True success is the attainment of spiritual understanding. To "bear witness unto the truth," so that this truth might be discerned and demonstrated by all mankind, was the mission of the divine Way-shower. He who transcended the vision of patriarch and prophet beheld man and the universe as spiritual, perfect, and eternal,—the emanation and manifestation of omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent Love. This light of spiritual understanding is the Christ, Truth, which reveals the work of divine Love as finished, and in this revelation is included all healing and salvation. "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect," is the demand of the Christ that predicates absolute and imperative fulfillment. The proportion in which this divine law is apprehended and is made operative in human affairs determines success.
So deeply implanted, however, in human consciousness have been mortal mind's false concepts, that this spiritual fact concerning God and His idea was lost, in tragic measure, to the vision of mankind. Turning aside from the teachings of the Master, mortals have come to set a standard which claims to measure success in terms of money, material accomplishments, social position, and the pride of human power. These false beliefs have precipitated strife and war and turmoil on earth, and have, to mortal sense, held humanity in a death grip of bondage. This gloaming of materialism was not, however, to be followed by an endless night of error; for upon the horizon of the centuries the light of Christian Science, the Science of the Christ, was destined to burst forth again upon a sleeping world. The dawning of this great truth of being upon the darkened sense must inevitably unfold the fact that "old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new."
Strikingly illustrative of Mrs. Eddy's perfect order of logic, are the many statements contained in her writings regarding success, it being noteworthy that she invariably treats the theme as pertaining to spiritual understanding. In setting forth the requirements necessary to its attainment she says in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 462), "Some individuals assimilate truth more readily than others, but any student, who adheres to the divine rules of Christian Science and imbibes the spirit of Christ, can demonstrate Christian Science, cast out error, heal the sick, and add continually to his store of spiritual understanding, potency, enlightenment, and success." The Christian Scientist must needs learn this truth and always know that spiritual attainment alone constitutes success. It will then be seen that the gaining of humility, meekness, unselfishness, kindness, and the love that is a reflection of Love divine represents the progress in which he should be most concerned; for these are ideals that deliver human consciousness from itself and reveal man as being in accord with the divine nature.
