Arnold H. Exo, C.S.B., of Chicago, Illinois
Member of the Board of Lectureship of The
Mother Church,
The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, Massachusetts
The lecturer spoke substantially as follows:
Christian Science blesses family and home by revealing "the nature, essence, and wholeness" (Science and Health, p. 465) of God.
That which makes a dwelling place ". . .the dearest spot on earth, . . . the centre, though not the boundary, of the affections" (Science and Health, p. 58) — as Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, has so aptly described home — consists primarily of qualities such as order, joy, purity, harmony, and an understanding love.
These qualities do not and cannot have their origin in material things, such as building materials, furnishings, and broad lawns. The order, joy, purity, harmony, and understanding love which make your home and my home "the dearest spot on earth" are reflections of God, who is Spirit. Therefore these qualities are spiritual, and, like all things real, they are limitlessly available, useful, and practical, enriching our whole human experience.
Perhaps some of you might be saying to yourselves, "If the reflected qualities of God which will bless my whole human experience, including my home and my family life, are limitlessly available, useful, and near at hand, why do I sometimes have such difficulty in discerning and utilizing these qualities?" The answer might be that you may not understand clearly enough what God is, hence what His qualities are, and the ever-availability and usefulness to you of these qualities in making your home a better home and your family life a happier one. For example, Christ Jesus said that in order to demonstrate the godly quality of eternal life it was necessary to know God, Life, aright. Said the Master (John 17:3), "This is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent."
What is God? That is the important question. Have you ever asked it of yourself? If so, are you satisfied with your answer? Do your home, your body, your family relationship, your daily activity outside your home, whether it be in office, school, store, factory, mine, or on a farm, indicate, at least in a degree, that you are beginning to know the "only true God," and thereby are able to more readily discern and demonstrate the qualities of God which will bless you and your family?
One of the main purposes of Christian Science is to so simply and thoroughly declare God aright that all who are earnestly seeking to know Him may learn what He is and be blessed in their understanding. Based on what she herself proved to be true, Mary Baker Eddy has written in the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 466), "Science will declare God aright, and Christianity will demonstrate this declaration and its divine Principle, making mankind better physically, morally, and spiritually."
It is by virtue of its Christianly scientific declaration of God, and the resultant "making mankind better physically, morally, and spiritually," that Christian Science proves itself to be the promised Comforter. Christ Jesus defined this Comforter as "the Spirit of truth" (John 14:17), which would abide with us forever, teaching us all things.
In Science and Health (p. 465) Mrs. Eddy writes: "God is incorporeal, divine, supreme, infinite Mind, Spirit, Soul, Principle, Life, Truth, Love. . . . Are these terms synonymous? . . . They are. They refer to one absolute God. They are also intended to express the nature, essence, and wholeness of Deity." This shows that God is not abstract, mystic, and unknowable. God is knowable because the seven synonymous terms for Him express His "nature, essence, and wholeness."
That God is Mind is implied by the Scriptures. For example, in Isaiah we read (Isa. 40:13): "Who hath directed the Spirit of the Lord, or being his counsellor hath taught him?" The book of Daniel (2:21) states that God "giveth wisdom unto the wise, and knowledge to them that know understanding." Since God is Mind and He is the only God, it follows, in the line of logical reasoning, that God is the only Mind. Flesh, nerve, brain, matter, cannot think. Physicists have shown that all material substance, regardless of its form, whether it be liquid, solid, or gas, whether it be wood, stone, flesh, or brain cell, is nothing more than a collection of atoms. Physicists have learned that the tiny atom consists almost entirely of space in which rotate minute forces around an even smaller nucleus.
Reason tells us that the space and elements constituting an atom are no more capable of producing a thought than is a bolt of lightning or a rain cloud. If the space and elements of one atom cannot think, the spaces and elements of millions of atoms joined together in the form of a brain and nerve system can never produce one thought or in any way influence or touch God and His creation. Matter and material energy, regardless of their forms, are always non-intelligent, because Spirit, God, Mind, Soul, is the only real intelligence, and this divine intelligence can never be in atoms or molecules, because God can never be in matter.
