THE Scriptures refer to human existence as a sleep or dream, which evidently implies that so-called life in matter is an abnormal state of thought, in which the normal conditions of being are not cognized and from which mortals must awake to become conscious of man's spiritual identity and dominion as the child of God. David must have realized this when he wrote, "I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with thy likeness;" and Tolstoi evidently caught a glimpse of the same truth when he said, as recently reported, that he looked upon this life as but one of many dreams. This thought has been expressed by poets and philosophers of different ages, so that Mrs. Eddy is neither unscriptural nor peculiar in teaching that the sense of material life, with its dire details of sin, suffering, and death, is of the nature of a dream, and not real being. The distinctive feature of her teaching is that she has scientifically analyzed the dream, pointed out its false basis, and revealed the truth which is already awakening mankind to spiritual reality.

Our Master declared of mortal man that he must be "born again;" in other words, he must become spiritually conscious of life before he can enter the kingdom of heaven. If his first birth were the true one, if it were the point where individual man begins to live, a second birth would not be necessary. Jesus' words indicate that mortal birth, life, and death do not express God's creation, but are the illusions of a false, material sense of that creation. In the first chapter of Genesis the normal state of man is defined as "the image and likeness of God," but no mortal presents or embodies this ideal condition. Christ Jesus was the highest approximation that has been or can be manifested in the flesh, and he rose altogether above physical sense in perfecting his demonstration of spiritual being. His mission was to bring to human recognition the truth of man's divine origin and sonship, and as he declared that his followers must repeat his works, it is evident that mortals must likewise overcome physical sense before they can fully realize what man as God's likeness is. It is only reasonable to conclude that what Jesus overcame and rose above was not truth but error, an unreal sense of man and the universe, and not a divinely created condition.

Advanced scientists agree that "things are not what they seem;" that what appears to mortals as a physical universe and physical man are not the substantial realities of things. Thus even human wisdom directs mortals to reject the evidence of physical sense and to seek reality apart from matter. Mankind as a whole have an intuitive sense that there is a life higher than that of which they are now conscious, and that they must some time reach that plane of being in order to attain to immortality. The most sought after of mundane pleasures and achievements falls so far short of satisfying the human heart or intellect that humanity instinctively turns toward an unknown beyond for the possible realization of its hopes and ideals. This tends to confirm the position of Christian Science, that the truth of being, the secret of eternal life, which has so long eluded the material search of scientist and philosopher, is not in matter, but in the unseen realm of Spirit.

Christian Science rests on the fundamental statement, "All is infinite Mind and its infinite manifestation, for God is All-in-all" (Science and Health, p. 468). Therefore in Christian Science no scientific reality is attributed to material phenomena, either as good or bad, but these phenomena are understood to proceed from a false view of things, and are as dream-illusions in comparison with the spiritual facts. As in dreams, illusion passes for reality, and shadow for substance, so in the human concept of life as separate from God, Spirit, matter masquerades as both creator and creation, as mind and man, and flaunts its assertion of law and its personification of evil in the very face of the infinite. So-called mortal man, formed in belief of material elements, seems to himself to be the real and only man; yet human experience itself proves that this mortal concept is not God's man, for man in this concept exercises no dominion over earth or matter, but from birth to death remains in subjection to it, and in abject fear of the very forces he believes have given him life. The prevalence of disease and mortality is evidence of the inability of matter, or of so-called material law, to preserve the health it is claimed to produce, or to maintain its claim to life. Truly, as Mrs. Eddy has written, "the history of error is a dream-narrative" (Science and Health, p. 530).

In place of the human material concept, Christian Science presents the spiritual idea of creation, in which only good is reflected, and which embodies no ungodlike qualities or conditions. If the truth of creation is represented in this spiritual idea, it is obvious that its opposite material concept is illusion, or that which seems to itself to be, but which is not. Error is always falsity, though it may not be so recognized until the truth is discovered. The belief of material life never has been a part of true being if it is not true being now, although mortal man, who is the embodiment of this belief, may not be aware of its falsity. It is certain that if mortals were conscious of being deceived by the errors which constitute mortality, their false sense would yield to the immortal sense of being. The material concept is identical with the "old man" which the apostle declares must be put off, in order that the spiritual idea, in which all things are "new," may be realized, or put on.

