THE average man having to make his way in life is wont to regard himself as self-dependent and self-supporting. Impelled by ambition, pride, or else moved by the necessity of providing for those near and dear to him, he may live under the constant sense of pressure and personal effort. Perhaps he has been educated to look solely to the brain and physical constitution for intelligent ideas, endurance, success, and to regard any dependence upon religion or a power outside of himself as unmanly. Now this well-intentioned yet self-centered dependence is apt, ere long, to engender fear, limitation, and disillusion; for it takes great courage to face life with all the seeming hazards, inequalities, and unaccountable happenings which leave mankind mystified and sometimes resentful.
Christ Jesus reversed this material and hazardous view of things. He definitely understood the power of divine Principle and demonstrated it on his own behalf and that of others who singled themselves out to seek his help. We gather from the Gospels that his attitude was at all times one of calm dependence upon the Holy One whom he called "my Father, and your Father." It is evident that Jesus drew constant inspiration, dominion, and also health, strength, support, and spiritual loyalty, from this unseen source. Owing to his vigilant dependence upon the one infallible Mind, he excelled all his opponents in wisdom, insight, intuition. He unmasked their motives and silenced their most specious arguments. He was not deceived, nor dismayed, by evil because he consistently bore witness to the power and purity of divine Truth. The infinite Love which he reflected liberated sufferers, sinners, and even raised the so-called dead. He was able to feed the multitudes without previous preparation. In fact, his unvarying dependence upon God, Spirit, resulted in spontaneous demonstrations of the power of God to meet every human need. In his service to mankind he combined the offices of provider, healer, teacher, and resurrector; and the one who accomplished so much declared, "I can of mine own self do nothing." The secret of his power lay in the understanding he had of his relation to the one omnipotent God, good.
Had Jesus been personally ambitious, humanly independent or proud, he could not have relied upon God as he did; nor could he have been so consecrated and successful in his ministry had he yearned for the homage of men or sought after material ease.
Eager to share with others the secret of dependence and dominion, Jesus selected a group of teachable men to be his disciples, and these mainly unlettered men soon found themselves performing mighty works through that same dependence which characterized their humanly meek and spiritually mighty Master. They, too, learned something of true relationship to Almighty God. Many times, both audibly and by his example, Jesus rebuked in his disciples the carnal traits of fear, doubt, envy, and enjoined upon them faith, obedience, humility. All his followers today have to learn the same lesson of human surrender and spiritual gain if they would show forth their dominion over evil and materiality.
In this practical and fast-moving age can religious faith and spiritual dependence enable us to cope successfully with the great problems of to-day and with those coming nearer the heart, the complex problems of home, supply, and human relationships? The answer of Christian Science through its beneficiaries is a ringing affirmative, echoing all round the world.
What is true dependence such as Jesus showed? It is the conscious reflection of God's ability and harmony, due to enlightened obedience to His every law. On page vii of the Preface to "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" Mrs. Eddy writes, "To those leaning on the sustaining infinite, to-day is big with blessings." Through just this "leaning" and all the strength which it unfolds, many men and women have for the first time felt firm ground under their feet and have proved their individual ability to draw strength, inspiration, and healing power from the unseen God, whom Christian Science designates as "infinite Mind, Spirit, Soul, Principle, Life, Truth, Love" (ibid., p. 465). Their former unbelief, or their fruitless, blind faith, has been exchanged for enlightenment and demonstration.
Christian Science brings to human thought such fresh light and might on the subject of dependence, and of the beneficence of spiritual law, that it is proving itself widely practical in solving health, home, financial, and other pressing human problems. Whereas mortal thought egotistically moves round and round itself, caged in its own beliefs and fretting within its self-imposed fears, Christian Science breaks through these mental fetters and extends the horizon of human thought out into infinite Love and infinite Mind. It humbles the pride of the carnal mind and stills its fears. No succor is so great as the succor of infinite divine Love.
Christian Scientists are animated by one purpose—to show forth the triumph of Truth on earth, and to demonstrate salvation for all mankind; and they are united in one method: dependence upon God through reflecting good. They are progressively proving that to know one's divine source is to be always sure of one's resources.
We are bidden to "put off the old man with his deeds," and to "put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him." In order to do this we must cease voicing, deploring, heralding discord and imperfection regarding the old concept of man. It is only a false concept, and was never the true man. Sooner or later everyone must learn to break away from bad habits, and must exchange the old egotistic and harassing self-dependence, however well-intentioned, for the serenity and power of complete dependence on divine Principle. Each one is destined to order his thoughts and his life according to God's law of individual and universal perfection.
The "old man" knows no better than to argue for pride, fear, pain, sorrow, poverty, resentment; but the "new man," spiritually enlightened, expresses confidence, harmony, health, purity, joy, peace, abundant inspiration. Through cultivating the childlike sense which Jesus enjoined, every Christian Scientist should constantly surrender the old false outlook and be led, newborn, into the kingdom of heaven. He should always be mindful of Mrs. Eddy's statement (Retrospection and Introspection, p. 28): "The first must become last. Our reliance upon material things must be transferred to a perception of and dependence on spiritual things."
