THE question of temperance is one fraught with much agitation, and in many instances there is such a vast difference of opinion as to the best means of promoting the desired end, that even some of the adherents of the Christian Science faith have found themselves at a loss to know what was the best course to pursue.
Christian Science teaches an invariable rule of right to govern every circumstance or condition of human affairs, and if from any seeming cause that rule for the time being is not clearly discerned, we have only to turn to "Miscellaneous Writings" and listen to our Leader, who has spoken to us on almost every subject with which we have to deal. On Miscellaneous Writings, page 288 she writes: "Wisdom in human action begins with what is nearest right under the circumstances, and thence achieves the absolute. ... To reckon the universal cost and gain, as well as thine own, is right in every state and stage of being. . . . From a human standpoint of good, mortals must first choose between evils, and of two evils choose the less; and at present the application of scientific rules to human life seems to rest on this basis." The question is, How are we going to know what is nearest right under given circumstances? By searching our own consciousness and making sure of the purity and unselfishness of our motives, and then acquainting ourselves with the facts of the situation, and with the results of remedial efforts already made.
There is much opinion at the present time as to how the evil of intemperance is to be dealt with and overcome. Christian Science teaches that all evil is thought before it is acted, and that no evil is really destroyed until it is overcome by a mental process or cast out of mortal mind. Often people suffer as much from holding in thought or making a reality of an evil habit that a friend or relative has, as does the deluded victim. The writer once made a demonstration over a case of the drink habit where it had reached the stage of delirium tremens, and the patient never had the least desire to touch intoxicants after the first treatment. The wife of this man, however, had suffered so much from its seeming reality, that it was a year before she ceased to fear that the evil appetite might return.
