After trying for over six years to "come into" Christian Science truly, and experiencing periods of exaltation and times of depression when, like the Israelites of old, I strayed or nodded, I seem led to write a word that I hope may encourage some other earnest but tried seeker. As our dear Mother says in the "little book," "Love is not hasty to deliver us from temptation, for Love means that we are to be tried and purified." We have to do our work over and over again, like children in school, until we eliminate every error, and then, and not until then, we reach the correct result, which in Christian Science is Harmony. The correct answer in Christian Science problems is always one and the same, namely, Harmony.
And so my repetition of past mistakes and dismal failures out of which, however, good has always come eventually, is teaching me the wisdom of forbearance with our brothers, whether in or out of the ranks of Christian Scientists. We are too apt to forget that we have demonstrated in our daily lives only a small fraction of the letter of Christian Science which we have taken on. At first the "little book" is "in thy mouth sweet as honey," and we never tire reading it; but, after we have acquired the letter, there comes a time when we must put it into practice, and then we are apt to find its digestion bitter. If we put it into practice because we love the Truth, we shall be spared many sorrows. But if we go on in old paths and methods, suffering therefor will drive us back into "The Way" (Miscellaneous Writings, p. 355), in which we all must surely walk before we get the answer, "Harmony," in our individual life problems.
These experiences are no doubt common to every working Scientist, but the point I want now to make is that these experiences ought to teach us all to exercise the broadest charity towards the weaknesses and failings of our brother mortals. "Judge not" and "Charity [Love] suffereth long," ought to be remembered by us oftener than it is in tempering our oral criticisms and sweetening the carping thoughts we send out. While this has been a besetting sin of my own, yet in mingling with other Scientists I find it indulged in universally in varying degrees.
