Today one often hears the cry, I am the victim of circumstances over which I have no control. Many of those uninstructed in Christian Science fall an easy prey to this subtle form of suggestion, and this mental attitude tends to produce what humanity is endeavoring to avoid, namely, hopelessness, despair, and defeat.
Christian Science delivers one from this false mental state and establishes thought firmly on the rock of spiritual understanding, against which aggressive mental suggestion beats in vain. The Science of Christianity exposes the despotic and deceptive operations of evil, strips it of all pretense to power and prestige, and brings to light the forever fact that good alone is power. Thus Science enables one to be the victor over error rather than its victim.
A student of Christian Science found himself making but little progress out of the illusions of material sense into spiritual reality. His grasp of the letter seemed to be sound, but the spirit, so essential to genuine growth, was sadly lacking. One day, while reading from Mrs. Eddy's Prose Works he came across this illuminating and dynamic statement in "The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany" (p. 160), "To live so as to keep human consciousness in constant relation with the divine, the spiritual, and the eternal, is to individualize infinite power; and this is Christian Science." Far from individualizing infinite power, he realized that he had been personalizing much that is erroneous, and thus finite, temporary, and weak. He found that he had been accepting, without mental protest, the varied forms of aggressive mental suggestion heard on all sides, the tacit acceptance of which has wrought havoc in the lives of individuals who are selfishly content to pursue the tenor of their material ways. While he had talked earnestly of freedom and individual rights, he had allowed his thought to be wrongly influenced, fettered, and victimized, with resultant unhappiness to himself and others. As his thoughts were brought more and more into union with "the divine, the spiritual, and the eternal," he began to realize something of that individualized infinite power which gives the lie to evil and brings into one's experience the healing influence and hallowing spirit of Christian Science.
