At this season, many young people take up new studies in school and college. This year many others are seeking to master unfamiliar subjects and conditions in military service. And there is no one, probably, who would not like to have more knowledge and skill than he has in some field of endeavor.
For all these, there is bright encouragement in the statement of Mary Baker Eddy (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 385), "Whatever it is your duty to do, you can do." It would have been a great statement if she had stopped with that much, but she added in the same sentence, "without harm to yourself." Whatever one needs to accomplish, then, one can accomplish without injury to himself.
Mrs. Eddy did not speak theoretically. From the time of her discovery of Christian Science, she was confronted with tasks both unfamiliar and great. They were, many of them, tasks such as no one in the history of the world had undertaken before, and which almost anyone in the world would have said were impossible. That was true of her establishment of the public practice of Christian Science. It was true of the scientific explanation in her writings of the method of spiritual healing—the method used by Christ Jesus. Anyone acquainted with the inspiring story of her career can multiply illustrations of the great tasks with which she had to deal. Moreover, as the results of her work spread, she had the opportunity to watch many others who were dealing with important tasks in the scientific manner that she had learned, and taught them. And in the light of all this experience and observation, she wrote for mankind, "Whatever it is your duty to do, you can do without harm to yourself."
