WE commence our work for the church more specifically when, after a preparatory period, we become members of the organization which our Leader has provided for the Christian Science movement, and begin to undertake our share of its responsibilities. We may find it difficult at first to express our reasons for wishing to become part of the Christian Science movement. We may have a modest estimate of our own spiritual understanding, and may therefore feel it somewhat presumptuous to explain that we wish to help in bringing health and happiness to the sick and sorrowful. Yet, if we analyze our motives for making application for church membership, that must be the fundamental reason.
When we have become members of a Christian Science church, we have allied ourselves with "that institution, which affords proof of its utility and is found elevating the race, rousing the dormant understanding from material beliefs to the apprehension of spiritual ideas and the demonstration of divine Science, thereby casting out devils, or error, and healing the sick," which is part of the definition of "Church" given by Mrs. Eddy on page 583 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures." It is our business to be mentally alert; for one demand of church membership is active right thinking. In innumerable places in her writings our Leader warns us to watch that our privilege to help mankind be not taken from us; and as we as members follow her advice, the church will fulfill its purpose. For is not each individual member part of "that institution, which affords proof of its utility," and must not the activity of each member aggregate in an overwhelming proof of the utility of the church? Mrs. Eddy explains this clearly in "Pulpit and Press" (p. 4), when she says, "One is as important a factor as duodecillions in being and doing right."
We may not fill any office, but there is work to be done for every service. As we learn something of the problems before the church, the Red Seas to be crossed and the progressive steps to be taken, we can handle and destroy fear in our own consciousness, and replace it with courage; we can clear out of our thought personal desires, and realize the irresistible power of God, which annuls vain ambition, and which prompts and brings to pass all true growth. Then, when we are called upon to undertake definite work, we can carry with us that humility which makes us receptive of fresh ideas, and which gives us an ever increasing desire to serve rather than to rule.
