as divine Love’s Self-awareness. Nothing could be

more wonderful for man than to be divine Love’s own consciousness and experience.

Let us now review the blessings of this marriage feast, which are incidental to the

oneness of God and man. One aspect is that the self-same Life which is God is the Life which is

man, and this Life is absolute bliss, radiant and redolent. It is joy unspeakable—grandeur and

magnificence. It means that man has no separate life of his own to live as best he can, but that

divine Life expresses itself in its own beautiful way, and this substantial, satisfying, glorious

expression is man. It means that whatever is in Love’s own Mind is man’s experience.

The “Lamb’s wife” is divine Love, the motherhood of God, and man is Love’s divine

concept. “Love wedded to its own spiritual idea” means that divine Love is the Cause aspect and

man is the effect aspect of the one infinite Being. It means that man has no alternative but to be

the experience of all the joy, brilliancy, harmony, sublimity and vivacity which divine Love so

naturally is. Divine Love experiences all the perfection of its own glorious withinness, and the

effortless experience of this glorious perfection is all there is to man.

Love, the divine Mother, never loses sight of the perfection of its own Being. Its concept

is loveliness, wholeness, harmony, beauty, the immortality of Being; and this is your being.

Divine Love, cognizant of the glory and divinity of its own nature, manifests this glory and

divinity as man. To the fulness of Love’s expressing, there is no alternative. Love expresses itself

as blessedness, brightness, graciousness, buoyancy, happiness, felicity, all of which constitute

man—“the indestructible man, whom Spirit creates, constitutes, and governs” (Science and

Health, p. 316).

The allness of divine Love inevitably precludes all sense of inharmony. Love’s oneness,

allness, only-ness banishes the belief that anything but Love and Love’s concept could exist. It

means that Love’s concept is the only concept there is of you in the whole of being. Hence there

is no personal concept—no erroneous or mistaken sense about you—anywhere.

It is important to emphasise that man has no separate existence of his own, but is,

unoptionally, one with Love’s delightful living. Science and Health states (pp. 522, 539, 303,

306):

Existence, separate from divinity, Science explains as impossible. Error begins by

reckoning life as separate from Spirit . . .

Spiritual man is the image or idea of God, an idea which cannot be lost nor separated

from its divine Principle.

. . . man cannot be separated for an instant from God . . .

Because God’s own Life is all there is to man, his experience is bliss itself, a festive state,

joyous and divinely gay—vital in purpose and fulfillment. Dullness, monotony, parsimony,

drabness, dinginess, futility, bleakness are not the awareness of Love; so are never the

experience of Love’s idea.

The absolute oneness of Principle and idea is expressed on page 48 of Unity of Good:

“He sustains my individuality. Nay, more—He is my individuality and my Life.”

The marriage feast, this glorious, beatific sense of Life, is the inevitable consequence of

the oneness of Principle and idea. The whole of harmony—the perfection of Being itself— is

found in the indissolubility of Love and Love’s idea.

Man, forever at one with his source, is complete within Love’s infinite nature—manhood

and womanhood in one. He is the rich and varied experience of Love’s boundless, versatile

expressing. Within this Love is everything that is divinely essential, and the experience of this

infinite Self-completeness—this marriage feast—is man.

The oneness of Love and Love’s idea is free from hurt or wound, for Love includes

within itself no element of harm. To divine Love, all that exists is Love itself. Love could not

hurt itself, afflict itself, rob itself, condemn itself, misunderstand itself, criticise itself. Love

could not be unkind to itself or disagree with itself, and there is no other selfhood. Therefore,

none of this inharmony is happening anywhere. Nothing but Love is going on. Love experiences

all the interest, brightness, vividness, radiance, effulgence and splendour that exist within itself,

and the fulness of this happy state is man.

Divine motherhood cherishes and embraces its own idea of Life, free from all

demandingness or possessiveness—free from the “up-againstness” of human parentage. Love

understands its own nature. Misunderstanding never entered the consciousness of Love or Love’s

idea. Because Love includes all within its own subjective oneness, there is no sense of duality.

The marriage feast—this wonderful Life and lovely living—includes no personal sense to

interrupt the gladness of this oneness. Love’s subjective experience— Love’s experience of its

own beautiful, bountiful, exquisite Being, is entirely free from any interference. Because Being

is One, there is no one to mar the grandeur of Love’s living, no one to thwart Love’s purpose, no

one to damp Love’s interest, zeal and fervour. Love itself is all. To the sublimity and loveliness

of Love, there is no alternative.

Within this wedded Love is the joy that wells up forever, which appears to us, in the

words of the Bible (Psalm 126:2), as a “. . . mouth filled with laughter . . .” Isaiah wrote (3 5:1,

2): “The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad and the desert shall rejoice, and blossom

as the rose. It shall blossom abundantly, and rejoice even with joy and singing . . .” Any parched

and desolate sense, any misconception, is not to be found in the fulness of Love loving all. Life

is free from all frustration. Any thwarted sense is lost in the spontaneity and immediacy of

Love’s divine Self-experience— your experience.

