Gratitude is one with power. Mrs. Eddy says, in "The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany" (p. 352), "We know that the real gratitude is what is proved in better lives." True gratitude is dynamic in its nature; it completes the circuit of prayer, and links itself with God. Gratitude reaches out and touches God's hand in the darkness, and the light of Truth dispels the gloom. To the habitually grateful, life is not a long, futile struggle with the seeming forces of evil; rather is it a continuous forward march, each day marked by a fuller, larger understanding of divine Love's power to loose the bonds of self-limitation. To be truly grateful is to know that good is all that really exists, or has power; that good is our only inheritance, all we can ever be really conscious of. It is comforting and healing to know that every grateful thought and every loving deed bears the stamp of immortality.
Right thinking consists of grateful acknowledgment of past and present blessings, with the joyous anticipation of more to follow. The correct knowing of God as omnipresence, omnipotence, and omniscience is keeping the First Commandment, "Thou shalt have no other gods before me;" also, the new commandment Jesus gave his disciples, "That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another." The cold, proud heart cannot heal or be healed; but the warm, compassionate heart, which is aglow with love, expresses healing, and is healed spontaneously.
Does the way seem dark and beset with difficulties? Learn to rejoice; and the way will surely brighten, and the difficulties lessen. The Christian Scientist learns to smile through tears, knowing that "weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning." Joy is the Scientist's native air. In such an atmosphere he thrives, and is at home. Clouded, loveless lives were never ordained by a loving Father; therefore, sorrow, sickness, sin, and death can never harm the child of Love's creating.
Gratitude is the badge of the true Christian Scientist, a badge as significant as the Urim and Thummin which were worn on Aaron's breast; not to be worn, however, like them, on special occasions, but on all occasions. By this are we known of men. Christian Scientists are daily and hourly proving the wondrous healing power of love and gratitude. This does not mean that we should be grateful for sickness and suffering, as such, but for the understanding of the teachings of Christian Science that anything which is unlike good is unreal. This is something of what the apostle meant when he wrote to the Corinthians, "I am filled with comfort, I am exceeding joyful in all our tribulation."
To those unfortunate ones who may be called upon to listen to the solemn sentence of the court of mortal mind, Christian Science comes with the loving admonition, "Be strong and of a good courage, fear not, nor be afraid of them: for the Lord thy God, he it is that doth go with thee; he will not fail thee, nor forsake thee." Though one may be placed behind prison bars, confined to a sick bed, or be a homeless wanderer, still the star of a grateful heart will pierce the darkness of mortal belief, loosen the prisoner's bonds, and bring home and heaven to the wandering one. When Paul and Silas were cast into prison, they prayed at the midnight hour, and "sang praises unto God;" and not only were their own bonds broken, but their fellow-prisoners were also set free.
O sorrowing one, look deeply into the recesses of your heart to find the serpent of ingratitude or human will; and when you have found it, cast it into the fire, as Paul did the viper. Ingratitude is based on belief in the reality of matter, and in the presence and power of evil; while gratitude is the expression of one's understanding of the omnipresence and omnipotence of good. It is our work to go wholly over to the side of good, and not be found one day rejoicing and the next submerged in grief, or sighing over lost opportunities. To the truly righteous man opportunity comes every moment.
In the discordant home ingratitude reigns, and each member lives to himself, disregarding the rights and privileges of others. Thus the seeds of wider dissension and separation are sown. Let just one member of such a family catch a glimpse of the power of Christian Science to heal discord, and the healing for that family begins. Though at first the understanding may be slight, hope in a measure has lightened the gloom; and the joy of this realization will strengthen the steps of the beginner, encouraging him to even greater efforts in right thinking and living, until some happy day every member of that family will be able to cry, in thankfulness, "My Lord and my God."
Let the laborer in His vineyard, who may be wondering why his present work does not measure up to past achievement, ask himself: Has not ingratitude opened the door to discouragement? Is my love for God and man as spontaneous and far-reaching as in those early days of my own emancipation from sickness and sin? Am I just as glad and happy to be in my place in office or church, as when the doors first swung open to me on that well-remembered day? We should often pause to survey the past, and make of every blessing received a living stone in our altar of gratitude, which will rise to lighten the world with deeper significance than our famed monument on Bed-loe's Island, that the weary immigrant from the world of material beliefs, approaching the shores of Christian Science, may behold our altar of demonstration and have reason to rejoice.
