"WISDOM is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom: and with all thy getting get understanding." Such was the counsel of David to his successor on the throne of Israel, and it is counsel by which all may well profit today. What is it to be wise? and where shall we find that understanding which will insure to us grace and honor and long life? Where indeed except in obedience to God's commands, in an earnest striving after "the kingdom of God, and his righteousness." What can the so-called "wisdom of this world" profit us in the hour of need beside that understanding which knows God as omnipotent and omnipresent good, and that "the Lord's hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; neither his ear heavy, that it cannot hear"!
Every one who has gained even a glimmer of the underlying truth of Christian Science, who has experienced its power in the overcoming of sin, the healing of sickness, must recognize it as the truth which Jesus said would make free. This does not mean that we will not have our share of the tribulations of tills world, but that when they do come we shall be so equipped that we can finally declare with the Master, "I have overcome the world." And this equipment, this armor of defense against all evil, is the reward of earnest study and faithful application of the Principle and rule of Christian Science as set forth in the writings of its Discoverer and Founder, Mary Baker Eddy.
"Study thoroughly the letter and imbibe the spirit" (Science and Health, p. 495) is Mrs. Eddy's terse summing up of the way to win this guerdon. The secret of success lies in the assimilation of what one reads or studies. When urged to study the Lesson-Sermon or to read the text-book, people say sometimes, "I have read Science and Health through again and again, and it did not do me any good." But the failure to get relief was not the fault of the text-book; healing of the ills of body and mind has been found therein by thousands upon thousands. The knowledge that is power comes from practical demonstration, the putting to the test of the rules there laid down, which we are asked to accept only as we prove them. "The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations," the revelator tells us; and the blessings of Christian Science are for "whosoever will," in the degree of their fidelity to its teachings.
