Christian Science is bringing to mankind a new understanding of obedience. It rends the veil of blind submission to an unknown and far-off God, of emotional observance of outward rites, or acceptance of coldly intellectual creeds. Students of Christian Science obey its laws because "obedience to Truth gives man power and strength" (Science and Health, p. 183), and they are learning that its divine Principle, more absolute than the law of gravitation, must ever bring positive results if the student's understanding of it be accurately applied. This new sense of obedience dawns gradually on one's thought, as the light of the divine Mind dispels the shadows of self-will, self-justification, and mere intellectuality. With the realization of what absolute obedience to Truth would accomplish, the writer's thought was filled with a humble desire that her every disobedient thought might be uncovered and destroyed by Truth, that the temple of consciousness might be cleansed and made ready as the abiding place of Love's reflection.
As soon as this pure desire filled her thought, many "little foxes" were discovered which were destroying the healthy vines and depriving her of their fruitage. In Section 14 of Article VIII of the Manual of The Mother Church she found this sentence: "It shall be the privilege and duty of every member, who can afford it, to subscribe for the periodicals which are the organs of this Church." For several months there had been the feeling that she could not afford the Monitor, because of its increased price, but now came the realization that so long as she could afford to clothe and feed her physical body she could surely afford to obtain the needed spiritual food. So she subscribed for the Monitor, although at first her subscription was given for only three months at a time.
Now, all right ideas must inevitably bring right results. In Isaiah we read: "So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it." The results which have already followed this one step toward true obedience have been manifold. One member of the family who always before seemed indifferent to the Monitor, will not now retire at night without having read this messenger of good news. One evening as he was reading one of the articles on the Home Forum page, he was instantaneously healed of the appetite for tobacco, which had held him in bondage for twelve years. There was no struggle, no use of will power, for all desire for the weed entirely vanished from his thought.
