IT is sometimes asked just how we should draw the line between a conscientious Christian Science life and subservience to popular and public opinions. Our Leader tells us "to abandon so fast as practical the material, and to work out the spiritual which determines the outward and actual" (Science and Health, p. 254). Each one of us has his own problems to work out, and environment has much to do with them. Christian Scientists are found in many walks of life, and often it is an individual demonstration to know just what is best to do. After all it is not so much the giving up of this or that, but the knowing that when one is in earnest seeking for the truth, he will find that habits and tastes uncongenial and inharmonious to the Christian Science life will give him up. In knowing and realizing that God is All in all and ever-present, that evil is unreal, without entity, we overcome the sense of fear, and when this is overcome we know that divine Love "is able to save them to the uttermost," that come unto Him for help. That God is Love should be an ever-present thought, and when we remember all our blessings there is left no sense of discord but all is harmony. If we can even in a measure realize the omnipotence of Life and Love, all doubt and misgiving will vanish, the inbreathing of God's presence will uplift and inspire us to greater acts of kindness and charity to our fellow-men.
Mrs. Eddy says, "Hold thought steadfastly to the enduring, the good, and the true, and you will bring these into your experience proportionably to their occupancy of your thoughts" (Science and Health, p. 261). We learn that by holding on to the right thoughts all error and sin are crowded out, and we thus find that these errors never were real. A gentleman who had been a close follower of Christian Science for four years or more, having given up practically all other reading and the society of non-Scientists, one evening accepted an invitation to meet some learned men. The conversation was brilliant and embraced some of the leading topics and questions of the day, but the Christian Scientist found he could not enter freely into the discussions, as he had devoted no time of late years to current topics. As he had formerly been widely read, and was looked upon as an authority, as it were, on leading questions, he had a feeling of regret and for a time wondered whether indeed his abstinence was worth while. For several days he was uneasy and dissatisfied. Was Christian Science after all worth the giving up of so much? By and by a hurried call for help came from one in pain and distress. The Christian Scientist responded to duty's call and was God's instrument in quickly and surely raising the patient from a bed of pain to a state of perfect health. Again he asked himself, Is it worth while? as with heartfelt gratitude the one made whole thanked him. Yes! all the material knowledge, the fund of worldly information which he might have gained in those four years, would have counted as nothing in that hour of need, when by following in the footsteps of the Master he could heal the sick.
In our emergence from material beliefs the truth does not come to us all at once; we are often not ready for it, and must take our steps one at a time and gradually advance into a clearer sense of divine Truth, Life, and Love. Until they are ready for the truth, it is not wise to attempt to hurry our fellow-men; but in Christian Science there are no backward steps, and we must prove by small beginnings our worthiness to be called sons of God. That the leaven of Truth is working silently, but nevertheless surely, in the world to-day, is very apparent to the observing. Many who were so prejudiced that they would hardly recognize a follower of Christian Science, are now tolerant and in some cases show a kindly interest. Let us give each a cup of cold water in Christ's name,—not a long preamble to perplex or perhaps antagonize, in our mistaken zeal, but a kindly word, a thought of Truth which often sows the seed for a rich harvest. One should be very careful, too, not to prejudice the inquirer with technical words or scientific terms, without an explanation of these terms, for the inquiring one, or one slightly interested, is often perplexed by such terms with no explanations, and becomes prejudiced or discouraged at the start.
