IN "Miscellaneous Writings" (pp. 205, 206) Mrs. Eddy writes, "Mortals who on the shores of time learn Christian Science, and live what they learn, take rapid transit to heaven;" and she seems to point out the way this is to be done when she further indicates that men must turn "from flux to permanence, from foul to pure, from torpid to serene, from extremes to intermediate." She also tells us on page 215, "The tendency of mortal mind is to go from one extreme to another: Truth comes into the intermediate space, saying, 'I wound to heal; I punish to reform; I do it all in love;'" and she adds, "Let us depart from the material sense of God's ways and means, and gain a spiritual understanding of them."
That mortal mind tends to run to extremes has been quite generally accepted by mankind. Men have discovered that a too great zeal will ere long dwindle into utter lack of right effort; a too intense desire will soon burn itself out, and leave but a dreary waste of ashes. The wise Agur expressed the wish to avoid extremes when he prayed, "Give me neither poverty nor riches." All extremes carry with them great temptations, since they tend to unreasonableness and also to the worst forms of egotism. They magnify personal sense and personal desire, be it either in overaction or inaction.
Paul tells of those who "have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge," who "being ignorant of God's righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God." This tendency to run to extremes is always, therefore, attributable to a belief in a selfhood and a will apart from God; a desire to be falsely active in establishing a personal sense of righteousness, instead of the righteousness which is of God; or else the wish to be entirely inactive, doing nothing whatsoever.
