Clayton Bion Craig, C.S.B. of Cincinnati, Ohio
Member of the Board of Lectureship of The
Mother Church,
The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, Massachusetts
Clayton Bion Craig, C.S.B., of Cincinnati, lectured on "Christian Science: Its Revelation of The Kingdom Within" Friday evening, June 8, in the church edifice, College avenue and 62nd street, under the auspices of the Fifth Church of Christ, Scientist. The speaker was introduced by Mrs. Fred A. Seybold.
The lecturer spoke substantially as follows:
In the chapel of Keble College in Oxford, England, there hangs a painting by Holman Hunt, entitled "The Light of the World." It depicts the Christ, in the form of Jesus, with his thorn-crowned head, clothed in a royal garment, with lantern in hand, knocking at a door. The door is overgrown with weeds and vegetation, typifying the beliefs of materiality and worldly-mindedness which choke the entrance to human thought. There is no latch on the outside of the door: it must be opened from within.
Human consciousness must be receptive to the Christ-idea. It must be willing to relinquish its overgrowth of error, its material personal sense of self and of its environment, if it is to receive with regeneration the illumination of the Christ the revelation of Christian Science.
The mission of Jesus was to reveal to those who were prepared to perceive it the kingdom of heaven, the reign of universal harmony within one's own consciousness, by setting him free from the unchristian beliefs in human suffering. His commission to his disciples, you will recall, was, "Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature" (Mark 16:15) At another time Jesus said: "And as ye go, preach, saying, The kingdom of heaven is at hand. Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out devils: freely ye have received, freely give" (Matt. 10:7,8). This mission and commission of the Christ and of a true discipleship have never changed. They have come down to us as the heritage of that primitive Christianity founded by the Master. Today they find expression in the revelation of Christian Science and in the lives of Christian Scientists throughout the world.
Christian Science is a religion based upon the record and revelation of the Bible, upon the life and teachings of Jesus. Had there been no Bible record, there would have been no discovery of Christian Science. One necessarily followed the other in the Father's plan of salvation, the redemption of humankind from its false material sense of creator and creation.
The Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, Mary Baker Eddy, tells us in the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," that for three years following her discovery of Christian Science, in the year 1866, she "sought the solution of this problem of Mind-healing, searched the Scriptures and read little else, kept aloof from society, and devoted time and energies to discovering a positive rule. The search was sweet, calm, and buoyant with hope, not selfish nor depressing. I knew the Principle of all harmonious Mind-action to be God, and that cures were produced in primitive Christian healing by holy, uplifting faith; but I must know the Science of this healing, and I won my way to absolute conclusions through divine revelation, reason, and demonstration" (Science and Health, p. 109). Again she states:
"In following these leadings of scientific revelation, the Bible was my only textbook. The Scriptures were illumined; reason and revelation were reconciled, and afterwards the truth of Christian Science was demonstrated. No human pen nor tongue taught me the Science contained in this book, science and health; and neither tongue nor pen can overthrow it" (Science and Health, p. 110).
Here it may be stated that the Bible studied by Mrs. Eddy and used today by students of Christian Science, with its companion volume, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," as the textbooks of Christian Science, is the authorized King James Version. Christian Scientists love the Bible, and the first tenet of our church, established by Mrs. Eddy, reads, "As adherents of Truth, we take the inspired Word of the Bible as our sufficient guide to eternal Life" (Science and Health, p. 497). One cannot be a genuine student of Christian Science unless he follows the example of our Leader to the daily search of the Scriptures for inspiration and guidance.
Throughout her life, Mrs. Eddy was a devoted Bible student. Reared in the Calvinistic atmosphere of her New Hampshire girlhood home, where daily Bible study was the rule, she was taught by her spiritually-minded mother and her grandmother to love the Bible and to look to it for help in time of need. From early childhood, she had a deeply religious sense and an unfaltering trust in the power of God to help and to save in every human situation. At the age of twelve, she experienced a healing from a serious fever through her mother's assurance of the presence of God as Love, which the Apostle John declares Him to be. As the child prayed to this God of love, the fear which had been instilled in her consciousness by her father's stern doctrine of predestination and eternal damnation was dispelled, and she was healed. This was Mrs. Eddy's first spiritual healing.
