One of the great purposes of Christ Jesus was to teach his disciples that he who is watching cannot be robbed of what he already possesses and of the blessings which await him.
The good man whose home was broken through suffered because he had not expected the thief at that hour. But he who is not watching for the truth and does not recognize its coming, is no less robbed than he who has that taken from him which was already his. So it is that we find the writer of the Apocalypse on two occasions warning men that the good which comes to him who is not watching, may come as a thief. Only spiritual alertness, which employs prayer as its torch and guide, is certain of recognizing the advent of good, whatever its outward appearance, as unerringly as it closes its door to the assaults of evil. "A danger besets thy path?—a spiritual behest, in reversion, awaits you," writes Mary Baker Eddy on page 19 of her Message to The Mother Church for 1902.
The watcher will neither allow his consciousness to be invaded by the robbing suggestions of fear and loss, nor fail to turn every temptation of danger into a spiritual behest. No elaborate precaution, no complicated systems of defense are needed for the good man of the house to protect himself from that which comes to thieve, but simply watchfulness. No vast preparations are required for the reception of Truth in the heart. It may come at any moment, without warning, and spiritual sense alone can be sure of identifying it.