The Scripture declares of the material dream that it will eventually dissolve, its heaven and earth pass away, its death and hell be consumed and their nothingness made manifest; and that in this perfect awakening there will be no consciousness of pain or sorrow or death, for the "former things" shall have "passed away." Obviously, to awaken from the dream, rather than to delve into its false phenomena, is the work with which mortals should be most concerned. To bring this awakening to mankind, through its revelation of man's real and only being in God, is the mission of Christian Science.

In this connection it is sometimes asked, if material existence is only a dream, why one's recognition of that fact does not dispel the dream and usher the individual at once into the consciousness of spiritual being. This question assumes that the dreamer is the divinely created man, instead of a false, self-deceived sense of life as mortal. The belief that God's likeness was or is involved in the "deep sleep" of Adam, and that he is now submerged in materiality, is the only dream or dreamer in the case. It is unthinkable that God's image, the manifestation of good, could wander into the delusion of sin, to be compelled to seek salvation from its resultant suffering. Divine Life is not expressed as a dream, nor is God's ideal man a dreamer, an invalid, or a sinner.

In a sermon, "Christian Healing" (p. 11), Mrs. Eddy says, in referring to "the dream of life in matter," "A dream calleth itself a dreamer;" from which it follows that the dream includes the dreamer, as well as vice versa. It is important to understand this point, that "the dreamer and dream are one" (Science and Health, p. 530), in order to see its logical consequent, that the self-conviction or self-discernment of this error, or dream, must precede its disappearance. Referring to the healing of the insane man, Mrs. Eddy says, "The Scripture seems to import that Jesus caused the evil to be self-seen and so destroyed" (Ibid., p. 411). It would appear that Jesus' knowledge of God as the only Mind turned the evil of dementia back upon itself, causing it, so to speak, to realize its own nothingness, whence it dissolved in self-destruction; just as a lie, when confronted with the truth understood, yields its claim because it has no foundation for its continuance.

Upon the same basis, Christian Science today effects the healing of disease and many other errors. The human understanding and demonstration of the omnipresence of God lays bare the falsity of evil, and in its degree causes evil's inherent self-destructiveness to become operative. Error disappears as the truth is humanly understood and accepted, because error has no basis for resistance other than human ignorance of the truth. The whole dream or error of material existence would disappear before one's understanding of Christian Science as quickly as does the sense of disease, if the truth obscured to human vision by this material dream were wholly discerned and understood. Although one may accept the teaching of Christian Science that sickness is a false sense, it frequently requires time to assimilate the truth sufficiently to outgrow this sense. If it requires time to demonstrate one of the smallest problems in Science, how can mortals expect to solve the final problem until, as our Leader puts it, they have "yielded to each lesser call in the growth of Christian character" (Ibid., p. 291)?

It may seem paradoxical to speak of error as recognizing its own mistake, or of a dream awakening to see itself as a dream and to make place for the reality, but the difficulty lessens when we see that mortal man is both dream and dreamer. This so-called man is the expression of the belief in intelligence and consciousness apart from God, and includes all the manifestations of evil. Mrs. Eddy defines this condition as mortal mind, or the asserted mind of mortals, that which is only an erroneous sense of intelligence as opposed, and not related, to the divine Mind. This erring pseudo-consciousness or mind seems to be self-cognizant, but does not know itself for what it is. It stands mystified in the presence of its own phenomena, not knowing to what to attribute them nor how they originated. If this "mind" knew itself for what it is, this knowledge would undeceive it, and it would begin even to its own sense to disappear. When mortal man knows himself as not being what he claims to be, he will be ready to deny that self, as Jesus commanded, and seek the knowledge of man from a spiritual standpoint.

Paul said in his letter to the Corinthians, "As in Adam [the material concept] all [mortals] die, even so in Christ [the spiritual idea] shall all be made alive;" and Mrs. Eddy, striking a similar note, says of Jesus that he was the "life-link forming the connection through which the real reaches the unreal" (Ibid., p. 350). Christ Jesus discerned both the truth and the error of the human problem. He was aware of the errors that compose the material concept, and he was aware also of the spiritual or true idea of being, and this knowledge enabled him to demonstrate his dominion over all the manifestations of evil and all the claims of mortality. His spiritual knowledge made him the Messiah, the Wayshower out of error. The mortal consciousness returns upon itself in the light of this Christ-knowledge, and begins to discover its own errors; materiality is seen to be but a false belief, and mortal man begins to reach the self-recognition of his unlikeness to God. Peter voiced this self-awakening when he said to the Master, "Depart from me; for I am a sinful man."

