Earnest students of Christian Science must realize with ever-increasing gratitude the unfailing manner in which their religion regulates even the lesser affairs of daily living. All right prayer must be based on this one desire,—that things shall be regulated as they ought to be, and not as mortals think they should be. A selfish prayer is never Christianly scientific, and a prayer offered on the altar of selfishness is never really answered. Arbitrarily to read "desire" instead of "need" into the Scriptural assurance of the divine care, is to misinterpret the plain teaching of Christian Science, and can result only in the saying and the doing of foolish things. James says, "Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts."
There are certain fundamental things for which it is right to pray, —such, for instance, as health and harmony, things to which God's children are clearly entitled,—but to outline the exact manner in which even these shall come, is presumptuously to place one's self above God. Briefly defined, true prayer consists solely in getting one's self right with God, and this process can never result in wrong. It should be plain that Mrs. Eddy's teachings afford no justification for the belief that Christian Science offers to any one that which it is not right and best for him to have. To think that the power of divine Mind can be used for the mere purpose of producing undeserved wealth, or that one can by the mere force of human desire "demonstrate an automobile," for instance, or any other material object, is to think not scientifically, but in terms of the human, or carnal, mind.
A one-sided demonstration is impossible in Christian Science. To prosper at another's expense is morally wrong, and God will never bring such a thing to pass. One man may sell something to another, and at a profit in dollars and cents, but unless both are benefited by the transaction, both are hurt. On page 206 of Science and Health Mrs. Eddy says, "In the scientific relation of God to man, we find that whatever blesses one blesses all, as Jesus showed with the loaves and the fishes,—Spirit, not matter, being the source of supply." Whatever is a demonstration for one must be a demonstration for all, else the whole transaction is surely not scientific,—not of God.
