ONE need have no difficulty as to the mental method indicated in right spiritual realization if he finds it agreeable to accept the admonition (accompanied by a promise) given by Mrs. Eddy in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 261), where she says, "Hold thought steadfastly to the enduring, the good, and the true, and you will bring these into your experience proportionably to their occupancy of your thoughts."
There once was a time when the word "criticism" had a finer meaning than it now ordinarily seems to suggest. A critic originally was one skilled in the judging of merit, qualified to discern and value excellences. But it seems to be a peculiarity of the human mind, so called, to be less awake to values than to faults. Consequently, it may be said that criticism to-day is apt to be some sort of faultfinding judgment; indeed, there are those who feel that criticism is of the nature of censure, and that quite often it is the imaginative discernment of faults where they may not actually exist. A captious critic is one who has a disposition to magnify little defects into great faults; and the curious thing is that the word "captious" once had a better use too, being in some of its uses connected with the word "capable." In speaking of criticism, then, the reference here is not to the activity of the capable judge who discerns that which is excellent and valuable in the lives of others, but, rather, to the carping faultfinding which often has to do with petty, unimportant things, and expresses a habit of imagining evil to be manifest in the thought and action of others. This is quite the reverse of the mental habit of discerning the beauty of law, and having an ability to find joy in the knowledge of its presence and activity.
The Christian Science movement has developed a multitude of activities. Whoever rightly engages in these activities becomes an interpreter of reality. He knows Principle as good, and having discerned by his own healing that the power of God is a beneficent power, renewing, restoring, reviving his activities for good, he interprets to others this beneficent potency. Consequently, the whole activity of the Christian Scientist should be expressed in healing work. If it be true that offenses come bringing their own woe with them, he should never be an offender or one who places a stumblingblock in the way of others. The Christian Scientist has a clear discernment of the vision of Nehemiah when he said, "The joy of the Lord is your strength."
