It stands to reason that unless the instructions which our Leader, Mrs. Eddy, has given are carried out according to what she has written, the movement of Christian Science might seem to be torn away from her demonstration and become derelict. Christianly obedience to the Manual of The Mother Church is the means of drawing all Christian Scientists together in unity. Disobedience separates them. Paul gives a wonderful illustration of unity of action, or cooperation, when he says: "The body is not one member, but many. If the foot shall say, Because I am not the hand, I am not of the body; is it therefore not of the body? And if the ear shall say, Because I am not the eye, I am not of the body; is it therefore not of the body? If the whole body were an eye, where were the hearing? If the whole were hearing, where were the smelling? But now hath God set the members everyone of them in the body, as it hath pleased him. And if they were all one member, where were the body? But now are they many members, yet but one body." As each member of the so-called physical body is called upon to do its work, so is each member of the church called upon to bear witness to the truth, and thus prove the collective unity of the whole, one with each other in the support of all right ideas by the simple process of individually being and doing good.
"Goodness," says Mrs. Eddy in "The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany" (p. 165), "never fails to receive its reward, for goodness makes life a blessing. As an active portion of one stupendous whole, goodness identifies man with universal good. Thus may each member of this church rise above the oft-repeated inquiry, What am I? to the scientific response: I am able to impart truth, health, and happiness, and this is my rock of salvation and my reason for existing." This goodness may be made practical in all our church relationships. It is the individual right thinking and right acting of the many which alone makes possible the collective unity of the whole. An office, like an individual, is important only in so far as it functions for the good of all, not for the elevation of itself. A clearer vision of true cooperation dawns upon us to-day as our desires grow purer and we begin to understand and work for divine Principle, for the one God, and therefore for all good, rather than for personality.
The world argues for matter. Christian Science reasons for Spirit. And because Spirit is real, we have authority to deny the arguments of evil, which would keep the world in bondage to material beliefs. In its ignorance so-called mortal mind is running to violent excesses in these days, in order, so it thinks, to save itself or, at least, to palliate the effects of its own idiosyncrasies. Little by little, the human sophistries which offer temporary relief are being found wanting, and there is being evinced less desire to save the false sense of existence, and more desire to prove and hold to the true. The Christian Science church stands for law and order. No one ever rises above the need for law and order. In proportion as we understand divine Principle and spiritual being, our human and material concept of law and order may change, but not law and order themselves. They cannot change, because they are based on Principle.