It was natural therefore that, in the year 1860, following a severe fall on the ice in Lynn, Massachusetts, which so injured her that her physician pronounced her case incurable, she should ask for her Bible and then request her friends, who were awaiting her passing, to leave her alone with God. In that hour of great need, she opened her Bible to the story of Jesus' healing of the man sick of the palsy, as related by Matthew in chapter nine of his Gospel. So clearly did the spiritual realization come to Mrs. Eddy's receptive thought, that the same power of divine Love was present with her at that moment, as was present to heal the palsied man nearly nineteen centuries before, that she experienced immediate release from the pain which had bound her. She arose from her bed completely healed, much to the amazement of the gathered friends, among whom was the minister of the church she then attended.
This experience she tells us was the falling apple which led to her discovery of Christian Science. (See Retrospection and Introspection, p. 24.) It revealed our heavenly Father as the divine Principle of His perfect spiritual creation, which is man and the universe. The mission of Christian Science, like that of primitive Christianity, is to reveal the kingdom of heaven that is already within us, and to heal and to bless all mankind.
In 1875, almost ten years after her discovery of Christian Science, Mrs. Eddy published the scientific statement of her discovery in her book, "Science and Health," which she later renamed "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures."
This textbook of Christian Science is not the Christian Scientist's substitute for the Bible, rather is it what its full title implies, a "key" to the Scriptures, a companion volume which illumines the Bible teachings and reveals the spiritual meaning of its God-inspired Word.
Christian Scientists do not idolize Mrs. Eddy, but they do revere her for her great work as Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science. The blessings which her discovery has brought to countless thousands of men and women of all races and nations certainly make her deserving of the gratitude of all who have benefited from Christian Science. Indeed she has earned the respect of those who, as yet, are not prepared to accept its truly God-inspired message of salvation. Without a true appreciation of its Discoverer, one can never understand the Science which she discovered and elucidated, any more than one can understand the life and works of Jesus, our great Exemplar, without understanding his place and position in the fulfillment of prophecy.
Her work as the Founder of Christian Science consisted of her demonstration of the divine Principle of her discovery, by her healing ministry, her teaching, and her founding of The Mother Church and the establishment of its activities, including branch church organizations.
One of the activities of The Mother Church is The Christian Science Publishing Society, founded by Mrs. Eddy to issue the Christian Science periodicals which she established. In speaking of these periodicals editorially, in the first edition of The Christian Science Monitor, on November 25, 1908, she said: "I have given the name to all the Christian Science periodicals. The first was The Christian Science Journal, designed to put on record the divine Science of Truth; the second I entitled Sentinel, intended to hold guard over Truth, Life, and Love; the third Der Herold der Christian Science, to proclaim the universal activity and availability of Truth; the next I named Monitor, to spread undivided the Science that operates unspent. The object of the Monitor is to injure no man, but to bless all mankind" (The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, p. 353).
Here again its Founder affirms the purpose of Christian Science to heal and to bless all mankind, to provide a full salvation from the woes of human sense, and to reveal to human consciousness the all-pervading harmony of God's creation the kingdom of heaven within. This was her sole motive in founding the Church of Christ, Scientist, after she saw that the orthodoxy of her day would not and could not accept her great discovery.
This church is The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston. Its manifold activities are worldwide, and its branch churches and societies are found in many parts of the globe. All are welcome to attend the Sunday services of these churches, and the Wednesday evening meetings, at which testimonies of Christian Science healing are given. All are invited to use the Reading Rooms which are maintained by each branch church, where the Bible, the writings of Mrs. Eddy, including Science and Health, the Christian Science periodicals, and authorized and approved books on Christian Science may be read, borrowed, or purchased.
Children up to the age of twenty may be enrolled in the Christian Science Sunday Schools. Here it may be said that little children love the teachings of Christian Science and learn early to apply the truths it teaches in their daily experience.
The childlike thought, as Jesus well knew, is best prepared to accept the truth, for it is unfettered by adult beliefs in human theories and hypotheses inculcated by a materialistic system of false education by the knowledge of this world which, Paul tells us, "is foolishness with God." The adult human consciousness must be emptied of its false beliefs, the errors of a supposititious material sense, before it can accept the truth.