In the Gospel of John are recorded several statements by Christ Jesus indicating that God, Soul, Spirit, is the only real Mind, hence man's only real Mind. For example, on one occasion the Master said (John 14:24), "The word which ye hear is not mine, but the Father's which sent me." In Science and Health, Mrs. Eddy, in referring to Christ Jesus, writes (p. 315); "He knew of but one Mind and laid no claim to any other;" and elsewhere in the same book she states (p. 204), ". . . in Science it can never be said that man has a mind of his own, distinct from God, the all Mind."
This fact that God, Spirit, is the only real Mind, hence your only real Mind, my only real Mind, the only real Mind of anybody, is one of the basic teachings of the Science of Christ. It is from this absolute standpoint — that God is man's only real Mind — that the tragic and afflictive falsity of minds many can be uncovered and destroyed.
In Christian Science this lie of minds many is called mortal mind. In his letter to the Romans (8:7), Paul designated mortal mind as "the carnal mind," which, said he, "is enmity against God." Since God is Mind, and He is infinite and immortal, there is no room for a finite mortal mind. Therefore this so-called mortal mind, together with all its effects, is an illusion. It has no more reality or existence than its own false, aggressive assertion that it exists. Said Christ Jesus of this satanic error of more than one Mind and this error's lying belief in itself (John 8:44), "He is a liar, and the father of it."
Since mortal mind is a lie about God, it can manifest itself only in ungodly ways. That is why mortal mind is the prolific source of all evil, of all that is unlike good — the source of all sickly thoughts, sinful thoughts, limited thoughts, morbid thoughts, warlike thoughts, hateful thoughts. The basis of every wrong act or condition, wherever and whatever it may be, is always some kind of a mortal mind lie that God is not the only Mind, Life, Truth, substance, and power — that He is not all. Hence, when we erroneously accept the belief that God is not the only Mind, we simultaneously allow mortal mind to act as our mind. We permit mortal mind's lying thoughts to parade as our thoughts and wrongly influence us. Mortal mind, operating as our thinking, makes us believe that we live in matter, and that our human existence is filled with evil thoughts, acts, lack, sickness, culminating in death.
The only remedy for this awful tragedy being perpetrated on mankind is in the Science of Christianity, as taught and demonstrated by Christ Jesus, and as made available to this age by Mary Baker Eddy in her discovery of Christian Science. Christian Science enables us to know and prove the truth about God, Spirit, Mind, and to thus find the truth about man as the perfect reflection or manifestation of God, in whom there is no evil, no lack of good, no sorrow. In Science and Health Mrs. Eddy states (p. 469): "The exterminator of error is the great truth that God, good, is the only Mind, and that the supposititious opposite of infinite Mind — called devil or evil — is not Mind, is not Truth, but error, without intelligence or reality. There can be but one Mind, because there is but one God; and if mortals claimed no other Mind and accepted no other, sin would be unknown."
Mortal mind, and never person, is always the culprit, and mortal man is always the victim. It is always mortal mind that is sick, that is sinful, that is limited, that is sorrowful, that suffers. Mortal mind is the error from which we are saved by claiming God as the only real Mind, and by reflecting or expressing divine Mind in our thoughts and lives.
Matrimony is much more likely to be a lasting manifestation of love when one or both of the contracting parties recognize that God is Mind, hence their only Mind, because the great I AM is their only God. With one Mind, and that God, good, there can be no manifestation on the part of either husband or wife of such mortal mind evils as sensitiveness, jealousy, suspicion, domination, or selfishness. Instead, every incident of the daily relationship between husband and wife will exemplify a renewal of the sacred marriage vows. In such an atmosphere, respect and growing affection between husband and wife will be the invariable rule, promoting happiness in the home and the family. In Science and Health Mrs. Eddy says (p. 61), "The scientific morale of marriage is spiritual unity."
Family strife is an evil, blighting joy and health, and too often leading to divorce — a problem which today is needlessly ensnaring many fine husbands, wives, parents, and innocent children in bitter sorrow and disappointment. United homes and families are a higher human demonstration than are broken homes. Having God as one's only Mind is the means, potent beyond all others, in maintaining a harmonious marriage and a happy home. This is also the means, potent beyond all others, in maintaining health, peace, and prosperity.
The fact that God is the only real Mind does not cause any member of a family or any other group to lose his individuality. Not amalgamation but individualization is the law of Mind to each of its unfolding ideas, because Mind, God, is infinitely individual, and God must and does evidence this fact about Himself in the eternality and individuality of His children. The individuality of each idea of God is forever established, and never merged with that of any other individual spiritual idea. This spiritual law of man's eternal individuality should never be lost sight of in the relationship between husband and wife or between parent and child. A respect for the individual rights of each member of the family promotes the happiness and health of the members of the family and also increases affection and cooperation between them.
