One of the things demanded of Christian Scientists is that they shall "maintain law and order" (Science and Health, p. 97). To do this it is necessary that they gain a proper conception of the divine plan and the law under which it it is operated and sustained. It must be admitted that without law and order in heaven there could be none on earth. According to Christian Science, law and order are inseparable, and the only real law there is must be founded upon spiritual harmony and perfection. Obedience to God's law, therefore, will bring out the natural and divine order of things in the daily activities of life. Pope defines order as "heaven's first law," and as such it should claim the prayerful consideration of every Christian thinker. Another writer goes so far as to say that "order is man's greatest need and his true well-being;" still another that it is "the sanity of the mind" and "the health of the body." In Christian Science it is daily obedience to the law of Love, and proportionately as the divine order takes the place of disorder and confusion, harmony is realized.
From the lowest plane of human activity up to the highest the thought of order, of methodical arrangement, proper classification, and management of natural and normal conditions is always involved. One of childhood's earliest and most helpful lessons is obedience to rules of order. No schoolroom could dispense with order. No great general or commander could operate without it. No railroad could run one day without a rigid observance of rules. No successful business is carried on without a certain amount of systematic conformity to rules of order and a detailed classification and arrangement of its varied activities. Both in public and private life a proper decorum and conformity to well-established customs is deemed positively essential to the maintenance of peace and harmony in the community.
In so far as right motives sway human consciousness this universal attempt to maintain law and order is but the shadowing forth of the divine law of harmonious being, an externalization of the divine order in human affairs. At no point where harmony is realized has the thought of order or propriety been ignored. "A place for everything, and everything in its place," is an expression familiar in all well-regulated households. The consensus of opinion along all lines of human activity is that "order renders all things easy." This is as it should be, since obedience to divine law is the only method of bringing order out of chaos. The injunction of Scripture is to "let all things be done decently and in order." There is a positive rule of right governing every transaction, the observance of which will bring out the divine order in human affairs. Until this rule is obeyed harmony will not be experienced, and this is true on every plane of activity.