The feast goes on. Felicity knows no bounds. Unabated happiness and the certainty of

abiding wholeness know no alternative. In the oneness of Love, any sense of servitude is

unknown. The old theological sense of man serving God would indicate duality. But we read in

Galatians (4:7), “Wherefore thou art no more a servant, but a son . . .” and in Micah (6:4), “For I

brought thee up out of the land of Egypt, and redeemed thee out of the house of servants . . .”

The Son, the “only begotten of the Father” (John 1:14), is the recognition of oneness.

Oneness is a state of sublimity, fulness, completeness, all within Love’s Self-completeness. “. . .

Son, thou art ever with me, and all that I have is thine” (Luke 15:31). Man is the enjoyment of

this regal sonship—the reality, divinity, majesty and grandeur of Being.

Wedded to its own infinite sense of itself, Love enjoys its own infinite

Self-completeness—its happiness, buoyancy, resplendency, tenderness and warmth—and the

experience of this enraptured state is man.

Another benign aspect of the marriage feast is peace of Mind, Love’s peace of

Mind—man’s peace of Mind. In this oneness, all is undisturbed and unafraid because Love

embraces all within its own security.

The continuity of the marriage feast—the continuity of this true, delightful sense of Life,

the Life of God and man, Cause and effect in one—follows as a consequence of man’s unbroken

weddedness with Love. “He brought me to the banqueting house, and his banner over me was

love” (Song of Solomon 2:4).

In the one and only Life—this all-harmonious Being— there is no separation, no

division, no contention, no competition. The coincidence of Principle and idea reveals, as man’s

own being, the kingdom of Love in all its bounty, beauty, effulgence, completeness and bliss.

The inseparability of Love and Love’s idea makes every detail of Life beautiful, colourful, vital,

cheerful, delightful; and there is no alternative to this brightness and this happiness. All Love’s

expressing is lovely forever, and this expression is man. This tender, universal, living,

all-embracing Love feels no hardness, no indifference. None could be excluded from Love’s

infinitude. The very nature of Love is all-inclusiveness. Our Leader has written on page 24 of

Unity of Good: “. . . verily I say unto you, God is All-in-all; and you can never be outside of His

oneness.” And on page 17: “Hourly, in Christian Science, man thus weds himself with God, or

rather he ratifies a union predestined from all eternity . . .”

Simply because of this divine coexistence, man is the Christ-consciousness itself, not a

human consciousness enlightened by the Christ. Thus man is the enjoyment of the undiluted

nature of Love’s Being, the very essence of the Christ. The feast is Love’s experience of All, as

All divinely is, the very zenith of perfection, soaring high above any supposition of personal

interdependence. Because Love is spiritual Self-completeness, bliss knows no burdened sense.

The blessedness and bounty of your being are divinely Self-maintained. Love is happiness and

gladness, and this is the reason that daily experience is happy and glad. Love is literally being all

that constitutes man, just as the sun is being light. The Life that Love is living, which is all there

is to you, could never be restricted by any limitation of person, circumstance, place or time.

The oneness of Mind reveals the indivisible oneness of glorious, exquisite Being. Being

is one and one alone.

I and my Father are one.

(John 10:30)

Jesus taught and demonstrated the infinite as one, and not as two.

(No and Yes, p. 35)

. . . Christian Science . . . reckons one as one and this one infinite.

(Message for 1901, p. 6)

Reason and revelation declare that God is both noumenon and phenomena . . .




Jesus of Nazareth taught and demonstrated man’s oneness with the Father . . .


The Allness of Deity is His oneness.




Our Leader tells us that the revelation of the oneness of Love and Love’s idea “will

destroy forever the physical plagues imposed by material sense.” How does this revelation

destroy these physical plagues? The perfection of the infinite One precludes them. Physical sense

has no place in the revelation of divine Love’s infinite Self-awareness—infinite Self-

completeness.

Christian Healing states (p. 10):

. . . the beast bowed before the Lamb: it was supposed to have fought the manhood of

God, that Jesus represented; but it fell before the womanhood of God, that presented the highest

ideal of Love.

The beast, the sum-total of error, made no attempt to fight Love, but bowed before it. The

erroneous belief that evil exists even as a belief surrendered itself. Does not our Leader say

(Science and Health, p. 224), “No power can withstand divine Love”? And again (p. 567): “The

Gabriel of His presence has no contests. To infinite, ever-present Love, all is Love, and there is

no error, no sin, sickness, nor death.”

This living Love, this indivisible Allness, includes within itself not one element which is

not of itself. Our Leader states in No and Yes (p. 30):


a claim to error. This knowledge is light wherein there is no darkness,—not light holding

darkness within itself. The consciousness of light is like the eternal law of God, revealing Him

and nothing else.

