The human race is struggling for freedom. Subject in belief to limitation on every side, its endeavor continually is to sunder its bonds. Many may not know to what the limitation and the fetters are due, but every thinking person is aware of the impelling tendency towards ultimate freedom.
Broadly speaking, emancipation is occurring along two lines. One of these, that which probably is more apparent to the generality of people, is the ascendancy which is being achieved over the so-called forces of nature through the discoveries of natural science, as when chemistry causes the earth to betray its secrets and to yield its riches, and physics harnesses in the service of mankind forces which since the beginning of time have hid their potentiality. It would seem that the present century is reaping the harvest of the labors of generations of the world's thinkers. No one can shut his eyes to the vast strides that have been made in recent years in the utilizing of what may be called the powers of earth, whereby matter, distance, and time are rendered less formidable in human experience.
And the other line along which emancipation is taking place—what is it? It is that of moral and spiritual development. Here, also, immense strides have taken place in recent years. Some one may question this, and perhaps sarcastically point to the war which only a few years ago seemed to throw the whole world into two great opposing camps, or to the tumult of conflicting beliefs still raging in many quarters on both sides of the Atlantic. But instead of being signs of decadency, these may be discerned by the student of Christian Science to be indicative of the progressive tendency Spiritward of the race; for he may see in them, not merely the clash between opposing beliefs and theories, but the victory of right ideas over false concepts and their corresponding false ambitions.