Christian Science does not decry education of the right sort. Education which inculcates a true sense of things is requisite and essential. But it should be an education which illumines human thought with the truth, with that truth which Jesus said would make us free, that truth which will eventually free human consciousness from all error.
Such true education must be based upon a true concept of God and the nature of His spiritual creation. All education based upon an erroneous material belief in God as a magnified human personality and upon a material sense of creation, is false education. Education should be more than an impartation or a pouring into human consciousness of knowledge. It should be rather a leading forth, an unfoldment or development from within. It is not the development of human intellectuality, a storing up of learning; but the cultivation of that truth whose nature is to make free.
Christ Jesus, the greatest teacher and demonstrator of Truth the world has ever known, taught the truth about God and man, the truth which was a living thing. You will recall that on one occasion he defined eternal life in these words: "This is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent" (John 17:3). It is, therefore, the knowledge of God and the practical demonstration of this knowledge, as exemplified by the Master, which must constitute the very basis of all true education and all true living.
The teaching of Christian Science is based entirely upon a demonstrable understanding of God. It accepts the premise proclaimed by Habakkuk concerning God, "Thou art of purer eyes than to behold evil, and canst not look on iniquity" (Hab. 1:13). Christian Science reveals the nature of God to be wholly good. Because there is no element of evil or error in the divine nature, there can be no element of evil in God's creation in spiritual man or the spiritual universe. God's creation, man, the image or likeness of Himself, reflects the divine nature. That Jesus recognized and demonstrated this fact is clearly shown in such statements as, "I and my Father are one" (John 10:30), and "The Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works" (John 14:10). In these sayings of the Master, Jesus clearly indicates not only the divine nature of God's creation, man his true selfhood and our true selfhood but he indicates the inseparable relationship between God and His creation, man. That Jesus recognized that this divine relationship was true not only for himself but for all men is clearly revealed in his charge to his disciples to follow his example and to put what he had taught them into practice by healing the sick and the sinning and by raising the dead from trespasses and sins.
In Science and Health, page 465, Mrs. Eddy gives us the following definition of God: "God is incorporeal, divine, supreme, infinite Mind, Spirit, Soul, Principle, Life, Truth, Love." This definition is in keeping with the revelation of the nature of God to be found in the Scriptures.
The concept of God as Mind is indicated in such Scriptural passages as, "Be of the same mind one toward another" (Rom. 12:16), and, "Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus" (Phil. 2:5). Mrs. Eddy's clear discernment of God as Mind is one of her greatest contributions to Christianity. Christian Science reveals the fact that God is the only Mind; and that He is omniscient Mind, everywhere present.
That which omniscient Mind knows is its own ideas, pure, perfect, indestructible. The individualized expression of these ideas constitutes individual man. Man, God's image and likeness, is, therefore, the reflection of God, the reflection of the qualities and attributes which constitute God's nature. There is nothing in God unlike good, and therefore man, reflecting or expressing God, expresses only the substance of good. God and man, coexistent and eternal, are alike in quality, and man reflects the perfection which is God's.
Jesus' admonition in the Sermon on the Mount, "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect" (Matt. 5:48), clearly indicates this present perfection of God and man. In Science and Health Mrs. Eddy states the importance of grasping this fundamental concept of Christian Science when she writes (p. 259), "The Christlike understanding of scientific being and divine healing includes a perfect Principle and idea, perfect God and perfect man, as the basis of thought and demonstration."
God, the divine Mind, is therefore conscious only of the perfection of His being, conscious of the perfection of His own ideas, conscious of the present perfection of His own creation, man and the universe.
This Mind, which is God, was the only Mind which Jesus knew. His consciousness truly reflected the divine consciousness, the knowledge of God. His clear consciousness of the present perfection of being enabled him quickly to dispel every phase of evil or false belief which presented itself to him for healing. His understanding of divine sonship enabled him to demonstrate the perfection of man, as God's reflection, for himself and to help others to demonstrate it, in proportion to their spiritual receptivity.
Because he possessed the Christ Mind, Jesus saw as God sees. In writing of this divinely bestowed ability of the Master, Mrs. Eddy writes 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. Thus Jesus taught that the kingdom of God is intact, universal, and that man is pure and holy."
