WE may well ask ourselves what we are living for. What is the thought that is most constantly uppermost with us? By what are we guided and governed? To whom or to what do we pay first allegiance? What is the nature of the ideas that present themselves in our quiet moments? Faithfulness in replying to such questions—and others that occur to every Christian Scientist—will determine where we stand as the exponents or demonstrators of that Science of Mind–healing which is the eternal truth now gradually encircling the globe. A testing time comes to each one daily,—the test that bids us know how far we are fulfilling the commands of God.
Progress, as our Leader reminds us many times in her writings, is a law of God, and is therefore spiritual; its purpose and its ultimate must be His glory in the redemption of mankind from the bondage of a false sense of existence. Humanly speaking, however, it may seem to be elusive. Too often it binds tighter the chains of that mortal slavery which beclouds pure vision, and perverts every holy desire to ignoble issues, because its ideals are material.
The transgressor—he who in his self–seeking ignores the divine law and demands—finds the way hard, for he loses the substance of good in seeking to grasp the shadow of sense illusions. Every day's delay in awakening to the truth makes it more difficult to rectify this mistake. But he who understands that all advancement means increased spiritual light, strength, and fuller consecration, will be so alert mentally and spiritually that he will not be entrapped by the sophistries of mortal mind. He will be so on guard that he will be faithful to the Master's injunction, "Watch ye and pray, lest ye enter into temptation,"—lest there be a yielding to those specious claims of mortal sense that ignore man's spiritual being, and make their appeals clothed in forms that are disguised as angels of light.
