In "The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany" (p. 213), our Leader writes in loving admonition, "Because this age is cursed with one rancorous and lurking foe to human weal, those who are the truest friends of mankind, and conscientious in their desire to do right and to live pure and Christian lives, should be more zealous to do good, more watchful and vigilant." The writer, having had uncovered to her the ways in which this foe (aggressive suggestion) uses the beliefs of youth, maturity, and age to further its vain plan, feels that she can no longer delay in placing these firstfruits of experience on the altar of Christian Science.
When, as a very young girl, she was first guided to Christian Science, she took up the work joyfully. Soon, however, she began to let golden opportunities for service pass. Two suggestions found foothold in her thinking: first, that she was too young in years to voice the truth boldly, and, secondly, that she had not enough Christian Science experience to make demonstrations. Unconsciously, she began to wait for maturity before attempting the tasks of Christian Science. The ground thus gained by false belief, it rapidly tilled and planted with a crop of thorns. Then began a series of those painful experiences into which mortal thinking, when it is unrestrained by Truth, plunges us. At last, the lesson was sufficient. Awakening, she took up the work of an active Christian Scientist, this time with clearer vision.
Immediately she found that the old suggestion, the old serpent-lie, of being too young in years and experience to voice the truth, especially in church affairs, which had been lurking in her thought during the years, had not yet been destroyed. The argument came, slightly changed: While you were struggling with painful experiences, these Scientists were making great progress in church affairs. Keep still. Wait until you have been longer in Science. Made wiser this time by suffering and Science, she began to handle the serpent every time its head appeared in the mental garden, which she longed to fill with the flowers of right thinking. Then these words, found on page 244 of our textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," came to clear and bless her thought: "Man in Science is neither young nor old." She turned from the clamor of the senses to the realization of this glorious fact. For each Christian Scientist, to understand God is the joyful business of eternity. But for any Scientist, of whatever age or experience, to believe some phase of evil is the work of an instant; for all that evil supposes, believes, or suggests, about any problem whatsoever, is a lie. When a suggestion of false belief presents itself to us, we can see it for what it is,—a lie,—and then turn our thought at once to our real business of knowing God; and this rule applies as much to the Scientist of many years' standing as to the novice. This is to "fear God, and keep his commandments."
