MANY earnest Christian Scientists have experienced, while working out what seemed to human sense a long problem, moments of thought-weariness, when the limit of endurance appeared to have been reached, and the longed-for deliverance seemed to be as far away as ever. To one student came such an hour during a struggle with an apparently tenacious erroneous condition, when inspiration and spontaneity had fled and work seemed to be an increasingly heavy burden carried with lagging footsteps.
While reading one day our Leader's Message to The Mother Church for 1900 (p. 2) these words presented themselves arrestingly: "The song of Christian Science is, 'Work— work—work—watch and pray.'" At first they brought almost a sense of exasperation. Had not these directions been faithfully followed, and the result been anything but songful? As the situation was pondered and a prayer for light offered, there came suddenly to thought the answer given by a seven-year-old boy to a question as to whether he understood the meaning of eternal life. "Oh, yes," he replied, "it means good thoughts going on and on and on and never getting tired."
At once dawned a light, banishing weariness and discouragement, and ushering in anew a welling of gratitude for the directness and simplicity of a child's receptive and trustful heart, bringing with it the realization that eternal life—the eternal activity of good—was possible of present attainment through the very working, watching, and praying which but a moment before had seemed an arduous and well-nigh impossible task. That working to prepare thought for the reception of God's holy messages by repudiating the false beliefs that claim to exclude them; that watching that no least avenue shall be left open for their reentrance in whatever guise; and, lastly, the consummation in that precious communion with our Father-Mother God which unfolds the realities of being—such is indeed "the song of Christian Science," enabling us to see ever more clearly the radiant perfection of God's creation. Each declaration of truth, each steadfast holding to the fact of the presence of divine Love—what is it but a glad step into the further realization that the kingdom of heaven is here and now? And how can such progress be other than joyous?
