Page:The Origin of Christian Science.djvu/237

Rh Fixing your gaze on the realities supernal, you will rise to the spiritual consciousness of being;” “Every step towards goodness is a departure from materiality;” “It should be thoroughly understood that all men have one Mind, one God and Father, one Life, Truth, and Love. Mankind will become perfect in proportion as this fact becomes apparent;” “Mortality will cease when man beholds himself God's reflection, even as man sees his reflection in a glass;” “Immortal man was and is God's image or idea, even the infinite expression of infinite Mind.”

At the risk of a wearying repetition I remind the student that in these sentences Mrs. Eddy teaches that heaven is a state of intellectuality; that we approach it as we free ourselves from the mutations and limitations of time and sense; that man and God are one principle and that man approaches perfection or blessedness as he realizes this fact; that man is related to God as the image in the mirror is to the form it reflects and in so far as we realize this truth we escape from mortality or imperfection.

Now let us hear the Neoplatonists.

Plotinus says: “With respect to the good, either the knowledge of, or contact with it, is the greatest of things;” “Perfect and true life