It should not excite surprise that the problem of supply seems to loom large upon the horizon—and frequently in the immediate foreground also—of so many students of Christian Science. On the contrary, it would be surprising if such were not the case. All their previous human existence has been spent in reliance upon a false conception of substance, and now they are awakening to its unreality and unreliability. Is it any wonder, then, that before the spiritual understanding of substance is fully attained they should seem to experience a sense of instability, of loss and lack?
When one is learning to swim and finds himself for the first time launched in the water without a foothold of solid earth, a similar sense of sinking is felt, until the sustaining ability of mental power is learned and proven. The one vitally necessary thing for the swimmer is to overcome fear; this, and the acquiring of ease and freedom in the necessary movements, complete his conquest of the water. In like manner the student of Christian Science must let go his least and last vestige of reliance upon material concepts of substance, and learn to rely without fear upon spiritual understanding alone. He must learn what substance and supply really are, and also how to destroy fear. He must learn, as does the swimmer, how to be free and at ease in the new element.
The man who avoids the water may never need to learn to swim, and in somewhat similar fashion the man whose concept of supply is limited to the material may seek to dismiss his need of spiritual understanding; but, as our Leader says on page 21 of Science and Health, the student of Christian Science "constantly turns away from material sense, and looks towards the imperishable things of Spirit." Consequently, the Christian Scientist must perforce let go of his material concepts and study to demonstrate the spiritual understanding of substance, or the law of abundance. No student of Christian Science may brush aside the study and demonstration of this law as unnecessary for him. No student must dream for a single instant that he is removed from or above the need to demonstrate the truth of spiritual substance. On the contrary, it is fatal to his further progress if he fails to do so. If he permits himself to become or remain under the mesmerism of the material sense of abundance, he can never advance in spiritual understanding.