That family wherein one or more members are, to the best of their ability, actively claiming God as their only Mind, is much more likely to be healthier than otherwise would be the case. The unfailing preventive and curative medicine used by the Master was the divine Mind, God. Said Christ Jesus (John 14:10), "The Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works."
Christ Jesus did not prescribe drugs, diet, materia medica, or material hygiene in order to heal, and neither does Christian Science. The only healing power a drug could possibly possess is in mortal mind's false belief that its medicine can heal. To accept mortal mind's suggestion that drugs and material methods are efficacious in healing lessens one's ability to heal or to be healed by Christ's method of healing. Christ Jesus healed on the basis that the only Mind, God, does the healing. Mrs. Eddy healed on the same basis as Christ Jesus healed. In explaining how Christian Science heals physical ills, Mrs. Eddy writes (Science and Health, p. xi), "The physical healing of Christian Science results now, as in Jesus' time, from the operation of divine Principle, before which sin and disease lose their reality in human consciousness and disappear as naturally and as necessarily as darkness gives place to light and sin to reformation."
Christian Science reveals that all disease is the objectified state and activity of mortal mind's false belief that God is not the All-in-all — that infinite Spirit is not the only Life, substance, power, and intelligence. The one Mind, God, never believes a lie, but does understand that He is perfect and All, and that His creation can have no quality underived from Him. Hence when we claim God to be the only Mind, the lie of mortal mind that God is not all begins to lose its reality and begins to vanish from our consciousness. When the false belief in disease, inharmony, and fear of evil, is no longer accepted, the outward manifestations of the false belief — disease and inharmony in the home and outside the home — diminish and then vanish. Thus the logical remedy for disease and inharmony is to stop believing mortal mind lies about God and man, and to rise into the spiritual understanding of what God is, of what man is as God's reflection, and of the inseparable relationship between God and His reflection.
Such spiritual understanding cannot come from material, mortal mind, which at best is only an illusion. Light can never come from darkness, the absence of light. Only the divine Mind, God, can impart the understanding of the things of Spirit, the perfection of Soul, and the law and order of Principle, because God is the only Mind. If Christ Jesus had attempted to utilize, as healing agents, such phases of mortal mind as suggestion, hypnotism, or psychiatry, he never could have raised Jairus' daughter, or the son of the widow of Nain, or himself, or Lazarus. Nor could he have stilled the tempest, walked on the water, multiplied the loaves and fishes, restored the palsied hand, sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf, and healed the ten lepers.
The Master could not and did not cast out the devils of false belief by replacing one false belief with another. Rather, he claimed God as his only Mind and let the inspired ideas which ceaselessly flow from divine Mind dissipate the false beliefs originating in the counterfeit mortal mind — false beliefs apparent as all forms of sin, disease, and death. Said Christ Jesus (Matt. 12:28), "I cast out devils by the Spirit of God." It is on this same basis that Christian Science casts out evil and error of all kinds. Mrs. Eddy states (Science and Health, p. 482): "Christian Science is the law of Truth, which heals the sick on the basis of the one Mind or God. It can heal in no other way, since the human, mortal mind so-called is not a healer, but causes the belief in disease."
The preventive and curative medicine of divine Mind and the medicine and drugs of mortal mind are antipodes, with nothing in common. The methods of matter and of mortal mind are not the methods of Christ Jesus and of Christian Science.
About four years ago a friend of mine, a Christian Scientist, accidentally crashed through the glass door of a china cabinet. A jagged piece of broken glass cut a deep wound in his neck. The members of my friend's family, who are also Christian Scientists, were away for the afternoon. When notified, they started home immediately. En route they prayed earnestly, acknowledging God, good, as superior to any accident or its consequences. Before the family arrived home, frightened neighbors, in their desire to be helpful, had summoned a doctor. When the family members reached home, they explained to the doctor that both they and the injured man were Christian Scientists and for that reason would handle the situation in accord with the teachings of Christian Science — that is, they would depend entirely upon God, Mind, as the only healer.
