To the Christian Scientist there is one true type of citizenship, and one real city, even the holy city, the New Jerusalem, pictured by John in his vision of the Apocalypse,—the perpetual understanding of harmonious being. In this city every citizen enjoys perfect freedom, and equal privileges and opportunities with every other citizen. Moreover, all are equally able to enjoy these blessings; for all are equally receptive to good. Here, also, there is infinite unfoldment of beauty and bliss, unceasing employment in activity that never wearies and is always fruitful. It is the city of righteous government; for it is governed by God, the only Mind, in which there is no element of evil. Here there can be no sorrow. Sorrow is caused by the belief that something good has been lost; but God being all there is of good, it follows that He can never lose any part of Himself or His expression. Here there can be no sickness or disease. Such a condition would indicate a departure from perfect Being; but when God is known to be the only Life, no departure from perfect, harmonious Being is possible. Neither can there be any lack; for Love is the source of supply of every need, and Love is Spirit, infinite. There can, therefore, be no end to spiritual substance. Furthermore, to man, the child of the infinite Father-Mother God, this substance is completely satisfying, because he is himself spiritual. Nor can there be any inequalities of supply,—none can be rich while others are poor; for, the supply being infinite, there is no cause for fear that there may not be enough for all. Man is secure in the knowledge that he cannot be separated from omnipresent good. In this city, also, man perfectly expresses the nature of God, divine Love; therefore, man can have no desire to enrich himself at the expense of his brother, for his brother's welfare is as dear to him as his own. Here there is dominion,—but no domination.
To the human sense of things, however, it would seem quite otherwise. On earth we have many cities, with varying types of citizenship.— cities with differing forms of government, where the autocratic tendencies of the so-called human mind claim to hold sway, where greed, rapacity, and lust, in all their subtle phases, fight for supremacy, and men are held in cruel bondage to these relentless masters. Here are sharp contrasts of rich and poor, feasting and famine, industry and sloth. Here is to be found the feverish energy of the man who would become rich or powerful, through the belief that substance is material and therefore limited, and the fear that some other may reach the prize before him, or that some circumstance or condition may arise to thwart his endeavors. In contrast to this is the apathetic indifference, the sloth, the incapacity, of those who have yielded to the mesmeric suggestion of error in other forms: the idleness of those who think they need not work, and the enforced idleness of those who think they cannot work. Here we find religious, political, and social intolerance; and instead of God-given dominion, we apparently find personal domination. Good and evil qualities seem to be inextricably interwoven; and on every hand one meets with limitation, because, here, thinking is based on a material foundation—the belief of life in matter.
If it were not for the fact that good is, in reality, ever present, the world must long since have been annihilated; for in Christian Science we learn that evil destroys itself. Because good has always existed, it has, since the beginning of history, been perceived in some measure, though for the most part only dimly. Its first perception by mankind may be so dim that it is expressed only in a vague unrest and discontent with existing conditions, and a desire for something better. But whence could such a desire emanate unless good actually existed? Or the presence of good may be manifested to human sense through a recognition of the destructiveness of evil and the necessity of arresting it. Evil is chaotic, disruptive, disorderly. The first faint perception of the need for law and order, and the resulting desire for law and order, proved that law and order must already have existed; else, whence came this perception and this desire? It is obvious that a good effect must proceed from a good cause; therefore, we arrive at the conclusion that whenever and wherever good is expressed, this expression proves the existence of a good cause, or God.
