To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in His throne.—Revelation. 3:21.
The human mind fully recognizes that anything worth possessing must of necessity be gained through sacrifice. And it has become a proverb, that that which costs little is valued as little. Our subject is overcoming, or denying as we express it in Christian Science, and we use the word in the sense of subduing, or vanquishing. The inevitable necessity for overcoming is indelibly stamped in the web and woof of mortal existence. Did you ever think of the little child, when its habits of observation are awakening and its faculty of associating its ideas in orderly sequence as cause and effect, are beginning to unfold? He does not know right from wrong. Everything becomes an education. Thus with us, as with the little child, the conflict with the world and its beliefs begins, and must be overcome, and with a fixed, definite purpose to fathom the heights and depths of all the resources within the scope of human knowledge, the days stretch into years. The scholar says, "At last I have conquered. I am accounted master of natural science." The poor boy who sets out to conquer poverty, says, after years of combating, competition, and following the monopolies, "I have overcome poverty, and through the path of strict economy, I am at last a millionaire." The patient, persistent boy at last wins renown as a statesman. Ask the scholar, the millionaire, the statesman, if their laurels were easily gained, and they will tell you of years of undivided effort, of patience and perseverance in the midst of defeat, never losing sight of the one crowning ideal, whether scholarship, riches, or statesmanship. No man or woman can rise in the scale of development from any plane of thought, who has no plans, no fixed purpose, but simply drifts in the tide of mortal opinions. The lesson of overcoming, rising superior to the obstacles that prevent the consummation of these ideas and purposes, is the basis of all the activities called commerce, art, invention: and our civilization and faith are the motive power for the achievement of these results. From things visible, we learn of the invisible, and so we perceive the meaning and demands of that which our subject would teach.
What is the primal thought in the human mind in overcoming? Is it not for self? And the human will-power, which is always selfish, takes to itself all credit. The promise of our text is utterly devoid of meaning to one who looks from this basis of action. Whatever may seem to be gained from conflict with the world, using the worldly weapon of self-will, is fleeting and unstable, and will surely come to naught.