As you and I begin to grasp this present perfection of all true being; as we recognize God and His idea forever one and inseparable as cause and effect; as we let this Mind be in us "which was also in Christ Jesus," we begin to demonstrate, as did the Master, our indestructible relationship to the divine. The discernment of our true nature as God's own child, and the humble acknowledgment of it, is true prayer; it is a Christian Science treatment. We must deny the spurious claims of evil born of a false, material sense of creation. Through the understanding of God's allness, and the acceptance of the fact that God is the only Mind, conscious only of the present perfection of His ideas, His creation, we must put off (put out of human consciousness) the false material sense of ourselves and of others, and see, as did Jesus, the perfect manifestation of true manhood and womanhood.
Jesus did not behold in Science two men one perfect, the son of God, and the other a sick, sinning, poverty-stricken, dying mortal. No; because he understood so clearly the allness and ever-presence of God, as the only creator, the Father of all, he accepted as real only the evidence of a perfect creation and a perfect man.
Dear friends, there is but one kind of man and that one is truly the blessed child of God. This is your real selfhood and mine. Let us claim it, acknowledge this perfect selfhood and so begin now to demonstrate more of it. It is not blasphemous to acknowledge, as did John, that "now are we the sons of God," it is blasphemous to deny this divine fact. We must understand this, we must acknowledge it, we can and must demonstrate it. We can grasp, as did Mrs. Eddy, this fundamental concept of God, as the one and only Mind, and realize the kingdom of heaven within. We can begin now to enjoy more of the blessings of divine sonship and to experience more of the joy of living under the government of the divine Mind.
Mrs. Eddy beautifully describes this glorious relationship in the following passage found on pages 82 and 83 of "Miscellaneous Writings": "Immortal Mind is God, immortal good; in whom the Scripture saith 'we live, and move, and have our being.' This Mind, then, is not subject to growth, change, or diminution, but is the divine intelligence, or Principle, of all real being; holding man forever in the rhythmic round of unfolding bliss, as a living witness to and perpetual idea of inexhaustible good."
Today we are still witnessing the ravages wrought by a world war resulting from false education belief in a Godless world and the deification of matter as substance. Accompanying this material sense of substance are the beliefs that matter is limited and that therefore there is not sufficient to go around to meet the individual and the collective human need. The fallacy of this false sense of substance was exposed by Jesus when he made his radical pronouncement to the Samaritan woman at the well of Sychar, "God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth" (John 4:24). Here the Master indicated that Spirit, or God, the All-in-all, is true substance. Christian Science elucidates this concept of God as Spirit and reveals the nature of true substance, which is infinite, unlimited, wholly spiritual, and therefore incapable of discord and decay.
Man, the reflection of Spirit, manifests this true idea of substance. Man's identity is not found in any material concept of man or in any so-called physical form, rather is it found in man's Godlike nature, in his expression of the attributes and qualities of God. True substance may therefore be recognized as the reflection of such qualities as intelligence, wisdom, understanding, vision or spiritual discernment, honesty, integrity, joy, happiness, gaiety, loving-kindness, graciousness, tenderness, strength, order, rhythm, symmetry, grace, tranquility, serenity, peace, abundance, affluence, purity, truthfulness, energy, activity, perfection, and the countless other qualities of Mind, Spirit, Soul, Principle, Life, Truth, and Love.
There is no lack of these substantial qualities which characterize God and His man, for there is in reality but one of each. Mrs. Eddy explains this in these words from Science and Health (p. 275), "No wisdom is wise but His wisdom; no truth is true, no love is lovely, no life is Life but the divine; no good is, but the good God bestows." There is no need, therefore, for anyone who has grasped this fundamental concept of true substance ever to be in need of that which seems essential to human well-being. If he is humanly expressing an abundance of intelligence, an abundance of love, an abundance of kindness, an abundance of honesty and integrity, an abundance of orderliness, of symmetry, peace, and beauty, an abundance of each of the needful and essential qualities of God, he can never experience any sense of lack.
Like the fundamental facts of mathematics of which there is but one of each, so there is but one each of the essential qualities or attributes of God, yet this one is enough for all. This must be true, because all of God's qualities are infinite, unlimited, everywhere present, and always present, to be utilized and concretely expressed whenever the need arises. A sense of lack, no matter what it may seem to be to human sense, is never a lack of material things; it is always a lack of understanding of God and of man as His complete expression. To grasp this true concept of man as the expression of real substance is to begin to express more spirituality, more substantiality.
