ONE of the strongest longings of the human race is the deep desire to know. Job said, "Oh that I knew where I might find him!'' To the child knowledge seems an attainable thing, its acquirement the natural consequence of the grown-up state; he supposes that he will grow into knowledge after the same inevitable manner that he will grow into manhood. But as the years pass he finds himself still unsatisfied, still in ignorance of the deep things of life. Although surrounded by many theories and many systems, he is yet without any certain information on the most momentous of all questions—"What is truth?"
This child is not one child, he is the type of all the ages, he is the epitome of that wean' human intellect, always seeking, never satisfied, searching since its infant days for "the reason o' the cause an' the wherefore o' the why," and not one whit farther on today than when in its childhood it first took up the quest. For the questions that have puzzled it. What is God? What is life? are questions that the human intellect with all its pride of human learning cannot answer. The spiritual solution of these great problems of existence has at last been scientifically ascertained, and has been given to the world in the Christian Science text-book. "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures." The author of this book perceived that behind all the phenomena of human life there exists a divine Principle and Science of being, that this divine Principle of life is God; that it is applicable to all human needs, and when spiritually discerned can be demonstrated today, as it was demonstrated by Jesus, in the healing of sickness and sin. Before this discovery was made by Mrs. Eddy, apparently it had not occurred to any one that a Principle and Science of being existed apart from all material causation.
A Science of Spirit has the ring of a paradox: its discovery is the reconciliation of those long-supposed opposites, reason and revelation. If God, who is pure Spirit, is also divine Principle, reason can be satisfied spiritually, and revelation becomes a practical experience. Looking deeper, we see that a spiritually scientific conception of life offers the only solution of the problems of being that can even conceivably meet with a universal acceptance. If "the unity of the faith." the world-wide brotherhood of man, is ever to be established on this earth, it can only be through the discernment of some common bond, possible of recognition by all men. Such a bond must of necessity be spiritual, for while materially there appear to be innumerable separate origins, minds, aims, interests, and beliefs, which no process of compromise can reconcile or bridge over, yet spiritually there is but one source, one Mind, one aim, one ultimate, one understanding of life. This point of unity, which is to form the meeting-place for all nations, must furthermore be scientific; it must be demonstrable, undeniable, a truth that is true beyond all gainsaying, or who will believe in its finality: it must be according to proof, not according to human opinion; in other words, it must be founded on Principle. Principle itself must be this bond.
