WE may know something of the future of practical Christianity because of the "exceeding great and precious promises" of the Word, which have enlisted our faith and trust. To be sure, we are principally concerned with present good; but, scientifically interpreted, Christianity makes its promises for the future emphatic, and we read them and speak of them with gratitude.
The present period in human history is marked by a spiritual awakening and a quickened sense of discernment between good and evil, and the individual is continuing more earnestly in the right and loving the good. It must be logically conceded by students of Christianity that this disposition on the part of improving mortals is derived from God and plainly indicates that God is with men. At this point the atheist's assertion that there is no God is refuted. Here also the Christian Scientist presents his reasoning that God always has been and always must be with men; that God and man are co-existent and inseparable as Principle and idea; that the real man must therefore be spiritual and not material; and that sin, which is unreal and delusive, and which inflicts its own punishment, has ever denied this holy alliance between the Father in heaven and man in possession of heavenly harmony. Thus the relations between God and man are set forth in Christian Science.
There may be many who doubt that a disposition to be good and to do good is now in the ascendency, and who think that, on the contrary, evil is becoming more open and general, to the confusion and undoing of those who advocate religion and reform. Let us consider the question.