Nor is this expression of true substance to be attained by merely striving humanly to express more of these qualities. Rather is it to be attained by spiritually discerning that man, your real selfhood, is already and in reality has always been the reflection of God. You are not a human trying to be the expression of God; this is the lying argument of a false theology. You are the veritable image and likeness of your Father-Mother, God.
This concept of your real selfhood conforms with Mrs. Eddy's definition of man as "the compound idea of God, including all right ideas;" and "that which has not a single quality underived from Deity" (Science and Health, p. 475). Because man includes all the attributes of God he does not have to accumulate or to hoard true substance, he possesses all that belongs to God as God's expression. Jesus expressed this clearly in the parable of the prodigal son, where the father says to the elder brother, "Son, thou art ever with me, and all that I have is thine" (Luke 15:31)
Forsake the belief of material personality for the true idea of your being, the individual reflection of God. Think of God's qualities as constituting your true individuality as the image and likeness of God.
Often the student of Christian Science neglects to study certain of the seven synonyms for God given to us by Mrs. Eddy in the definition already quoted. Yet for a well-rounded demonstration he must strive to gain a clearer understanding of all of these synonyms. To the beginner the word "Soul" may seem abstract and shadowy, but when the student begins to grasp its meaning as expounded in Science and Health and Mrs. Eddy's other writings he finds it one of the most helpful of the seven synonyms for God.
Soul is found to be the very essence of all true being, the source of all that really exists. Christian Science reveals it to be the source of spiritual sense, as opposed to the belief of the material senses resident in matter, which claims to be the basis of man's being. The understanding of Soul reveals the fact that man's being is in Soul, and the belief in material sensation, or life, substance, and intelligence in matter, is found to be without foundation. Man is found to be the diseaseless, sinless, deathless reflection of Soul, forever dwelling in Soul, never in matter. As the false material sense of man as dwelling in a material body is relinquished, and the true idea, the spiritual sense, is grasped, one finds one's human experience filled more and more with the harmonious evidence of true being.
The understanding of Soul brings with it a full salvation from the spurious claims of a false material sense. The spiritual understanding which Soul imparts, constitutes the kingdom of heaven within, and its outward expression reveals the kingdom of heaven on earth harmony of body and experience apparent to the human consciousness. As the spiritual understanding, which Soul imparts, is grasped by human consciousness, it corrects material sense testimony and heals the sick. Paul described this process of spiritual transformation and regeneration thus: "Be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God" (Rom. 12:2).
Man governed by spiritual sense is forever under the government and control of divine Principle, which Mrs. Eddy tells us is Love. The God who is divine Principle the governing, sovereign ruler of His perfect creation is divine Love. In Him is no destructive or avenging power, only His love, which holds man forever intact in his perfect state. The nature of divine Principle is always to govern with impartiality, justice, mercy, and benevolence. Its nature is to bless, to unfold perfection and the endless beatitudes of being. Man, the evidence of God's being, bears witness to God's benign government.
We need to be firm in our understanding that this government of and by divine Principle alone constitutes true government. Spiritually to discern this fact is to bring our own human affairs under the government of God's law and to hasten the fulfillment of our Leader's prophecy, "'of his kingdom there shall be no end,' for Christ, God's idea, will eventually rule all nations and peoples imperatively, absolutely, finally with divine Science" (Science and Health, p. 565).
Man governed by divine Principle forever reflects that Life which is God. This Life was demonstrated by Jesus in raising Jairus' daughter, the widow's son, and Lazarus from the dead, and in his own resurrection and ascension above the material-mindedness of the age in which he carried out his earthly ministry. This Life is your Life and my Life, without beginning and without end; it is the only Life there is, for it is God, the infinite and the omnipresent. The continuity of Life is never in reality interrupted for an instant by the vagaries of human sense. Life is never subject to the claims of chance and change. Life is eternal, unlimited, never measured by time. As Mrs. Eddy states, "Eternity, not time, expresses the thought of Life, and time is no part of eternity" (Science and Health, p. 468).
