How familiar to us all is the phrase, "Working for the Cause"! Let us examine at close range this oft-voiced expression, heard so frequently among the followers of Christian Science. The Cause of Christian Science is self-evidently the Cause of Christ; the saving, healing, life-giving, Christ Emancipator. The best interests of humanity constitute the heart and soul of scientific Christianity, therefore a true Christian Scientist is a friend to sin-laden humanity; a bringer of light, joy, and health to diseased-burdened mankind, and a demonstrator of life eternal to all who sit in "the valley of the shadow of death." Thus to work for our fellows' uplifting and betterment, is to work for the Cause. We make the Cause our cause, as we unite in thought, motive, and deed, with the practical idealism of the living Christ.
Christian Science, as elaborated and presented through the prayerful, painstaking work of our Leader in this vast movement, represents a thoroughly practical ideal of the philosophy of life. The Christian Science Cause is the cause of personal purity, personal honesty, and individual unselfishness. It is the cause of civic moral integrity, sanitary reform, and includes all phases of cleanliness. which has been truly said to be "next to godliness." It is the cause of universal peace, sex equality, and human fellowship. It is the cause of public health and popular education. The Cause of Christian Science stands for the religion of Jesus as a universal, moral-spiritual science, fulfilling the law and prophecies of Judaism. It includes a democracy of the Spirit, and wherever it is called upon to work through any form of organization among men and women, it so democratizes and impersonalizes this organization, that personal domination and illiberal methods can no more find their home therein, than can the absolute monarchies of past generations find congenial habitation in the midst of the American Commonwealth. We work for the Cause only as we labor unselfishly, lovingly, patiently. One must often marvel on reading the helpful admonitions of Mrs. Eddy, down through the years of her guidance of this now world-wide movement. How much of selflessness, untiring toil, liberality, and a non-judging attitude of mind there is yet for us all to learn from these priceless words of caution, encouragement, and rebuke. The cause of the faith that conquers, and the noble courage that dares to cross the fixed line of tradition in religion and therapeutics, is the Cause of Christian Science; the cause of the hope that cheers; the tender, patient love that heals pain and sickness, these are the things that constitute the Cause that demands our loyalty and merits our sincere service. He best imitates the Christ example and attains the manly stature of Jesus, who most purifies thought, and who refuses to obey the dictates of materialistic tendencies within. Ours is a world Cause. All nations and peoples are touched and blessed by its benefactions. Because of its vast scope and normal breadth, we who claim to represent it are called upon to cultivate the graces of discretion, liberality, moderation, compassion, fearlessness, generosity, and a trust and humility based upon the knowledge that personal self lost, means God found,—physically and mentally.
We work for the Cause when our consistent lives preach with the eloquence of actuality, the Gospel of walking and talking with the Most High. Let us be patient with ourselves and with others. Heaven and perfection are not won at a single bound. We perceive much in progressive life, that we do not comprehend. The ability to walk by faith rather than by sight calls for that confidence in the eternity of Life and good shown by Jesus at the tomb of his friend Lazarus, in place of the doubt and unbelief evinced by Thomas after his great Teacher's resurrection. We work for our beloved Cause most successfully when we prayerfully incorporate these virtues of confidence and faith into our lives; and while the processes of spiritual realization may seem slow, let us remember that neither earthly Rome nor heavenly Jerusalem was built consciously in a day, or even a year.
