Under the marginal heading "Divided loyalty," Mrs. Eddy has said in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 462), "If the student goes away to practise Truth's teachings only in part, dividing his interests between God and mammon and substituting his own views for Truth, he will inevitably reap the error he sows; " and farther on in the same paragraph she states that "self-denial, sincerity, Christianity, and persistence alone win the prize."
Our efforts are always, consciously or unconsciously, directed toward some goal. Our allegiance is constantly pledged to some power. So how important it is that we keep our loyalty to Truth uncontaminated by the claims of a mortal, finite sense! Are we striving consistently for the attainment of a true sense of man, acknowledging no other power than man's perfect divine Principle? Or are our interests divided, is our obedience faltering, and is there an attempt to use spiritual understanding to bring about more pleasant material conditions? The demands of Truth admit of nothing less than implicit obedience to its rules as far as they are discerned, increasing elimination of both the pleasant and the unpleasant phases of materiality, an undeviating course Spiritward.
Consideration of "self-denial, sincerity, Christianity, and persistence" in the light of Christian Science shows how completely they exclude the possibility of allegiance to an erroneous finite power, for their practice brings the reward of an ever-clearer comprehension of God and man and increasing demonstration of the Christ-power.
