WHEN some spiritual fact about God and man dawns in the consciousness of an individual, the resultant is what is called a Christian Scientist. This appearing of the truth is to the individual the birth of the Christ, and the resurrection and the ascension must follow. The progress of the Christian Scientist is imperative because of the operation of this Christ-idea in his consciousness; it is not something which he can choose or refuse, it is the necessity of absolute and eternal law. If the Christian Scientist fails to take such upward footsteps, as they logically present themselves in his development and growth, he will have the human experiences which will force him upward. The hour is sure to come sooner or later to every individual human consciousness when experience demands progress, when human belief becomes at last wearied and tired of itself and is ready to concede that it can find no help or healing in itself.
In our present personal sense of life the first touch of Christian Science is to make its activities and relationships more comfortable and harmonious. This bettered sense is the first step of material belief out of itself, and is a necessary and legitimate one. The great change which this first step brings into one's life may incline him to believe that the betterment realized is the ultimate of Christian Science ministry; that in solving one problem he has solved them all. Material sense is inclined to be satisfied with its bettered belief and to linger indolently and longingly in this first step. But the bettered belief is simply the first manifestation that Christ, Truth, has come to the flesh, and the eternal law of Truth demands the continuous betterment of belief until it ultimately disappears. It is impossible in the growth of any Christian Scientist to attain to any place of bettered belief and remain there; God's law of progress compels him to abandon each successive footstep and to ascend.
It is the resistance of material sense to this inviolable law of the Christ which compels the Christian Scientist to gain a higher understanding of Christian Science in order to escape affliction and pain. It is usually at this place of development that Christian Scientists begin to feel sorry for themselves, to get discouraged and to ask why these experiences come, when they have been "so faithful" and have worked "so hard"! At such times they are apt to be impressed with a sense of their own worthiness, and pretty apt to lodge a complaint against Christian Science because they personally have not experienced more of its blessings.