When it is understood from Christian Science that human thought, and not chance or material law, is the author of human experience, and produces its own physical conditions, it will be seen how this thought must discern and correct its errors before it can bring out the true sense of being. Christian Science teaches that matter is the "subjective state" of the mortal mind, and that physical personality is its "objective state." (See Science and Health, pp. 114, 374.) It follows, therefore, that the phenomena of disease and discord, with all the sinful conditions pertaining to the material concept, are but the thoughts of mortals and not external facts. If the material sense of heaven and earth ‹ a term that includes the whole of human experience ‹ is a wrong sense, as the Scripture implies, its very falsity dooms it to "pass away" when the true heaven and earth, the real creation, shall be discerned and understood. The process of awakening from the belief of matter is the "new birth," wherein Truth touches the Adam or material concept to perceive and deny its false self, and the spiritual sense of being begins to appear.

The follies and disappointments of mortals may convince them that materiality is but "the stuff that dreams are made of," but this alone does not release them from their dream-thraldom. It is one thing to recognize that the human concept is not ideal, but it is quite another thing to become fully conscious of spiritual being. To do this would involve a state of consciousness equal to that of Christ Jesus at the time of his ascension. The question as to an instantaneous awakening from an erroneous sense implies a real dreamer in an unreal dream, whereas in Science both dream and dreamer are found to be one illusion, which disappears only as Truth appears. It is true of night-dreams that they pass in a moment, but they come as quickly. In such cases the sleeper's knowledge of and relation to waking facts prevent more than a passing illusion, but the dream and dreamer of material existence have no such inherent knowledge of spiritual Life. For mankind to arise out of the belief of matter into spiritual consciousness means infinitely more than shaking off the momentary illusion of a night-dream. It means the awakening of human sense to the true genesis of man as spiritual, not material, and the growth and development of that idea until the apprehension is reached that Spirit is the only creator of man and the universe; consequently, that "spirituality" is "the only fact of creation" (Ibid., p. 471). Thus the material dream will be self-destroyed as mankind realize the truth of being.

Sudden disillusion is seldom realized. Freedom from error is achieved only through a knowledge of Truth, not a mere belief in it. One cannot force the change from the material to the spiritual concept. Even the mental shock called death cannot usher mankind into the consciousness of spiritual reality, for the belief in death is but a phase of the material dream, and must itself be overcome and destroyed in the awakening process. One might as reasonably expect a babe to develop suddenly into full-grown manhood, as for a mortal to emerge at once from his lifelong belief in materiality into the full recognition of Spirit. Human thought is not yet prepared for all that such a transition would involve. Human experience is the result of erroneous education, based on a belief in good and evil, and humanity must begin at the beginning to remedy that error. This does not mean that men must return to the beginning of their earthly experience to apply the corrective truth, for that would be impossible, but it means that they must begin by correcting the premise, of which all human error and suffering are the conclusion, namely, that there is intelligence, life, and power apart from God. It is vain to begin at the conclusion to correct a wrong premise, but this is what mankind are vainly striving to do.

As mortals seem to have begun materially from an embryonic germ, so the regeneration of their fleshly sense begins with their first faint conception of spiritual being. As this idea advances in human thought there is less dependence upon material evidence, and to that degree the spiritual fact is replacing the material illusion. If the mortal dream-picture had appeared instantaneously, as do night-dreams, it might be possible to obliterate it as quickly; but this phantasmagoria, being the development of a false mental concept, disappears only as the true concept or idea is gained and thought becomes transformed thereto. In the regenerative or awakening process no error, however small, can be ignored or left behind. The truth of being must be understood and patiently applied until every error in individual thought is corrected.

If one had based his calculations upon a wrong concept of numbers, until his affairs became hopelessly confused, he would not expect them to become perfectly adjusted as soon as he became aware of his error, and neither should mortals expect this in regard to their life-problems. Mankind in belief are under the dominion of a false rule, an erroneous sense, and they cannot hope for a complete transformation the moment their mistake dawns upon them, nor that their first feeble apprehension of the right rule will solve all their problems. If one fully understood the omnipresence of good he would have no sense of evil, but one's salvation is not accomplished while this sense remains. However longingly human thought may turn toward the realization of the ideal, it cannot shake off its errors by any quicker or easier process than by overcoming evil with good.

