Matter does not exist. God is all, and God is spirit; therefore all is spirit. Matter is not spirit, but is a fiction which only exists for those who persist in believing in it against the evidence of facts. As matter does not exist, and is only a lie and the invention of Satan, the body, which we see in the form of matter, does not exist either. The suffering caused by the body is simply an "error of mortal mind," for since the body does not exist, there can be no such thing as bodily suffering. Therefore instead of concerning ourselves with the healing of the supposed body, with the prevention or cure of pain and suffering, we must go straight to spirit. Spirit is perfect, and the thought of pain or disease can have no place in it. Let us then leave the curing of our bodies, and seek to rectify our spirits. Doctors and surgeons, on the contrary, follow the errors of centuries in concerning themselves with the body, and causing it to absorb drugs which, having no connection with disease, can neither cure nor relieve it. "Mind as far outweighs drugs in the cure of disease as in the cure of sin. The more excellent way is divine Science in every case. . . . The hosts of Aesculapius are flooding the world with diseases, because they are ignorant that the human mind and body are myths." A follower of the "true doctrine," according to Mrs. Eddy, is never ill for the simple reason that he does not believe in the body or in any of its infirmities. If he should be overtaken by illness, it is because his spirit is ill, and his faith not sufficiently pure. From this results a very simple method of healing. The "healer" merely seeks to re-establish the faith of the sufferer, and to convince him of the non-reality of his illness. No medicine is given, the treatment consisting of thoughts and suggestions from _Science and Health_. Christian Science healers need to have a robust and unshakable faith, for if they do not succeed in their task it is because their own spirit has been infected by doubt. Mrs. Eddy declared that our concrete and practical age required, above all, a religion of reality; that men could no longer be content with vague promises of future bliss. What they needed was a religion of the present that would end their sufferings and procure for them serenity and happiness on earth. The title of "applied Christianity" has been adopted by Christian Science, which advises us to make use of the teachings of Jesus in our daily life, and to reap all the advantages of such a practice. We have need of truth "applied" to life just as we have need of telegraphs, telephones and electric apparatus, and now--say the Scientists--for the first time in man's existence he is offered a really practical religious machinery, which enables him to overcome misfortune and to establish his happiness, his health, and his salvation on a solid basis.