HUMAN life is as a school in which all are learning the lessons of Love, some faster, some slower. Every school has its headmaster; and multitudes are learning that the headmaster and chief instructor in life's school is really the Christ, defined by Mrs. Eddy in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 332) as "the divine message from God to men speaking to the human consciousness." Some are listening to this message and are going on to larger lessons; some refuse to listen to this faithful instructor, and so for a time fail to bring out harmony and progress.
We call the process of living and learning "experience," and at present it seems necessary that mortals should take the human footsteps of experience, while they are learning through the patient teaching of the Master what constitutes the truth of being. Before this lesson is perfectly learned, however, many may be the seeming failures and setbacks met with in the way; but we should remember after every seeming failure —as we shall surely learn—that, as someone says, "failure is but the next step to something better."
This phase of human experience, and the gleaning of Love's tender lesson therefrom, is beautifully set forth in the Bible narrative concerning Peter and his fellow disciples in their last recorded fishing expedition, which occurred not long after Jesus' resurrection. But fully to grasp the significance of this lesson and its peculiar tenderness, it is necessary to recall an earlier experience of Peter and his brethren, near the beginning of Jesus' public ministry.