The doctor, a kindly man, as are most members of the medical profession, stated that the wound was a serious one. He stated that unless the extensive medical and surgical measures which he outlined were carried out, serious consequences would result from blood loss, severed nerves, and other complications. The Christian Scientists thanked the doctor for his kindness in coming and asked to be left alone with the injured member of the family. When the house was cleared, a Christian Science practitioner was called and came to the home.
The family members and the practitioner declared audibly that the divine Mind, God, is the sufficient remedy for every emergency; that man's real life is not dependent upon blood, but is the necessary and unceasing reflection of the Life which is God. With conviction born of spiritual understanding, they knew that the Principle of their treatment was irresistible Mind, God, and not mere human wishfulness or conjecture. They knew, therefore, that their declarations of truth constituted an irresistible law of annihilation to the mortal mind beliefs of harmful consequences from any accident, whether such false beliefs were formulated by materia medica, as voiced by the physician, or formulated by preponderant world superstitions and fears, as expressed by the neighbors. Basing their declarations of truth on the inspired Word of the Bible, these Christian Scientists declared that no idea of God could ever be subject to laws of matter, flesh, or accident — that matter laws were false because they were not of God. The Scientists declared that these false laws were powerless, without present or future harmful effect, because God's law of harmony and perfection is the only law.
Audible prayer of this kind was continued. In less than an hour the injured man felt strong enough to move about the house, although the doctor had said that the patient would not be able to move himself for several days. A simple bandage was tied around his neck. For the next two or three days he remained indoors. After that he gradually resumed his accustomed activities. In about three weeks bandaging was no longer necessary. The wound had knit completely. Each day during this period a Christian Science absent treatment was given by the practitioner.
In the four years since this healing there has never been any slightest evidence that the severed tissue, blood vessels, and nerves were not perfectly joined and functioning properly. In this example of Christian Science healing is seen the truth of the Psalmist's declaration (107:20), "He sent his word, and healed them, and delivered them from their destructions."
What a happy place is that home where the only medicine is the divine Mind, God. This desirable state of affairs must be especially agreeable to the innocent youth who, not having been instructed in popular beliefs about sickness and material remedies, is content to depend upon God, who is Mind and Love, for protection and healing. In such a home the mother does not anxiously fear and look for symptoms of disease. This does not mean that a Christian Science mother is negligent of her child. Quite the contrary. It means that she is attentive, but in a way which does the child the most good. The Christian Science mother does not plant disease in the child's thought by her own unwise words and acts. Nor does she spoil the child by too much attention and care of the wrong kind.
Christian Science strongly emphasizes that the moral and spiritual education of children is both a privilege and a sacred obligation of the parents. The Sunday School and institutions of learning have their important role in the religious and academic training of the child. But it is primarily at the parental knee and around the family fireside that a love for and an understanding of God is planted in the child's receptive thought. By their example the parents are in the best position to demonstrate to the child how this right understanding of God governs and sustains mortals at all times, how rectitude overcomes temptation, how Christly dominion overcomes fear, how kindliness overcomes unkindliness, how to return good for evil. Children thus reared are less likely to become involved in juvenile delinquency or, in their mature years, in irresponsible adult behavior.
It is in the home, under the watchful eye of loving parents, that the seeds of such moral qualities as perseverance, temperance, honesty, trustworthiness, industry, dependability, and meekness are successfully nurtured. When such qualities flourish in the child's thought, they help him to become a successful citizen. His acts will be a credit to God, to himself, to his family, and to his community.
Sometimes a lack of sufficient means to maintain even modest living standards causes much discord and unhappiness in a home. To such a family Christian Science has a practical message of hope. In the words of the Master, Christian Science says (John 4:35); "Say not ye, There are yet four months, and then cometh harvest? behold, I say unto you, Lift up your eyes, and look on the fields; for they are white already to harvest."
Mind's inspired ideas are always available for those who lift up their eyes from the contemplation of limited matter as substance. Right now is the day of salvation, of freedom from lack and want — not four days from now, or four weeks from now, or four months from now, or four years from now, or four decades from now. Right now God, good, is all and real, and error is nothing, powerless, and unreal. In Science and Health (p. 227) we find these enlightening words: "Citizens of the world, accept the 'glorious liberty of the children of God,' and be free! This is your divine right. The illusion of material sense, not divine law, has bound you, entangled your free limbs, crippled your capacities, enfeebled your body, and defaced the tablet of your being."