In the recognition of Love’s Allness, every plague, every misconception, every so-called

problem, every obstacle, and all sense of fear, anxiety, frustration, disappointment and limitation

are lost, swallowed up in the sublimity of living Love.

Another aspect of the marriage feast, miraculous to human sense though natural to the

divine, is the simultaneous nature of good. Think of it! All of good is happening, all of good is

evident, all at once, everywhere. What a feast indeed! Limitless good, without process, without

time, without sequence, is one’s very own Being!

To Moses’ human sense, the simultaneity of good seemed overwhelming. He “. . . put the

veil upon his face . . .” (Exodus 34:35). He hid from the brightness and wonder of it all. Moses

mistakenly identified himself as a person who must needs accept this measureless glory, whereas

the very essence of felicity, in all its measureless fulness, is man’s eternal being.

The brightness that never wanes, the beauty that is forever beautiful, the undiluted “bliss

[that] enjoys but cannot suffer” (Science and Health, p. 582), the wholeness that knows no

variableness, the abundance free from diminution and the perfection that is perpetual are all

Love’s own blissful Self-awareness, which I am.

God’s Will

Christian Scientists desire only that which is divinely right. We stand united in the

prayerful attitude which will permit Mind’s intelligent plan to be revealed—the attitude

expressed in Psalm 85:8, “I will hear what God the Lord will speak …” The questions naturally

arise, “What is the divine plan for our affairs? What is divinely right?” For the answer to these

questions we turn to the Bible: “. . . I [God] declare things that are right” (Isaiah 45:19).

Mrs. Eddy wrote to Mr. William P. McKenzie, “It is more important to know that right is,

than to know what is right.” It is sufficient that intelligent Mind compels that which is right; and

to this one right there is no alternative. Because God is the one and only power, any mistake is

impossible. We read in Lamentations (3:3 7), “Who is he that saith, and it cometh to pass, when

the Lord commandeth it not?” So every one of us can be at peace, assured that right is inevitable

and a thoroughly satisfactory plan will be revealed by Mind.

It is as impossible to deflect the will of God as to check the dawn of day. In support of

this statement I quote the following references:

. . . the Lord of hosts hath purposed, and who shall disannul it? and his hand is stretched


(Isaiah 14:27)

. . . he is in one mind, and who can turn him? and what his soul desireth, even that he

doeth.

(Job 23:13)

. . . he doeth according to his will in the army of heaven, and among the inhabitants of

the earth: and none can stay his hand . . .

(Daniel 4:35)

. . . I am God . . . Declaring the end from the beginning saying, My counsel shall stand,

and I will do all my pleasure . . .

(Isaiah 46:9,10)

. . . Surely as I have thought, so shall it come to pass; and as I have purposed, so shall it

stand . . .

(Isaiah 14:24)

What assurance! Not only does Mind determine and declare what is right, but does it: “he

doeth according to his will . . .” Because of this a plan of action and its execution can be none

other than the perfect will of God. To whatever is not of God, divine wisdom pronounces: I am

“he that shutteth, and no man openeth” (Revelation 3:7).

Upon divine Mind’s plan rests the benediction, “. . . I have set before thee an open door,

and no man can shut it” (Revelation 3:8). Indeed, that which is right is the unoptional

consequence of God’s government.

The prayer which acknowledges the infallible perfection of God’s will precludes all

suggestions of minds many, and therefore permits not one conflicting element in premise or

conclusion. In fact, our prayer precludes the suggestion of any will, any power, any action or any

consequence but that of God. In the understanding that the all-intelligent, far-seeing Mind is in

full control, we can acknowledge with certainty that every detail regarding our affairs will unfold

in accordance with the divine decree.

Science and Health (p. 506) tells us: “Spirit, God, gathers unformed thoughts into their

proper channels, and unfolds these thoughts, even as He opens the petals of a holy purpose in

order that the purpose may appear.”

We shall see the will of God evidenced humanly as flawless judgment and wisdom,

revealing a plan thoroughly satisfactory to everyone concerned. The human situation will

conform to the divine.

God’s way is practical. It is the safe way. It is the way of divine Love, whose tenderness

guides our every step in flawless precision.

In our desire to hear “what God the Lord will speak,” a great demand is made upon us.

On page 89 of Science and Health is the statement, “Spirit, God, is heard when the senses are

silent.” The demand is that we silence the material senses and surrender human opinion and

preconceived conclusions.

In this attitude we dwell no longer in the valley of decision, unsure which way to take.

We stand as one Mind on the Mount of Revelation, where, in the words of Isaiah (30:21), “. . .

thine ears shall hear a word behind thee, saying, This is the way, walk ye in it . . .”

Addresses and Other Writings on Christia - Doris Dufour Henty2

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