So much of human nature has for so long been governed by all the conflicting elements of the anarchy called self, that government by Principle lies, like an undiscovered country, far beyond the borders of finite comprehension. The mental standard and moral codes of the civilized world hold much that approximates a high and selfless order of living, yet even this fruit of righteous effort may spring from right desire rather than from an enlightened understanding of the relation of God's man to his governing Principle, God. To manifest at each moment of experience the government of that divine Principle from which all good springs, is a task beyond the grasp or the performance of the unaided human mind. Only as the Mind which was manifest in Christ Jesus dislodges the thought-habits of the mortal, only as the nature of self withdraws before the advancing revelation of divine nature, does the understanding of man's reflection of God become apparent; and only through the mental process which Christian Science terms reflection, can government by Principle be intelligently demonstrated in human affairs.
The carnal mind grasps nothing of the meaning of reflection. The divine Mind knows nothing else than its own reflection. To set forth in every thought, word, and deed the will of that divine Mind which orders the harmony of the universe, is to reflect the divine nature. Carnal tendencies of thought can no more do this than can darkness radiate light. Nothing less than that perfect thinking which Christendom knows as the Christ-mind, the "Son," can so faithfully pattern its thought-processes after the divine as to be a reflection thereof. When Jesus said, ''Why callest thou me good? none is good, save one, that is, God;" and again, "The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do: for what things soever he doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise," he uncovered the inadequacy of the supposedly good human nature, and revealed the one and only entity which is able to do the will of the Father,—the reflected likeness and image of God, never born of Adam, but eternally springing into freshness and fairness of being because one with God, because the son of God.
Jesus further declares, "For the Father loveth the Son, and sheweth him all things that himself doeth: ... I can of mine own self do nothing: as I hear, I judge: and my judgment is just; because I seek not mine own will, but the will of the Father which hath sent me." The divine fatherhood, pouring through the crystal-clear consciousness of the Son the glory of righteousness upon a sin-clamped world! The source of all bounty and blessing, operating through a thought-modus which radiates all it receives,— humanity self-immolated, that divinity may be All-in-all! Father and Son, origin and reflection of being, Principle and its obedient idea,—this conjunction in immortal relationship shows forth in the world's redemption that holy example of government by Principle which may be manifest in the minutiae of individual affairs to the entire undoing of every suggestion of a life apart from God.