The primary need of anyone who has a chronic or an occasional financial struggle is not for more money, is not for more matter, but for more spiritual understanding, more lifting up of thought to look beyond the limitations of matter, to discern God as infinite substance, always infinitely available right now as Love's inspired, reflected ideas — ideas which always abundantly meet every human need. In her book "Miscellaneous Writings" (p. 307) Mrs. Eddy states, "God gives you His spiritual ideas, and in turn, they give you daily supplies."
Spiritual inspiration evidences the ceaseless and irresistible activity of the divine Mind, God, man's only real Mind. When we are spiritually inspired we are not tempted to let our reasoning come to a halt within the false limits of what matter presents as supply. With God as our only Mind, we are able to look beyond what the five physical senses are capable of beholding — to look beyond a little pay envelope and a small bank balance to discern the omniscience, omnipotence, and omnipresence of Spirit, God, the limitless, perfect, and only real substance, which is always available to us as divine Mind's inspired, reflected ideas.
How many families in this day and age, like the Zarephath widow of old, fearfully look down at their little instead of confidently looking beyond the limiting confines of matter into the ever-present supply provided by the inspired ideas ceaselessly flowing from the all-knowing Mind, God! As related in the seventeenth chapter of I Kings, when Elijah, the Tishbite prophet, approached the city of Zarephath, he saw a widow woman of that city. He asked her for a "morsel of bread." But the widow had not yet glimpsed the spiritual fact that limitless substance is inspired consciousness, Mind, Spirit, bountifully supplying all needs through its reflected, inspired ideas. Instead the widow replied that she did not have bread, but only a little meal and a little oil with which she planned to bake a loaf and with her son, eat and die. Inevitably a limited, mortal mind sense of substance is also a limited, mortal mind sense of life, of health, of joy, of good.
Elijah said to the widow: "Fear not . . . for thus saith the Lord God of Israel, The barrel of meal shall not waste, neither shall the cruse of oil fail." When God's word, spoken by Elijah, had rebuked the widow's fear that a little meal and a little oil held the issues of life, she became humble and confident enough to obey the word of Elijah. The record concludes: "She went and did according to the saying of Elijah: and she, and he, and her house, did eat many days. And the barrel of meal wasted not, neither did the cruse of oil fail, according to the word of the Lord, which he spake by Elijah."
In healing the widow, Elijah told her to "fear not." How often Christ Jesus detected fear in the thoughts of those who lacked health, supply, and joy, and began his treatment with, "Be not afraid." Fear is a manifestation of mortal mind belief that evil is real, that there is or can be a presence and power, a substance, intelligence, and life apart from and opposed to God, infinite good.
Fear blinds and binds men. Fear hides from mortals the fact that God is the only Mind, and thereby keeps mortals from discerning the inspiring ideas of divine Mind and utilizing these ideas in the demonstration of health, supply, a better home, a more prosperous business. Just as fear mesmerizes individuals, it mesmerizes groups of individuals, such as nations, into sacrificing freedom of individual thought and action in order to gain a fancied security through such material modes as regimentation. But unless people have freedom of thought and action there can be no security, because there is no security without freedom. The most secure man is the freeman, not the bondman.
It is the Christ, the Son of God, the manifestation of God, Mind, which comes to the human consciousness and destroys therein the false beliefs about God — beliefs manifest to the five physical senses as fear, bondage, lack, limitation, sickness, sorrow, unhappy homes, sluggish business, and similar evidences of mortal mind. The Christ is the Messiah or Saviour. In Science and Health Mrs. Eddy makes this helpful statement regarding the nature of the Christ (p. 332): "Christ is the true idea voicing good, the divine message from God to men speaking to the human consciousness. The Christ is incorporeal, spiritual, — yea, the divine image and likeness, dispelling the illusions of the senses; the Way, the Truth, and the Life, healing the sick, and casting out evils, destroying sin, disease, and death."
Jesus was the son of the Virgin Mary. He was endowed with the Christ — the healing inspiration of Mind, God — without limitation. This Christliness enabled the Master to do his incomparable works. As we claim God as our only Mind, the healing Christ will animate us, enabling us to heal as Christ Jesus commanded we should heal. In Science and Health (p. 333) we read: "Throughout all generations both before and after the Christian era, the Christ . . . has come with some measure of power and grace to all prepared to receive Christ, Truth." This preparation consists — as St. Paul writes in his letter to the Philippians (2:5) — in letting "this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus."
