The function of the bureau of standards in the city of Washington is one of the most important in the United States government, for in the possession of this bureau may be found the standards of weights and measures used throughout the land. These standards are as accurate and as durable as human ingenuity can make them, and are most carefully guarded against influences that might harm them in the least. They are for the purpose of verifying the innumerable measures in public use.
Standards are absolutely necessary, as will be conceded at once when any scientific procedure or any commercial transaction is thought of, and all our habits of thinking are based upon some standard held in mind. Mankind is constantly striving to improve its standards, both moral and physical, and this is one of the best evidences at hand that the world is growing better. Since it is necessary to have standards in all worldly matters, it certainly must also be necessary to have some standard for the Christian life. Some one will probably say at once that Jesus the Christ is the Christian's standard. That is undoubtedly correct, but men for hundreds of years have tried to make him their standard and have failed, until the expressions of doubt as to the possibility of ever living the life that our Master taught us to live have been far too common; indeed they seemed to have drowned the belief that such a thing would ever be possible. Thus it happens that men who are united as to worldly standards have each a standard of his own so far as Christian character in large part is concerned; which naturally can have but one result, namely, confusion as to what constitutes a proper Christian ideal.
To the student of Christian Science the Bible contains the only authoritative analysis of a spiritual or metaphysical standard, and the historical records of its demonstration and attainment. Because the Bible speaks of spiritual ideals as the real and treats its subjects strictly from a spiritual view-point, mankind has gained but a meager understanding of that which is real, since mankind has found itself by an illusive education from a material view-point only. In order to overcome the seeming difficulty of a spiritual science being understood from a material view-point, God had to reveal Himself by displacing this illusive education with the truth. This is why the Bible assumes the necessity of revelation, and these revelations were given; but the tendency of the carnal desire, expressed in personal domination, was to bury these messages of Truth in ceremony and creed, which only served to puzzle all the more a man already distracted by evil desires whose origin seemed unaccountable to him.
