IF we begin with the proposition that the source of all being is good, we must conclude that all which proceeds therefrom is also good. The process is simple and natural by which we reason from the perfection of God, the creator, to the perfection of all that he creates. But there is an immense distance between this ideal perfection and the conditions which mortal man experiences in himself and beholds around him. It is indeed a far cry from the material and imperfect to the spiritual and perfect sense of creation; from men as the offspring of mortals to man as the image of God. Apparently bound to their belief in matter by what seems an inevitable law, lusting after its disappointing pleasures and enduring its cruel pains, mortals look upon the existence of perfect manhood as belonging either to a prehistoric past or to a millennial future, but as quite impossible of present attainment.

Therefore, although theoretically accepting the truth of man's divine origin, the difficulties in the way of its practice seem so insurmountable that they generally regard this truth as having no actual relation to earthly experience. As a result men continue to exhaust their energies in enduring or hopelessly battling with evil and suffering; whereas, if these endeavors were intelligently directed in accord with Christian Science, mankind would be redeemed from their false, sinful conditions. The authority for this conclusion is the teaching of our Master, and his demonstration of human capability to overcome evil. It is the purpose of Christian Science to bring to men the understanding of God which Jesus possessed, so far and so fast as they can receive it, and to bring to their recognition man's spiritual sonship with the Father as the practical truth of being, now as it was in the beginning or will be hereafter.

Because spiritual things seem to them so intangible, and material things so positive, mortals conclude that matter has been brought into existence by God, and that He has given men a fleshly, material nature in conjunction with the spiritual; notwithstanding that Scripture defines the carnal nature as "enmity to God." The apostolic injunction to "put off the old man" opposes the mortal belief that corporeal personality is of God, and evidently refers to the human possibility of spiritual growth out of materiality, and the necessity for gaining a higher and purer sense of man than material beliefs afford. The putting on of "the new man" implies a present-day and not a post-mortem process, and indicates that the generally accepted human concept of man is not true.

It has remained for Christian Science to expose the falsity of the ages' belief that man was created by God as a compound of good and evil possibilities, with a dual physical and spiritual nature, and as ultimately needing a savior from the very conditions assumed to have been imposed upon him by his creator. Christian Science explains this seemingly twofold nature of mortal man as opposite human concepts or beliefs of being, and not the union of contrary natures in one person. Opposite conditions do not blend in men any more than in other things. The human and the divine, the material and the spiritual, do not combine to form God's ideal man, but remain mutually antagonistic, and define the false and the true in human belief. The nature of human experience is decided accordingly as the physical or the spiritual has the ascendancy in thought. Accepting the physical, mortals have embodied that belief in form and consciousness, and have realized the conditions which are involved in it. They are not imprisoned in material bodies, from which death is supposed to release them, as they think they are; but they are held captive to their belief that man is primarily and essentially material, that he is "of the earth, earthy," and that God made him thus. It is this belief which they see outlined to them as material bodies, and not the phenomena of divine creation. It is evident that, to bring better and more spiritual conditions into experience, this false concept needs to be replaced by the true; that is the "new man" needs to be put on in place of the "old." Death, being itself but a phase of the false physical concept, is helpless to give freedom from it.

Mortals stand aghast at the depth and extent of the depravity and misery manifest in human experience, not realizing that they behold but the imagery of their own thought, nor that the ills they endure and the sins they indulge are but the details of the picture they have themselves outlined. How can this scene change until mortals change their mental picture or concept of being from evil to good, from matter to Spirit? Holding in thought a wrong sense of man excludes from one's experience the normal and harmonious conditions which pertain to the right understanding of man as created and governed by God. The belief that the God-created man is capable of experiencing sin and suffering would make hell universal and heaven a myth; for if the nature of man propels him into evil on earth it must do this in heaven also, since the divine nature and government are the same in all ages and in all places.

That which produces bad results, or which does not develop towards goodness, has no possible starting-point with God or with God's likeness, and can exist and operate only in a false, unreal sense of being. This must be the deduction from the self-evident truths that the outcome of God is good, and the offspring of Spirit is spiritual. How, then, shall we regard the assertion that man is the outcome of a material germ, and is wicked and mortal? Are we right in designating it as an error, or must we accept it as our ideal, make it the basis of thought, and look upon it as the nearest that men can approach on earth to the divine image? Scripture teaches that the material concept of man originates in sin and is manifested in iniquity; while human experience reveals it as ever developing towards more evil, selfishness, and suffering, until its boasted strength, beauty, and vitality vanish in decay and dust. What divine lineament appears in this mortal material picture?

