THE opportunity to choose the more excellent way in life comes at some time to every man. He may not know the precise moment; the opportunity may present itself more than once; he may nut be conscious when or where he makes the choice. Biblical history records many instances of this. "Choose you this day whom ye will serve" is a universal offer, and if when heard it arouses a latent desire for devotion to higher and better things, the choice may find its permanent record in a life of true consecration. In one of his brilliant essays, Lord Acton laid down the dictum that "the full exposition of truth is the great object for which the existence of mankind is prolonged on earth." In harmony with this was the motto of a review which he edited, "I love the truth, whether it be old or new."
It is hunger for a knowledge of Truth that has led so many to accept Christian Science, for here alone have they found the only panacea for earthly woes and the only method of demonstrates the power of Truth; here alone have they discovered that only when we are governed by divine Mind can we hope to understand, if but in some faint manner, the divine dealings and obtain our true selfhood. When we have grown to the assurance, from rich and varied experience, from faithful study of the Word and from enlightenment of spiritual understanding, that "Mind as far outweighs drugs in the cure of disease as in the cure of sin," and that "the more excellent way is divine Science in every case" (Science and Health, p. 149), we have made our choice, have built our faith on the rock. Christ, Truth, and are not likely to be disturbed by the unrest, uncertainty, and confusion so manifest in much of the religious thought of the day.
It is true that we shall never be satisfied in our search for Truth until we have made our final demonstration and awake in the likeness of Christ, but the faithful Christian Scientist knows that his daily resort to inspired thought, his daily effort to be emancipated from the thraldom of fear and doubt and the shadows of despair, his daily dependence upon divine Mind for wisdom and guidance in all the avenues of life, yield an abundant harvest of peace and mental and spiritual riches. The more excellent way to him is the way of Spirit; and he is able to testify of that which he knows, not as a mere theory, not as something abstract or academical, but because he has found that the way and the work of righteousness (using the word in the truest and widest sense) is always the way and the work of peace and spiritual light and life. To him the declaration of a modern theological essayist, that "while Jesus declined to place the emphasis on his works of healing, Christian Science addresses its sure appeal to man's material nature," is the reverse of fact. It does not need very profound or very assiduous study to determine that it is the spiritual which is the basis, the essence of Christian Science; and that its rapid growth is the result of its appeal to man's higher nature, giving him a newer and truer concept of God, revealing to him a deeper sense of his close relation to and dependence upon divine Mind, and a realization never before experienced of the availability of divine aid on the journey to the perfect life.
