CHRISTIAN SCIENTISTS are earnestly striving to prove the oneness of Mind in their every activity; yet because of their eager zeal for perfection they are, perhaps more than ever before, sorely tempted to be critical of their own and their neighbors' mistakes. Holding high standards in thought, they are often disappointed as they see men failing to measure up to these standards.
The real task before each one of us is the attaining of sufficient true self-knowledge to enable us to detect the beam of error in our own eye before commenting upon the mote in our brother's eye. Mrs. Eddy says on page 8 of her Message to The Mother Church for 1900, "We must exterminate self before we can successfully war with mankind." There can be no clinging to our own beam, or belief in evil, while trying to point out others' motes.
Spiritual intuition knows the manner and the due season for voicing the healing word that will fall into fruitful soil. Prayer cleanses the heart, clarifies the vision, and brings thought into closer touch with the Principle of all good; so, in casting out the beam from his own eye, one may be truly helping to destroy the mote in his brother's eye. There must be the sincere prayer, "Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors;" and the "Daily Prayer" (Manual, Art. VIII, Sect. 4), which reads in part, "'Thy kingdom come; ' let the reign of divine Truth, Life, and Love be established in me, and rule out of me all sin."
