IN "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 29) Mrs. Eddy writes: "Christian experience teaches faith in the right and disbelief in the wrong. It bids us work the more earnestly in times of persecution, because then our labor is more needed. Great is the reward of self-sacrifice, though we may never receive it in this world." These words of our dauntless Leader are a clarion call to Christian endeavor. The truthfulness of her words is proved by the individual who, through "patient continuance in well doing," successfully masters his mortal beliefs. It becomes plain that it is only a question of time when right will adjust the balance. This solid conviction makes one willing to work, pray, and wait on God. Much more is involved in the process of the elimination of error from our experience than the mere removal of what we consider inimical. The negative in consciousness must be replaced by the positive. Is hatred apparently active? It must be overcome with kindness. The utilization of kindness, charity, honesty, brings a marked increase of faith in right and disbelief in wrong; for the exercise of these qualities neutralizes in a corresponding degree the effects of their seeming opposites—enmity, malice, falsehood. Out of deep experience our Leader writes (No and Yes, p. 7), "By the love of God we can cancel error in our own hearts, and blot it out of others."
We find all things working together for good as we press on in the demonstration of Christian Science. The reversal of the most relentless arguments, whose aim is to injure and confuse, confers a blessing; because, in seeking an antidote for error, latent good is developed and hidden virtues are called into active practice. James learned this lesson. In full Christian faith he declared: "My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations; knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience. But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing." There is no need to anticipate trying experiences. Each day brings its own occasion for spiritual growth and the unfolding of God's purpose of spiritual joy for His children.
As mortals' false beliefs are purged away, there come to light the unfolding ideas of good. There is true pleasure in beholding the grandeur and goodness of God's power in the destruction of self-will, self-justification, and self-love, which hide real being. The ever recurring proofs of the grand verities of Christian Science furnish the Christian Scientist with true joy, as he parts, little by little, with materiality, to find the spotless purity of the nature and character of divine Mind.