The Apostle John reports Jesus as saying, "This is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent" (John 17:3). This true sense of Life is revealed to individual human consciousness through the ever-present Christ, God's revelation of Himself to receptive human consciousness. This Christ, Truth, was fully exemplified in the earthly career of Jesus, who understood the Christ so clearly that he completely identified himself with it, and so exemplified it that all might see the true nature of the divine Life reflected by man. The office of the Christ is to reveal to human consciousness the true idea of God and of His reflection, man.
In our age Mrs. Eddy has given us a clear revelation of this Christ, Truth, through the Christian Science textbook. In this she gives us two complementary definitions of the Christ: "Christ is the true idea voicing good, the divine message from God to men speaking to the human consciousness" (Science and Health, p. 332); and, "christ. The divine manifestation of God, which comes to the flesh to destroy incarnate error" (ibid., p. 583).
Here we see clearly that Christ, Truth, and its manifestation are inseparable. One has but to grasp the Christ-idea, the true spiritual concept, about any situation to have the manifestation of harmony follow as naturally and as quickly as light dispels darkness. The outward and visible is always but the expression of the inward state of human consciousness, whether it be in the individual or in the national consciousness. We need therefore to watch our state of thought carefully to be sure it is in accord with the Christ-idea, God's idea of reality, and not imbued with the errors of a falsely educated material sense.
The acme of Christian Science and its demonstration is found in the definition of God given to us by the beloved disciple, that God is divine Love. The Love which is God gives all and asks nothing in return, God the Giver of all good and man the recipient of all that God gives. How limited is our understanding of this aspect of God. Yet how important it is for us to grow in our understanding of divine Love and our demonstration thereof. In the God who is Love there is no selfishness, no human will, no competition, no need for envy or jealousy, no partiality, no irritation, no personal domination, no criticism. There is only God's purpose that man express His perfection. To see the perfection of God, the wholeness of divine being, and to see this perfection expressed in ourselves and in others, is to love. Nothing short of this vision of divine perfection is worthy of the name. How wonderful! Perfect God and perfect man, the basis of our every thought, the basis of our demonstration of Christian Science!
Some may say this is too idealistic and cannot be attained; but let us remember that only the ideal, the perfect, the absolute truth about God and His perfect creation, man, has an element of healing in it. We must declare the absolute truth the Christ, Truth for ourselves and for others, and Christianity will demonstrate more of this Science of being and bring out a more harmonious human experience.
Like our great Exemplar, Christ Jesus, we must enter into the closet, the sanctuary of Spirit, and in quiet communion with the one Mind, in whom we live and move and have our being, earnestly and prayerfully "deny sin and plead God's allness" (Science and Health, p. 15). We must relinquish all human will and with childlike meekness and true humility with the Master say, "Not my will, but thine, be done." God's will is always to bless. Let us not hold on to any human sense which would deny for us His blessing.
Acknowledging our unity with the Father, our at-one-ment with divine Principle, and striving daily to prove more of this government by divine Principle, is true prayer. It is the acknowledgment through spiritual understanding of God's allness, and the consequent denial of all evil's spurious claims to reality. Such prayer is the sure pathway to the demonstration of present harmony in all of our human affairs. It is the way by which we translate the kingdom within into the kingdom on earth.
That this kingdom is possible for you and me and for all mankind to demonstrate today in the way Christian Science illumines, is clearly stated by Mrs. Eddy in her exposition of John's revelation, on page 573 of the Christian Science textbook. In conclusion let me read this to you:
"The Revelator was on our plane of existence, while yet beholding what the eye cannot see, that which is invisible to the uninspired thought. This testimony of Holy Writ sustains the fact in Science, that the heavens and earth to one human consciousness, that consciousness which God bestows, are spiritual, while to another, the unillumined human mind, the vision is material. This shows unmistakably that what the human mind terms matter and spirit indicates states and stages of consciousness.
"Accompanying this scientific consciousness was another revelation, even the declaration from heaven, supreme harmony, that God, the divine Principle of harmony, is ever with men, and they are His people. Thus 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. This is indeed a foretaste of absolute Christian Science. Take heart, dear sufferer, for this reality of being will surely appear sometime and in some way. There will be no more pain, and all tears will be wiped away. When you read this, remember Jesus' words, The kingdom of God is within you.' This spiritual consciousness is therefore a present possibility."