The scientific order of being, in which man exists as spiritual idea governed by divine Principle, has its suppositional counterfeit in a world of mortals governed by material laws and human codes. Led on by the dim recognition that man is free, but failing to grasp the fact that freedom is spiritual, misguided mortals seek release from bondage in unspiritual channels until they are born again into the spiritual understanding of God and His government of man,— the truth which Jesus declared would make men free indeed.
In the "passage from sense to Soul," as Mrs. Eddy terms it (Science and Health, p. 566), the progressive thought is ready to take advantage of improved beliefs as means to an end, following always the practical course which leads nearest in the direction of absolute right, even though such a course may at times seem to be a choice only of the lesser evil. In spite of its too evident shortcomings, democracy at present is the best type of human government, politically and religiously, inasmuch as it offers the freest field for demonstrating moral and spiritual ideals; consequently we find the powers of darkness, the suppositional forces of evil, consistently arrayed against democratic institutions and methods in a vain attempt to crush spirituality. Under democracy, aggressions of evil which seem to threaten the very existence of the body politic serve to rouse the moral sense, and so prepare thought for the reception of spiritual truth.
The hour of destiny has struck, and the whole earth is waking up in response to the "still small voice" of Truth, at first in bewilderment and consternation, then in the might of a profound moral conviction and consecration to loftier ideals. In the familiar words from the Hymnal (p. 153),
