When Saul, the son of Kish, went out to hunt for cattle and found a kingdom, his experience was prototypical of what occurs to the most of us when we become adherents of Christian Science. The time came when we lost our trust in pertinacious plasters and unknowable pellets. We heard of what seemed to us a very queer doctrine, called by a name which sounded paradoxical to our ears, inasmuch as modern theologians and materialists had united in teaching us that science was irreligious and religion unscientific. But we felt desperate, somewhat or entirely, and neither time-honored beliefs nor atheism could furnish us a torch for our darkness. Quizzical, cynical, dubious, we resolved to try the queer thing called Christian Science for our dear ones or ourselves, as "the last chance." We set out to hunt for a new sort of doctors' shop and, lo, we found a principality shining with priceless jewels. We learned that we had come upon a panacea which was even better for heartaches than for backaches. In due time, our lives and motives began to undergo the regenerating processes which inevitably follow the true realization of man's kinship with God. True, some find the kingdom without going out to hunt for cattle. But the most of us have had circuitous pilgrimages, with loiterings and misgivings on the way. However, like the son of Kish, we have fared, all of us, better than we expected. Therefore, we look about us, and ask gratefully, What are the duties of our new citizenship?
The writer wishes to discuss some of the aspects of one of those duties.
It is our duty to build for ourselves thought-temples stately and beautiful, with durable masonry, pursuant to our highest ideals, for we are building for eternity as well as for the present and for the immediate future. At once, without any delay whatever, let us begin building. Let us build, and keep on building, every day and hour of our lives. Sometimes we may seem to be building our thought-temples in a wilderness; but if we continue faithful in our work we shall see the wilderness, in due time, blossom into beauty. Let us keep these temples clean and pure; sweep down the cobwebs; permit the ever-working sunshine of God's spiritual universe to radiate its cheer and warmth through the halls and corridors and to search out every corner; open the doors and windows wide for sweet and high harmonies to enter as celestial visitors. Let us strive to have, so far as we can, fit temples for God.
