Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on Thee.
The peace, happiness, and prosperity of a Christian Scientist must come through individual growth. We sometimes find ourselves waiting for that period when our neighbors will all be true practising Christian Scientists, and when there will no longer be opposition or persecution. We catch ourselves believing that such a state is necessary to our peace and harmony. This mistaken view on our part not only keeps us in continual waiting for that peace which ought to be ours now, neglecting the accomplishment of individual improvement which alone insures individual harmony, but causes us to turn our attention to an undue and unlawful righting of our neighbors. We thus assume a responsibility which is in itself a burden of discord to us, while at the same time we are meddling with our neighbors, who must do their own righting up.
Individual experience is an absolute necessity to individual growth. In all cases wherein one is not willing to learn without experience, he must learn for himself, through experience, the harmony of right doing and the discord of wrong doing. People who are really ready for our help can be taught without undue effort on our part. Those who are not ready should be left entirely to their own experience, and we should not touch them lest we be found robbing them of that which they need to convince them of error, and cause them to turn from it.
