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Quoted in the Facebook group 'Christian Scientists' under the heading "Perfection Demonstrated".

An extract from an article written by Rev. Irving C. Tomlinson

I have learned how to get away from myself: I have learned how to demonstrate. I have learned how to make Science a thing of life, not of words. I am going to tell you what the secret is, for it is wonderful. Now this is it: Not to see, hear, or repeat any kind of imperfection. It is seeing, hearing, and repeating good and good only, at all times, and under all circumstances, in spite of everything to the contrary.

I make that resolution every morning when I first open my eyes, and revise it every hour of the day. I see perfection...a perfect cause, and a perfect effect...perfect God and perfect man, and I refuse to make any exception.

I refuse to admit the slightest imperfection in myself, in my friends, in the affairs of the world: I take my radical stand for the perfection of God and everything He has made. I look upon the world with God's eyes, and see it as He sees it. I refuse to see it any other way.

I stop a dozen times a day to renew the resolve, and make sure I am not repeating error giving way to criticism. I watch my thoughts about people: the lame, the old, and the unlovely to sense that I pass and even stray animals.

I have taken my radical stand for the perfection of all things, and will not, absolutely will not, release the perfect standard.

The result has been marvelous! Try it and you will forget to wear your glasses...they will not be necessary. You will be seeing with God's eyes and you will behold a perfect universe.

The outward conditions are pictures of our inward thinking. To change the picture one must change the thoughts that produce the picture. Self-condemnation, self-depreciation, and fear will seem to drag down those who are not watchful.

Reclothe thought with the garment of praise, joy and gladness.

Commentary

To understand these words, we begin by discarding the idea of God as a personality ruling the world, watching for good and bad in our behaviour, and preparing suitable rewards in the afterlife. This concept belongs with mythology and intelligent atheists logically reject it. This old-theology God presides over an imperfect material creation.

Christian Scientists like Tominson see God as the spiritual source of a spiritual creation. Our challenge as humans is our belief of matter. In spiritual creation there is no such thing as matter. Some of our leading physicists also agree that there is no such thing as matter, but they have yet to recognise the consequence - that the only reality is spiritual. From the spiritual source flow the spiritual qualities that make up all that is real.