In this age of complicated human problems, we hear much about cooperation and many are seeking for the oneness of thought among individuals and classes which will bring about and establish harmonious activity. We hear of cooperative systems on every hand and it is a clear indication of the fact that mankind are beginning to see that selfishness does not pay. Cooperation must be unity of thought and action for the good of all. But the mortal mind is inherently selfish, and so our efforts, when we do not know how to use a power higher than this so-called mortal mind, are all doomed to failure. For where selfishness is there can never be real cooperation.
In Romans we read, "And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose." For centuries mankind have believed that this meant that sorrow and sickness and trouble of all kinds in some way worked together for good and made men better. There has never been any real and satisfactory reason as to how or why this was true, but in a blind and senseless way mortal mind has accepted this verdict of its own making even where it has been most strenuously rebelling against such an unjust decree. Not until Mrs. Eddy gave us "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" were we able to understand the meaning of Paul's declaration to the Romans. On page 276 of Science and Health Mrs. Eddy says: "When the divine precepts are understood, they unfold the foundation of fellowship, in which one mind is not at war with another, but all have one Spirit, God one intelligent source, in accordance with the Scriptural command: 'Let this Mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus.' Man and his Maker are correlated in divine Science, and real consciousness h cognizant only of the things of God."
When we begin to understand that God is divine Mind and that man is the expression of that Mind and that there is but one Mind or God, we begin to gain a glimpse of real cooperation where all things work together for good to those who love God. Man as spiritual idea, the expression of the one divine Mind, is truly cooperative. This Mind is universal and as man always has spiritual individuality in this one infinite activity, we see of course, what thinking together or cooperating means. There is no alternative in the divine scheme of affairs, there can be no discord or thinking in opposition, for Mind, or God, is infinite and governs all activity.
