A FUNDAMENTAL requirement of Christian Science, considered second to none in importance by our great Leader, Mrs. Eddy, is that Christian Scientists demonstrate their understanding of Truth by healing discordant conditions of all kinds. Mrs. Eddy says in "Miscellaneous Writings" (p. 2), "The time approaches when divine Life, Truth, and Love will be found alone the remedy for sin, sickness, and death; when God, man's saving Principle, and Christ, the spiritual idea of God, will be revealed."
In Christian Science, healing results from the betterment of thought in individual and, consequently, in universal consciousness. This betterment of thought can come only as one persistently strives to cast out of his own consciousness the thoughts which do not measure up in quality to those which Jesus manifested. In other words, the tares must be separated from the wheat. While Christian Science foretells a state of absolute harmony, there is no reason to believe that to reach this state of harmony there can be any other way than through assiduous work. If we analyze and observe thought carefully, we find that it is very easy to neglect the vital effort to gain spiritual understanding which ought to be made. It is very easy to leave to others the things which one should do himself. We may with profit often recall that the only way that drops of water make any impression upon a stone is by continuously dropping. There is a great lesson to be learned from this, whatever the problem in human experience may be, whether the overcoming of sickness or sin, or some habitual temperamental sense. Is it not evident that if the solving of a problem is kept at persistently, usually the condition which is apparently unyielding is eventually wholly overcome? If the little drops of water could speak, would they not tell us that they had had a very difficult task to make any impression upon the stone? And yet, when the dropping was persisted in, the stone was worn away.
Mrs. Eddy indicates that the so-called human mind acts like a pendulum—that it swings between matter and Spirit, instead of doing as the little drops do, persistently continuing to do the same thing, again, and again, and again. We are often faced with problems which seem insurmountable at the moment. It is therefore necessary, with consciousness becoming more and more imbued with the spirit of Truth, to continue to work on, whatever the seeming, always trusting in the power of infinite good to destroy all that is unlike good, and to make such adjustments as are in keeping with divine law.
