OUR beloved Leader, Mary Baker Eddy, points out in her textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," and also in her other writings, that, although to human sense there appear to be two ways of going about anything, there is but one true way. This is in accord with the teaching of Christ Jesus, who spoke of the strait gate and narrow way as contrasted with the broad way leading to destruction. Many Christians have tried to live up to Jesus' teaching in this respect, as well as in others, but there has existed a great sense of confusion as to just how to do it.
Until the Science underlying Jesus' teaching was made plain to humanity through Mrs. Eddy's discovery, much misinterpretation prevailed. Why, one asked one's self, should the right way, the way of eternal life, be narrow; and why should the broad way lead to destruction—and to the destruction of what? Many have wrongly inferred that Jesus was speaking of man as a material body harboring a soul; and so, a sense of foreboding has always accompanied any statements about destruction. But Christian Science has so clearly shown that God is divine Mind, and that therefore man is divinely mental, that the false appearance of so-called mortal man is understood to be a false claim of a mind needing what it calls matter to express itself. So, then, the narrow way is narrow only to the mistaken sense of God and man, and all that can be destroyed in the broad way is the false belief of a material creation; and this does not destroy man or creation, but reveals them as wholly spiritual. False belief destroying itself very often involves suffering, and this brings us to what Mrs. Eddy says on page 213 of "Miscellaneous Writings": "Suffering or Science, or both, in the proportion that their instructions are assimilated, will point the way, shorten the process, and consummate the joys of acquiescence in the methods of divine Love." Our Leader well knew that even after one has accepted Christian Science, because of insufficient enlightenment or reluctance to denounce the supposititious cause of which the suffering is the effect, one oftentimes follows the way of suffering. And many times suffering leads us to become willing more earnestly to seek the truth which will destroy the error. So to human sense suffering has its uses, though it is unknown to God and is never desirable on its own account.
But what of the way of Science, that Truth-lighted way sought and found in the ceaseless consecration of our inspired Leader? In one short sentence that way is indicated to us by the one who knew the deep meaning of the statement and the result of applying it in daily living. She says, "Universal Love is the divine way in Christian Science" (Science and Health, p.266). If there seems to be much suffering and a delayed solution of any problem, we may be sure that our sense of Love is not sufficiently universal. An interesting illustration of this is found in the Old Testament, where Elijah overcame the prophets of Baal and was then obliged to flee into the wilderness, where he was revived by the angels of God and enabled to stand on the mount of revelation. Elijah was indeed doing right in proving God, but his ways had not been sufficiently purged of self and materiality to protect him from the raging elements of hate. Do we not often start out to do some right and praiseworthy thing and get into a similar predicament? And we, too, through being teachable, are sustained, and we emerge from the wilderness purer and stronger for our chastening. What is universal Love, and how can we attain to some clear realization of it in this apparently material sense of things? We must in some measure understand and prove that God is All, and that He is never partial; and proportionately to our understanding we must become reflectors of God, impartial divine Love.