The sense of man as corporeal consciousness is the concept of the sinner, the heaven and the hell of the sensualist; but it is the burden of the aspiring saint and the adversary of the Christian. What can it be at its best more than a travesty on real manhood, a false sense of being that offers no incentive to goodness, that gives no motive to love nor impulse to purity, that holds nothing which the higher nature of men can desire? Its record is full of sadness and crime, of wreck and ruin and unutterable sorrow, without one joyous or redeeming feature. This material sense of man carries out every evil purpose, but is not of itself the medium of any divine quality or attribute. Every one knows from his own observation and experience that this is so, and that this sense, if uncontrolled by good, would drag mortals into the deepest mire of iniquity and suffering. Knowing this, and knowing that God is supreme, wherefore should its claims be admitted, its demands obeyed, or its asserted power feared?

If it were right to consider man as a material being, mortals would have no salvation to work out, for material sense is the only channel by which evil enters into their consciousness. If material so-called laws and conditions were right and of God, then there would be nothing wrong, and good and evil, sin and suffering but parts of a common divine whole from which there would be no escape. But if evil is wrong and must be condemned and overcome, then its medium of expression ‹ the belief in material selfhood ‹ must also be condemned and overcome before mortals can know themselves rightly and their salvation be realized.

The qualities in men which appeal most strongly to each other do not emanate from their physical personality, and are not influenced in their perception and appreciation by material conditions. The graces of character which inspire and perpetuate friendship, which purify and unself the affections, and which rarefy the sordid atmosphere of earth, do not spring from a material source and are not discerned nor enhanced by any material sense. Do not these things show that the higher one ascends in the scale of manhood, even from the human standpoint, the farther he departs from materiality? But if the flesh were in any sense the reality of man, if it were divinely right that man should be material, then the "works of the flesh" would be good and not evil, and mortals would not need to depart therefrom in following Christ or in attaining to that perfect manhood which Christ Jesus exemplified. No possible combination of physical conditions or qualities even approximates "the stature of the fulness of Christ," the "perfect man" towards which Christians are enjoined to grow; while the higher one develops spiritually, and the more he brings the flesh into subjection thereto, the nearer he approaches the Christ-ideal.

The process of working out one's salvation is not perfected instantaneously, but is accomplished through the daily overcoming of the errors of material belief and the cultivation of those spiritual graces which lift thought Christward. Proportionately as the "old man" of selfishness and sin is laid aside as a fraudulent and worthless belief, the ³new man," to whom God gives dominion, appears. This divine ideal is the ideal of Christian Science, and includes everything necessary to our happiness and perfection. But although Christian Science coincides with Scripture in teaching the absolute spiritual perfection of man, the attainment of this ideal state is the ultimate of its demonstration, and Christian Scientists of the present day are wise in not speculating as to what this ideal man is. Their concept of God as divine Principle is too crude, and their knowledge of the divine nature is too limited for them to have more than a very feeble and imperfect sense of man's individuality as the divine reflection.

Although we may speak of man as being spiritual, yet we can know this man only as we overcome evil and matter, and partake of the spirit of Christ. Human consciousness is as yet too material to have more than a dim perception of ideal man; and until thought reaches a more supersensual apprehension of man's origin and nature, and experience rests upon a diviner basis, it would be folly to attempt to outline or describe spiritual man. The best one can do is to hold thought steadfastly to the standard of perfection, and in humble obedience to revealed truth patiently await the fuller unfolding in consciousness of God's idea. We may know this and abide thereby, that the immortal ego is to be found in the opposite direction from physical sense; and that the reversal of erroneous belief serves to establish in its degree a clearer sense of real being; but we must work up to the full understanding of what God is before His likeness can fully appear.

Old-time theology erred in teaching that a wicked mortal could be changed into an immortal good man, a transformation as impossible as the making of a lie into truth. The evil which constitutes the flesh is not a lost truth to be redeemed, but a falsehood about God and man, and the only salvation in the case lies in the destruction of the falsehood. The "old man" of sin is not something to be pitied and saved, but is a false sense of man to be laid aside as an unfitting garment. There is no tendency to wrong-doing while thought is controlled by the conviction that man is "now" the son of God, and this indicates the course by which human salvation must be wrought.

The definition of man as spiritual may seem vague and visionary to human belief, until this idea is discerned through the practical demonstration of Christian Science and shown to be satisfying, purifying, and health-giving. One's progress Spiritward may be only "here a little, and there a little," but the signs along the way assure us that it leads to the ultimate realization of the Life which is now ideal, to that divine reality of man which will appear as the truth of God appears and is demonstrated. ‹‹‹‹‹

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