The Principle, rule, and method of Christian Science Mind-healing, as Christ Jesus taught and practiced it, is fully set forth in the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mrs. Eddy. From this textbook and from the King James Version of the Bible citations are chosen which comprise the Christian Science Bible Lesson-Sermons. These Lesson-Sermons are studied during the week by students of Christian Science, and on Sunday are read from the pulpits of Christian Science churches.
When Christian Scientists say that they are grateful to Mrs. Eddy for her unselfish lifework, they do not mean that they worship Mrs. Eddy. Quite the contrary. In accord with her explicit instructions, Christian Scientists, who are grateful to Mrs. Eddy, show their gratitude by following her leadership in worshiping God intelligently and letting their lives and healing work attest their gratitude for the many blessings received by reason of this intelligent worship of God.
The magnitude of the lifework of Mary Baker Eddy will become more and more apparent to mankind as the Christian Science she discovered, the movement she founded, and the activities and rules she established become better understood and accepted in the hearts of men. Christian Science alone of all mankind's discoveries since the Master's ministry — that ministry upon which Christian Science is based — gets at the root of mankind's problems, be they individual or collective. This evil root is either a false concept of God or no concept at all.
The import of Mrs. Eddy's mission is that you and I, and the whole world, may know God aright and thereby be able to follow in the Master's footsteps, healing as he healed. Of Mrs. Eddy it has been written (Mary Baker Eddy: Her Mission and Triumph by Julia Michael Johnston, p. 179): ". . . she gave the world comprehension of Christian healing and its Science of redemption."
It would be a mistake indeed to imagine, that in order to demonstrate the blessings which come to home, family, and business through Mrs. Eddy's lifework, all one needs to do is to repeat such statements as "God is my only Mind," or "God is infinite substance," or "Mind's ideas give me daily supplies." These statements are true and helpful. But to make God's abundant qualities our own is much more than a matter of words. It is a matter of prayer and daily Christian living.
Prayer is inspired communion with God. It is the spiritual understanding and acknowledgment that God is the only Mind, Life, Truth, Soul, Spirit, substance, intelligence, Principle, Love, power, and lawgiver, that, as is stated on page 587 of Science and Health, God is "the all-knowing, all-seeing, all-acting, all-wise, all-loving." It is the inspired acknowledgment that spiritual man is God's expression and evidence of what God is, and that this truth about God and man cannot fail to annihilate the mortal mind lies about us, whatever these lies may be. In referring to the Master's always successful prayers, Mrs. Eddy states (Science and Health, p. 12); "It is neither Science nor Truth which acts through blind belief, nor is it the human understanding of the divine healing Principle as manifested in Jesus, whose humble prayers were deep and conscientious protests of Truth, — of man's likeness to God and of man's unity with Truth and Love."
One error, which renders our prayers unprofitable, is that of praying to a distant god. A god who could be a distant god is not the infinite, omnipresent God, but a limited god. To pray to a limited god, if there could be such a god, would only add to our limitations instead of wiping them out.
By revealing the nature and essence of God and the God-derived nature of man as the reflected image and likeness of God, giving identity to every godly quality, Christian Science makes it demonstrably plain how natural it is for us to be joyous, healthful, and successful right now, not at some uncertain time in the future. Christian Science reveals that right now God's blessings are as limitlessly available to individuals and families as when the Master taught in Judea and Galilee, and health and supply were immediately made manifest to those who were willing to listen and to accept the Christ, Truth.
Right now God, Spirit, Love, is man's only real Mind. Therefore, right now each one of us possesses unlimited intelligence whereby to make, and to maintain his home as the "dearest spot on earth" (Science and Health, p. 58). Right now God is omnipotent Principle, ever-present Truth, the only lawgiver. Therefore right now God's law, "I am All" (No and Yes, p. 30), is the absolute law of peace and harmony in the affairs of men and of nations. Right now God is man's only Soul and Life, the substance which is Spirit, inspired consciousness. Therefore, here and now it is possible for us to demonstrate healthful bodies, abundant supply, and economic security. Spiritual man is God's untarnishable, indestructible glory, because eternally "God expresses in man the infinite idea forever developing itself, broadening and rising higher and higher from a boundless basis" (Science and Health, p. 258).
[Published in The Milwaukee County (Wisconsin) News, June 17, 1954.]