No greater privilege awaits the young student of Christian Science than that of church membership, because this step requires spiritual preparation and makes constant and increasing demands for spiritual growth and the demonstration of divine ability.
Being a member of a Christian Science church may be likened to being a pupil in a school in which the pupils are at different stages of progress, yet all are pursuing the same line of development. Unlike the latter, however, there never comes the time with the Christian Scientist when his work is completed, for the joyous unfoldment of spiritual understanding and demonstration is a continuous process. As we grow in wisdom and experience, our lessons change and broaden, but in essence they remain the same. They include experiences fraught with deep interest and happy unfoldment, tests, sometimes seemingly stupendous problems, occasional defeats, joyous victories, all leading the sincere student on and up to ultimate spiritual triumph.
Sometimes, in experiencing his first taste of membership, the student is tempted to feel keen disappointment when he sees in other members human failings and shortcomings not unlike his own (of which he may be entirely unaware), and learns, perhaps, that the church has a problem to work out. The argument is then sometimes propounded that the Master established no organization. Yet a careful study of the Gospels indicates otherwise. In the ninth chapter of Matthew we read that Jesus was moved with compassion toward the people as he went from place to place teaching in their synagogues and healing their diseases. He likened them to sheep having no shepherd, and he said to his disciples, "The harvest truly is plenteous, but the labourers are few; pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he will send forth labourers into his harvest."
