IN the early days of Christianity simplicity characterized the lives of its followers. These had but one goal ahead of them, namely, that of establishing and making practical the teachings of their great Master. He who said, "Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth,... but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven," was very simple in his mode of living and teaching; and no other has ever attained his standard of success and prosperity, for Jesus finished perfectly whatever he undertook to do. Our beloved Leader, Mary Baker Eddy, in an early issue of the Journal (June 7, 1884, p. 3) says, "The teachings and life of Jesus point to simplicity in dress and living."
In this age, Christian Science is showing mankind how to disentangle thought from a complicated, false sense of prosperity and to gain a clear understanding of what real treasure is. Students of Christian Science early learn that they dwell in a realm of thought; that what appears real to the physical senses is only the phenomena of a material mentality, having no more real substance than has the night dream which vanishes when the dreamer awakens.
He who has enlisted to lay off materiality makes the glad discovery that his human needs are very simple, and far fewer than they appeared to be before he took up the study of Christian Science. The student is ever watchful that he is not mesmerized into being satisfied with a sense of merely material well-being, for he is not working to obtain material superfluity, fame, place, or power. On the contrary, he is continually working to rouse himself and others out of the hypnotic dream that man has his being in matter. Through a growing understanding of the allness of God as Spirit, he is learning that matter is not real; that it cannot sustain or govern man. He is claiming his birthright as the offspring of Spirit; and every hour he is denying the false claims of personal, corporeal, or physical sense, and is joyfully acknowledging that man's true senses are spiritual.
