Some one with whom I was talking a short time since remarked, "The one thing I object to in Christian Scientists is that they are too self-satisfied. They always say that everything is all right and do not depend enough upon individual effort."
A Christian Scientist is satisfied, but not in the self-righteous sense of the word. He is satisfied because he knows that at last he has found something which uplifts him in his daily life and occupation as nothing else has done before, something for which he has been longing and striving through years, perhaps, of discouragement and disappointment. Christian Science is truly the little leaven which leavens the heart, bringing man into closer relationship with God and his brother man, clearing away the clouds of selfishness, and leading him gently along the path of duty which otherwise would seem narrow and stony; but with this beautiful light that shineth in the darkness, he finds himself looking for the flowers by the roadside and forgetting that the way beneath his feet is rough.
Christian Scientists understand that everything is all right because God rules the universe; when we all learn that it is not individual effort, so much as a perfect understanding of, and obedience to, the law of God, which brings us into health, harmony, and happiness, then and then only can we appreciate what life really is, and what are the privileges of the children of God, who reflect His perfect image. That is the picture a Christian Scientist always sees when he says it is all right; and if we would only close our eyes to sense and open them to the spiritual realities, there would be small need of so-called "individual effort," which, viewed in its true light, is simply the struggle of man through material means to obtain a material result, depending upon his own finite intelligence to guide and his own mortal strength to sustain him.
