A new year affords to many an opportunity to make a survey of the year that is gone, to consider how they might have used it more profitably, and to make resolutions of a kind that will ensure that the year on which they have entered will hold for them better health, greater happiness, and more usefulness. And thinking, no doubt, of those phases of their life which, viewed from a moral and spiritual standpoint, they have felt were questionable, many resolve to live more righteously, more justly, more honorably than before.
But the question arises as to the stability of such resolutions. On what are they based? They certainly will be of little value if they are the result only of mere emotional desire. To be worth while, they must have a moral and spiritual foundation. If they have not, they will have little that is substantial to sustain them, and they will break down under the strain of the suggestions of material sense. How often this has happened! How often have men set out on another stretch of time, resolved to put the past behind them, with its moral blemishes and failures, only to find, after a brief period perhaps, their resolutions undermined and blasted by the very evils of which they desired to be rid! Mere resolve which is the offspring of human will, will not suffice. To be of lasting value, resolutions must be based on something far more substantial, even on the prayerful desire to be obedient to the will of God itself.
What then is the foundation upon which mankind must build to ensure the victory over the evils which have beset their past and made their lives miserable and unprofitable? What is the foundation on which they must build to ensure a greater measure of health, happiness, usefulness, and success in the best sense of the word? There is such a foundation. And Christian Science makes it known, going to the very root of the problem by uncovering the seeming cause of all apparent discord and unhappiness, and revealing that upon which men must base their thoughts, in order that righteous stability shall characterize their lives.
