"Growth is the eternal mandate of Mind" (Science and Health, p. 520). All living is thinking; all causes are mental, and all results are the outgrowth of thought. Growth, along all lines of thought, involves three things: the right ideal, the right spirit, and the right action. Work is mental activity; the spirit of the working lends character to the action; and the object is the ideal to be attained. How important that the proper spirit be manifest, the proper ideal be striven for, since mental activity is ceaseless.
Now who or what shall determine the right spirit and the right ideal? Who better than Jesus, what better than his life?
The advent of Jesus consummated a great race-thought, a longing and looking for the promised Messiah. Jesus was "the highest human corporeal concept of the divine idea, rebuking and destroying error, and bringing to light man's immortality" (Science and Health, p. 589). The spiritual element so predominated over the material in him, that Truth overcame error in all ways and at all times, and God, Spirit, was the animus and end of his working. Yet he overcame the world neither easily nor quickly. It was only through constant, persistent, and earnest toil.
