SO many, so rapid, and so radical are the changes taking place in the thinking and living of mankind today that one need not wonder at the state of confusion and bewilderment in which the nations of the world find themselves. The present has been called a period of adjustment, and we are constantly being told that our living must be adjusted to changing conditions. This has particularly been the case during the recent years of financial fluctuation, with its sense of stringency and dis tress. But in the midst of experimental governments, fluctuating monetary values, indifferent religious attitudes, and ultrasophisticated social conditions it is impossible for the unillumined thought to find a standard to which one's thinking and living may be adjusted, that the rest less seeking of mortal mind may be stilled and harmony attained.
Great, indeed, is the need of the hour, and the question uppermost in the minds of many thinkers is, What may that need be? Surely not for more codes and creeds; not, primarily, for more equitable distribution of wealth and labor; not for more advanced physical knowledge or for more so-called scientific ways and means! No, the need is for greater spiritual understanding, a clearer vision of spiritual facts, a knowledge of spiritually scientific laws—that knowledge which alone brings freedom from the superstitious fears en gendered by ignorance, ignorance of the truth about God and man, cause and effect. The need is for spiritual enlightenment dissolving the many false beliefs of finite sense through which appears to be evolved a universe both mental and material, good and evil—a universe, indeed, divided against itself. To deduce harmony from such a basis of thinking and living is a scientific impossibility; there must come to humanity a radical change in its base of thinking.
The Bible is full of interesting and inspiring statements concerning the light that "shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not." Even in the darkness of Egyptian slavery came the promise that the light should shine. So in the midst of the darkness of the materialism of this age Christian Science brings a shining light, revealing the immutable Principle on which were based the words and works of Christ Jesus, the greatest Scientist the world has ever known.