Christian Scientists cannot be too grateful because they have been awakened through Christian Science to the unreal nature of evil, and because they have discerned the truth of the allness of God sufficiently to undertake in part its demonstration; but that is only the beginning of their work. Final deliverance from all the claims of evil must be won through persistent wrestling with the sense of sin and the belief of selfhood apart from God. Error seems successful because of mortal ignorance, but as this ignorance is removed through a knowledge of the truth, error has no longer a basis for its deceptions, and must disappear. As the light of revealed truth in Christian Science shines upon the human concept, it produces, as it were, a sense of the self-knowledge of its error, and so-called material consciousness begins to recognize its nothingness. Thus is initiated the process of unknowing what should never have been known, a sense of evil; and the knowing of good as the infinite God, the eternal All.

After all, the question of time is but a relative one. Time is but a symbol of change and decay, and is alien to the thought of spiritual things and of immortality. Time pertains alone to the material concept, hence years do not properly measure one's spiritual progress; one's growth in conscious goodness alone does that. So-called material living and dying, the coming and going of mortal concepts of childhood and old age, the joys and griefs, the loves and disappointments, the ambitions, conquests, and defeats experienced by mortals, ‹ all these are but the varying tints, the lights and shades of the dream-picture we call human life. The Life divine, which is neither matter nor mortal mind, wherein is neither dream nor awakening, and which enfolds the consciousness and identity of the true man and woman, goes on in unbroken continuance and perfection, unheeding, because unconscious of, the mistakes and mutations of mortal existence.

But while mortals cannot reasonably expect a sudden transition from evil to good, from matter to Spirit, there is no excuse for needlessly continuing the delusions of a false sense after its falsity has been recognized. Although the journey from the unreal to the real promises to involve many stages and much prolonged effort in its accomplishment, it does not mean that we can afford to be laggards on the way. Because we have a long race to run, it should be our daily effort to progress as rapidly toward the ideal as is our privilege and possibility. In place of asking why one's salvation from evil is not achieved more quickly, one who declares the allness of God would better ask why he is so often tardy in abiding by the consequent nothingness of evil. If it is our desire to overcome error more quickly, we should not cling so tenaciously to the things we pronounce to be untrue. If we regard evil as a dream, an illusion, we should not consent to the details of sin, but rather test our strength to the full against them. If we continue to manifest ungodlike qualities, indulge in jealousy, dishonesty, evil, malice, etc., how can we believe in our hearts that man is the image and likeness of God, as we say with the lips that he is?

While it is not well to be overimpatient in working to bring out our ideal, it may be well to discover whether we cannot do more than we are now doing. It is probable that most of us could rise above discordant conditions more rapidly if we were willing to pay the price, that is, to meet all the demands of Truth. When a particular form of error has been recognized for what it is, it should be our effort not to accept or obey it any more. When we recognize the hatefulness and the misery of hatred, when we see that it is but a phase of an evil dream, it should be our privilege and joy so to be liberated by the thought of divine Love as never to hate again. So. too, we have no lawful need to be unkind, untrue, disloyal, unjust, if we understand that man is the divine idea, and not a sinning mortal. It is plainly folly, then, to plead for a quicker awakening from the material dream, while we cherish its illusions as realities or while we are reluctant to rise to more spiritual experiences.

The awakening from a dream dissolves it, and is simultaneous with the discernment of truth. The self-seeing of evil, to which Mrs. Eddy refers, is the necessary prelude to its self-destruction, for a false sense cannot continue self-deceived when convinced of its error. The point for us as Christians is to let error destroy itself, and the dead to bury its dead, as fast as the nothingness of evil is discerned. We must not rehabilitate uncovered and disowned errors if we would not renew their claim to reality and power. No consideration should impel us to retain a sense of evil, or to reestablish it in our thought, after we have seen it in its true light as a deception, since it is only our belief in evil that prevents our discernment of man's spiritual perfection. One's own false concept of God is the whole illusion of evil so far as we individually are concerned, hence it can be seen that the process whereby we may be delivered from it is within our own reach. If we are indeed watching and praying for the kingdom of God, the reign of reality, we shall not neglect the smallest opportunity to hasten its coming in our hearts. Thanks to Christian Science, mortals are awakening from the long dream of human error, and its illusion is disappearing before this "great light."

The writer has made frequent quotations from the Christian Science text-book, since it has seemed impossible to treat the subject fairly and intelligibly without so doing. Christian Scientists know that they owe their awakening to the unreal nature of evil and matter, and their present ability in overcoming disease and sin, to their study of Mrs. Eddy's writings, and are glad to make acknowledgment therefore. One cannot investigate Christian Science in an earnest Christian spirit and faithfully practise its rules, without feeling that it is indeed the promised Comforter that is to lead humanity out of all error into all truth.

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