The door of demonstration is never bolted or barred. Earnest, active, awakened desire, alert self-abnegation, and spiritual understanding combine to bring into manifestation in human experience the power which is always sufficient to open the door and make the way of demonstration plain and clear. The power of Spirit, being eternal and infinite, is always operative and available, and therefore never fails; and when self-love and human will, and their offspring fear, are silenced by the spiritual understanding of Christian Science so that the "still small voice" may be heard, demonstration is then always potentially present and practicable. Are we, then, presuming too greatly when we believe that Jesus intended us to understand this ever present potentiality of demonstration, when he declared to his disciples, "Say not ye, There are yet four months, and then cometh harvest? behold, I say unto you, Lift up your eyes, and look on the fields; for they are white already to harvest"? To the spiritual understanding lifted above material evidences, the harvest of spiritual demonstration is ever ready for the reaper.
Jesus taught not only the ever present potentiality of spiritual demonstration, but also and with equal clearness that this demonstration is necessarily and constantly progressive. Nor was this a new doctrine. It is assuredly not too great an assumption to believe that Jesus had this in thought when he taught his disciples, and all who have ears to hear, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father,"—because the spiritual ideal of Truth is unceasingly unfolding in the infinitude of Spirit. This same inspired and inspiriting declaration of our steadfast and unceasing growth in the understanding of Truth and spiritual power has been crystallized by our God-inspired Leader, Mary Baker Eddy, in a single sentence of unparalleled beauty, profundity, and power in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 258): "God expresses in man the infinite idea forever developing itself, broadening and rising higher and higher from a boundless basis."
It follows almost obviously from these two salient characteristics of demonstration, namely, its ever present potentiality and its progressiveness, that its mode or degree of manifestation to human apprehension can never in advance be defined, delimited, or outlined. No human being, however enlightened, may presume to prescribe in anticipation the course which the spiritual evidences of demonstration must or will follow; no one can predetermine their character, quality, or scope. In brief, we should never attempt to forecast the width, extent, or direction of the "paths of righteousness," the "green pastures," or "the still waters."
