Much has been said in praise of our literature, and much has been advised as to the method of its distribution. Like all other forms of work, it has sprung from a vital need and has a definite idea back of it. Ruskin says: "Know what you have to do and do it. Failure is less frequently attributable to either insufficiency of means or impatience of labor, than to a confused understanding of the thing actually to be done." The thing actually to be done in literature distribution work is to reach the need of the advancing hosts of those who are seeking salvation from an enslaved condition of mind and body.
We are living in an age of rapidly changing thought. Well might we marvel that the advancement of mankind's knowledge of the Christ-light has seemed so slow in other centuries, until we consider how evil seems to flourish in the dark and thrive only as ignorance throve during the unlettered centuries. But the world progresses. The pen and the printing press are actually at work, and mankind is demanding more and more insistently that sound reasoning confirm religious beliefs. Christianity, so long shambled, is rising from the ashes of her disintegrating dogmas. An enlightened and purified understanding of the metaphysics of being is the demand of the hour, and divine Principle is surely coming to be "the governor among the nations." No real event was ever developed without an idea from which it gained its birth and maturity. Mrs. Eddy tells us in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 492) that "all is Mind and Mind's idea." As to just what is meant by that terse statement we are gradually gaining insight. It unfolds to us as we watch and pray.
Of the many forces that make up the ladder upon which we mount to this insight, the power of a holy purpose holds first place. Men become at one with each other and with God as this power controls daily thinking. A holy purpose is the yeast leavening the dough of daily endeavor, and lightening its labors until its enlarged and expanded influence stands as the very bread of Life. Thus, Christian Scientists are helping to make history, and weaving into history the golden threads that shall make future years shine, as with a great light.
