It is related that a young eagle was once captured and raised with a brood of chickens. The bird acquired the habits of its fellows, ate their food, shared their shelter, and lived among them as a barnyard fowl would do. Although it was argued that the eagle would never be able to fly because it had been so raised, a naturalist, believing in its capacity for greater freedom, undertook to effect its liberty. He lifted the bird high into the air, that it might stretch forth its wings and fly. But instead of looking upward the bird looked to the earth and flew down to feed again with the fowls. The naturalist, still having confidence in its ability to express its own nature, carried the eagle into the country to the foot of a mountain. Here in its native surroundings he again encouraged it to fly. The bird timidly gazed around, but was too fearful to make a start. The naturalist, understanding the nature of the eagle, turned it to face the early morning sun. Then, with a scream of joy, this monarch of the air spread its wings and mounted higher and higher, never to return again to dwell with the fowls.
How like the experience of the student of Christian Science as he learns to look away from earth to heaven, to let go of materiality and to soar upward into the light of real being! Perhaps through the spiritual understanding of a Christian Science practitioner one has been lifted above the limitations of some disease or other difficulty, and has been encouraged to rise in the spiritual freedom of his true nature. If he looks downward, he may yield to erroneous arguments and return to partake a while longer of material beliefs; but when at last, like the eagle facing the sun, his thought, directed toward the light of Truth, recognizes his liberty as a child of God, he is ready to start on a course that bears him, though gradually, ever away from the bondage of false material belief into the freedom of spiritual under standing.
Under the marginal caption "God- ward gravitation" in the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," Mary Baker Eddy makes a clear statement regarding man's true nature and the process by which the false sense of man is dropped. There she says (p. 265), "Man is the off spring, not of the lowest, but of the highest qualities of Mind." And she adds, "Mortals must gravitate God- ward, their affections and aims grow spiritual, — they must near the broader interpretations of being, and gain some proper sense of the infinite, — in order that sin and mortality may be put off." Man's real status as a child of God is permanent, and mortals must approach this ideal through individual effort. While one may be directed to the light of Truth by a friend or a practitioner, the spiritualization of thought that leads away from earth and draws one nearer to God cannot be accomplished by another. When Moses began his great work of delivering the Hebrew people from Egyptian bond age, repeated efforts on his part failed to induce Pharaoh to release them; and it was not until he was directed to require "every man" to participate in the passover that they were able to make so much as a start. It is significant that the people were required to offer for the passover lambs "without blemish." In other words, their part in securing their release was not to be a half-hearted effort: it must be their very best. And when they had done their part, "it came to pass the selfsame day, that the Lord did bring the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt by their armies."
