One of the strangest of the elements of the human mind that is being brought out by the coming of Christian Science in these latter days is the determination to refuse a consistent recognition to spiritual understanding as a practical, valuable element in human experience. This higher divine knowledge, demonstrating the power and blessing that have been the theme of prophet and poet, the longed-for ideal of every seeker after righteousness, is now as of old the stone that the builders are rejecting. Yet its demonstration has compelled a tardy recognition with many and has won a hearty allegiance with many more. There is a goodly multitude today who are fully awake to the fact that the spiritual understanding which is brought by Christian Science is the pearl of great price; that it demonstrates the godliness which is "profitable for the life that now is as well as that which is to come."
Human laws in all enlightened nations to-day contain ample provision for protection, and so opportunity for abundant remuneration to the author, the artist, the inventor, who brings to the world a book, a picture, a machine that in any wise aids in making the world a more livable home for man. The world in this simply recognizes and concedes to him who has wrought it some benefit that it owes him a debt, and its laws make special provision that that debt shall not be avoided, but paid in the highest value the world-thought knows. Yet here note what we have already spoken of as one of the strange inconsistences of the mortal mind. It is not a new feature in human experience, but it is only receiving new emphasis to-day. It is the unyielding insistence that one who brings of the treasures of spiritual truth is not to have any of the recognition that belongs to the world's benefactors. We see this in the persistent clinging of the mortal mind to its criticism of what it calls the high price of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker G. Eddy, and other Christian Science literature; and this is an expression of its deeper purpose to resist to the hilt the frank recognition of the value of spiritual power and demonstration as a practical element in every-day affairs.
There is a broad reason back of all this that exists apart from any particular person or any particular work. It is not, as we have noted in the case of authors, artists, and inventors, that human thought grudges his legitimate recompense to the one who serves his generation by any new discovery or invention; but it is a persistent refusal to concede anything to the spiritual element in human experience as worthy of consideration in establishing a standard of value. And this element in human thought works so potently and subtly, that it seems at times to confuse even some of the elect. For if the world can only keep the standard of value on a purely material basis, then it holds the strategic point that is the key to the control of practical affairs. Once let it become an established fact in human experience that the spiritual element—that spiritual value—holds a conceded place in fixing the standard of value; once let it be that Mammon thus gives tribute to Christ, and the time when the kingdoms of this world will become the kingdoms of the Son will no longer be a distant dream, but a visible possibility. And the time now is when that is becoming an established fact. And the one potent factor in God's hand in bringing this into practical demonstration is the book that is to-day changing the course of the currents of human experience and ushering in the era of Truth. It is no wonder that unspiritual minds are maintaining that this book be sold at a figure that shall take into account only the cost of the material elements that enter into its production. And it is only one of the sure tokens of the divine Wisdom that has guided its author that she has refused to yield to this clamor, and has insisted that here shall be an article in which the spiritual element shall be given an honorable place in estimating its value. And ere its copyright has expired this truth will have become so indelibly impressed, so fixed a factor in the Science work, that it will be a working element in human affairs which will never disappear, but will go on in its working until it has leavened them all. In this human copyright law which gives to the author of Science and Health the opportunity to enforce this element of Truth's working, and supports her in it, is seen one of the ways in which to-day "the earth helps the Woman."
